This Week In Destiny - 04/25/2024

This Week in Destiny, we have some updates to share about Power level. It's not over 9,000 yet, but it's rapidly approaching 2,000 with the launch of The Final Shape. So, before that happens, we want you all to have the most detailed info possible about difficulty options, progression, and experience. And this is only one of the topics of this week! 

• Have you checked our latest trailers? 
• How Power works in The Final Shape.  
• Pantheon starts next week. 
• A new modifier arrives in PvP. 
• Iron Banner final week approaches. 
• Dress to impress: Cosplay Cosmodrome is here! 
• The Archie Plush is available again. 

Where No One Has Gone Before 

Many have dreamed of venturing into the Traveler, but we are pretty sure no one wanted it to be under end-of-the-universe circumstances. It's natural to wonder what awaits us after we cross the portal—if it will feel familiar, if the Witness has inflicted too much damage... Those are questions that we hear a very familiar voice ask in our latest trailer.  

One thing we know for sure is that new dangers will be waiting for you. The Witness has created a new enemy faction, the Dread, that has unique ways to fight you. See them in action in our latest videos, and look out for a fourth one coming tomorrow! 

Harbinger and Weaver

The Husk

The Grim

And how about some crazy good wallpapers to prepare your devices for The Final Shape?

Desktop Wallpapers

Mobile Wallpapers

How Power Works in The Final Shape 

Fireteam Power was announced at the Destiny 2 Showcase 2023, but we’ve got a lot more coming with The Final Shape when it comes to improving how Power works in Destiny 2. 

We’ve revisited our Power systems and overhauled our UI to make Power more intuitive and approachable than ever before. You’ll find a whole bunch of changes detailed below, all made with the following goals in mind: 

• Power offers a meaningful progression that rewards players with a real sense of getting stronger. 
• Destiny 2 is a game you can always play with your friends, regardless of your Power level. 
• Lower the barrier to entry for Destiny 2’s story content. 
• Power should be intuitive and understandable, both for experienced and new players alike.

Fireteam Power  

In The Final Shape, playing with friends will be easier than ever, no matter if you play every day, haven’t played in years, or are trying Destiny 2 for the first time.

The player with the highest Power level in the fireteam will become the Power Leader, and all other players in the fireteam will be brought up to five Power below the Power Leader (if their Power isn’t already higher). Fireteam Power only affects activity difficulty, and your unadjusted Power level will still determine the Power of your rewards. 

Being a Power Leader will also give you a boost to any commendations earned at the end of the activity.  

Your Power level will now be displayed next to the Activity Power Cap, right by the launch button, so you can easily determine how difficult the activity will feel.

When your Power is increased by Fireteam Power, your adjusted Power will take its place. Here, soyuz_bng is the Power Leader, and is boosting rook_bng to 1995 Power (five below soyuz_bng’s Power of 2000).

With Fireteam Power, friends should always be able to play together, regardless of Power level. 

Removing Power Limits from Legacy Gear  

One problem we encountered when designing Fireteam Power was Power limits found on older gear items. You might have noticed as you read about Fireteam Power that the Adjusted Power shared by the Power Leader would sidestep the caps on old Power limited items, making it possible to ignore them. After thoroughly considering the problem space, we came to the decision to remove Power limits from all items starting in The Final Shape.

Always being able to play with your friends was a huge goal for us. As we close out the Light and Darkness saga, we want to rally all Guardians (active, returning, and new) to help fight the Witness, and there is no better way to play Destiny than with your fireteam. As we pursued this goal, it became apparent that Power limits were fundamentally incompatible with Fireteam Power. 

We understand that many old Power limited items have been dismantled by this point, and we regret that we have no recovery mechanism for these. Going forward, we intend to reintroduce sources for most or all of these, updated to modern Destiny sandbox standards with added properties such as Origin Traits and buildcrafting perks (as we have started to do with the BRAVE arsenal in Destiny 2: Into the Light). 

Power Bands  

We’re improving Power Bands to further lower the barrier to entry. In The Final Shape, the Soft Cap will only require 40 Power to reach (down from the usual 150). 

This change should allow New Lights enough time to get familiar with the core of Destiny’s Gear Power system before stepping into the broader game without holding them back. You can also easily achieve the Soft Cap by playing through either difficulty of The Final Shape campaign. If you complete the campaign on Legendary difficulty, you’ll be rewarded with an entire gear set at 1960 Power (+20 into the Powerful band), giving you a great head start towards being raid-ready for Contest mode (1965 Power)!

