Bungie reveals full details on new ‘Armor Synthesis’ and Shader system coming in Season 14

Late last year it was revealed by Bungie that in Season 14, a ‘transmog’ system would be added into Destiny 2 known as ‘Armor Synthesis’. For those of you who are unaware what transmog it, it basically allows a player to fully tailor their look by making a certain piece of gear look like another piece of gear, all while keeping its stats the same.

In Destiny, this means that the player will soon be able to turn older pieces of armor into Universal Ornaments to be slotted into existing pieces of armor. In the recent ‘This Week at Bungie’ blog post, Community Manager Dylan ‘dmg04’ Gafner finally gave the community the full details on how this system will work in Destiny 2.

How to earn the new currency ‘Synthweave’

In order to start creating some Universal Ornaments from your older armor you need to get your hands on the new ‘Synthweave’ currency. This isn't as straightforward as it sounds and there are a few steps that need to be taken before you can start spending this Synthweave.

1. Kill enemies to earn ‘Synthstrand’.
2. Once 150 Synthstrand has been collected, head over to Ada-1 to spend this Synthstrand on bounties to earn ‘Synthcord’.
3. Once a bounty has been completed and the Synthcord has been earned, you can convert this Synthcord to Synthweave at the Loom in the Tower.
4. Use Synthweave to convert an unlocked armor appearance (Legendary quality or lower) from Collections into a Universal Armor Ornament.

An important note is that the Synthcord bounties are broken up into different activities to ensure players are able to play the activities that they like. The bounty categories are Vanguard, Gambit, Crucible, Destinations and Raids/Dungeons. Another important note is that if you pick up a Crucible bounty and then decide you would rather play Strikes, you can dismantle the bounty to receive a refund of the spent Synthstrand but it will not be the whole amount.

Synthweave cap per Season

Unfortunately, Bungie has stated that there will indeed be a cap on how much Synthweave a player can earn each Season. Normally, this cap is 10 Synthweave per class per Season but in Season 14, to celebrate the release of Armor Synthesis, this cap will instead be 20 per class.

Armor Synthesis Exceptions

Due to technical constraints, Bungie has given the following list of Armor Ornaments from Year-1 that will not be available when Armor Synthesis launches next Season:

• Vanguard
• Crucible
• Iron Banner
• Faction Rallies
• Prestige Raids
• Trials of the Nine

Bungie maintains that they are actively working on a solution to this technical difficulty and hope to have some more information soon.

Another technical difficulty that Bungie has been facing is how to get the 2018/2019 Solstice of Heroes to function properly with the new Armor Synthesis system. These armor sets can still be made into Universal Ornaments but unfortunately their unique glows are not supported. The good news is that the 2020 Solstice set will have its glows supported with the new system.

Purchase through Eververse

At the end of the day Bungie is still a business and their main objective is to make money. Therefore, Synthweave will be available for purchase from Eververse for players who wish to cut down the grind. A single Synthweave Template will cost 300 Bright Dust while a bundle of five templates will cost 1000 Bright Dust.

Shader Rework

In addition to this new Armor Synthesis system, Shaders will be given a rework from single-use consumables into permanent unlocks. These can be accessed from the Guardian Appearance screen when hovering over the Shader icon. Shaders will still cost 500 Glimmer to apply and there is even a shiny new ‘Apply All’ button for 2,500 Glimmer that will apply the shader to the whole armor set at once.

Bungie has stated that since Shaders will now be permanent unlocks, they will be receiving a Bright Dust price hike from 40 to 300 to reflect their new functionality. In a similar vein to the Synthweave cap being 20 this Season instead of 10 to celebrate the launch, there will also be a Year-1 Shader bundle in the Eververse store that can be purchased for Glimmer.