Bungie is doing a huge pass on weapons in Destiny 2 when its next expansion, The Final Shape, releases on June 4. The balance tweaks include a blanket buff to just about all weapons in PvE activities, as well as an adjustment to Divinity–a gun that’s essential in lots of high-level play situations–that will probably make it a little more annoying to use.
The developer dropped an expansive set of details about how weapons are set to change on its website. The big change players are likely to feel immediately is a buff to all weapons against enemies in different activities. That’s the result of Bungie removing weapon “spec” mods that give you bonuses to certain kinds of enemies, like minor rank-and-file baddies or bosses. Instead of letting you spec for damage against a specific type of foe, Bungie is boosting the base damage of all your guns against all types of foes.
Here’s Bungie’s rundown of how things are changing:
Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants
- Pulse Rifles: 20%
- Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero’s Heavy Burst mode. (These both have an intrinsic PvE damage buff built in.)
- Pellet Shotguns: 10%
- Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman. (These are all already performing as intended.)
- Slug Shotguns: 9%
- Fusion Rifles: 7%
- Exceptions: One Thousand Voices. (This one was just buffed.)
- Sniper Rifles: 7%
- Exceptions: Izanagi’s Burden’s Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike’s storm. (These are both performing well.)
- Glaive projectiles: 7%
- Linear Fusion Rifles: 5%
Increased damage versus Minors (red bars)–this stacks with the base PvE damage increase
- Sidearms, Trace Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Bows: 20%
- Auto Rifles and Pulse Rifles: 15%
- For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero’s Heavy Burst mode are included.
- I.e. Pulse Rifles will do 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% more damage to red bars.
- Submachine Guns: 10%
- Hand Cannons: 5%
- For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero’s Heavy Burst mode are included.
Increased damage versus Majors (orange bars)
Increased damage globally, including PvP
- Machine Guns: 7%
- Swords: 7%
Bungie is also making more granular adjustments to various Exotic weapons, depending on how they perform in their designed roles and how players are using them. That mostly means that underperforming guns are getting a boost–but a few, like Divinity, are getting adjustments in the other direction.
Divinity is a trace rifle that helps teams out by creating a big critical hit spot on enemies, making it pretty crucial in some high-level activities. The trouble is, Divinity lets you get around the intended mechanics of a lot of fights, and it’s so useful that it’s basically required in certain battles, especially against enemies that move around a lot and are tough to hit. What’s more, players have gotten pretty good at using Divinity as effectively as possible by “feathering” their trigger pulls to make ammo last as long as possible.
Bungie isn’t changing how Divinity or feathering the trigger work on principle, but it is adjusting the effectiveness of the gun so that it takes longer to create the critical hit spot on an enemy. Divinity will be less efficient and the beam won’t last as long, even if you’re feathering the trigger, which means it’ll be a little less reliable in tough content.
A few other Exotics and their perks are getting adjusted, mostly to make them more useful in PvE. Dead Man’s Tale, Truth, Queensbreaker, The Colony, and Touch of Malice are all getting adjustments and tweaks that’ll make them function better against various enemies. Osteo Striga, on the other hand, will be quite a bit less deadly–the poison-spreading submachine gun will now get a four-second cooldown on its poison effect, so you won’t be able to blanket a room in infectious death just by killing a few weak enemies.
That will hopefully have the effect of making more of your guns useful across a greater number of activities. You can check out the full list of adjustments on Bungie’s website.