The resulting Power Bands in The Final Shape will be:  

• Power Floor: 1900  
• Soft Cap: 1940  
• Powerful Cap: 1990  
• Hard Cap/Pinnacle Cap: 2000   

Activity Power 

Beginning with The Final Shape, the Power level of activities will become much easier to understand. We’re also making it so players can enjoy Destiny 2’s story and free-roam content at any level.

Activities will be divided into two categories: Power Disabled and Power Enabled.

Power Disabled activities play the same for everyone, no matter their Power level. Anyone at any level can jump right in and experience them to the fullest. As such, increasing your Power won’t change the difficulty you experience, and you can’t over-level the enemies in these activities. Power Disabled activities include campaigns (both Normal and Legendary difficulties), Seasonal story missions, free-roam destinations, Crucible, and some legacy content.

Power Enabled activities, by comparison, are where you grow stronger by improving your Power. These each have an Activity Power Cap, or a Power level at which you will have achieved maximum effectiveness. We’ve improved our UI to show you exactly what these Activity Power Caps are and if you’ve achieved them. Enemies will have a set feel for how tough they are even at the cap, but you will notice yourself getting stronger as your Power level grows. Power Enabled activities include Vanguard playlists, Nightfalls, Seasonal activities, Exotic Mission Rotators, Trials of Osiris, raids, and dungeons.

Every Power Enabled activity falls into one of five difficulty tiers or one unique mode: 

It's worth calling out that gameplay tuning in our existing high-difficulty content remains unchanged with these updates, and we are continuing to experiment with new activities that evolve in difficulty throughout the run (such as in Deep Dives, Coil, and Onslaught). We look forward to continuing to explore ways to make difficult activities engaging and rewarding to conquer, while making your ongoing Power climb feel meaningful and important. 

Artifact Bonus Power 

The way you earn Bonus Power from the Seasonal Artifact is staying the same at its core, but we’ve rebalanced it to better offer a meaningful and rewarding progression given other upcoming changes.

With the additional time offered by each Episode, we've increased the number of weeks with Seasonal Challenges and they will also be receiving a buff to their XP rewards. Given this, we needed to make some adjustments to the XP requirements for Artifact Bonus Power levels. Our goals for the rebalance were that actively engaged players could attain similar Artifact levels achieved by the end of an Episode and that Artifact Power remains a rewarding pursuit throughout.

Account-Wide Power 

Titan, Hunter, Warlock. Most of us play primarily just one, but what if it didn’t have to be so hard to walk in a different class’s shoes Greaves/Strides/Boots? We’re also lowering the barrier to entry to play multiple classes by introducing Account-Wide Power.

Starting in The Final Shape, the gear rewards you earn on any character will drop with a Power level relative to the highest Power character on your account. Level up the Power of your Hunter, and when you switch over to your Titan or Warlock, the gear rewards you earn will be around your Hunter’s level. The exact Power of rewards will still depend on the source, but the Power you earn on one character will positively influence rewards you find on your other characters! 

Because cross-character Power progression is now intrinsic to the game, Power Boosts are no longer offered for sale. Campaign Skips will still be available for alt characters. These changes aim to make switching between characters and classes easier than ever before, so try something new and put on that Mark/Cloak/Bond for the first time!

Reward Power 

Finally, we’re making some improvements to the Power of rewards.   

For some time now, select activities (such as ritual playlists) have had a chance of dropping a Powerful reward with +1 Power for players between the Soft Cap and the Powerful Cap. In The Final Shape, we’re extending this beyond those select activities to just about every reward source in Destiny 2! This change will help players gradually reach the Powerful Cap no matter what activities they choose to play, so you aren’t limited to just the weekly available Powerful rewards.

Additionally, we are improving the Power of rewards you purchase from vendors and Collections. All items purchased from vendors will now drop no lower than 3 below your highest possible Power, and items reacquired from Collections will be 5 below (instead of all the way down at the Power Floor). 

Ready to Battle the Pantheon? 

Next Tuesday, Guardians will have a chance to face something we have never done before. Pantheon will unfold starting April 30 with four of the toughest bosses you have faced. The challenge will escalate over the coming weeks until you have to defeat eight bosses in a row! You can read more details on Pantheon in the April 11 TWID. 

Creator Challenge 

To celebrate such an occasion, we are launching a friendly competition between some of your favorite content creators. Two teams will race to be the first to complete each of Pantheon's weekly challenges, all while also taking on increasingly unique modifiers that amp up Pantheon’s difficulty. The fireteam that finishes first will earn a point, and after four weeks of challenges, whoever has the most points will be crowned winner.  

