Destiny 2 will make seasonal balance changes again in Season 21 that are meant to lead to fresh playstyles. While the Warlocks are still mourning their Starfire Protocol, one of the new Exo-combos is already hurting me badly because it could become incredibly strong.
The relevant weakening involves a reduction of poison damage over time, which now lasts only 1.5 seconds instead of 3.0 seconds. Additionally, the base damage of the bow will be lowered to adjust it to the performance of lighter legendary bows.
What will Destiny 2 change? Live-service games like Destiny 2 are constantly evolving. Players can usually enjoy outstanding exotics for a while. However, when one of these exotics becomes too powerful and dominates everything, its days are numbered.
And so Bungie will also make changes to a total of 24 exotics in Season 21. This is meant to ensure that other exotic armors that have been dormant in your virtual closets for years get their time to shine.
- Thus, the “Starfire Protocol”, one of the currently most powerful Solar exotics of the Warlock, will be drastically nerfed because it was the only choice for many Warlocks.
- For the Titan Exo “Point Contact Cannon Stasis”, the damage from lightning strikes will be increased by 50% in PvE to make it more interesting.
- The St0mpees-EE5 will be freed from their imposed efficiency losses in the air but will also be tied to your dodge energy.
And there is also a small change for the Hunter, which could make an already strong Exo-weapon even stronger in Season 21 – especially in PvP.
This Exo-combo is already hurting me
This already sounds potentially overpowered: In Bungie’s blog article, the change to the Hunter exotic “Oathkeeper” from Season 4 sounded rather harmless.
- When a bow is fully drawn, there is a damage bonus against fighters that increases the longer it is drawn, but is deactivated after a few seconds.
Bungie did not reveal how much more damage it will have. However, even a small amount could already mean a significant and noticeable difference.
Legendary bows would definitely get a little more kick with this combo. The advantage will, however, also work with Exo-bows. It will probably be three bows that could particularly benefit from the buff: “Le Monarque”, “Wishender”, and “Leviathan’s Breath”.
With the “Wishender”, players have a legally usable wallhack in PvP, which has always been more effective due to the exotic arm protection “Oathkeeper”. Some enjoy using it.
The heavy bow “Leviathan’s Breath” could also become an interesting candidate for the armor exotic. Bungie has wanted to promote its use for a long time. Maybe this time.
However, the really nasty one would probably only be the poison bow “Le Monarque”. It has long been indispensable from player loadouts. Both in PvE and in PvP.
- In PvE, it has proven to be an extremely effective disruptor against Overload Champions.
- In PvP, it can significantly damage a Guardian’s shield with its nasty poison impulses after just one hit, though this varies depending on the level of resilience.
If the buff, after the bow is fully drawn, also affects the poison arrows, then the new meta for Season 21 would already be established.
This could kill the mega combo: In the end, everything depends on the strength of the damage buff that Bungie will grant the Oathkeeper and how well it has been tuned. Fine-tuning is indeed a very delicate matter with this combo.
- If the buff is too high and kills a Guardian with a single shot from Season 21, then the Hunter class with the Exo combo will become really dangerous.
- If the buff is too weak, the combo could just as quickly fade into obscurity. After all, why would you hold your bow charge if you could fire two arrows that do more damage in the same time?
However, it could also be that Bungie forces you into a decision and the change has no impact on the exotic poison bow at all.
- To get to the nasty poison arrows, Guardians must shoot the arrow within one second after the bow is fully drawn. So if you have to hold too long to maximize the new damage buff of the exotic “Oathkeeper”, you could lose the option for poison damage.
In the Destiny Reddit, players also discussed whether the new damage buff will even be active in PvP. The Guardian yotika writes: “It says ‘fighters’ [not ‘enemies’], so PvE. The bonus damage doesn’t matter in PvP.”
It won’t be long now, and the Guardians can find out for themselves. On May 23 at 7:00 PM, Season 21 in Destiny 2 will start, and we are sure that the combo “Le Monarque” and “Oathkeeper” will be one of the first players will try.
What do you think about the potentially overpowering PvP combo? Do you think the damage buff from “Oathkeeper” and “Le Monarque” could become too strong? Or do you think Bungie has adjusted cleverly to keep everything in check? Perhaps you also have a completely different Exo combo in mind for Season 21 that you consider particularly strong? Then feel free to share it with the German Destiny 2 community in the comments.
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