https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/49630

Main Bullet Points below. See this weeks TWAB for the Developer Commentary.

Here, we’re going to dive into a patch note preview of sorts, with snippets of developer commentary from the development team throughout.

Energy Type Requirements

• All of the weapon-oriented armor mods (i.e. Hand Cannon Loader, Fusion Rifle Ammo Finder, etc.) have been changed to be Any Energy Type.
  • As a result of the above change, all Arc Charged with Light mods now activate their second perk if you have any other Arc mod equipped on the same armor piece, OR if you have any other Arc Charged with Light mod socketed in any other armor piece you are wearing.

Enhanced Mod Rebalancing

• All mods that have an Enhanced version of that mod (i.e. Enhanced Hand Cannon Loader) have had the base mods’ efficacy increased to match that of the Enhanced version of the mod.
  • As a result, those Enhanced mods have been deprecated, and the base mods’ energy costs have been adjusted upward slightly (but are still lower than the equivalent Enhanced mods).
• Some mods have moved to different slots to create more competition for mod sockets across armor pieces (for example, the Fast Ready mods have moved to the Arms socket).

Raid Mods

• Starting in Season 12, the Last Wish, Garden of Salvation, and the upcoming Beyond Light raid armors will now drop with a fifth, dedicated armor mod socket that is exclusively for the mods related to that raid.
  • Last Wish and Garden of Salvation armor acquired prior to Season 12 will not have this dedicated armor socket, but will still be able to use the mods related to that raid in the new Legacy armor mod socket.
• Anti-Taken mods from Last Wish will only function in the Last Wish raid.
  
• Anti-Hive mods from the Leviathan Raid will be deprecated.
  
• Anti-Fallen raid mods from Scourge of the Past will be deprecated.

Combat Mods

• All armor released in Beyond Light and Season 12, all Last Wish and Garden of Salvation armor acquired starting in Season 12, and all Armor 2.0 Exotic armor pieces (including those already possessed by players) will have a Combat style mod socket. In Season 12, this socket will accept all Charged with Light and Warmind Cell mods.
  
• All Armor 2.0 armor acquired during Seasons 8-11 have had their Seasonal mod sockets replaced with a single, unified Legacy mod socket that can socket all Charged with Light mods, all Warmind Cell mods, all Nightmare Hunt mods, all Garden of Salvation mods, and all Last Wish mods.

Again... for more information in WHY this is being done - Da TWAB.

Gah!

All of the mod stuff is probably for the best, but it sure would have been nice to know this earlier before my elaborate quests to obtain armor of all the flavors to cover all seasons of mods, and running the sparrow section of Scourge so much (just got Fallen Barrier last night).

I’m so thankful for those changes. Getting rid of the enemy faction mods is a smart choice. Killing energy restrictions for the weapon focused mods is great, too.

Gah!

All of the mod stuff is probably for the best, but it sure would have been nice to know this earlier before my elaborate quests to obtain armor of all the flavors to cover all seasons of mods, and running the sparrow section of Scourge so much (just got Fallen Barrier last night).

But I enjoy watching you run the sparrow race! ;)

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Gah!

All of the mod stuff is probably for the best, but it sure would have been nice to know this earlier before my elaborate quests to obtain armor of all the flavors to cover all seasons of mods, and running the sparrow section of Scourge so much (just got Fallen Barrier last night).

Yeah. My first thought was of your endevors. My second thhought was, "boy... glad I didn't get around to asking everyone to help me get the fallen mods" (as I currently have none).

HA! Procrastination for the win! TAKE THAT MRS.VIEBROCK! ;P

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It was a drag feeling like I was short-changing myself if I didn't get both these mods and armor that would last that could have them.

This will clean up my vault a bit and also just save me some time pre-Beyond Light.

Also it feels like my builds can be a little more flexible without having to focus on elemental affinity too much.

I've enjoyed putting builds together while still finding it a little cumbersome, I'm hoping this overall improves the experience without removing the ability for us to tailor our builds to do fun wild things.