Here are the two teams that will be fighting for glory:  

Team Clyde

• GsxrClyde (captain)
• Above
• Aztecross
• iFrostBolt
• LanaLane
• cbgray 

Team Sweat

• Sweatcicle (captain)
• evanf1997
• PureChill
• Benny
• YellowsLight
• SneakyBeaver

P1ka Peach will be hosting a play-by-play, providing post-competition coverage as well as keeping score between the two stream teams. Don't miss it! 

Welcome to Hardware 

No abilities. Weapons only! Next week, Crucible Labs will feature Hardware Supremacy. The Hardware modifier disables all abilities (including movement abilities like Dodge and Icarus Dash, although you can still use your powered jump abilities) and puts the focus on gunplay. Collect Heavy and Special ammo from crates, and don’t forget to pick up those crests! As with all Labs, we will be paying close attention to how this modifier is received, so please try it and give us feedback on what you think. 

Last Chance to Earn Iron Banner Rewards! 

Attention, Guardians. Valus Forge, formerly Iron Lord Saladin, will be back in the Tower on April 30 for one final Iron Banner week before The Final Shape arrives. He is on better terms with Lord Shaxx lately (check out the lore on your BRAVE arsenal pieces).   

If you are looking for Tusk of the Boar or the Multimach CCX, now is your moment. And if you didn't get them the last time, good news: we increased the drop rates for players that have not acquired them yet.  

Cosplay Cosmodrome Is Back! 

After an amazing first edition in 2022 focused on Savathûn, The Witch Queen herself, we couldn’t be happier to announce the second installment of Cosplay Cosmodrome! This time, we are shaking things up a little bit: each participant will get the chance to create a cosplay for a specific Destiny 2 character.  

Our lineup of cosplayers is top notch, and you can meet them all while you learn more about Cosplay Cosmodrone in the article we published yesterday. And if you want to cosplay yourself, check out our latest reference kit—the Witness itself! 

You Can Pet the Exo Dog

For a dog, Archie is quite curious. It must be because he is an Exo... or maybe he just got bored of watching those two Eliksni struggling to buy some sodas. Glimmer, come on, just put those Glimmer cubes in the machine! Anyway, we hope you have found him again and given him some much deserved love. Archie is the best boy in the universe. 

If you feel like having him closer than ever, the Archie Plush is available for purchase from the Bungie Store through Bungie Rewards when you complete the Where's Archie Triumph before June 3. 

Player Support Report 

We found some old Festival of the Lost candy in the Hall of Champions. You want some? Only a little expired.

Known Issues List  |  Help Forums  |  Bungie Help Twitter

New Light Kit Update

With the launch of Update 7.3.6.2, veteran players who acquire a New Light Kit from Ikora will no longer have their saved loadouts of the corresponding subclass overwritten. Players who continue to encounter issues should submit a report to our #Help forum.

Known Issues

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help forum:

• Certain face markings do not appear on Exos when selected. 
• The Midnight Ride quest incorrectly states players need to defeat Guardians using Hand Cannons. This objective can instead be completed by defeating enemies in raids and dungeons. 
• In Onslaught, players may be teleported back to the incorrect ADU location after completing certain phases. 
• Mountaintop projectiles do not pierce Barrier Champion shields. 
• The Afterglow Sparrow's translucent parts disappear when certain shaders are applied. 
• In Onslaught, the switches to open the door to the boss may not activate, preventing the door from opening. 
• The BRAVE versions of The Recluse and Hammerhead do not highlight enemies when aiming down sights. 
• Onslaught bounties requiring the completion of a pathway in Riven's Lair do not count pathways completed in The Coil. 
• On rare occasions, the Spark in Onslaught can be lost. 
• Onslaught turrets can target player Strand clones and Threadlings. 

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum. 

Ace Up The Sleeve

Destiny 2 has Iron Lords, but also Lords of Iron like this master craftsman that made a very special Ace of Spades.  

Artist of the Week: Corvo de Ferro, via Twitter/X  

Cabal Artillery

It’s been a few years of us fighting Cabal, but watching a Guardian getting crushed by one of their pods will always be funny.  

Movie of the Week: Cabal Pod On Point, By Tryhard Tristan

We hope you are getting amazing BRAVE weapon rolls and making Shaxx proud. Maybe you can take some of those and try to complete The Whisper solo, and then flawlessly. It's a challenge for sure, but we know you can do it. Let us know how that goes, will you?  

Alrighty then, back to Onslaught everyone!  

Destiny 2 Community Team