Destiny: Weapon balance changes with update 2.4.0 and “Rise of Iron”

• Kills with the weapon now automatically reload a part of the magazine
• Increase for base range (+16%) and -stability (+44%)

The “Thorn” is returning with “The Rise of Iron.” What are the “Thorn”‘s strengths?

• Damage over time (which provides location information and delays health regeneration).
• Fastest rate of fire family of hand cannons
• Most effective in the class level range with “Reckless”

To avoid a repeat of year 1, it will be nerfed as follows:

• Base range has been reduced by 25%

• The range bonus for the exotic perk has been reduced by 75% (no longer guarantees maximum shotgun range)
• Increased rate of fire (damage is decreased as a side effect)

In line with the return of the pistols (see below), the Exiled receives a bit more love.

• Increased damage and magazine size

It is intended that “Malicious Touch” is still best in the “King’s Fall” raid, but clever players have found ways to avoid the weapon’s only downside by saturating themselves with “Blessing of Light.” But the darkness brews stronger in the weapon…

• Now removes “Blessing of Light” when inflicting self-damage

This weapon gets an additional tool.

• The intrinsic perk “High-Caliber Rounds” has been added

• The intrinsic perk “Headseeker” has been added

  

A family of sniper rifles currently stands out, namely those with medium-high impact (including “The Last Word” and “Y-09 Longbow Synthesis”).

 

The benefits of this family:

• Decent magazine sizes combined with high impact result in strong damage over time
• Strong target acquisition and combined with “Hidden Hand” they can reach the upper tier intended for sniper rifles with less impact (Weyloran’s March)
• Ability to take out a Guardian in super state
• High body shot damage at a fire rate still fast enough that a body shot with double tapping is still rewarding

The resulting sniper rifle possesses all the strengths of the other families, but without their drawbacks. To distribute the power a bit, Bungie has tweaked two aspects:

• Damage has been reduced by 2% for medium-high impact sniper rifles (“The Last Word” family)
  • Medium-high impact sniper rifles can no longer reliably kill Guardians in super state
  • “No Land Beyond” is not affected by the damage reduction
• Target acquisition for LDR 5001/Y-09 Longbow Synthesis has been reduced to bring it to the same level as other sniper rifles in this family

The result is that if you want to eliminate a Guardian in super state, you should opt for the sniper rifles that fire the slowest (Black Spindle), balanced by a smaller magazine, slower fire rate, and aim assist.

 

 

 

With these changes, primary weapons are given a better chance to stand up against sniper rifles.

• The initial strength of Aim Deviation (aka Flinch) has been increased when players take damage during target acquisition: from 30% start to 50% start
  • With each subsequent hit, the strength of the flinch increases until reaching 100% max flinch
• Overall, the multiplier for sniper target acquisition has been increased to 1.9x (was 1.85x)

 

• A bug has been fixed where the “Eirene” UI status bar displayed an incorrect rate of fire

  

With “The Rise of Iron,” new auto rifles are coming into play. Playtests showed that players had more than enough bullets for multiple skirmishes, so reloading was not as important. Bungie did not want players to think there wasn’t enough ammunition, but an opportunity for foes to strike is an important part of the “dance” in Destiny.

 

Auto rifles with medium fire rates also received a small damage boost to help with damage drop-off, but the damage they now do does not drastically change the kill time.

• Maximum magazine size of the auto rifle family with the highest fire rate has been reduced (all weapons in the “Doctrine of Death” family)
• Damage increase for auto rifles with medium fire rate (1.5%)

Rapid-fire shotguns are strong against opponents but are generally less used in PvP. The following changes are intended to sweeten the value proposition, starting with everyone’s favorite Titan weapon.

• Immobius: Reduced spread on the Titan-class shotgun (0.1 zoom factor increase), base stability has been increased by 60%
• Spread angle penalties on shotguns with the perk “Fully Automatic” have been reduced, “Blasphemy” is not affected by this
• Increased high and medium-low fire rates of shotguns by 2%

  

Pulse rifles with high fire rates are strong contenders in the Crucible, so Bungie is focusing on the low and medium fire rate models, improving them a bit while maintaining the three-burst kill rate.

• Increased rate of fire for the Häkke pulse rifle “Lyudmila-D”
• Small increase (2%) in damage for pulse rifles with medium fire rate (“Nirwen’s Mercy”)

According to player data, hand cannons were used the least. This is to be changed with 2.4.0, hand cannons are to shoot faster, farther, and more predictably.

• Damage for all types of hand cannons has been standardized
  • Increase in damage for existing Häkke hand cannon families: 3% for the lowest fire rate, 7% for higher
  • Damage of non-hitscan hand cannons “Vestian Dynasty” and “Queen’s Choice” has been reduced by 5%
• Small extension of damage drop-off point for all hand cannons (+ 0.5m)
• Small increase in stability for all hand cannons
• Additional damage bonus in PvE (depending on enemy level 20-30%)
• To accommodate the new, faster-firing hand cannon families being released in “The Rise of Iron,” current fire rate bars for hand cannons will be shortened a bit:
  • This way, more room is available to showcase the difference in the bar
  • The actual rate of fire does not change, only the bar display

Bungie hopes to mix up the rocket launcher perk selection a bit and give the archetype a bit more technique by making “Cluster Bombs” more reliable and “Grenades and Horseshoes” less effective.

• Increased damage drop-off for “Cluster Bombs” explosions
• Activation radius of “Grenades and Horseshoes” has been reduced (1.3->1m)
  • “Truth” is not affected by this

High fire rate machine guns make the fantasy of effective crowd control a reality. Increasing their damage over time should also highlight them in other scenarios (e.g., in boss fights).

• Increased damage for high fire rate machine guns (4%)

For this weapon category, there are only small bug fixes in 2.4.0. But as a preview for “The Rise of Iron,” hand cannons with freshly baked low fire rates have a higher potential maximum range to give players a good reason to choose this weapon type.

• A problem was fixed where the rate of fire stats of the hand cannon “Curse of Zaouli” were displayed incorrectly
• The incorrect rate of fire displays of the “King of the Possessed” strike and weapon day hand cannons were fixed (“Desperate 00-0” and “Kumakatok HC4”)

And again only small bug fixes.

• “Accelerated Coils” now correctly displays damage reduction in the UI status bars
  • No change to gameplay, only to the UI
• A bug has been fixed that caused the status bar of “Techeun’s Wrath” to display incorrectly

  

After Bungie examined weapon perks player feedback and analyzed user data, they created a list of perks that could use a bit of freshening up. They also decided to reduce the effectiveness of “Unyielding,” as it would otherwise negate the aforementioned changes to “Flinch” on sniper rifles. And lastly, classic magazine perks such as “Armor-Piercing Rounds” now provide additional range bonuses.

 

• Now activates after 0.5 sec of crouching
• Flinch has been reduced (25%) and the speed of the targeting system has been increased (1.25x)

• The effect duration has been increased by an additional 5 seconds (total duration 15 seconds)

• Functional change: Melee kills now automatically reload a part of the magazine

• Now increases ammo capacity

• Activation chance increased to 25% (from 20%)

• Stability and range bonuses have been increased by 200% (think of it as an additional “Hammer-Forged” and “Perfect Balance” once the perk is activated)

• Stat bonuses for impact that had no effect on base damage, only on UI, have been removed
• Armor-Piercing Rounds: +4 range, -4 handling
• High-Caliber Rounds: +3 range, -5 handling
• Ricochet Rounds: +5 range, -3 handling, +5 inventory

• Perk efficiency has been reduced from 25% flinch to 15% flinch

• Potential fix for a crash that occured when fireball explosions happened close to the camera

All this information can also be read on the official Bungie site.

• Meanwhile, the complete patch notes for update 2.4.0 are known.

What do you think about it?