Artefact sets, and a use for the twenty-first duplicate
Matching gear now pays, and the pile of duplicates you were never going to equip can finally be fused into something you would.
Two things landed for commanders this week, and they answer the same complaint from opposite directions: your artefacts were a heap, not a collection.
A matched kit pays
Wearing the full set of one rarity is now worth doing on purpose. Assembling four matching pieces is a decision with a reward at the end of it, rather than an accident you notice later.
Duplicates stop being dead weight
Everyone had them: the same piece, over and over, long past the point of usefulness. Duplicates can now be fused — several of the same artefact become one of the next grade up. The twenty-first Phase Lance finally goes somewhere.
The cost of fusing climbs as the grade does, so it stays a real choice at the top end rather than a formality. What it does not do is replace hunting: fusion turns surplus into progress, it does not manufacture a legendary out of nothing.