I've been wanting to give this type of thing a try for a while and after playing with swords for so long, I wanted to propose this idea for an exotic sword. The details aren't 100% thought up yet, but right now this would certainly be unique for Destiny 2. It's a very experimental idea though. Name: Providence Intrinsic Perk: Blade of Attunement Description: Press [fire button] to launch a heavy charge attack. Charge attacks with full energy guard against incoming damage during the attack (energy does not start recharging until after the charge attack is finished). This weapon's damage type changes to match the subclass while it is equipped (Solar by default, never becomes Kinetic). Attacks partially bypass elemental shields. Blade Perk: Honed Edge Guard Perk: Heavy Guard or Infinite Guard Trait 1: Concordant Discipline (names are hard) Description: Grants grenade ability energy when blocking incoming damage that matches this weapon's damage type (meant to work with the intrinsic guard as well) and Grenade Kills grant ammo to this powered sword (1 ammo per kill). Trait 2: Battery Blade (could be a perk for any legendary swords) Description: Sword Kills boost energy recharge rate (can have multiple stacks for stronger effects and this allows you to use the guard mechanics of this weapon more). Additional Sword Stat Notes: If the sword would use Heavy Guard, either increase the Charge Rate stat to offset Heavy Guard's Charge Rate modifier or just make sure Battery Blade is able to boost the energy recharge rate by a decent amount. *Providence Catalyst Perk: Windfall (experimental idea) (EDITED, SEE AT BOTTOM OF POST) Description: Become Charged with Light a short time after using a grenade ability while holding this powered sword (an attempt to prevent conflicts with Charged with Light mod priorities and the sword HAS TO BE POWERED to prevent PvP cheese). Bonus Stats: +30 Efficiency. -------------------- LONG EXPLANATION BELOW -------------------- Basically, the idea behind this sword is that instead of focusing on the sword's offensive capabilities, it tries to shine in other areas in a usable way. While its main focuses are its guarding abilities and it being capable of changing elements, it also has a focus on using grenades alongside the sword to mix things up a bit. The guarding and the affinity of the sword try to go hand-in-hand with each other a little bit to get more grenade energy, but there are many other ways to get extra grenade energy in the game, so you may be utilizing that part of the Concordant Discipline perk for more specific situations. However, Grenade Kills do still grant you additional ammo with the perk, so it can still be applied to most situations. The grenade energy gained from Concordant Discipline may be based off of the amount of elemental damage you resist while guarding. The heavy charge attack explained above is pretty vague, so to give a better picture of it, here's my idea on it. You lunge at the enemy while holding the sword defensively and you either do a stab or a diagonal swing at them. It could even have a knockback effect. But the damage for the attack would be pretty standard for a heavy sword swing. While you are performing the charge attack and your sword energy is full, you consume the energy and during the entire attack it also counts as guarding. This could allow you to parry PvE enemy melees/stomps and other damage while you hit them at the same time. If programmed right, this guard effect could work with Concordant Discipline too, especially if the enemy has an elemental CQC attack. It could even work with Strongholds if it is set up right. I figured since swords have new stats ever since they got updated, I'd try my hands at coming up with a new sword perk to add some variety. Battery Blade is the result. I was mainly thinking about it for this exotic idea, but since it seems so simple for a perk, it could probably work for just about any sword in the game. Depending on how the development goes down the line, new perks like these could spark some renewed interest in swords later on. I think they could use the love. And lastly, that catalyst though (big wall of text O_O). What if Charged with Light mechanics tied into certain weapons? As far as seasonal mods go, I think Season of Dawn's mods turned out to be really interesting. And I can see that Bungie thought so too, so they added a couple of mods this season that could tie into them as well. I believe there are plenty of ways the Charged with Light mechanics can be expanded upon and it could still make for some fun builds later. I still use and enjoy them to this day. And that lead me to thinking, "why not make something specific to weapons that tie into the Charged with Light mechanics?" Of course, when you start throwing weapons into the mix with these perks, Charged with Light mods/perks could start to get too tangled and priority issues might happen too much. Hence Windfall's Charged with Light delay (EDITED, SEE BELOW). If the game gives the armor mods time to process their effects, then Windfall's effect can happen predictably after all of that and builds could be easier to make and understand. The mod that came to mind when I was coming up with this was Firepower, which activates under the same trigger conditions but consumes a stack of Charged with Light instead of granting it. That would raise questions if they tried to trigger at the same time while not having stacks. Which one would take priority? That's the problem with that. So, yeah. What do you guys think of this? Is it too much? Besides the great wall of text. EDIT: So I was thinking about Windfall. It might not be balanced, but I don't know for sure. If you were to use High-Energy Fire with it, all you'd have to do to activate the bonus damage on weapons would be to get heavy ammo and then use your grenade ability somewhere. Then you could turn something like Revoker into a body-shot killer just like that. It would almost be just like running a heavy weapon in another slot depending on the weapons used. The conditions seem a little too easy to me. So, if I were to try and balance out the idea, the conditions for the Charged with Light effect to activate should probably be more along the lines of "dealing damage with a grenade ability" instead of just using it. Either that or it should be a different ability altogether. - Become Charged with Light by landing three light attack hits within a short time. That might be better.