Destiny 2 shows weapons for Witch Queen – Are playlist strikes finally worth it again?

In yesterday’s blog, Destiny 2 announced the first changes to the playlist activities and also provided a glimpse of the rewards. We will tell you what is changing, what weapons to expect, and whether it’s worth it.

After the release of the weekly This Week at Bungie (TWaB), the playlist activities will receive a small boost. Additionally, there was a weapon preview of the new Vanguard rewards from Nightfalls, which you can hunt at the start of Witch Queen in Season 16.

The reason for these adjustments in the Vanguard reputation rank gain is due to the fact that the different difficulty levels in the Vanguard playlists have not been played as expected. Many players mainly play the weekly Nightfalls only on the lower challenge levels.

Bungie will therefore make adjustments in the upcoming Season 16 to make these activities on higher difficulty levels more appealing to players in the future.

• The Vanguard rank will increase twice as fast starting in Season 16
• Nightfalls on higher difficulty levels will also grant faster gains
• The changes are intended to bring future gains closer to the reputation gains from the Crucible playlists

Adjustments to Strike Modifiers in Season 16

Additionally, there will be adjustments to the modifiers for Vanguard Strikes and Nightfalls. In Season 15, players’ approach in Nightfalls was often very tactical because the incoming damage from bosses was too strong. This is set to change in Season 16 and encourage Guardians to master such challenges more with their good builds. Bungie will therefore make the following adjustments:

• Boss-specific damage modifiers will be removed with Witch Queen starting from the difficulty level Hero out of Nightfalls.
• The Scorch modifier (damage dealt by a certain element) will be replaced with “Acute.” This modifier will increase damage from a certain element by 25% both incoming and outgoing. This means players will then have 50% more incoming damage and 25% outgoing damage.
• Seasonal Strike modifiers from Season 15 will be moved to the Vanguard Nightfall playlist
• In Season 16, Strike modifiers for the difficulty levels Hero, Legend, and Grandmaster will thematically focus on the use of the glaive and Void and will rotate weekly.

What Changes in Season 16 for Trials of Osiris

While the reputation rank gains in the regular Crucible will remain the same, there will be changes in the Trials in Season 16. Apparently, the reputation rank gain in the Trials of Osiris was about 30% slower than expected in Season 15. Even at higher ranks, it could not be further increased.

For Season 16, Bungie therefore wants to grant more repetitions in Trials of Osiris and an increase in the reputation rank multiplier for each round won during a match, depending on the number of victories a player has on their respective ticket.

Overall, this is supposed to bring a 50% increase in Trials repeat gains and provide more value for players who have 20 round wins and 7 wins on their Trials Pass.

These are the changes in detail:

• At the end of each won Trials match starting in Season 16, players will receive a small points bonus on their Trials reputation rank
• The reputation rank will continue to increase, depending on the number of wins on the pass
• Each round won will grant 21 points more than in Season 15
• The reputation gains can thus rise up to 105 points additional per game

These changes should also increase the reputation rank gain in Trials of Osiris for players who do not regularly reset their ticket by 50% or more.

Significant adjustments are also coming for Gambit: Many players have long believed that Destiny 2’s PvPvE hybrid mode Gambit needs more attention. This seems to be next on the agenda.

Then, Gambit will not only receive a proper overhaul, but also there will be some changes to its reputation rank. The developer, however, wants to provide more information about it in one of the upcoming TWaB blog posts.

Activity boost display will soon bring more clarity: To ensure that you always know which weekly bonus is currently active and can level your reputation ranks optimally, there will be a new homepage info. For Witch Queen and the start of Season 16, such information will then be displayed directly on the home screen so that you always have it in view.

These Weapons You Can Hunt in Season 16

In addition to information about the reputation rank points, there was also a first glimpse of the weapons that players can hunt starting from Season 16 in the respective playlists. Among them are two well-known weapons that players can earn as exclusive rewards from Vanguard Nightfalls, and one equally well-known Trials weapon. All three weapons will also be available as Master versions starting Season 16.

The Trials weapon is the Solar Auto Rifle “The Summoner”. This weapon could already be earned as a master version in the Trials in Season 11. It has a 600 RPM and a good TTK value of 0.7 seconds.

Additionally, there should be another weapon for the Trials. What that is and whether it will be new, Bungie, however, did not want to reveal yet.

The two Nightfall-exclusive weapons are both kinetic. One is the once very popular 600 RPM Auto Rifle “Trusty” and the other is the Sniper Rifle “Silicon Neuroma”.

Interestingly, both weapons come from planets (Io and Titan) that are currently, in the storyline, consumed by the anomaly of the Pyramid ships and are therefore in the content vault.

Finally, a note for graphic fans among Destiny 2 players: Bungie has also given an early hint about a hardware upgrade in Witch Queen. Starting in Season 16, “Windowed HDR” will be supported by Destiny 2. This may provide players with improved game performance in windowed fullscreen mode and better graphics.

This change is thanks to several upgrades under the hood of the Destiny 2 game engine. There will also be some HDR calibrations available in the settings. However, players should note that they also need appropriate hardware to fully enjoy this change.

The weapon recycling continues: Whether this change is an incentive for players is questionable. Especially the weapons are already old, well-known, albeit popular weapons. They bring little fresh air into the playlists. At least it is not entirely ruled out that this was just a small taste and it is confirmed that at least one more weapon will find its way into the reward pool of the prestige PvP activity for the Trials.

What do you think of the changes? Are these weapons you also missed and will definitely get? What do you think of the changes to the reputation ranks? Will that encourage you to tackle the higher challenges in Nightfalls in the future? Let us know in the comments.