How To Farm High-Star Armor

Creating the perfect Destiny 2 build requires a lot of work and patience. You’ll need the right weapons, Exotics, mods, and armor pieces to create a build that is firing on all cylinders. Out of all those variables, obtaining high-stat armor is arguably the hardest and most RNG-heavy aspect of making a build.

Armor with good stats, high stat totals, and the right mods can make a major difference in your build. Those that push the armor system to its limit can mod an armor piece to have a 100 stat total, but you’ll need a good armor piece on its own before you can do that. This guide will go over what high-stat armor is, how to obtain it, and some of the best high-stat armor farms currently available.

Updated December 30, 2024, by Charles Burgar: Episode: Revenant has added Tonics to Destiny 2, a new consumable type that can bias drop tables toward certain items you want, including high-stat armor. We’ve updated this guide to make a quick mention of Tonics in our armor farming section, and we’ve updated a few subsections to reflect recent activity changes.

What Is High-Stat Armor?

High-stat armor refers to any armor piece that drops with a stat total of 60 or higher. That’s the in-game definition of high-stat armor, although many players in the community consider high-stat armor to be anything that drops with 64 or more stats that features “spikey” distributions, meaning that most of the points are tied to a couple of stats (see the second image as an example).

All armor in Destiny 2, excluding class items, drops with randomized stats. There are six stats on an armor piece:

Each stat will receive a random amount of points, referred to by the community as your armor’s stat distribution. Armor also randomly rolls with a stat total, ranging from 48-68. Exotics also follow this rule, although some Exotics added before the Shadowkeep expansion can achieve a stat total of 70.

Armor Stat Distribution Explained

Your armor’s stat total is divided among six stats. The way your stats are divided isn’t completely random. When a piece of armor drops, the game separates the stats into two different pools:

• Stat Pool One: Mobility, Resilience, Recovery
• Stat Pool Two: Discipline, Intellect, Strength

The game will then cut your stat total roughly in half, distributing those points into each pool. For example, if your armor has a 60 stat total, 30 of those points would go into Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery. The remaining 30 points would then go into Discipline, Intellect, and Strength.

Destiny 2 distributes these stats through stat plugs, a predetermined set of values for each stat pool. As explained in u/Jgugjuhi’s Reddit post, these plugs will distribute a set number of points (11-17) between three stats in a given pool, doing so with either an even spread or more weighted distribution. For example, one plug might grant +1 Mobility, +1 Resilience, and +13 Recovery while another plug might grant +5 to each of those stats. All armor pieces (excluding class items) roll with four plugs, two for each pool.

Don’t worry if this sounds confusing. The most important point is that armor stat rolls aren’t fully random and can be manipulated by playing certain activities and using certain Ghost Shell mods.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get an armor drop that has a ton of points in a specific stat like Resilience or Strength. This is known as a stat bias. For most builds, it’s more important to have armor drops with good biases than high stat totals, as this makes it easier to hit stat breakpoints your build requires.

For most players, all you need to know is that armor drops follow a strict set of rules:

1. Each stat cannot roll lower than 2 or higher than 30.
   • Exotics pre-Shadowkeep can achieve stats slightly higher than 30 with a perfect roll.
2. Stats are roughly split in half when distributed between stat pools.
3. Armor sources that bias stat drops must use more spikey stat plugs.
   • Most Exotic armor has intrinsic stat plugs.

Exotic Stat Plugs

Certain Exotics in Destiny 2 must roll with at least 10 in a specific stat. For example, Star-Eater Scales
will always drop with 10 Intellect, regardless of equipped armorer mods. These stat biases tend to complement the Exotic’s unique effect. Grenade-oriented Exotics bias Discipline, Titan Exotics that alter their class ability bias Resilience, etc.

All Exotics affected by this forced stat bias can be found in the table below. Credit to u/Jgugjuhi for this information:

Every Source Of High-Star Armor

Every armor piece you obtain has an incredibly small chance of dropping as a high-stat armor piece. Since listing every source of armor in Destiny 2 isn’t very helpful, we’ll be listing sources of high-stat armor instead. Once again, this is armor that drops with 60+ stat totals and tends to have heavy stat biases.

Ghost Armorer Mods

Beyond deterministic farming, there are unique Ghost Shell Armorer mods that force armor to drop with certain stat biases. If you need a certain type of armor distribution for your build, slap on one of these Armorer mods on your Ghost Shell before you play any activity.

If you’re farming an activity that drops armor with a stat bias that is in the same pool as your Armorer mod (such as Resilience with a Recovery mod), your Armorer mod will be ignored.

The Best Sources Of High-Stat Armor

Every source we listed above is capable of dropping high-stat armor. But if you’re short on time or patience, there are a few sources we’ll recommend:

1. Pit of Heresy Farming (While Pinnacle)
2. Focusing Seasonal Engrams
3. Master Raids
4. Legendary Lost Sectors (Exotics Only)
5. Rahool Exotic Focusing

Pit of Heresy Farming (Pinnacle Weekly)

This strategy only works while Pit of Heresy is the weekly pinnacle dungeon. If the dungeon isn’t dropping Pinnacle Gear that week, dungeon drops will be limited.

