For the upcoming Season of the Dawn, numerous Solar abilities of your Guardians will be revised in Destiny 2. The focus is primarily on 3 subclasses, where the fire apparently does not burn hot enough. We show what changes with the sandbox in Season 9.
What are the adjustments about? After significant revisions of the Arc and Void abilities of your Guardians in Destiny 2, the Solar element is now the focal point for the upcoming Season 9. Corresponding subclasses of your Guardians will be adjusted. What can Guardians expect?
The focus is on 3 Solar subclasses that have clearly emerged as too weak after extensive data analysis and feedback evaluation by Bungie. These are:
- Gunslinger Hunter – Way of the Sharpshooter (lower tree)
- Sunbreaker Titan – Code of the Ruinous (middle tree)
- Dawnblade Warlock – Celestial Harmony (upper tree)
These will be revised for the new season. Even though entire perks have been completely changed, they do not represent new focuses, as Bungie emphasizes.
Also note: There are many other changes beyond these 3 subclasses that developers at Bungie are working on. For instance, most Solar classes will be tuned, and even classes of other elements will receive some “Quality of life” changes for the new season.
The changes highlighted here are the main examples but are not a complete listing of all changes.
This is how the Gunslinger Hunter changes
What about the focus? The Way of the Sharpshooter has primarily been used in specific PvE activities and was increasingly used with the exotic Hunter helmet Celestial Night Hawk.
Now Bungie wants to make the subclass “Sharpshooter” in Destiny 2 more attractive so it will be used more frequently and in a wider range of activities. It should feel more skilled and interesting to play.
Stronger distinction: To achieve this, Bungie has increasingly differentiated the two Golden Gun paths:
- For the Golden Gun with 3 shots (Way of the Sharpshooter), Bungie has increased the auto-aim range and reliability when Hunters aim through the sights. This is intended to emphasize long-range alignment and precision.
- For the Golden Gun with 6 shots (Way of the Bandit), the range of damage drop-off has been reduced to highlight the role of a short-range fighter with high kill potential more clearly. Although Hunters can still fight at a longer distance, they may need to take a few more shots to do so.
What else is changing: Further changes to the Way of the Bandit include an explosive knife that can stick to surfaces and then detonates when enemies approach the knife.
And here are the changes for the Sharpshooter:
- Weighted Knife (New): Knife throw with high damage and a longer “wind-up phase” (the knife apparently cannot be thrown immediately). The knife flies at a high speed, can bounce once, and causes extra damage on headshots. Precision kills fully recharge the melee attack. Precision hits are one-hit kills in PvP.
- Practice makes perfect: Lasts longer but grants slightly less energy per second. Precision hits grant 2 stacks.
- Knock ’em down (New): Precision kills increase weapon stability and ADS speed (how quickly one looks through the sights). The timer starts at 10 seconds, but each kill/assist can increase it to up to 25 seconds. If you activate your super with a timer over 20 seconds, the buff is consumed and grants you extra damage (does not stack with Celestial Night Hawk).
- Loaded: Old perks from the crowd favorite are now part of this perk (Golden Gun can land precision hits, and precision hits generate orbs of light).
This is how the Sunbreaker Titan changes
What about the focus? Especially in PvP, this focus is regarded by Bungie as too weak and non-competitive. Now they want to make it easier for Titans to crush their enemies in the Crucible with the massive burning hammer.
What changes: Several perks have been significantly strengthened:
- The perk Burning Flames receives a significant buff for bonus damage. This was increased in PvP from 10% per stack to 25%. Moreover, the buff now lasts 25% longer (20 instead of 15 seconds), making it easier to build and maintain stacks.
- The base damage of the Throwing Hammer has increased (from 100 to 120). This attack is now very lethal in PvP when Burning Flames is active.
- Furthermore, you no longer need to approach your hammer so closely to pick it up after throwing it. The pickup radius was increased from 2 to 3.5 meters.
A lot has also been tweaked with the super:
- The Hammer of Dawn now lasts longer (28.5 instead of 21.2 seconds). Thus, you can now use the super strategically instead of just wildly pressing the attack button.
- The height of the heavy slam has been increased, making the super feel more powerful against enemies in the air. The heavy attack now detects when enemies are above and detonates accordingly. The detonation radius has also been increased.
- The cost of the heavy slam has been increased from 6% to 8%.
- The cost of the light attack has been reduced from 5% to 3%.
- The animation of the light attack has been overhauled, allowing for successive use without stopping.
This is how the Dawnblade Warlock changes
What about the focus? With Celestial Harmony, the idea was to emphasize air superiority. However, this focus was still trimmed to the movement options from the original Destiny 2, which were much slower than now. Therefore, the movements need to be adjusted to the new sandbox.
Players should receive a flying angel through this overhaul who can maneuver gracefully and destroy their enemies from the air.
What changes? To rework the air superiority role, both Dawnblade paths needed to be distinguished more clearly. Therefore, the speed at which Gliding accelerates players during the Dawnblade has been reduced.
In return, Icarus Dash (air dodging) now has higher speed and more boost during the Dawnblade to fulfill the air superiority role.
There are additional changes:
- Celestial Fire (New): This melee attack triggers a spiral with 3 explosive Solar projectiles.
- Heat Wave: Consumes your grenade (presumably grenade energy) to increase glide time and drastically reduce the drawbacks for weapons in the air.
- Winged Sun: Fires weapons, uses Celestial Fire, and throws grenades while gliding. Air kills grant melee energy back and extend the duration of Heat Wave.
- Icarus Dash: Tap the crouch button twice to dodge in the air. Dodging during the Dawnblade accelerates players faster and consumes less super energy while the effect of Heat Wave is active. Also, Icarus Dash can now be activated 2x before the cooldown.
- Due to the nature of the changes, the exotic chest piece Wings of Sacred Dawn has been buffed. You only receive 15% damage resistance when the exotic perk Dawn’s Ingrace is active.
What do you think of these adjustments? Good and sensible changes? Or are you bristling at some of the changes? By the way, details on further upcoming sandbox changes can be found here:
