This Week In Destiny - 10/03/2024

This Week in Destiny, we have a lot to share! It's all about our next Episode, Revenant, which is launching in less than a week on October 8. We can't wait to see you all ripping and tearing the Scorn as Slayer Barons, playing new activities, using new gear, and testing your builds. So, how about you check what's in the oven for today?

• Did you watch our Tuesday stream?
• New Episode means new Artifact
• A sneak peek of Exotic armor changes
• Weapons tuning, and new weapon mods
• A preview of the new weapon rewards...
• ...as well as the new Iron Banner armor and weapons!
• Fixing some Legendary ornaments
• We also have a newly reprised strike coming
• Our first Discord quest
• Hurricane Helene Support

Onwards!

Watch Our Revenant Dev Stream

The wait is almost over, only five more days to go before you can start playing Revenant. Fikrul is back, wielding a new power able to transform his Scorn into something more dangerous than ever, but we have Mithrax, and Eido on our side to help fight him once more.

The talented Destiny 2 dev team talked about this and more in our latest dev stream, which we have just below for those of you who were busy on Tuesday or want to rewatch it.

Learn All About the New Artifact

The elemental focuses for this Episode will be Stasis, Arc, and Void. Act I features the most Stasis mods we have ever added to an Artifact. Frost Armor plays a key role in the Artifact’s build crafting granting you increased bonuses to Stasis. Then while you’re getting in close with the protection of Frost Armor, you’ll also gain increased close range combat potency. Shotguns and SMGs are picking up some anti-Champion capabilities as well as a couple of finisher focused mods. It will also be a great time to bring your favorite Grenade Launchers up to Light level and live out your artillerist fantasies.

Exotic Armor Tuning for Revenant

We have a lot to cover in this TWID, so let’s jump right into the Exotic armor changes for Revenant.

Hunter

Lucky Pants

Lucky Pants has long been one of the more complicated Exotic armor pieces, and the limitations were necessary because of the maximum strength of its perk. Unfortunately, the high-end strength of Lucky Pants was causing constraints in terms of other PvE balancing, so we have decided to kill two Hive moths with one shot and reduce the complexity while bringing down the maximum potency. To offset this, we have also added some new benefits to the Exotic which will be especially nice for our movement-focused Hand Cannon users who enjoy ST0MP-EE5 but wish they also improved Airborne Effectiveness and handling.

• Now provides movement bonuses including increased slide distance and sprint speed when a Hand Cannon is equipped.
• Airborne Effectiveness bonus is active whenever a Hand Cannon is equipped, not just when the Illegally Modded Holster buff is active.
• No longer requires the Hand Cannon to be matched to the Super damage type or Kinetic to receive the PvE damage buff.
• Out of Luck cooldown will only trigger if you reach seven stacks of the PvE damage buff before swapping off the weapon or time expires.
• Maximum damage has been decreased from 600% to 450%.

Young Ahamkara’s Spine

We wanted to take another swing at these to better preserve their previous PvE gameplay while keeping a handle on their effectiveness in PvP.

• Once again provides Tripmine Grenade energy on ability hits instead of final blows.
  • Provides +33% grenade energy in PvE and +8% in PvP.

Blight Ranger

Blight Ranger is rooted in boosting Arc Staff's reflection, but it has primarily seen use for some niche tactics that leverage its out-of-band Orb of Power generation. To make it more viable in the broader game without deviating from its fantasy, we've replaced that behavior with elements from Raiju's Harness.

• Added the ability to cancel your Arc Staff super while equipped, damaging and blinding nearby enemies and granting a Tier 4 Arc weapon damage boost.
  • Damage dealt by this effect scales based on the number of projectiles reflected prior to cancelling.
• No longer creates Orbs of Power when reflecting projectiles with Arc Staff.
  • Reflecting projectiles now instead directly refunds Super energy, extending the duration of your Super.

