In its latest blog post, Bungie announces a ton of upcoming balance changes coming to variousDestiny 2weapons, abilities, and even exotics like the Titan’s Citan’s Ramparts exotic armor. Changes are a common part of live service games, as developers are constantly adding new content, fixing issues that pop up, as well as continue to try and keep things fair and balanced for players.Destiny 2is no exception to this rule, asBungie commonly introduces major changes each seasonas well as before expansions.
With Lightfall rapidly approaching in a few weeks, Bungie has begun to open up about what sort of changesDestiny 2players will be seeing. For this year’s expansion, there appear to be major things on the horizon including a buildcrafting system that will support up to 10 loadouts players can swap between. However, for most long term players, thebiggest change toDestiny 2is that the Blue Engrams and gear will finally be scrappedin favor of glimmer after hitting the soft level cap. Unfortunately, another revealed upcoming change has seemingly split the community.
RELATED:Bungie Launches New Destiny 2 Community Manager Account on Twitter
Along with all of the upcoming features and changes, Bungie’s latestDestiny 2blog dove into the various balance changes coming to weapons, armor, and abilities. Citan’s Ramparts got a special shoutout within the blog, essentially getting a big nerf due to how often the item is used in PvP matches. Ultimately, the Barricade cooldown has been increased by 70% while also buffing the amount of damage enemy players do to it by 25% to offer others more counterplay opportunities.
In addition, Bungie also increased the base cooldown times by 20% for a number of class abilities including the Titan’s Barricade and Thruster, as well as both Hunter dodges. Storm Grenades, which were enhanced by thenew Arc 3.0 aspect called Touch of Thunder, are also getting hit with a few nerfs. The damage done by the second lightning strike has been reduced by 25% as well as having its tracking speed and distance cut down as well. The changes are intended to make them easier to avoid, especially since Storm Grenades have laregely become the go-to grenade for Arc players in PvP modes.
Many in the community have criticized the changes, especially since the ability cooldowns also negatively impact PvE as well as the intended PvP modes. While players hope that Bungie can eventually decouple PvP and PvE changes, it’s not all bad news for Crucible players.Bungie announced that Rumble is coming back as a permanent modealong with an all new skill-based matchmaking method. Airborne Effectiveness is also getting updated and buffed, as well as adaptive style Submachine Guns.
Destiny 2is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
MORE:Destiny 2’s Strand Draws a Parallel Between Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
