Destiny 2: Ghost Shell Mods Guide

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My name is Adam Watkins. I am an English Literature and Media major who absolutely loves video games. Some of my favorites are Super Mario Bros. 3,... Read more

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An essential part of every Destiny 2 Guardian’s identity is their Ghost. Your Ghost is your strongest connection to the Traveller. It brings you back to life whenever the forces of darkness get the better of you. What many Destiny 2 players may not know is that Ghosts aren’t just a narrative device — they also have multiple practical uses within the game’s sandbox. In today’s article, we’re going over outfitting your Ghost in Destiny 2, including which mods you should look out for.

Let’s get started!

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How to Obtain Ghost Shells

Before you can start modding your Ghost, you’ll need the right kind of shell. You can inspect and change your Ghost’s shell from the Guardian inventory screen. When you start your first Destiny 2 character, you’ll be given an Uncommon shell for free by default. You can apply shaders and other cosmetic effects to these Generalists Shells, but you won’t be able to mod or Masterwork them.

In order to add mods to your Ghost’s shell, you’ll need a shell that is Legendary or higher rarity. You can get these easily by purchasing a Season Pass, as all Season Passes contain an earnable Exotic Ghost shell. You can also obtain Legendary or Exotic Ghost shells from events, though you’re not guaranteed a drop.

Masterworking Ghost Shells

Next, let’s talk Masterworking. Ideally, you’ll want to Masterwork your Ghost’s shell by getting it to Level 10. Masterworking your Ghost’s shell will unlock the Activity Mod Socket, allowing you to finally add mods to your shell.

Ghost shells require significantly fewer resources to Masterwork compared to armor. You’ll need an increasing amount of Glimmer, Legendary Shards, and Enhancement Cores to Masterwork your Ghost’s shell. The first few levels will only cost Glimmer, but after that, you’ll need both Glimmer and Legendary Shards. After around Level 6, you’ll need all three crafting components. 

Ghost Mod Breakdown

Now that you’ve obtained and Masterworked your Ghost shell of choice, it’s time to start looking at mods. There are four categories of Ghost mods in Destiny 2: Experience mods, Tracking mods, Activity mods, and Economic mods. All of these share a maximum Energy pool of 10. You can only pick one mod from each category, and the Energy of all your selected mods combined can’t exceed 10.

With that in mind, let’s break down the different types of mods!

Experience Ghost Mods

Experience mods do exactly what they say on the tin — they the amount of experience points you gain from all sources by their stated amount. With Destiny 2 Battle Passes becoming more and more valuable, getting more XP is a must-have effect. These XP boosts will also allow you to level through your Seasonal Artifact, which contains essential mods for clearing many of the late-game activities.

Here’s a list of the available Experience mods and their Energy costs:

• Flickering Light: Increases XP gain by 2%. Costs 1 Energy.
• Little Light: Increases XP gain by 3%. Costs 2 Energy.
• Hopeful Light: Increases XP gain by 5%. Costs 3 Energy
• Burning Light: Increases XP gain by 8%. Costs 4 Energy.
• Guiding Light: Increases XP gain by 10%. Costs 5 Energy.
• Blinding Light: Increases XP gain by 12%. Costs 6 Energy.

Tracking Ghost Mods

Tracking Ghost mods are centered around helping you locate resources while doing planetary activities in Destiny 2. These mods will increase the detection range your compass and Ghost provide, making it easier to track down resources and caches for quests and patrols.

There are five cache detection mods and five resource detection mods, with Energy costs ranging from 1–5. If you can, we recommend just running with Wombo Detector instead. This mod has an Energy cost of 6, but it combines the effects of all the other tracking mods. The only downside is that it maxes out at a range of 50 meters, which is lower than the 75-meter range of the other mods.

Activity Ghost Mods

Activity mods reward you with an increased likelihood of receiving crafting materials for completing specific activities. You can only unlock these mods after Masterworking your Ghost, but it’s absolutely worth the investment. These mods will allow you to start stockpiling some of the game’s most valuable crafting materials early on.

The breakdown for these mods is as follows:

• Lesser Core Harvest Mods: All of these mods share the same name and cost, but differ in the method used to obtain them based on the given activity.
  • Crucible: May trigger whenever you get a precision kill in a Crucible activity.
  • Gambit: May trigger whenever you kill an invading Guardian in Gambit.
  • Strike: May trigger whenever you defeat a named boss in a Strike.
• Greater Core Harvest Mods: Work just like the Lesser Core mods, but award Enhancement Prisms instead of Enhancement Cores.
• Modularity Mods: Grant a greatly increased chance of receiving an Upgrade Module when you complete the specified activity.
• Prosperity Mods: May drop an additional piece of Legendary gear when you complete the specified activity.

Economical Ghost Mods

Economical mods will be some of your most-used Ghost mods in Destiny 2. This category includes Glimmer boosting mods, armor stat-boosting mods, and some other helpful options.

Glimmer Mods

The Glimmer-boosting mods have an Energy cost ranging from 1–6. When grinding for Glimmer, we recommend equipping the Ultimate Glimmer Booster mod, which increases the amount of Glimmer gained from all sources by a whopping 65%. This includes Glimmer gained from the Season Pass, which really starts to add up over time. Equipping this mod will cost you 6 Energy.

Armor Stat-Boosting Mods

Our armor stat-boosting mods require a bit of explanation. The first thing to keep in mind is that armor stats in Destiny 2 are divided into two sections. Section A contains Mobility, Recovery, and Resilience, while Section B contains Discipline, Intellect, and Strength. Your armor’s stat total is divided between these two sections, meaning that if two of your stats in a given section are rolled high, the third stat in that section will be really low.

That’s where these stat-boosting mods come in. They guarantee that any new random stat-rolled armor you acquire will have at least 10 in your desired stat, with an increased likelihood of even higher numbers. This helps counteract those low numbers without the need to invest your subclass Fragments.

The mod breakdown is as follows:

• Mobility Armorer: Guarantees a minimum Mobility stat of 10. Costs 3 Energy.
• Recovery Armorer: Guarantees a minimum Recovery stat of 10. Costs 4 Energy.
• Resilience Armorer: Guarantees a minimum Resilience stat of 10. Costs 2 Energy. 
• Discipline Armorer: Guarantees a minimum Discipline stat of 10. Costs 3 Energy.
• Intellect Armorer: Guarantees a minimum Intellect stat of 10. Costs 4 Energy.
• Strength Armorer: Guarantees a minimum Strength stat of 10. Costs 3 Energy. 

Other Mods

The final two mods in this section are Bountiful Harvest and Public Defender. Bountiful Harvest increases your chances of earning additional Glimmer harvesting, with different drop chances depending on what planet you’re on. Here is a rough breakdown for each planet:

• Moon: No effect.
• Dreaming City: 2–6x drops.
• Cosmodrome: 1–2x drops.
• Nessus: 2x drops.
• Neomona: 1–2x drops.

Public Defender increases your loot gained from completing Public Events. Unfortunately, the exact percentage Public Defender gives is currently unknown. Many players have reported seeing a noticeable increase in drops while this mod is equipped. If you are planning on participating in some Public Events, this mod comes highly recommended.

Join the High Ground!

That covers all the Ghost shell mods currently in Destiny 2 — thanks for reading! There is a pretty high likelihood that there will be more Ghost mods added in future updates, so we hope you’ll consider signing up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date.

Happy gaming!