Raiju's Harness

With almost all of its old behavior moved to Blight Ranger, we've rebuilt Raiju's Harness based on its lore tab to differentiate it from other Arc Staff Exotics. It now enhances the Arc Super Gathering Storm, calling down lightning around the user when it is activated as well as adding a neutral game source of Super energy.

• Fully reworked behavior of its Exotic trait, Mobius Conduit, inspired by its lore tab.

• Activating Gathering Storm calls down lightning on all nearby targets, jolting them while also amplifying allies. Defeating Arc debuffed targets grants a small amount of Gathering Storm energy.

Relativism

Prismatic Hunters have access to lots of stacking melee damage bonuses, which all compound with each other leading to some out-of-band melee damage. Spirit of Synthoceps already provides a lower bonus if you also have Combination Blow active – in Revenant it will provide that same lower bonus when the Stylish Executioner buff is active.

• Spirit of the Synthoceps
  • Reduced the melee damage bonus provided when both Bionic Enhancements and Stylish Executioner are active by 50%.

Titan

Icefall Mantle

Icefall Mantle’s core fantasy is all about becoming an invulnerable, icy tank. We have reworked it to focus on that fantasy by making it all about providing and improving Frost Armor, instead of providing Stasis weapon damage.

• You now gain a stack of Frost Armor for rapid Stasis final blows.

• Each time you gain a stack of Frost Armor from any source you will heal for a small amount.

• The unique class ability granted by Icefall Mantle now provides maximum stacks of Frost Armor, instead of its custom overshield.
• You will also immediately heal for each stack that gets added.
• It no longer prevents sprinting or jump abilities, and it now works when Thruster is equipped.
• Class ability energy now begins to recharge immediately after using Icefall Mantle's class ability.
• The burst of Stasis energy from the class ability now freezes combatants and slows players.
• No longer provides bonus Stasis weapon damage.
• Now requires a Stasis Super to be equipped to benefit from its Exotic effects.

Cadmus Ridge Lancecap

We feel this Exotic has a fun gameplay loop that was a bit too restricted, so we are relaxing some of its requirements.

• Removed the Stasis weapon requirement.Now any final blows or rapid precision hits while behind a rally barricade (and with a Stasis Super equipped) will create a Diamond Lance near you.
• Directly hitting any powerful combatant with a Diamond Lance will now create three Stasis crystals (previously only bosses and vehicles would create additional crystals).

Ursa Furiosa & Spirit of the Bear

Now that Unbreakable has been live for a bit, we feel these Exotics could provide additional Super energy for using it in PvE. However, the gains provided in PvP were leading to players getting access to their Super more quickly than we would like.

• Increased maximum Super energy gain for Unbreakable in PvE from 15% to 20%.
• Fixed an issue where you were gaining more Super energy from Unbreakable in PvP than intended. Now provides a maximum of 10%.

Cuirass of the Falling Star

We would like Cuirass to feel less required to make Thundercrash viable, but to also improve it to be more valuable across the whole of an activity. We are reducing its Thundercrash damage multiplier, but when this is combined with the buff to base Thundercrash damage the overall damage will remain the same. We are also adding the ability for it to help generate Super energy for Thundercrash, as well as transitioning the Exotic to provide damage resistance instead of an overshield to bring it better in line with the Arc subclass.

• Melee final blows while amplified now grant Super energy.
• Reduced the damage bonus from Cuirass to Thundercrash from 2x to 1.55x.
• This keeps the overall damage similar to what it was previously.
•  Replaced the overshield after impact with damage resistance (50% in PvE and 10% in PvP).

Peacekeepers

While Peacekeepers has been a presence in Crucible for some time, it never really felt like it had a real place in PvE content. We have given it characteristics that resemble Lucky Pants, but for SMGs, with a PvE damage bonus that escalates as you deal more damage. We’ve heard rumors it pairs nicely with a couple of the Exotic weapon buffs below.

• Dealing damage to combatants with an SMG increases SMG damage for a short time. Maximum of 20 stacks (100% bonus damage), lasts for 1s, each hit adds a stack and refreshes the timer.

