Before the launch of this fall’s Forsaken expansion, Destiny 2 will be getting one more major update, the 1.2.3 update which is scheduled to launch in just a few weeks on Tuesday, July 17. Along with kicking off the final season three Faction Rally, the 1.2.3 update will also introduce Prestige versions of Destiny 2’s two current Raid Lairs (Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars), and it sounds like both Prestige Raid Lairs will be well worth doing for players who want to min-max their Guardian’s Power Level.
According to the most recent This Week at Bungie blog post, completing all of the encounters in a given Prestige Raid Lair each week will award a random raid weapon at 400 Power Level, which is 15 levels higher than the current 385 Power Level cap. Bungie plans to raise the Power Level cap in Forsaken, but if players want to get a little boost to their existing arsenal ahead of the expansion’s launch, completing Prestige Raid Lairs will be the only way to do so. And don’t fret if you’re not a big-time raider since you’ll also be able to earn 400 Power Level armor pieces through the upcoming Solstice of Heroes event which is set to begin on July 30.
Along with the 400 PL weapons, the Prestige Raid Lairs will also allow players to unlock unique armor ornaments, and each Prestige Raid Lair has the potential to drop a brand new exotic weapon catalyst (data mining suggests that Spire of Stars’ catalyst will be for Sleeper Simulant while Eater of Worlds will drop the catalyst for Telesto). The Prestige version of the standard Leviathan Raid will remain mostly the same after the 1.2.3 update, though it will have a chance of dropping a catalyst for the Legend of Acrius exotic shotgun.
Perhaps most interestingly, the Prestige Raid Lairs won’t increase their difficulty by upping enemy damage output or introducing new boss fight mechanics. Instead, they’ll challenge players by incorporating activity modifiers and curated weapon loadouts. The curated weapon loadouts will rotate each week and will task players with equipping certain weapon types in each slot. So, for example, one week might involve auto rifles in the Kinetic slot, sub-machine guns in the Energy slot, and sniper rifles in the Power slot. Bungie was careful to note that players will be free to switch to any weapon for that slot as long as it’s in the curated group for that week.
As for the Prestige Raid Lair activity modifiers, Bungie confirmed that there will be three modifiers in total, and one of them will be Prism, a returning modifier from the original Destiny that buffs a specific elemental damage type (Arc, Solar, or Void) while lowering damage from the other two. The other two activity modifiers haven’t been revealed yet, but Bungie promises they were built from the ground up to enhance the already epic scale of the game’s Raid Lairs. Each week, one of the three available modifiers will be made active, providing additional challenges (and potential bonuses) on top of the curated weapon loadouts.
Meanwhile, in other Destiny 2 news, players might soon be able to participate in an entirely different sort of event called Armsweek, and event which will potentially award even more unique exotic weapon catalysts.