The weapons team at Bungie has shared our first look at all the new buffs, nerfs, and overall changes the sandbox will see when The Final Shape releases on June 4.
Balancing a game like Destiny 2 is a tough act, with Bungie continuously updating every aspect of the weapons, including perks, mods, damage output, and more.
The Final Shape won't be any different. Some of the major changes already revealed include a big nerf to Divinity, which will now need 75% more shots to generate the cage that allows everyone on a fireteam to hit for critical damage without aiming at an exact spot.
Another noticeable nerf will happen to Osteo Striga, which now has a four-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. With all that said, let's take a look at all Destiny 2 The Final Shape weapon balance changes.
Destiny 2 The Final Shape weapon balance changes
The weapon balance changes are not only direct buffs or nerfs to the weapon themselves, but also involve how certain perks interact and the tuning of certain mods. All of this is encompassed in this article.
Weapon archetypes
Retired the following weapon mods:
- Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec.
Exotic primary weapons and trace rifles:
- Reduced damage bonus versus Minors from 40% to 30% (except Fighting Lion).
Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants:
- Pulse Rifles: 20%. Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode
- Pellet Shotguns: 10%. Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman
- Slug Shotguns: 9%
- Fusion Rifles: 7%. Exceptions: One Thousand Voices
- Sniper Rifles: 7%. Exceptions: Izanagi's Burden's Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike's storm
- 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.
- Submachine Guns: 10%
- Hand Cannons: 5%
Increased damage versus Majors (orange bars):
- Trace Rifles: 20%
Increased damage globally, including PvP:
- Machine Guns: 7%
- Swords: 7%
Reduced splash damage by 10%:
- Sunshot
- Trinity Ghoul
- Polaris Lance
- Graviton Lance
Kinetic damage type weapons no longer deal bonus damage to bosses; damage to other combatant tiers is unchanged.
- For example, a kinetic Sniper Rifle and a Stasis Sniper Rifle of the same subfamily will both deal the same damage to a boss
Quality-of-life changes:
Updated Heavy, Adaptive, and Aggressive Burst weapon intrinsic names to match burst count across all weapon archetypes. Functionality is unchanged.
2-burst: Heavy Burst
- Includes Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Pulse Rifles.
3-burst: Adaptive Burst
- Includes Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, and Adaptive Pulse Rifles.
4-burst: Aggressive Burst
- Includes Pulse Rifles.
Removed the foundry name from the Veist Rapid-Fire, Häkke Precision, and Omolon Adaptive weapon intrinsics.
Scout Rifles:
- Updated the hip-fire reticle to better show accuracy and aim-assist state
Hand Cannons:
Crimil's Dagger (Iron Banner)
- Stability: 23 to 31
- Handling: 23 to 31
- Magazine Size: 8 to 9
- Airborne Effectiveness: 10 to 21
Something New (Solstice):
- Stability: 27 to 30
- Handling: 24 to 30
- Magazine Size: 8 to 9
Low inventory Sniper Rifles:
- Increased minimum reserves from 14 to 17 shots; maximum reserve is unchanged.
Linear Fusion Rifles:
- Adaptive Burst Linear Fusion Rifles are strong, but in some cases are quite hard to control.
- Reduced firing animation kick and recoil for Adaptive Linear Fusion Rifles.
Wave Frame Grenade Launchers:
- The size of the wave is now affected by the blast radius stat. This will mostly impact the width of the wave, though the length and height will also be scaled.
- The default display stat for the blast radius has been changed from 100 to 50 (where 50 represents the previous baseline. Any stat over 50 will result in a larger wave segment than what was possible before)
Special ammo Wave Frame Grenade Launchers:
- Reduced the length of the waves from 22 meters to 15 meters (except for Dead Messenger).
Swords:
- Updated the Sword reticle to better indicate its charge state. When Sword energy is consumed, the amount of delay the Sword has before it begins to recharge now subtly appears in the reticle
Bug fixes:
- Fixed an issue where the Overwhelming Battlesong debuff from some missions would prevent Swords from recharging or losing energy while guarding.
- Fixed an issue where unpowered caster Sword heavy attacks would not reset the Sword's energy recharge delay.
- Fixed an issue where uncharged adaptive Sword heavy attacks cost the same amount of ammo as their charged counterparts. They now cost 1 ammo, same as other uncharged heavy attacks.
Exotics
Divinity
- Increased the number of shots required to generate the cage by 75% against combatants (PvP unchanged)
Rat King
- Swapped the firing animation to the same one used by other auto-fire Sidearms.
Devil's Ruin
- Fixed an issue where the firing animation from Devil's Ruin would get applied to other equipped Sidearms if the weapon was swapped during the firing animation.