Mask of the Quiet One

We wanted to lean into the vampiric nature of this Exotic by allowing it to grant access to the potent Devour status effect, in addition to its previous effects.

• Rapid final blows and final blows while at critical health will now grant Devour.
• This effect requires a Void Super to be equipped.

Stoicism

We felt that limiting Spirit of the Horn, Alpha Lupi, and Hoarfrost’s effects to only work with Barricades didn’t align with the goals of Prismatic as a way to "break past the limits." So, we are updating them to also work with Titan's Thruster ability:

• Spirit of the Horn
  • Activating Thruster leaves a ball of Solar energy behind, exploding and applying scorch to enemies caught in the blast.
• Spirit of Alpha Lupi
  • Activating Thruster heals you and nearby allies.
• Spirit of Hoarfrost
  • Activating Thruster spawns a pair of Stasis crystals.

Warlock

Ballidorse Wrathweavers

We are further enhancing this Exotic’s support capabilities while tweaking it to allow the bonus Super Shatter damage to be more useful in a Raid environment:

• Adjusted the Hearts of Ice perk to increase the Shatter damage of targets frozen by Shadebinder Super projectiles by 100%, regardless of who breaks them out.
• Added "Granting Frost Armor to your allies with Frostpulse or Winter’s Wrath grants you Super energy," ranges in potency based on how many allies it is granted to.

Skull of Dire Ahamkara

To help you sling more Nova Bombs we are giving a neutral game benefit to Skull of Dire Ahamkara that feels fitting for the Voidwalker playstyle:

• Added "Weapon defeats while Devour is active grant Super energy," ranges from 1% to 4.5% depending on target type defeated.

Sanguine Alchemy

Warlocks have some of the lowest Exotic armor variety in PvP, and for a while it has felt like they were missing a target marking Exotic in the same realm as Knucklehead Radar or One-Eyed Mask. What better candidate to fulfill that role than the one that already used to do it: Sanguine Alchemy! We wanted to be careful and make sure that the target marking didn’t feel unfair to fight in Crucible like it did in its original iteration, and we also wanted to make sure it was in-line with the soon to be upcoming post-nerf state of Knucklehead Radar. So, to activate target marking you must damage a target from within a rift, and the mark will fall off after 5s, compared to the “just look at them” and get 7s of marking from current KR.

• Now marks targets you damage while standing in a Rift. You deal 10% extra damage from any source against marked targets.
• Now provides Surge x4 to weapons that match your Super damage.

Verity’s Brow & Spirit of Verity

We are frontloading more of the bonus grenade damage for this Exotic to increase its potency even if you aren’t able to build to full stacks.

• The first stack of Death Throes now provides +40% grenade damage in PvE (up from +20%). Each additional stack now provides +15% grenade damage, up to a max of +100% at five stacks.
  • PvP bonus damage is unchanged.

Cenotaph Mask

We heard your feedback that hiding the target marker from the player wearing Cenotaph was confusing, and so we are reverting that change.

• Damaging a vehicle, boss, or Champion with a Trace Rifle will once again visually mark the target for the player using Cenotaph.

Osmiomancy Gloves

Osmiomancy Gloves can feel frustrating to play against in PvP, as they can allow Cold Snap seekers to catch players in ways that feel unfair. We wanted to address that without adjusting the bonus grenade energy they provide to keep their PvE viability intact.

• Reduced the increased seeker distance and speed by 50%.

Speaker’s Sight

We pretty rapidly pulled the parachute on Speaker’s Sight’s orb generation in Crucible as it made for some less favorable play patterns. After some iteration and internal playtesting, we think we’ve landed in a spot where we can bring back the orb generation in Crucible without encouraging self-damage and stalling at the start of a match.

• Six instances of healing a damaged ally in Crucible will spawn an Orb of Power.

