New Destiny 2 Arc Abilities Revealed For Episode: Heresy

Bungie has revealed a bunch of new abilities and balance changes that will be released with Destiny 2‘s next episode, Heresy. The content update will include a brand-new verb, Bolt Charge, for the Arc subclass, as well as three new Aspects that can utilize the verb.

According to the Abilities team’s notes, Bolt Charge was designed to be a powerful damage tool–something that was previously missing from the subclass. Bolt Charge is a stacking buff, which builds up over time to release a bolt of Arc lightning when it reaches its max. Stacks can be built up from multiple sources, and the verb will be integrated with Arc and Prismatic subclass suites.

“The loop of gaining a Bolt Charge stack, building it up through combat, and then receiving a big payoff ties deeply into the fantasy of Arc’s momentum-based gameplay,” Bungie says of the new mechanic, saying it will open up plenty of new build-crafting options for the Arc subclass.

The update will also bring three new Aspects, which have been designed with Bolt Charge in mind. The first, On The Prowl, is actually a Void Aspect for Nightstalkers, while Storm’s Keep and Ionic Sentry are for Arc subclasses Striker Titans and Stormcaller Warlocks respectively.

Storm’s Keep is designed to use Bolt Charge to its highest potential, granting stacks of Bolt Charge to the player and nearby allies under specific circumstances. Ionic Sentry allows Warlocks to charge up a powerful Arc turret, which targets enemies with chain lightning and grants Bolt Charge stacks on kill. On The Prowl is designed to fulfill the fantasy of “hunting down prey and being rewarded for the kill,” for Nightstalkers, and is triggered when the Hunter enters invisibility. While On The Prowl is a Void Aspect, Nightstalkers can still build Bolt Charge stacks through other means.

While the new verb and Aspects are the major new abilities coming with Heresy, the update will also include major balance changes to allow for the new additions and integrate Bolt Charge with existing abilities. The full list of balance changes can be found below.

Destiny 2 is finishing off its current arc, Revenant, and will be moving into Heresy in February, when the new abilities will be released.

Heresy Abilities Update

• New Arc verb: “Bolt Charge”
• Three new Aspects added
• Heresy ability balance pass

On The Prowl

• On The Prowl
  • Entering invisibility marks a nearby enemy as a priority target for you and your team.
    • Note: this does not enable players to see marked targets through walls in the Crucible.
  • Defeating priority targets creates a weakening cloud of smoke that makes you and allies invisible when passing through it.
  • When priority targets are defeated, you and nearby allies gain increased weapon reload speed and stability for a short duration and are granted grenade, melee, and class-ability energy.

Storm’s Keep

• Storm’s Keep
  • Cast your class ability to grant a moderate number of Bolt Charge stacks to you and nearby allies. While behind your Barricade, you and allies gain stacks of Bolt Charge over time and any weapon damage will discharge max stacks of Bolt Charge.

Ionic Sentry

• Ionic Sentry
  • Defeat targets with Arc abilities or weapons to charge up an Ionic Sentry.
    Activate Grenade: Deploy a powerful Arc turret which Blinds on impact and sends out bolts of lightning that chain to nearby enemies and grants stacks of Bolt Charge when it defeats enemies.

Heresy Balance Changes

Hunter

Arc Strider

• Tempest Strike
  • New additional effect added.
    • Killing any jolted target grants a stack of Bolt Charge.
  • Increased damage against PvE enemies by 57%.
• Disorienting Blow
  • Now grants a moderate amount of Bolt Charge stacks when dealing damage with Disorienting Blow.
  • Disorienting Blow now deals significant damage in an area around the target hit, instead of just single target damage.
  • Increased the Blind AoE from 6m to 9.6m.
• Arc Staff
  • Reflecting an attack will grant a stack of Bolt Charge.
• Ascension
  • Increased Fragment slots to three on Arc.
    • Note: Ascension was already granting three Fragment slots on Prismatic.
  • Activating Ascension will now activate the effects from the following abilities: Gambler’s Dodge, Marksman’s Dodge, Empowering Dodge, and Threaded Specter.
    • Note: We don’t plan to make Ascension activate every Hunter class-ability perk, but we may add more interactions in the future.

Threadrunner

• Ensnaring Slam
  • Activating Ensnaring Slam will now activate the effects from the following abilities: Gambler’s Dodge, Marksman’s Dodge, and Threaded Specter.
    • Note: We don’t plan to make Ensnaring Slam activate every Hunter class-ability perk, but we may add more interactions in the future.
  • Threaded Specter
    • Increased the clone’s PvE damage resistance from 40% to 70%.

Titan

All Titan Subclasses

• Barricade
  • Increased damage resistance vs. combatant splash damage attacks when standing behind Barricade from 60% to 80%.
  • Taunt strength and range no longer fall off over time.

