‘Destiny 2’ Server Maintenance Finishes Early, New Masterworks Weapons And Other Changes Live

Bungie originally scheduled Destiny 2 to be offline until 5 p.m. ET today. Server maintenance for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC shooter finished a couple of hours early. This means Masterworks weapons are available along with changes to the vendors and Bungie’s corrections to some content locked out for those without the Curse of Osiris expansion.

The 1.1.1.1 update for Destiny 2 is now available to download on all platforms and is barely over 100 MB to download. Most of the new items were already added to the game via the Curse of Osiris release last week. Today’s update makes tweaks to existing content or activates features.

Faction Rallies

Faction Rallies has unfortunately been delayed while Bungie works to make the week-long event available to all players. Bungie did fix some issues with Faction Rallies, like players being able to farm the same chest over and over again.

Masterworks Weapons

The new Masterworks tier for weapons is undoubtedly the big addition in today’s Destiny 2 update. These are upgraded Legendary weapons with a random and re-rollable bonus stat like the ability to generate Orbs on multi-kills in addition to tracking the number of enemies defeated by it.

Masterworks weapons can be earned after reaching 250 Power Level and have a higher chance of dropping from end-game activities like the Nightfall and Trials of the Nine or crafted from the Forge on Mercury.

They can also be dismantled to gain Masterwork Cores. Three of these cores plus 25 Legendary Shard can then be used to re-roll the bonus on the weapon. A Crucible Masterwork option is also available that costs 10 cores, but will track the number of Crucible opponents killed.

Vendors and Chests

Vendors now sell individual Legendary armor pieces instead of depending solely on the random roll of Reward Engrams. Destiny 2 players will need to claim a certain number of Reward Engrams to unlock different weapons. For example, eight Reward Engrams will need to be claimed from Commander Zavala to be able to purchase a chest armor piece. Meanwhile, a helmet and limited time weapon will require ten reward engrams. All items scale up with the player’s Power Level up to level 300.

New consumable items are also available from Commander Zavala, Lord Shaxx, and Tess Everiss. These provide additional rewards to a player’s entire fireteam after completing a Strike or Crucible activity.

Xur will sell two new items when he returns on Friday, December 15. This includes Three of Coins to increase the chance of an Exotic dropping for three hours as well as a Fated Engram to guarantee a player will receive an Exotic they have not received yet.

Chest farming will not be punished as badly as before. The chest cooldown previously resulted in Destiny 2 players receiving no loot. The chest cooldown has been relaxed and players will receive something, just not as much as when the cooldown is in effect.

Changes for those who don’t own Curse of Osiris

As covered last night, Bungie has admitted that locking non-DLC owners out of some content was a mistake. The Prestige Leviathan Raid, Iron Banner, Faction Rallies, and Nightfall will be available to non-DLC owners. The Prestige Nightfall will remain locked out for the time being while Bungie investigates adding additional difficulty levels.