Not sure where you got the idea that exotics are being changed when he said nothing of the sort. He also didnt specifically talk about which weapons will be retired so we really dont know what will become "useless". Those weapons will still be viable in those sets of content, just not endgame, so, yeah, it's a confounded system but we dont know enough specifics to claim that everything legendary AND exotics are going to be removed

I said, “exotics appear to very much potentially getting the same treatment eventually”. I have read the Directors cut throughly twice. I gleaned that insight from Luke Smiths statement from said directors cut in the last paragraph from the section titled Weapons Forever: The Problem. The following statement is quoted verbatim. “One final note: We are not applying this to Exotic weapons at this time. We want to iterate on the Legendary ecosystem first.” - Smith, Luke. Directors Cut February 2020 I think it is fair to say this implies that it is being talked about at the studio and may be implemented potentially in the future with some degree of certainty. Luke Smith also made the following statements in The Directors cut. “Items will enter the ecosystem, be able to be infused for some number of Seasons and beyond that, their power won’t be able to be raised.” “Changes like this also mean Legendary weapons (or their talents) that would be “shelved” could be reissued at a future date.” - Smith,Luke. Directors Cut February 2020 I think it is also very reasonable to assume that he is talking about all legendaries. Also given that what he is talking about is a very similar system to one that was used in Destiny 1. A system that was not overly popular with the player base and made several activities and weapons obsolete outside of low level content or some crucible activities. I also assume when the player base pines over Destiny 1 they are not longing for the return of some of the worst aspects of that title, but the things that made it great. Vaulting old legendary weapons and exotics only to have to regrinding them via the introduced infusion system wasn’t one of them. While I do enjoy aspects of the new armour system 2.0 I did not enjoy re-grinding all of my Gambit Prime armour sets for each role in different affinities. I feel the same about the raid armour I had obtained. While I understand that some areas are bloated and others anemic and this needs addressing, it is not enjoyable for that answer to power creep or content droughts too have me re-do aspects of the game I have already completed. “Back to 2014: The Vault of Glass weapons could be memorable because we knew they weren’t going to be in the ecosystem for things like Trials, Nightfalls, and Raids forever. They’d naturally fall by the wayside because Power (Attack/Light in those days) would make them obsolete.” - Smith, Luke. Directors cut February 2020 Not being able to use Fatebringer in higher level content was not what made the hand cannon feel unique or made in sought after either. People loved Fatebringer because it felt good, sounded good and was satisfying to crit and goblin and watch it and it’s allies explode. In my experience, while anecdotal, running VoG after the weapons were retired did not being cries of jubilation when these sought after weapons dropped. It was usually accompanied by a sighs and something along the lines of, “well I finally got Fatebringer, not that it matters”. You could substitute Vision if Confluence or any other amount of weaponry into that statement. I’ve left the Destiny franchise and returned serval times in its life. These proposed changes are by no means a cue for my “I’m leaving Destiny Forever” post, but it is not an aspect of the franchise I long to return too either. Anyways, this has gone on too long and I think I have reasonably backed up my statements and further explained the reasons I hold them. ✌️

I'm stealing your post and putting it on Reddit. Thank you. This is just spot on. Plus I only run black armory weapons pretty much and if they don't introduce new ones I might not play anymore. I've been crafting my characters around the armor and guns since it dropped. Never taken off the ghost, the sparrow, or ship along with the female sit emote that was introduced during that season.

They said "yet" or something to that effect, meaning it is not off the cards completely.