Destiny 2 Update Makes Big Changes to Weapons and Exotic Gear

Bungie has rolled out a fresh update for Destiny 2, tackling some persistent bugs and implementing balance changes for weapons and armor. As Episode Revenant nears its conclusion, the team remains dedicated to refining Destiny 2, striving to enhance the gaming experience for all players.

Destiny 2 has had a challenging episode lately, with players encountering numerous problems and bugs, some of which are quite significant. The community has even uncovered two major bugs, including a serious issue with weapon perk weighting and some crafted Tonics not functioning as they should. Now that the holiday season has wrapped up, Bungie is rolling out a new update aimed at addressing many of the lingering issues affecting Episode Revenant.

This week, Bungie rolled out a new update during the reset, making some adjustments to activities like the Crucible and the Vesper’s Host dungeon. The highlight of Update 8.1.5.3 was its focus on gear, particularly fixing the significant damage issue with the Ballidorse Wrathweavers that players had pointed out since November. This exotic item is now back in action and no longer has the ability to rapidly boost its damage. Additionally, other exotics received some changes, including the Hunter’s Celestial Nighthawk, Titan’s Stoicism, and the Warlock’s Mantle of Battle Harmony and Stormdancer’s Brace.

This patch brought more than just exotic armor changes; Bungie also adjusted several weapon archetypes. Sidearms, Lightweight Scout Rifles, and Rapid Fire Auto Rifles received a damage increase, while High-Impact Pulse Rifles experienced a slight nerf. Additionally, Bungie mentioned that the Graviton Lance pulse rifle was nerfed in Destiny 2, with its RPM lowered to 300 to help balance the Crucible meta. There were also some bug fixes for Whisper of the Worm and Ace of Spades.

Many players felt that these changes were necessary for quite some time, and it will be fascinating to observe how this update affects the game’s overall well-being. Recently, Bungie has been facing significant challenges as Destiny 2’s player engagement has dropped sharply. Issues like bugs and controversies surrounding Episode Revenant have left a lot of players feeling frustrated. With one more episode to go, which happens to feature the beloved Dreadnaught location, everyone will be watching Codename Frontiers this summer to see if Bungie can make a comeback.

Destiny 2 Update 8.1.5.3 Patch Notes

Crucible

General

• Fixed an issue where some ability kills could generate a Special ammo brick.

Dungeons & Raids

Vesper’s Host

• Raneiks Unified
  • Fixed an issue where using Hunter’s Shadowshot Super ability on Raneiks Unified could result in the encounter crashing.
  • Reduced the number of active servitors that appear when splitting the boss during DPS.
    • Rebalanced boss health values to compensate for the reduced number of servitors.
  • Re-enabled Hunter’s Shadowshot Super ability in the activity.
• Infiltration
  • Fixed an issue that allowed nuclear cores from the traversal to be used outside of the encounter.

Gameplay and Investment

Exotic Armor

Titan

• Stoicism
  • Spirit of Alpha Lupi
    • Reduced heal impulse when using Thruster to 30 HP.
  • Crest of Alpha Lupi
    • Reduced heal impulse when using Thruster to 60 HP.

Warlock

• Ballidorse Wrathweavers
  • Fixed an issue where Ballidorse Wrathweavers could increase the damage dealt by shattering targets frozen with Winter’s Wrath far more than intended.
• Mantle of Battle Harmony
  • Fixed an issue where Mantle of Battle Harmony’s perk could be activated during Song of Flame to extend its duration.
• Stormdancer’s Brace
  • Fixed an issue where Stormdancer’s Brace would not refund energy if the player was in Transcendence during their Stormtrance Super.

Hunter

• Celestial Nighthawk
  • Fixed an issue where Golden Gun incorrectly was receiving the boosted roaming Super recharge benefits while Celestial Nighthawk was equipped.

General

• Fixed an issue where the “Iron Intent” armor set was missing the “Iron Lord’s Pride” intrinsic perk.
• Fixed an issue where Solar Weapon Boost x4 was unable to be applied via Exotics such as Mantle of Battle Harmony, Foetracer, or Path of Burning Steps to weapons besides Two-Tailed Fox.
  • The Daito manufacturer extends a heartfelt apology to all Guardians for this error.

Weapons

Weapon Archetypes

• Sidearms
  • Heavy Burst
    • Increased body shot damage from 30 to 33.
    • Increased critical hit damage from 48 to 52.8.
• Submachine Guns
  • General
    • Increased magazine size by 10-15% depending on magazine stat and rate of fire.
• Pulse Rifles
  • High-Impact – Now requires six crits on all resilience levels above 1.
    • Reduced body shot damage from 22 to 21.5.
    • Reduced critical hit damage from 39.6 to 38.7.
    • Reduced Aim Down Sights (ADS) damage falloff scalar from 1.7 to 1.6.
  • Lightweights
    • Increased body shot damage from 17 to 20.4.
    • Increased critical hit damage from 31.45 to 31.6.
• Scout Rifles
  • Lightweights
    • Increased body shot damage from 32 to 38.
    • Increased critical hit damage from 64 to 64.6.
• Auto Rifles
  • Rapid Fires
    • Increased body shot damage from 13.5 to 13.6.
    • Increased critical hit damage from 23 to 23.1.
• Hand Cannons
  • Precisions
    • The intrinsic Hand Cannon Precision Frame now reduces your ADS movement speed penalty by 10%.
• Sniper Rifles
  • Reduced the camera roll component of flinch against players by 20%.
• Heavy Ammo Grenade Launchers
  • Reduced self-damage by 50%.

Perks

• Skulking Wolf (Iron Banner Origin Trait)
  • Now activates in PvE and, when active, makes enemies slightly less accurate when targeting you.
• Target Lock
  • Reverted the Update 7.3.5 specific tuning for Sub Machine Guns.

Exotics

• Graviton Lance
  • Reverted its RPM to 300.
• Whisper of the Worm
  • Reduced the camera roll component of flinch against players by 50%.
• Ace of Spades
  • Fixed an issue where the Firefly perk on Ace of Spades was dealing Kinetic damage instead of Solar damage.

General

• Fixed an issue where the Scavenger’s Fate Shotgun unintentionally received Demolitionist. This perk will be replaced with Slideshot, with enhanced versions of Demolitionist being replaced with Enhanced Slideshot.
• Fixed an issue where the Omniscient Eye Sniper Rifle did not have access to Enhanced Precision Instrument at the Relic Crafting table.
• Fixed an issue where the Season of Arrival’s version of Crimil’s Dagger had incorrect stats.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the Harmony and Discord perks to be activated by using certain abilities or getting onto vehicles.

Platforms and Systems

• Fixed an issue where audio could cut out during some cinematics.
• Fixed a server crash that caused a high frequency of #Guitar errors across many activities and destinations.