I feel like I have a very hard time limit to get mine now :P

Like hell I'll be able to do it without all those mods

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Finally some semblance of balance in Gambit matches now. And that's coming from someone who absolutely abused my Armaments mods.

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It was a drag feeling like I was short-changing myself if I didn't get both these mods and armor that would last that could have them.

This will clean up my vault a bit and also just save me some time pre-Beyond Light.

Also it feels like my builds can be a little more flexible without having to focus on elemental affinity too much.

I've enjoyed putting builds together while still finding it a little cumbersome, I'm hoping this overall improves the experience without removing the ability for us to tailor our builds to do fun wild things.

Personally, I'm super-unhappy with the idea that this season, I began to seriously focus on upgrading 9 sets of armor for each character (3 each of Season 4/5 armor, 3 each of Season 8 armor, and 3 each of Season 11 armor) - a significant chunk of this work (most of it, probably) is wasted. A heads-up before now would have been greatly appreciated.

Yes, my vault will breathe a sigh of relief. I can't help but wonder, though, how far I could have gotten on other goals that I chose not to pursue because I spent so much time doing this.

I'm also really worried that I'll do a bad job of analyzing what they said about upcoming armor, and the cleanup I do will do more harm than good. :(

That definitely sucks.

I hope this is the foundation for what they stick with going forward. Sunsetting is bad enough, if they’re going to change the way mods works every year . . . man, just what a pain in the ass.

It was a drag feeling like I was short-changing myself if I didn't get both these mods and armor that would last that could have them.

This will clean up my vault a bit and also just save me some time pre-Beyond Light.

Also it feels like my builds can be a little more flexible without having to focus on elemental affinity too much.

I've enjoyed putting builds together while still finding it a little cumbersome, I'm hoping this overall improves the experience without removing the ability for us to tailor our builds to do fun wild things.

Personally, I'm super-unhappy with the idea that this season, I began to seriously focus on upgrading 9 sets of armor for each character (3 each of Season 4/5 armor, 3 each of Season 8 armor, and 3 each of Season 11 armor) - a significant chunk of this work (most of it, probably) is wasted. A heads-up before now would have been greatly appreciated.

Yes, my vault will breathe a sigh of relief. I can't help but wonder, though, how far I could have gotten on other goals that I chose not to pursue because I spent so much time doing this.

I'm also really worried that I'll do a bad job of analyzing what they said about upcoming armor, and the cleanup I do will do more harm than good. :(

I'm also looking back at the time I spent trying to get the mods and armor across 3 characters and paying attention to what was maxing out at 1060, I really think they should have announced this way back with the content vaulting (I get it that maybe they only settled on this recently, but that doesn't make it sting less).

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I'm also really worried that I'll do a bad job of analyzing what they said about upcoming armor, and the cleanup I do will do more harm than good. :(

Just do the cleanup. Clean slate, baby! Other than some armor sets I might like to have for possible transmog, and some weapons that have some sentimental value (though that’s sort of ridiculous—I can’t bring myself to delete the not great Bygones that I masterworked and used for Crucible for that entire year), my vault is empty. I think I’m using like 90 some odd slots.

Has anyone been able to parse this into a set of recommendations for armor to keep moving forward? Here's my attempt:

Seasons 4 & 5 (Scourge or Last Wish Armor): only useful for the current season even though they have a power cap of 1360. Use for soloing Prophecy w/ Taken mods, probably delete after Beyond Light is released.

Seasons 8-11 (Current Leviathan, Garden, and world armor): These previously had a 1up/1down season for mod application, but that will change to be all of seasons 8-11 mods when Beyond Light comes out. Also, you will want to replace all your Garden armor from these seasons with the new armor that will have an additional dedicated raid slot (so you can use Charged With Light and Enhanced Relay Defender at the same time). Therefore, the best armor to keep here is actually either the Leviathan armor or armor from the current season (Arrivals), both of which have a power cap of 1360. This is actually a significant change from before this announcement, as Garden armor (currently slots seasons 8-10) was previously strictly better than Leviathan armor (currently slots seasons 8 & 9). The upshot of this is that Leviathan armor is pretty easy to get, either through turning in tokens to Benedict or farming encounters. And it looks cool. Too bad I already deleted a bunch of good rolls.

