While Destiny 2’s Episode: Revenant is in its waning weeks, Bungie has a few tricks up its sleeve to see the content off, as several balance changes have hit the game ahead of the new Past is Prologue event.
Oddly, the tweaks to general gameplay are pretty significant for the end of an Episode. Of course, these alterations will likely set the pace for the upcoming Episode: Heresy, but you can start taking advantage now.
Every once in a while, Bungie changes how things feel in Destiny 2. The studio usually tackles one or two topics at a time, such as Exotic armor or ability tuning. For Episode: Revenant’s final Act, both Exotic weapons and armor are seeing some changes and general tuning for many of the weapon archetypes available in-game.
Exotic Armor updates
In te 8.1.5.3, Bungie covered how the game would change for the final Act of Revenant, starting with Exotic armor. One of the most significan💟t pieces of news is ﷽that the Ballidorse Wrathweavers Exotic for Warlocks is now functional once more.
The studio had previously deactivated it near the start of Episode: Revenant after Guardians found a way to one-shot bosses with Stasis explosions. Naturally, that didn’t attract the best attention in the Stasis-focused Episode, but at least players now have a few weeks to play around with it and all of the Stasis Artifact Perks for some wild combinations.
Warlocks also saw another boon to Exotic armor in Bungie correcting another functionality issue. The Stormdancer’s Brace Exotic is supposed to refund Super energy and grant a damage buff for each enemy slain with Stormtrance. Players weren’t getting the Super energy gains if they activated the Prismatic Subclass’s Transcendence ability. This bug has been resolved and now functions correctly.
The next positive change was more general, as it affected multiple Exotics. For Exotic armor effects that reward an elemental Surge damage bonus, like Mantle of Battle Harmony, Foetracer, or Path of Burning Steps, the Solar Surge x4 wasn’t applying to anything other than Two-Tailed Fox. Bungie has corrected this so players can enjoy the full force of a Solar Surge.
The additional Exotic armor tweaks aren’t strictly positive. Many are fixes for bugs but end up decreasing current effectiveness. First up are Hunters with the Celestial Nighthawk Exotic. It inadvertently benefited from the roaming Super buff in Episode: Revenant, recharging Golden Gun much🧸 faster than intended. This has been adjusted so the Super charges nor♚mally.
For Titans, Bungie took ꧑a swing at the Crest of Alpha Lupi Exotic and its Spirit of Alpha Lupi effect on the Titan Exotic Class Item. It appears the studio feels that the healing offered was a bit too generous for Thruster enjoyers, so it has been reduced across the board. The full Exotic now only restores 60HP with its healing pulse when using the Thrusteꦅr Class ability. Similarly, the Spirit of Alpha Lupi on Stoicism has its healing capability reduced to a mere 30HP while using Thruster.
Warlocks didn’t escape without a nerf of their own, another instance of Bungie fixing something that wasn’t working correctly. Before the third Act of Episode: Revenant, Warlocks could extend the Song of Flame Super by activating the unique effect of the Mantle of Battle Harmony Exotic. The studio has corrected this oversight so the already-powerful Super doesn’t get out of hand.
Exotic weapon updates
There weren’t nearly as many changes to Exotic weapons as there were to the armor, as mentioned above. That said, all of these tweaks are worth noting, as they’re all for popular weapons. Kicking things off for PvP players is the ever-popular Ace of Spades. Depending on how you look at it, this could be either a buff or a nerf, but the weapon now does Solar damage with its Firefly explosions. Those booms were previously Kinetic damage.
The Whisper of the Worm Exotic sniper has been reliably popular even before its reintroduction through the remade Whisper Exotic mission. Now, it’s a force to be reckoned with, bolstering multiple Catalysts and build options. As the gun is about landing multiple precision hits to refund ammo, Crucible fans should know that the flinch against other players has been reduced by 50 percent.
Finally, Graviton Lance has been a favorite of Guardians looking for a long-range, reliable Void weapon. It’s not getting diminished in terms of the direct damage it does, but it is getting a slap on the wrist with a return to its previous RPM. Graviton Lance is now back to 300 RPM, down from 325 RPM.
Weapon archetype and Perk updates
For weapons in general, some are rising up for Episode: Heresy, while others have seen their time in the sun and are getting a bit of a nerf. Sidearm fans can start to break out their favorite Heavy Burst archetype, as the category has received an overall damage increase. Body shot damage has been bumped from 30 to 33, and precision damage has jumped from 48 to 52.8, making these weapons incredibly dangerous at a range where reliable precision damage isn’t an issue.
Submachine guns are also getting some love, seeing a general magazine increase across the board. It seems, based on the vague wording of the bu𓂃ff, that all submachine guns are included in this boon, including Exotics. Bungie specified that the magazine increase would be anywhere between 10 and 15 percent, depending on the specific weapon. For Lightweight pulse rifles, general damage went from 17 to🔯 20.4 and 31.45 to 31.6 for precision damage. Auto rifles got a small but needed bump to damage as well. The Rapid Fire archetype specifically went from 13.5 to 13.6 damage and 23 to 23.1 for precision damage.
Lightweight scout rifles are getting inched up in effectiveness. The Lightweight archetype’s damage receives a nudge from 32 to 38 and precision damage from 64 to 64.6. Alternatively, High-Impact pulse rifles are getting tuned down a bit, with Bungie noting that it now takes six precision hits to eliminate a player with a Resilience score above 10. High-Impact archetypes now deal 21.5 damage per shot, down from 22. Additionally, precision damage dropped to 38.7 from 39.6, and the damage falloff for aiming down sights has been reduced.
Outside of general damage tweaks, hand cannons have a♑ new Intrinsic Trait for the Precision archetype. The guns now reduce the aim down sight movement penalty by 10 percent. On the opposite end of the range spectrum, sniper rifles across the board now have 20 percent less camera roll flinch against players. Topping weapon changes off, Bungie reduced the self-damage done to players using heavy grenade launchers by 50 percent.
Looking at the individual Perks that can appear on weapons, Bungie made two changes for Act Three. The most substantial is that the Iron Banner Origin Trait, Skulking Wolf, now works in PvE and makes enemies less accurate when they’re shooting you. Also, the studio noted that it rolled back the changes to how the Target Lock Perk works on submachine guns. Those alterations were made in , forcing the Perk to trigger when Guardians went through 20 percent of their clip rather than 12.5 percent.
Published: Jan 23, 2025 05:02 pm