For those who enjoy reading long novels, the Destiny 2 “This Week at Bungie” blog presented yesterday was fulfilling. Bungie summarized the upcoming adjustments for Exotics, weapons, and abilities in nearly 9,000 words in search of the perfect game balance. MeinMMO sifted through the information for you and summarizes the most important adjustments.
First, some good news: The Gjallarhorn has escaped a direct nerf, and Bungie has also addressed the legendary and exotic glaives.
Moreover, the latest blog from Bungie still contains a lot of changes for Destiny 2 that will change quite a bit for players. These include not only the way you will fight in the air in the future but also a series of nerfs and buffs for various weapon archetypes and certain Exotics.
We have summarized the most important changes briefly for you. For all players who love to dive deeper into details, we recommend the original TWaB from Bungie.
This is how Bungie plans to save the exotic glaives
Until now, the exotic glaives have mostly led a lonely existence in the Guardian vaults, as they simply weren’t strong enough and have massively disappointed the fans of the weapon class. However, Bungie has now made an attempt to rescue them and has polished them up. All three exotic glaives have received some buffs to their abilities.
- The Titan glaive “Sword of Action” now receives a Void overshield while you are in the bubble, and the exotic helm of the 14th Avenger will now work with this bubble.
- The Warlock glaive “Sword of Will” now fires faster and more often with Noble rounds.
- And the Hunter glaive “Sword of Agreement” triples the damage of the Arc wave and will chain with nearby enemies 8 times instead of 4 times.
The legendary glaive is also being polished a bit: A glaive melee attack is still a simple melee attack, not a weapon attack, consumes no ammunition, and inflicts kinetic damage.
Moreover, Bungie has increased the projectile speed of the glaive, reduced energy loss, and also increased the melee damage against PvE enemies by 25% (except against bosses and vehicles).
This positions the glaives as a weapon with high melee damage in Destiny 2 and provides you with nearly complete protection (97.5% in PvE) when you deploy the glaive’s shield from Season 17 onwards.
Aerial combat is being thoroughly revised
The next major section in the longest TWaB of all time deals specifically with fighting in the air. In the future, there will be specific rules for aerial combat, as Bungie is making aerial accuracy a separate statistic for weapons and refers to it as “Airborne Effectiveness.” It will be a hidden value, similar to target assist and recoil direction.
- “Airborne Effectiveness” will affect the effectiveness of a weapon fired in the air starting from Season 17.
- This value influences several aspects of shooting in the air, such as increased spread of a shotgun at a low Airborne Effectiveness value.
If you also enjoy bouncing through the air like a rubber ball with your St0mp-EE5 as a Hunter to defeat your enemies with absolute aerial dominance, then please brace yourself. Bungie has also applied a significant nerf to this popular Exotic with the changes to aerial combat.
- If you play the exotic boots St0mp-EE5 from Season 17, the “Airborne Effectiveness” of each of your weapons will be reduced by -50.
On Twitter, Bungie’s community manager also commented in more detail on this nerf and shared:
Don’t forget that Stompees increase sprint speed and slide distance. Understand the conflict here – do I jump and lose target assist? We hope players will use this as a mobility tool to traverse the map and not as part of every single PvP engagement to force aerial combat.
Bungie’s community manager dmg04 shared via Twitter
The most important nerfs and buffs for weapons
We also have quite a bit to discuss regarding weapons. In addition to a few dusty Exotics that Bungie is returning to their former glory with buffs, we also have some nerfs to process.
- Machine Guns
- Bungie remains dissatisfied with machine guns. Therefore, they are now receiving a 40% buff against PvE enemies and 20% against bosses.
- This buff does not apply to exotic machine guns such as “Xenophage” or “The Truth”. However, it is likely that at least “Loyalty’s Heir” and “Thunderlord” should have received a fundamental buff.
- However, Bungie has shown some leniency regarding the exotic Xenophage and is restoring its old state. The machine gun will revert to its old RPM and damage.
- Rocket Launchers
- All adaptive and aggressive rocket launchers will initially receive a +10% buff but also a nerf to precision tracking of -10%.
- The Gjallarhorn, however, remains unchanged and thus escapes a direct nerf.
- The Exotic “Eyes of Tomorrow” is expected to reflect its reputation as a strong raid weapon more in the future, and will therefore receive a 30% damage buff against bosses and champions.
- Automatic Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Submachine Guns
- Automatic rifles receive a better damage drop-off and will thus receive a range buff.
- Pulse rifles will deal slightly increased damage. For more kills with fewer critical hits required.
- The exotic pulse rifle “Graviton Lance” will be improved. Its catalyst now grants the Vorpal weapon and rewind benefits instead of the previously higher target assist value.
- Submachine guns will be extensively modified. They will receive sweeping zoom adjustments. Among them, a nerf for the submachine gun “Multimatch CCX,” which aims to end its dominance as “the best SMG in the Crucible.” In return, the exotic submachine gun “Huckleberry” will receive a bit more range.