As far as high-stat armor farms go, you can’t beat Pit of Heresy when it’s the active pinnacle dungeon. Each week, one older dungeon will drop Pinnacle Gear if you successfully beat the final encounter. Unlisted in-game, pinnacle dungeons don’t have drop restrictions. This means you can farm the same encounter as much as you’d like and receive rewards from each clear.

Pit of Heresy’s final boss, Zulmak, is guaranteed to drop a piece of high-stat armor when slain. Unlike other high-stat drops, this armor comes pre-focused. Two of the armor’s six stats will have at least 16 points and will account for Ghost Shell mods. For example, if you have a Discipline focus on your Ghost, the armor Zulmak drops will almost always have 16+ points in Discipline. This also means less desirable stat plugs can’t roll on this armor, giving you a much higher chance of getting the exact stat distribution you’re looking for.

If you can’t farm Master raids or focus seasonal Engrams, this is the best armor farm in the game. It yields the same results as Master raid armor focusing, although this grind is only available when Pit of Heresy is the weekly pinnacle dungeon. Zulmak is a fairly easy boss by today’s standards and can be killed in a single DPS phase. Get a fireteam together to reload the checkpoint after each kill. If done efficiently, you’re looking at a high-stat armor drop every few minutes.

Seasonal Engram Focusing

Every season in Destiny 2 introduces a new vendor at the H.E.L.M. with numerous Umbral focusing options. All H.E.L.M. vendors can focus Seasonal Engrams into seasonal armor with high-stat rolls. These armor pieces tend to drop with 60+ points with great stat distribution. Armorer mods affect stat biases from vendor focusing.

Tonics from Episode: Revenant are also a decent source of armor, although their stat totals seem more inconsistent than Echoes Engrams or similar focusing options. Consume Tonics that award armor drops for a chance of high-stat armor upon completing activities.

Master Raids

We know this is a rather extreme recommendation given how hard Master raids like VoG can get, but if you want to obtain perfect armor pieces, this is one of the best ways of doing so. Each week, Salvation’s Edge and the weekly Pinnacle raid will gain a Master difficulty variant. Each Master raid has a modifier that forces armor to drop with a specific stat bias, rotating weekly. Whenever a piece of armor drops, it’s guaranteed to drop with at least 16 points in the list stat.

When you account for the Ghost Shell armorer mods, you can effectively force the game to drop perfect armor pieces. Instead of farming Master raids on their own, farm the normal variant for Spoils of Conquest. Once you have 240, do a Master run of that raid. Spend all of your Spoils of Conquest on armor.

With 240 Spoils, you’ll have enough to purchase 12 armor pieces with excellent stat rolls. Repeat this process as needed. It’s a lot harder than the other methods we’ve showcased, but the drops you’ll get are going to be much better.

Legendary Lost Sectors (Exotics Only)

What good is a build without an Exotic? Fortunately, there is a way to obtain high-stat Exotic armor: Master Lost Sectors. Nightfalls are an option too, but this method allows for more focused target farming. Simply put, you’ll want to farm whichever Lost Sector currently has difficulty variants. This rotates daily, so check your Director often. Reach the Lost Sector, interact with the map outside the area, then select the hardest difficulty option.

Ensure your loadout can counter the Champions and shields inside. You must clear the Lost Sector solo to get any Exotics.

That’s quite a tall order for some, but it’s more than worth the effort. Most armor that drops from Master Lost Sectors will have 60+ stats, good distributions, and the Exotic Engram can be focused into any slot you need. You can check out our Destiny 2 hub to find all of our solo Master Lost Sector guides.

Rahool Exotic Focusing (Exotics Only)

Season of the Deep added Exotic Focusing to Destiny 2. While you have an Exotic Engram in your inventory, speak to Rahool at the Tower and select the “Focused Decoding” option. This will let you focus your Exotics in one of two ways:

1. Advanced Decryption: Restricts the Exotic Armor pool into a specific year of Destiny 2.
2. Focused Decoding: Focus your Exotic into the exact armor piece you want.
3. Precision Decoding: Allows you to focus any Exotic for your class, even Exotics you don’t own.

Precision Decoding becomes available once you reset your rank with Rahool.

The Focused Decoding option is the best if you’re target-farming a specific Exotic, but this option is incredibly expensive, requiring three Ascendant Shards and an Exotic Cipher to focus a single Engram. Unless you own every Exotic, use the Advanced Decryption option. This will help you target a certain pool of Exotics without draining all of your materials.

It’s also worth noting that Exotic Focusing works with Armorer mods, but Armorer mods cannot override Exotic stat plugs. For example, the Hunter Exotic Star-Eater Scales has an Intellect plug, forcing it to bias Intellect with every roll. If you use any Armorer mod for the second stat bucket (Discipline, Intellect, or Strength), the mod will be ignored.

However, if you use the other three Armorer mods, the stat bias will work as expected. You can find these specific stat plugs in the “What Is High-Stat Armor” section.

Which Stats Should I Focus On?

Your most important stats will depend highly on your build and if you’re a PvE or PvP player. Generally, the best stats are Resilience for PvE, Recovery for PvP, and Discipline for all game modes.

For a more in-depth explanation of stats themselves, check out our Armor 2.0 guide. And for players wanting to know why you’d spec for each stat, here’s a quick explanation: