In the upcoming season of Destiny 2, the popular snipers will receive a significant nerf. However, the reason for this is not understandable for many players.
This is what happens to sniper rifles: When season 10 brings a fresh breeze to Destiny 2 in March, it will also introduce some weapon balance adjustments. The snipers will be hit quite hard.
This is how the nerfs for sniper rifles look in season 10:
- The damage against majors and bosses is reduced by 20%. In principle, the buff from Shadowkeep has been reverted.
- The exotic sniper Izanagi’s Burden no longer benefits from reload bonuses when “Honed Edge” is activated. The animation should take the same amount of time.
Why is the sniper nerf happening? According to the Destiny developer, sniper rifles can currently deal damage from a long distance and therefore without any safety concerns. However, the damage dealt is too high considering that players are not at risk.
Sniper rifles provide a great utility and high safety due to their range, and the increased damage made them far superior to their close-range counterparts.
Bungie in TWaB
A glance at the user statistics also shows that these potent precision weapons are often used in PvE (via Destinytracker). Especially Izanagi’s Burden stands out and has secured a firm place in endgame activities.
This is how the community is reacting
The players are confused and angry: The announced nerf is not well received by the guardians. Many do not understand why Bungie is reverting to the old damage values.
It should have been clear that with such a strong buff, the usage rate of snipers would also rise sharply, as mentioned in a corresponding Reddit Thread. It is also criticized: “If not every boss had a stunner, more close-combat weapons would be used.”
The players liked the current sniper meta. The high damage was a reward for precise aiming, unlike the previous strongest options, which often involved spam from grenade launchers or rocket launchers.
It was the most skill-intensive [meta], there were precision weapons, not just explosive spam.
Ehroar via YouTube
The community blames boss design: The Redditor KlithTone puts forward the thesis that safety is not a problem in Destiny 2, but rather the design of many boss fights. He has since received over 11,000 upvotes for this.
According to him, nearly every raid boss stands still and immobile during damage phases. Even from adds (when there are any), there is rarely a real danger at this time. It is understandable that the guardians can deal a lot of precision damage against an immobile boss.
He also asks which weapon one should use against the boss from the raid Garden of Salvation if not a sniper? The giant Vex hovers almost unreachable meters above harmful Radiolarian fluid.
Therefore, safety cannot be cited as a reason for a sniper nerf, as many Destiny players agree with him. The path chosen by Bungie to adjust weapons according to usage with the nerf hammer is currently not understandable.
What do you think of the nerf for sniper rifles – is it an opportunity for other weapons, or did you enjoy the precision meta? Whether swords will shine in the next season, we do not know, but it would make sense with the fundamental changes:
