As part of the last remaining update milestone 1.2.0 for Destiny 2, many Exotics are being fundamentally revised. Bungie has now revealed how the exotic hand cannon Sturm and its legendary sibling Drang will change with the next update in May 2018.
The last remaining milestone from Bungie’s contingency plan for spring 2018 will still bring a lot of changes to Destiny 2 in May. The main focus of many Guardians is on the exotic weapons and armor pieces. These will be largely revised or even completely overhauled as part of the May Update 1.2.0.
Bungie’s Senior Designer Jon Weisnewski has now provided an outlook in the current edition of “This Week at Bungie” (TWaB) on how the weapon duo of the exotic hand cannon Sturm and the legendary pistol Drang will change in May.
Sturm and Drang – A Dynamic Weapon Duo
Sturm and Drang refer to a weapon pair that consists of an exotic and a legendary weapon – like the MIDA combo. This duet essentially forms a kind of symbiosis, enhancing the Guardian or each other through various benefits when both weapons are equipped simultaneously.
This is what defines Sturm and Drang so far
Sturm is an exotic hand cannon for the kinetic slot. Its intrinsic perk “Helper” ensures that kills with this weapon recharge the magazine of the equipped energy weapon. Additionally, the perk “Storm and Stress” grants increased precision damage after energy weapon kills.
However, Sturm only reaches its full potential in conjunction with its smaller legendary brother Drang. When Sturm is in the kinetic slot and Drang in the energy slot, exciting synergies emerge.
This is because Drang has a perk that allows consecutive kills with this weapon to refill Sturm’s magazine and overload it up to the 20-shot maximum. Therefore, if one achieves kills and constantly switches between both weapons, enemies can be kept under fire without reloading. Kills with one weapon recharge the magazine (from the ammo reserves) of the other weapon.
A frequent point of criticism regarding Sturm has been the fact that it can only reach its full potential in combination with Drang. This alone makes the weapon unattractive to many Guardians, as it dictates a specific weapon combination and the playstyle that comes with it if one wishes to utilize it fully.
There are indeed much stronger alternatives and more effective combinations than these two weapons. Another issue is that the intrinsic perk of the weapon simply does not feel exotic enough. This could also belong to a better legendary weapon. Most Guardians imagine something different under the term “exotic”.
Moreover, Sturm feels a bit sluggish compared to hand cannons like Better Devils or Sunshot.
This is how Sturm and Drang will change in May 2018
Already, both weapons benefit from the March Update changes for the respective weapon category. For the May update of Destiny 2, Bungie has also improved the respective base stats for Sturm and Drang so that both weapons perform more smoothly in themselves and become more attractive to Guardians even without the respective counterpart.
However, the duo remains the most effective in conjunction even from May:
Drang is equipped with the perk Fury. Kills with this weapon will temporarily deal increased damage. This effect is stackable up to 3x. Additionally, Drang will have a magazine capacity exceeding the maximum limit for pistols.
However, the real reward will be the overloading of the Sturm magazine: The overloaded rounds of Sturm will have a damage bonus of 1.8x starting in May. This results in significantly higher damage output in PvE and also allows for sharp 2-shot precision kills in PvP – provided you land two critical hits.
Here you can take a brief look at the upcoming changes to Sturm and Drang:
What do you think of the upcoming changes to Sturm and Drang? Do these weapons seem more interesting to you now?
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