The vendor Xur is back yet again in Destiny 2 with another set of exotic items to acquire. As always, exotics can be purchased with Legendary Shards, the in-game currency that is obtained by dismantling legendary gear. This reset the tentacled Agent of the Nine pulled out a surprising piece of Titan gear that sets a new precedent for his wares in the future.
After finding the vendor on Titan, players will have access to his wares. The weapon for this week is Telesto, a fusion rifle with an interesting twist. The exotic perk Unplanned Reprieve shoots out projectiles that can stick to surfaces or opponents and detonate on a delay. The weapon was all the rage in the early days of Forsaken due to an exploit involving the Blind Well.
#Xur Inventory 8-16-19 #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/f7rCuTftcU
— Metrics (@x_Metrics_x) August 16, 2019
This has since been patched of course, and so Telesto’s glory days in PVE are over. However, the gun certainly packs a punch over in the Crucible, so it is still worth picking up. You will need to trade in 29 legendary shards to add this weapon to your inventory.
Now, starting off with the armor pieces, first on the list is a set of gauntlets for Hunters. Unfortunately, the gauntlets in question are the Aeon Swift, which are massively underpowered in both PVE and PVP activities.
The exotic perk sounds good in theory, giving other Aeon Swift donning teammates a boost to different abilities depending on their class. However, the gauntlets are basically useless if an entire fireteam isn’t coordinating and wearing them, and even if they are the buff is negligible compared to other exotic options. Like all the other armor pieces, it will cost 23 shards.
Warlocks don’t fare too much better this week, with the option to purchase the Verity’s Brow helmet. This isn’t to say the exotic isn’t good, with certain builds it can be great in fact. Verity’s Brow allows you to boost grenade recharge for both yourself and allies upon getting energy weapon kills.
As such, it is best combined with grenade mods to your armor and a powerful energy exotic weapon. You can use this perk to have near unlimited healing grenades as well if you are running Ward of Dawn, granting the gear even more utility. Most reading this will have already acquired the exotic, however, as it was also the reward for completing the main quest in the Warmind DLC.
Finally moving to Titans, this is where the surprise comes into play. For the first time, Xur is offering an exotic from the Season of the Drifter, where before we could only purchase pre-Annual Pass gear. The Stronghold gauntlets are available this week and help those who really enjoy using swords.
Its perk, Clenched Fist, increases your speed and cancels the ammo drain effect when guarding with a sword. It also restores health upon actually blocking a shot. The exotic itself is pretty niche but can be viable with certain weapons and builds. More exciting perhaps then the exotic itself, is that we can now expect more Annual Pass items to appear in future weeks.
Unfortunately, this new precedent has not extended to the Fated Engram. This engram for those unaware can be purchased for a whopping 97 shards and guarantees a random, non-duplicate exotic. Now that Xur can apparently carry Season of the Drifter gear, players were excited to test and see if that carries over to the Fated Engram as well. Sadly, it does not, so players waiting on those elusive drop rates will just have to keep playing.