Symmetry
- Catalyst now provides +10 reload speed, +10 handling, and the Eddy Current perk, in addition to its existing effects
Gjallarhorn's Wolfpack Rounds:
- Updated the visuals of Wolfpack Rounds to match the damage type of the weapon.For example:
- On Gjallarhorn, they will use Solar effects.
- On the Royal Entry Void Rocket Launcher buffed by Gjallarhorn, they will have Void effects.
Touch of Malice:
- Increased duration of burn applied by the Darkness Ball against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds
Osteo Striga:
- Now has a four-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. (Poison burst from sustained damage doesn't receive this cooldown.)
Necrochasm
- Intrinsic perk now provides increased reload speed after precision kills
- Increased duration of burn applied by the Cursed Thrall explosion against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds
- Catalyst has been rebuilt. One for Thrall: Damaging 3 combatants in quick succession provides a period of increased damage, range, and aim assist
The Lament
- Reduced healing effect by 20%
- While this weapon does inherit the 7% global buff to Swords, we've reduced the damage of the high end of the chained heavy attack by 20% from that point. This means combos at lower stacks are less affected by the change than combos at higher stacks
Dead Man's Tale
Baseline:
- Cranial Spike stacks now grant stability in addition to aim assist stat and range (+2 per stack).
- Increased reload speed benefit of Cranial Spike stacks.
With catalyst, when hip-firing:
- Slightly reduced accuracy benefits
- Increased magnetism falloff scale (1.6 to 1.7)
- Increased baseline rate of fire from 130RPM to 140RPM
- Removed PvE-only damage buff that scaled with stacks of Cranial Spike and added a 15% damage bonus at maximum stacks of Cranial Spike
The Colony:
- Now spawns additional insectoid robots on final blows. More robots (up to five) spawn from tougher combatants.
Truth:
- Increased area-of-effect (AoE) damage such that it doesn't lose noticeable damage due to not dealing impact damage
- Increased total reserves by 3. (This is on top of the reserves change to high impact Rocket Launchers from the 7.3.5 update.)
The Queenbreaker:
- Increased damage versus bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles by 12%
- Increased reserve ammunition by 3.
Cerberus+1:
- Focus fire now will activate on Special reloads following a kill and will no longer reduce range or rate of fire
Bastion:
- Reworked Saint's Fists perk: Dealing damage with melee increases your charge rate, damage, and reload speed for a short duration. Landing a majority of pellets in a burst increases melee damage
Eriana's Vow:
- Breaking a matched shield or piercing a Champion's Barrier will cause the target to ignite
Deterministic Chaos:
- This weapon is now intrinsically anti-barrier
- The Heavy Metal and Vexadecimal perks have had their locations and behavior swapped
- Heavy Metal now causes every 4th bullet to make targets volatile
- Vexadecimal now causes every 16th bullet to also weaken targets
The Fundamentals perk:
- The Fundamentals now maintains its state across death or respawn.
Perks
Alacrity:
- Will no longer work in Rumble
Archer's Gambit:
- Reduced draw time buff from 66% to 60%
- Reduced buff duration from 8 to 4 seconds (but it can now stack up to 8 seconds)
Grave Robber:
- Will now activate on dealing damage with a powered melee, in addition to standard melee kills
Chain Reaction:
- Special: About 15% smaller AoE size and 20% less damage
- Heavy: Same AoE as before and 30% more damage
Eddy Current:
- Now takes 1.5 seconds of sprinting to activate instead of 3 seconds.
- Also provides a bonus to handling and a 5% scalar on each stat at base
- Being amplified will immediately activate the perk at its maximum effectiveness
Underdog:
- Instances of Underdog have been replaced with Pulse Monitor
Osmosis and Permeability:
- These no longer drop off when pulling out a Ghost or similar actions
- Now partially refill the weapon's magazine on activation
Chill Clip:
- Adjust the number of slow stacks applied based on properties of the weapon
- In this case, Rapid-Fire Fusions like Riptide will still require three shots to freeze, but slower firing Fusions only require two
- All other archetypes have been un-nerfed and only require two shots to freeze
High Ground:
- Reworked to provide a stacking damage bonus when getting kills in any context (like Rampage) or instantly granting the maximum amount of stacks when damaging an enemy from the high ground
- PvE max bonus increased to a 25% damage bonus, and PvP max increased to 15%
The Killing Tally
- Perk on the original 21% Delirium Machine Gun has been updated to match the version found on random-rolled weapons
Perks that currently match your equipped subclass have been changed as follows:
- Osmosis and Tessellation now match the damage type of your equipped grenade.
- Permeability and Elemental Capacitor now match the damage type of your equipped Super
Deconstruct
- Now refills from reserves instead of from thin air and should trigger more reliably across weapon types
And that's it! As you can see, it's a massive list of changes already and more are sure to come so bookmark this page as we'll update as soon Bungie reveals more weapon balancing for The Final Shape. In the meantime, check out everything that's going away when the expansion arrives.