I want to start this off that during the Borderlands 3 gameplay reveal I was thinking about Destiny and why I wasn't playing it anymore. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. The perks on guns, armor, and even in subclass nodes are truly underwhelming. Not to mention how little exotics really do to empower you in most cases. I was thinking about the premiere perks on guns that most people want. In most cases people really want Rampage and Kill Clip. I know if you are on the forums you know what they do, but just in case. Rampage gives you a flat damage bonus for 3.5 seconds after a kill. It stacks up to 3 times. So you kill a small enemy and for stack one you get 21% extra damage, kill 2 gets you 43% extra damage and kill 3 gets you 65% extra damage. Pretty good on paper but the amount of time you get to use the 65% damage meaningfully on bosses is pretty rare. Meanwhile in Borderlands 2 I play as Maya (I main Sirens because I like Magic) she has a tier 4 skill that with 5/5 points in it grants me 40% extra damage to everything that has over 50% HP. This bonus also applies to damaging enemy shields. With class mods (something similar should probably be in Destiny to boost subclass perks) you can get the skill to 10/5 for 80% extra damage against everything over 50% health. Rampage is one of the best gun perks in the game, and it loses to a skill tree perk in Borderlands 2. I know this is just one character, but I assure you every class has skills that directly augment their damage outputs. Next up is outlaw, a pretty good skill. You get 150% bonus reload speed for 4 seconds after you kill an enemy with a precision kill. This combined with Rampage makes for a pretty great synergy especially when mobbing. If you hit your precision shots and score kills you can keep a pretty impressive streak going with 3 stack rampage up. Now to turn to Maya again a tier 1 skill of hers at 5/5 gives you 25% bonus reload speed and 20% bonus magazine size for all guns. Now I know 25% isn't nearly as good at 150%, but 20% extra magazine size for every single gun you can use is better than the best armor perks. So you get reload speed and magazine size in one perk. Also the bonus is always active and doesn't require you get any kill at all, let alone a precision kill. Enhanced Armor Perks can only be rolled on 2 sets of armor in the entire game for whatever reason. But the bigger issue is none of the perks on armor are exciting. They boost handling for one gun type at a time, reduce reload time for one type of gun at a time, and aim assist for one gun type at a time. The other armor perks give tiny boosts. Power Ammo finder doesn't seem to work right (anything that has ever boosted heavy ammo drops has always been finicky), helmets have perks that can boost super energy gains from specific weapon kills. You all know the deal, it's underwhelming. Not to mention armor masterworks only boosting resistance to elements is a strange and very boring choice. Finally the subclass ability clusters are lame. 4 perks you can't even mix and match is just... boring and doesn't allow for experimentation. I know this has been talked about since the game was announced but it's really upsetting. In case no one has seen a Borderlands 2 skill tree I'll post my prefered max level Maya build. http://bl2skills.com/siren.html#505001400005054105510545510501 on top of this you have 4 weapon slots, a class mod slot, a shield slot (why can't we modify our shields as Guardians?), a grenade mod slot, and an artifact slot all to customize your combat experience. I have 18 skills, that is 2 and a half full subclasses worth of skills in Destiny 2. 8 of those skills interact with Maya's action skill which recharges in 13 seconds! With full cooldown bonuses it can get down to just under 5 seconds between casts. I love Destiny, and I enjoyed Destiny 2 for a time. However, it wore me down when my farming gave me very tiny boosts to my combat experience. I can't mix and match skills, the perks on armor and weapons are boring and bland and wind up having minimal effects. Why is it that Destiny 2 has no real game changers? Destiny would be a lot more fun with more customization and abilities that augment combat or substantially augment your experience. Well of Radiance is so popular because it grants very strong benefits to anyone inside, it also lasts a pretty substantial amount of time. If all supers had the same kind of game changing impact that Well of Radiance has I think the game would be a lot more enjoyable. I realize the perks I mentioned are not the end all be all. They are simply popular choices. I am also aware some people enjoy Destiny how it is. However, with so many people talking about dropping the game over the annual pass I wanted to present my personal feedback on the game. I think this game severely suffers from lackluster perks and skills. Random Rolls would be pretty exciting if 80% of the gun and armor perks weren't pointless or bad. Subclasses would feel more enjoyable if you could mix and match different perks. Exotics would be more interesting if they had perks that changed how you play the game instead of a lot of them being pointless or worse than legendaries. I know some people won't agree. However, I want to know what others think of the perks, exotics, and skills in Destiny 2. Do you find them fun? Do you think these things are in a good spot? What do you think could be improved? Thank you for reading.