Does that make sense to the preppers out there?

Okay, your numbers are a little off (Leviathan armor is 7&8, not 8&9, and Garden armor is 7-9, not 8-10), but in general, I agree with your arguments, except I can't understand why you say Leviathan armor (which is the same as Garden armor except that it can't use season 9 mods) is better than Garden armor.

Can you clarify?

I think he only means that Leviathan is better to keep around, as Garden armor should be farmed again for the extra mod slot next season.

My strategy is just to ignore it. I’ve got one set of the current season armor that’s built how I like that will work well for the beginning of next season, so I’ll start building next season when I won’t have to worry about how the seasonal mod compatibility works out. All of the new sets will be straight up better than anything you can earn now, so why worry about it now?

Has anyone been able to parse this into a set of recommendations for armor to keep moving forward? Here's my attempt:

Seasons 4 & 5 (Scourge or Last Wish Armor): only useful for the current season even though they have a power cap of 1360. Use for soloing Prophecy w/ Taken mods, probably delete after Beyond Light is released.

Seasons 8-11 (Current Leviathan, Garden, and world armor): These previously had a 1up/1down season for mod application, but that will change to be all of seasons 8-11 mods when Beyond Light comes out. Also, you will want to replace all your Garden armor from these seasons with the new armor that will have an additional dedicated raid slot (so you can use Charged With Light and Enhanced Relay Defender at the same time). Therefore, the best armor to keep here is actually either the Leviathan armor or armor from the current season (Arrivals), both of which have a power cap of 1360. This is actually a significant change from before this announcement, as Garden armor (currently slots seasons 8-10) was previously strictly better than Leviathan armor (currently slots seasons 8 & 9). The upshot of this is that Leviathan armor is pretty easy to get, either through turning in tokens to Benedict or farming encounters. And it looks cool. Too bad I already deleted a bunch of good rolls.

Does that make sense to the preppers out there?

[Source]

Does this help?

I sure do hope (and perhaps this is a given) that you aren't throwing away armors due to available mod slots alone. The stats of a roll and even the appearance of said armors (through probably less of a factor now) should be part of the considerations too. Personal taste may very.

I think it too early to do anything maintenance wise. I'm waiting about a week or two before I sit down and commit to some vault maintenance.

Does this help?

Very nice infographic, that's exactly what I was hoping to find.

I sure do hope (and perhaps this is a given) that you aren't throwing away armors due to available mod slots alone. The stats of a roll and even the appearance of said armors (through probably less of a factor now) should be part of the considerations too. Personal taste may very.

I'm looking for vault efficiency, so if 1 vault slot covers more options, that's important to me. I've got "pretty good" 60+ rolls on almost everything now. Looks usually seem to work themselves out mostly, and if not I can just enjoy Nico complaining about my hideous Titan helmets.

Okay, your numbers are a little off (Leviathan armor is 7&8, not 8&9, and Garden armor is 7-9, not 8-10), but in general, I agree with your arguments, except I can't understand why you say Leviathan armor (which is the same as Garden armor except that it can't use season 9 mods) is better than Garden armor.

Can you clarify?

I got mixed up with the seasons because Bungie says specifically, "...Seasons 8-11 have had their Seasonal mod sockets replaced with a single, unified Legacy mod socket that can socket all...". For some reason I just assumed that also meant Leviathan armor, which can slot Seasons 7-8. Season 7 mods (Leviathan specific mods) are being depreciated, so I'm not sure where that leaves Leviathan armor. Just Season 8 mods with a power cap of 1360? Seems like an oversight from Bungie.