- Shotguns & Fusion Rifles
- Especially slug and pellet shotguns are still too dominant in PvP, despite the recent changes. They will therefore experience a reduction in their range but should still be effective for acceptable short distances.
- The damage drop-off of the exotic shotgun “Lord of Wolves” has been reduced by 25% at the start and the end.
- One-hit kills from 20m+ with fusion rifles are expected to be very unusual in the future. Changes have been made here in combination with damage drop-off and recoil adjustments.
- Sniper Rifles
- Snipers receive a 10% buff to stow, ready, and aim through sights. This means all snipers are faster. However, those who like to snipe will have to do without ammunition in the future, as sniper rifles have less access to ammunition in PvP than shotguns and fusion rifles, as they cannot immediately reload their ammunition upon kills. There is a shortage of ammunition.
- Bows, Grenade Launchers, Trace Rifles, and Co.
- The “Arbalest” is now too strong because it is both an anti-barrier weapon and a shield breaker and boss killer. Its damage will be reduced against champions by 25%. However, it can still break anti-barrier shields with only one shot.
- The currently most popular exotic bow, “Le Monarque,” now causes 50% more poison tick damage in PvE but 25% less in PvP.
- The damage of the exotic and only heavy bow “Leviathan’s Breath” will be increased by 50%. With the added delay, its arrow can stun unstoppable champions.
- The exotic grenade launcher “Lion’s Roar” will receive an increased explosion radius, and its damage will also be improved.
- The linear fusion rifle “Lorentz Driver” will be weakened against players. A body shot will soon deal 20% less damage.
- The exotic scout rifle “Sunshot” will be completely overhauled. It will receive adjustments to projectile speed, hip fire, and projectiles will no longer track targets. Instead, the hip fire detonation will also burn targets. The catalyst now grants bonus reload speed instead of range. Additionally, the exotic will have the highest “Airborne Effectiveness” of all weapons in the game (35).
- The charge rate of the Trials sword “Sola’s Scar” has been increased from 20 to 50.
- The exotic trace rifles have been adjusted.
- “Coldheart” now spawns ionic traces that charge abilities.
- “Prometheus Lens” receives more effective burning
- And the damage of “Wave Splitter” will increase its old medium level. A sphere of power will then grant 10 seconds of maximum power, which can stack from 5 and 10 to 20. Suppresses targets when you pick up another bullet at maximum power.
The most important adjustments to weapon perks and abilities
- “First Shot” will no longer work as well as a range buff on shotguns and will no longer have a damage drop-off value.
- “Desperado” fire rate has been reduced to allow it to be applied to more weapons. In PvE, there is also no damage penalty anymore.
- “Air Assault” will provide you +60 handling in the air in the future.
- “Mulligan” grants you ammunition on missed shots in 35% of cases, up from 20%.
- “Adagio” will be reduced from 30% to 20% on shotguns.
- “Icarus Grip” will grant you +15 “Airborne Effectiveness”. The improved version of the perk grants +15 “Airborne Effectiveness” and another +5 handling.
What to expect next week in Update 4.0.1.1
While most of these adjustments will only come into play with later updates and patches for Seasons 17 and 18, Bungie has already confirmed the following changes for next Tuesday, April 26, in hotfix 4.0.1.1:
- The base cooldown of the Axion Bolt grenade will be increased from 91 seconds to 152 seconds.
- The Titan barricade with the aspect “Bastion” will have its cooldown increased from 53 seconds to 82 seconds. Titans will be able to use their overshield less often.
- “Offensive Bastion” provides 60% less bonus grenade energy regeneration in PvP.
- “Whisper of Chains” grants 15% additional damage resistance against players near a Stasis crystal (previously 25% – unchanged in PvE).
Expect changes to the Hunter Exotic “Renewal Grip” as well:
- When equipped, the exotic Hunter gauntlet “Renewal Grip” increases the cooldown of the Shatterdive grenade from 62 seconds to 152 seconds.
- The penalty for outgoing damage to players in the Shatterdive grenade has been reduced from 50% to 20%.
- Damage unchanged against PvE targets.
Why does Bungie keep making changes? Some players see the frequent and often extensive adjustments to the sandbox as a bothersome evil. After seven years, a developer should have their game under control.
However, Destiny 2 is a shooter with one of the most complicated sandboxes, where weapons, abilities, and perks can interact with one another. There are therefore many elements that must harmonize with one another and that also depend on each other. In order for the experience to feel cohesive for players, it is necessary to establish a certain balance and to monitor this.
Bungie utilizes a mature monitoring system of your gameplay to quickly identify what might be ruining your gaming experience and also provided a glance at the internal statistical charts in the TWaB.
What do you think about the extensive adjustments by Bungie? Are you satisfied with them and find them more than necessary, or are there changes that you don’t like or can’t understand? We look forward to participating in your discussion in the comments.