Striker

• Juggernaut
  • While Juggernaut shield is active, players now have splash damage resistance.
    • 60% splash damage resistance in PvE, 10% in PvP.
  • While the Juggernaut shield is active, players now have 10% damage resistance vs PvE combatants.
  • When the Juggernaut shield blocks damage, players are granted a stack of Bolt Charge.
• Ballistic Slam
  • Sprint time requirement before activation significantly reduced.
  • Damage now scales based on distance traveled.
  • Damage vs. PvE combatants increased by 30%.
  • Each enemy damaged by Ballistic Slam grants a stack of Bolt Charge.
    • Up to the max of 10 stacks if you manage to hit 10 targets with a single activation.

Sentinel

• Unbreakable
  • Increased the rate that the Unbreakable offensive throw charges up when blocking damage.
  • Increased max damage dealt from the offensive throw by 20%.
  • Increased the health pool of the shield to make it less likely to break when under heavy fire.
  • Increased the Void Overshield charge rate while holding the shield.
  • Throw now costs half of a grenade-energy charge instead of a full charge.
  • While Sentinel Shield is equipped, Orb of Power creation cooldown increased from 1s to 4.5s.
    • Note: Unbreakable has received a significant buff here. We want it to be strong, but we’ll be monitoring it closely to make sure we haven’t gone too far.
  • Ward of Dawn
    • Ward of Dawn now does a Weaken pulse when the Ward is created.

Sunbreaker

• Consecration
  • Reduced scorch-wave and slam-wave damage in PvE by 55%.
    • Note: When reviewing the damage-cost ratio for certain abilities, it became clear that Consecration was doing too much for too little. We didn’t want to take away from the dramatic pop moment of landing both waves on a target though, so we kept its increased Ignition damage bonus and instead reduced the wave damage. We suspect we may also need to adjust the Ignition damage in the future.

Warlock

Stormcaller

• Stormtrance
  • Increased non-champion PvE damage by 20%.
• Chaos Reach
  • Increased non-champion PvE damage by 15%.
• Lightning Surge
  • Removed Amplified on cast.
  • Now grants a stack of Bolt Charge for each enemy hit with Lightning Surge.
  • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 30%.

Voidwalker

• Handheld Supernova (Chaos Accelerant’s Magnetic Grenade Variant)
  • Increased total projectile count from five to nine.
  • Increased the width of the cone’s blast by roughly two meters.
  • Increased the height of the cone’s blast by one meter.
  • Reduced projectile damage in PvP from 20 to 15 per projectile to account for additional projectiles.
    • Note: Adding four projectiles is potentially a substantial damage increase, but due to the increased size of the cone blast, all projectiles won’t land on a single smaller target. This means PvP potency should remain similar but in PvE this becomes a much more reliable add clear tool or single target burst damage option against larger targets.

All Classes

Solar

• Radiant
  • Damage bonus reduced from 25% to 20% in PvE
    • Well of Radiance damage bonus remains unchanged.

Stasis

• Frost Armor
  • Increased DR per stack from 4.5% to 6.25%.
    • At max stacks, DR goes from 36% to 50%.
    • Note: This change is PvE only, PvP values remain unchanged.

Arc

• Amplified
  • While Amplified, PvE combatants are now less accurate against you.
    • This is similar to how The Manticore’s Exotic effect works while in air.
  • While Amplified, players now have 15% damage resistance against PvE combatants.
• Spark of Discharge
  • Added effect: Picking up an Ionic Trace grants a stack of Bolt Charge.
• Spark of Momentum
  • Added effect: Sliding over ammo bricks now also grants a stack of Bolt Charge.
  • Removed the bespoke melee energy bonus from sliding over ammo bricks since each stack of Bolt Charge comes with bonus melee energy.
  • Reduced the amount of time you need to be sliding to activate Spark of Momentum.
    • This should make it so if you start your slide on top of an ammo brick, Spark of Momentum will still activate instead of previously needing to slide into the brick after roughly 0.75s.
  • Spark of Frequency
    • Added effect: While Amplified, gain a bonus stack of Bolt Charge from all sources, in addition to previous effect.
  • Spark of Volts
    • Added effect: Finishers grant a stack of Bolt Charge in addition to granting Amplified.
  • Spark of Ions
    • Added effect: Targets defeated with Bolt Charge will also make an Ionic Trace, in addition to previous effect.

Prismatic

• Facet of Hope
  • Can now be activated by Bolt Charge.
• Facet of Purpose
  • Now grants a stack of Bolt Charge on orb pickup when an Arc Super is equipped instead of granting of Amplified.
• Facet of Sacrifice
  • Can now be activated by Bolt Charge.

Modifiers

• Brawn
  • Tuned healing sources to better balance the health economy when this modifier is active.