One Destiny 2 The Edge of Fate Exotic May Be Dead on Arrival

Ahead of The Edge of Fate expansion coming to Destiny 2 on July 15, some of the new Exotics coming in this expansion have already been showcased, either through leaks or official reveals. Among these new Exotics that players can get their hands on when The Edge of Fate expansion for Destiny 2 arrives are at least one new armor piece for Hunters, Warlocks, and Titans, respectively. However, despite initially seeming like a powerful buildrafting tool, the new Exotic armor coming for Titans might ultimately be dead on arrival.

Alongside some of the new Exotics coming in The Edge of Fate expansion, some of the balancing changes for this new era of Destiny 2’s looter-shooter sandbox have also been revealed. One of the most notable of which are changes for all three character classes’ melee damage, which will nerf overpowered melee builds in Destiny 2. So, given these across-the-board melee nerfs coming in The Edge of Fate expansion, the Titan’s new Melas Panoplia Exotic gauntlets, being a melee-based buildcrafting tool, means it may not have a place in the new meta.

Destiny 2’s The Edge of Fate Melee Nerfs Could Be a Blessing in Disguise For Titans

While Destiny 2’s upcoming melee nerfs may seem like bad news for Titans, this could be a hint of an arguably better eventual outcome.

Destiny 2’s Melas Panoplia Titan Exotic Is a Case of Right Place, Wrong Time

What Does Titan’s New Melas Panoplia Exotic Do?

Collecting a Firesprite or rapid Solar final blows make you a Forge Master, allowing you to recall your Throwing Hammer. After impacting a target, recall your hammer at full intensity to perform a Perfect Recall, causing an explosion of forge slag. Perfect Recalls and collecting Firesprites extend your time as a Forge Master.

With credit to Fallout Plays’ YouTube video for their exclusive coverage of this new Exotic coming in The Edge of Fate expansion, Melas Panoplia will be delivering one of the most highly requested QoL features for Titan melee builds in the form of a dedicated Exotic. Unfortunately, though, this new Exotic Titan armor will be arriving at arguably the worst time possible in Destiny 2’s endgame meta, given the upcoming melee nerfs coming in this expansion.

Melee Nerfs Coming in The Edge of Fate Expansion Are Bad News for Titans

In a nutshell, the balancing changes for melee damage coming in The Edge of Fate expansion will change all melee damage modifiers from multiplicative to additive sources. The buildcrafting tools affected by this change will have the potency of their new additive buffs increased, but this will overall be a nerf for melee builds across the board. Naturally, while these universal melee nerfs will affect all three character classes, they will generally affect Titans the most, as this character class’ current meta is heavily revolved around high-DPS Titan melee ability builds, whereas Hunters and Warlocks’ PvE meta builds are less reliant on melee abilities for their primary source of DPS.

While these changes for players’ powered and unpowered melee damage are ultimately nerfs, Glaives are also being changed to finally benefit from buffs that increase players’ unpowered melee damage in The Edge of Fate expansion, further upgrading Glaive-melee builds in Destiny 2’s meta.

Destiny 2’s New Melas Panoplia Exotic Highlights One of Titan’s Biggest Weaknesses

There’s no doubt that the Titan’s new Melas Panoplia Exotic will have a place in casual, low-difficulty content, since players are already likening this Exotic’s playstyle to a power fantasy similar to Marvel’s Thor and his iconic weapon, Mjolnir. However, this Exotic will arguably be useless against endgame bosses, at least compared to other meta Titan Exotics.

Unfortunately, Titan’s build diversity when it comes to endgame-boss DPS is already extremely limited compared to Hunters and Warlocks, with Cuirass of the Fallen Star and Synthoceps builds often considered the undisputed meta for Titans. Especially with the upcoming melee nerfs, Titans will seemingly have even fewer options for endgame-boss DPS builds in The Edge of Fate era of Destiny 2’s meta. Hence, with the Titan’s new Melas Panoplia Exotic being a melee-based buildcrafting tool, this could ultimately make it dead on arrival.