Every Guardian in Destiny 2 has three primary stats: Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery. Most of you don’t pay attention to your stats. You pay attention to your gear and your power level, and whatever stats your current gear happens to contribute to, well, that’s pure coincidence and not an intentional character build. So what? Is that necessarily a bad thing, and should max-level Guardians even care about their stat levels?
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The answer is yes.
Stats matter, and they can make a huge difference in your play style.
Believe it or not, as you level up any of these three stats past their first few levels, the resulting buffs to you Guardian can actually mean the difference between life and death — both in strikes, raids, or in the Crucible against other players.
So where should you points go? That depends on how you like to play, Guardian. Let’s break down all three stats, and talk about what kind of player they benefit the most. At the end I’ll give you my recommendation for which stat I (and the greater competitive community) consider to be the most important.
Mobility
Mobility is perhaps the most obscure stat because its effects are the least measurable. Mobility affects your walking speed and your jump. Yes, your walking speed, and not your sprinting speed. Whether your mobility is level 0 or level 10, you’re going to sprint at the exact same speed.
By leveling up your mobility you will see small gains in your initial jump. Double jumps are not affected, but your initial jump will climb higher the more you spec mobility. This is a small boon, and not very useful compared to your walking speed gains. So why is a much faster walking speed important at all?
The faster you walk, the faster you strafe. Strafing left and right during an intense Crucible firefight forces your opponent to continually adjust their aim, and a high-speed strafe can easily mean the difference between killing or being killed. Guardians with level 8, 9, and 10 mobility have dramatically enhanced strafing speeds, so if you love to cradle left and right to throw off your foes, this is worth your consideration.
Resilience
Resilience is pretty straight-forward. The higher your resilience, the more damage you can take before you go into the red zone and, eventually, die. As you level up your resilience just imagine that you’re adding on your overall health bar, because that’s effectively what you’re doing.
So how important is resilience, really? It makes a pretty significant difference.
Let’s consider the MIDA Multi-Tool, one of the most commonly used exotic weapons in the Crucible. Using the MIDA, three head shots and two body shots will take down a Guardian. If, however, that Guardian has resilience at level four or above, they will still be standing when that last shot connects.
According to this research, a Guardian with level 0 resilience can be thought to have 186 HP, while a Guardian with level 10 resilience can be thought to have 201 HP. Only you can decide if that difference is significant enough for you to invest in.
Recovery
Recovery dictates how quickly your Guardian’s life and shields will recover after breaking into the red zone near death. You all know the moment we’re talking about. In the middle of a firefight you see the flash and notice your life bar dip into the red, and you’re forced flee behind cover for several seconds while your energy replenishes. It can be an excruciating wait. Sometimes you miss out on a kill, and sometimes you just have to wait for someone else to find and kill you.
High-level recovering ensures that you can make it back out into the fight sooner than later, and this is perhaps the most significant stat you can invest in if you like to play in the Crucible. YouTuber Fallout Plays put together a really neat stat comparison video, and I’ve taken his recovery comparison clip and embedded it in gif form for you below. See for yourself how much faster high-level Recovery will get you back into the fray:
The advantage for high-recovery players is undeniable, which is why we recommend stacking points in Recovery above all other stats — especially for those of you who love the Crucible (like I do).
