Along with new activities and abilities, Season 18 brought some buffs to Destiny 2. Initial tests quickly revealed that something was off. Guardians could easily obliterate any opponent with grenade launchers, and one Exotic was behaving erratically. We’ll tell you which crazy DPS monsters Bungie needs to rein in with mass deactivations in Season 18.
A new season does not only mean many new combinations of different mods, buffs, and Exotics in Destiny 2. It also tends to create unique and often unintended effects. And in Season 18, this has created quite a number of DPS monsters.
Update 6.2.0.1 from August 26 has not yet led to the reactivation of the banned grenade launchers and armor Exotics. Here you can find the patch notes. At least, the problem with the Exotic Lightfall weapon “Quicksilver Storm” seems to have been resolved, where the auto rifle could be obtained with a power level of 0.
The main reason for this is the variety of options in Destiny 2. Builds are extremely flexible and offer players a lot of freedom – but they are also prone to bugs. Especially when unintended synergies occur or strong effects arise that give players an advantage. The same applies to weapons.
Season 18 has not been spared: Bungie support had plenty of work right after the season start. The Destiny 2 community quickly uncovered a series of bugs, prompting Bungie to deactivate an Exotic and even several grenade launchers until further notice.
Which Exotics and weapons had to be deactivated? As Bungie Help announced on the official Twitter account, the banned items include several grenade launchers and one Exotic.
These weapons and Exotics can no longer be equipped in Destiny 2:
- The ban affects almost all heavy grenade launchers (non-sunset).
- Among them is the legendary Arc grenade launcher “Interference VI” and other variants, mostly with 120 or 150 fire rate.
- The revived Arc Hope in the form of the grenade launcher “Anarchy,” as well as “The Prospector” and “The Colony” have been banned among the Exotic grenade launchers.
- For armor Exotics, Bungie has deactivated the Titan’s “Ice Law Enfoldment.”
Some YouTubers like FalloutPlays and Aztecross had pointed out the issue. Until last night, one could still have fun with the grenade launchers. Around 11 PM yesterday evening, Bungie quickly pulled the emergency brake. So quickly that some players didn’t even realize there were problems with these items.
How could the bug slip in? In the last Update 6.2.0, Bungie announced a moderate buff for grenade launchers.
- Heavy grenade launchers received a damage increase of 10% against Majors, meaning enemies with yellow bars.
However, the before-and-after comparisons in Season 18 showed that it actually turned out to be a bit more than that. Instead of a moderate 10% buff, Update 6.2.0 added a hefty damage increase of almost 250% to grenade launchers.
How drastic the difference was, is shown in FalloutPlays’ comparison chart:
Currently, there are only a few options left to use. Among them are the Exotic grenade launcher from Witch Queen “Parasit” as well as “Grasp of Salvation” from Beyond Light and a few unusually rare heavy grenade launchers.
A Titan Exotic and the new Lightfall weapon are also banned
Shortly before the grenade launchers went banned, a Titan Exotic was also affected. Bungie did not provide a specific reason for the ban, but the Exotic apparently caused an extreme game-breaking bug.
The severity of the bug is shown by Guardian CheeseForever. In a video, he activates his Super every 10 seconds with the help of the Exotic. He only had to change his barricade and switch back. This filled his Super meter little by little when activating the melee ability. This process could be repeated infinitely.
In the video, he documented the effect, after which Bungie banned the Exotic:
Players barely discovered what was possible before the fun with the Exotic and the grenade launchers was already over. In both cases, Bungie pressed the big red emergency button quickly.
Shortly afterward, the announcement came that they also had to ban the new auto rifle “Quicksilver Storm,” which was already introduced into the game as an exclusive pre-order bonus. Some players had pre-ordered specifically for the weapon and had already planned it into their loadout for the raid start. Let’s hope Bungie doesn’t have to ban even more weapons.
One reason for the many bans was certainly the start of the new raid with the Worlds First race on August 26. Everything should adhere to fair play, and buggy grenade launchers or Exotics that would make the challenging competition too easy for participating Guardians would not be fair.
When will the Exotics be available again? Currently, there is no exact information on when Bungie will provide an update for this.
Players hope that they can reactivate especially the grenade launchers before the raid on Friday. Otherwise, the selection of weapons in this category will be a significant restriction for all participants. As soon as there is new information, we will update this article.
Have you noticed the bug and had fun with it? If so, what was it like? And did you expect that Season 18 would bring so many bugs with a mass deactivation? How do you feel about Bungie’s quick response in this case? Or do you think such bugs should not even make it into the game? Destiny 2 needs a PTS server? Let us know in the comments.
However, if you’d rather take a small glimpse into the future of Destiny 2, we recommend our article with all the information about the latest DLC Lightfall.
