Destiny 2’s Season of Dawn starts shortly. After initial insights into the new content and some innovations of Season 9, Bungie has now detailed further changes that will come with the new season.
When does the new season start? The upcoming Season 9 is called the Season of Dawn and starts with the Weekly Reset on December 10.
Then, Guardians in Destiny 2 can hunt for fresh loot and dive into new activities.
The content of Season 9: What to expect has already been presented by Bungie in the form of a trailer, a live stream, and based on a new roadmap. More about this can be found here:
- New roadmap revealed: This is what’s next for Destiny 2 in the Season of Dawn
- New Sundial activity – Here’s how the highlight of Season 9 works
- What new exotics are coming in Season 9? This is what we know so far
- Take a look at the best rewards in the new season pass
These changes are already known: The studio has already communicated some important changes that Guardians can expect with the start of Season 9 – including buffs for the Solar classes of your guardians and some nerfs for strong items.
- How Destiny 2 will soon strengthen the 3 neglected Solar classes
- Big nerf for the next season – 2 top items will be affected
Changes in Season 9 – What to Expect
In the latest “This Week at Bungie” blog, the developers have announced further important changes that will be introduced with the start of Season 9. These will affect various areas of the game, such as the sandbox, rewards, and activities. We have summarized them for you below.
Changes to rewards: First, the drop chance for the exotic raid grenade launcher “Anarchy” from the raid “Garden of Salvation” will be increased from 5% to 10%.
We reported on this here: How Destiny 2 wants to help the guardian who went into the raid 102 times and had bad luck
In addition, exotic engrams and Xur’s Fate engram will be merged into a new exotic engram. When this is opened, you will receive a new exotic if you are missing any. Otherwise, you will get a random armor exotic. The contents of the exotic engram are still class-specific.
New level caps: With the start of Season 9, the maximum power level in Destiny 2 will be increased. Here are the new caps:
- The powerful cap will increase from power level 950 to power level 960.
- The new pinnacle cap will be at 970. Beyond that, you can only level up with the new seasonal artifact.
Hunting for Escalation Protocol armor will be simplified: Previously, armor pieces from the Escalation Protocol on Mars could only be obtained from the chest at the end of wave 7 – after the final boss. To open this chest, you also needed a special key that had to be “crafted” with effort. This will change with Season 9.
First of all, the chest at the end of wave 7 will no longer require a key to open. The keys will be eliminated completely and removed from Destiny 2. If you complete wave 7, you can simply open the chest.
Each opening will grant you a piece of armor from the EP set for your class until you have a full set together. After that, you will receive random parts of the set.
The weapon drops from the bosses will remain unchanged.
The use of weapon mods will be cheaper: If you want to equip a mod in a weapon in Season 9, it will become significantly cheaper – something many guardians requested. It will then cost only 500 instead of 5,000 glimmer.
Additionally, a bug was fixed where Ada-1 inadvertently granted mod duplicates.
Changes to bounties: The gunsmith Banshee-44 will now have repeatable bounties. Additionally, the strike, crucible, and gambit tasks from his weekly bounty field calibration have been combined into a single task so that progress can now be achieved through each of these task areas.
Furthermore, valor/infamy and vanguard tokens have been removed from field calibration, as there are no longer mandatory requirements for the associated activities.
Moreover, mode-specific daily crucible bounties will be introduced – one per day, selected from full-time playlists and active rotations.
Finally, the requirements for numerous daily and repeatable crucible bounties have been reduced, and grenade and melee bounties have been removed from the repeatable bounty pool.
How PvP will change in Season 9 of Destiny 2
Changes to crucible maps: A PvP map from Destiny 1 will be introduced – Rusted Lands. This will be added to appropriate playlists.
Furthermore, the previously removed maps will return.
- The Deathcliff
- Legion’s Gulch
- Revenge
- and Solitude
They will also be added to their corresponding playlists.
The maps
- Emperor’s Respite
- Equinox
- Base Echo
- and Vostok
will be removed from all crucible playlists and will at first only be playable in private matches.
What will change in the cash shop?
Eververse: There will still be content that can only be purchased with silver, the real-money currency. However, their number is expected to be reduced in the new season. In Season 8, about 50% of Eververse items were also available for Glimmer (in-game currency); in Season 9, this should be about 80%.
Moreover, there will be more transparency. In social media, Bungie plans to announce every week which items will be exclusively available for silver so that guardians can better plan their purchases. It will also no longer be possible to buy items that you already own.
Additionally, there should be more opportunities to earn Glimmer in Season 9. All weekly and repeatable Dawning bounties (presumably during the winter event “The Dawning”) will reward you additionally with Glimmer – the same amount as strike, crucible, or gambit bounties (200 for a weekly bounty and 10 for a repeatable).
During the Crimson Days week, it will proceed the same way with the weekly bounties. However, there will not be any repeatable bounties.
Further sandbox changes
In addition to the Solar classes, other focus points will also be adjusted for the new season – including the Rocket Titan, which has been requested by the community for a long time. Bungie has now additionally communicated these sandbox changes:
Striker Titan – Code of the Rocket:
- The base damage of the super “Thundercrash” has been increased from 2,700 to 3,200.
- The damage in-flight has been increased from 100 to 200.
- The time in the air after activating this super has been slightly increased.
Nighthawk Hunter – Way of the Pathfinder:
- A short period of time (0.8 seconds) has been added to the “Vanishing in Smoke” ability, during which firing weapons or performing other actions will not break the invisibility.
- This is intended to prevent allies from accidentally breaking this effect when it is granted unexpectedly.
Voidwalker Warlock – Attunement of Chaos:
- For the hand supernova, the grenade charge time has been adjusted so that it is now more in line with the animations and the FX.
- This should make activation feel more consistent.
Buy Destiny 2 Season 9 Pass
Why the Season Pass? Even though there will be some free content in the new season – to fully enjoy Season 9, you must purchase the corresponding season pass.
This will give you access to the new seasonal activity Sundial, premium rewards from the battle pass system, or new exotic quests.
How do I get the Season Pass? The season pass can be individually purchased for each season in Year 3 of Destiny 2 – either in-game via the Eververse or the corresponding shop menu. The season pass costs 1,000 silver, which is approximately €10.
Owners of the Collector’s Edition and Digital Deluxe Edition of Shadowkeep automatically have access to all four seasons in Year 3. When purchasing Shadowkeep, only Season 8 is included.
However, be careful, from December 10, with the start of Season 9, the Digital Deluxe Version of Shadowkeep will no longer be available, according to Bungie.
What do you think of these changes and the current state of the new Season 9?