Super Damage Exotic Tuning

With Revenant we are taking a pass at balancing the potential damage output provided to “one-shot” Super abilities by the Exotic armor pieces that enhance them. Our goal is to better standardize damage across the various options while ensuring that Supers that are more challenging to use or require the player to put themselves in a disadvantaged position are more potent.

Here is the list of Exotic and Super combinations we are looking to dial in, ranked by how much damage they will put out after this update (with the highest damage at the top.) We’ve noted how much each Super+Exotic’s damage will be changing as well.

• Cuirass of the Falling Star + Thundercrash - Unchanged
• Pyrogale Gauntlets + Burning Maul - ▲+10%
• Spirit of the Star-Eater + Nova Bomb - ▼-12%
• Spirit of the Star-Eater + Twilight Arsenal -▼-26%
• Spirit of the Star-Eater + Needlestorm - Unchanged
• Spirit of the Star-Eater + Storm's Edge - Unchanged
• Celestial Nighthawk + Golden Gun - ▼-5% (vs. bosses only)

We feel this order reflects the advantages and disadvantages inherent in each Super, with those that are quicker and easier to use outputting less damage than those that ask more of their user. The range of damage is such that in Revenant, Celestial Nighthawk Golden Gun will still deal around 70% of the damage of a Cuirass Thundercrash. So, while these changes may look scary, they actually are going to bring these Supers closer together in damage, allowing for more options to be competitive and viable in our most challenging content.

Needlestorm and Gathering Storm were already aligned with these goals and are not receiving any adjustments. The rest received the following changes:

Cuirass of the Falling Star

• As noted above, reduced the damage bonus from Cuirass to Thundercrash from 2x to 1.55x.
  • However, when paired with the increased Thundercrash base damage this nets out as the same overall damage compared to live.

Pyrogale Gauntlets

• Increased Cyclones damage by 10%.

Spirit of the Star Eater

• Reduced the benefit granted to Nova Bomb from 70% to 50%.
• Reduced the benefit granted to Thundercrash from 70% to 50%.
  • When paired with the increased Thundercrash base damage this nets out as a 15% increase to damage compared with live.
• Reduced the benefit granted Twilight Arsenal from 70% to 25%.

Celestial Nighthawk

• Reduced damage vs Bosses by 5%.

Weapon Tuning and New Mods for Revenant

Weapon Archetypes

We wanted to encourage more accurate gunplay in PvE without making content feel like a slog, so we have made a small redistribution of the damage dealt by most Primary weapons. In practice, this means slightly increasing the critical hit damage while reducing the body shot damage by a corresponding amount. Every sub-family has been tuned by hand, but they all generally fall within the 5%-7% range, as noted below.

• Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Submachine Guns, Sidearms, Hand Cannons
  • Rebalanced how PvE damage is dealt to slightly prioritize critical hits.
    • Increased critical hit damage by between 5%-7% depending on frame.
    • Decreased body shot damage by between 5%-7% depending on frame.

Heavy Burst Pulse Rifles have been a tale of two worlds: Incredibly strong in PvE, and unfortunately not up to par in PvP. We wanted to bring them more in line for both sandboxes, so we have increased their RPM by approximately 20, while reducing their PvE damage to slightly more than offset the faster rate of fire. This ends up granting them a faster time-to-kill in PvP, while reducing their DPS by approximately 10% in PvE.

• Pulse Rifles
  • Heavy Burst (includes Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst)
    • Increased RPM from 300 to 324.
    • Decreased damage in PvE by 18% for Legendary weapons in this subfamily.
      • Graviton Lance and Revision Zero Heavy Burst mode reduced by 8%.

Sniper Rifles have felt out of place in PvE content for quite some time, without any defined role if they are not top tier for DPS. We want to change that and further reward using Snipers against more than just bosses, so we have greatly increased their non-boss damage and greatly reduced their flinch against combatants. In Crucible, while it is a positive that players feel they can challenge Snipers and not worry about being shot through flinch, the amount of camera movement the flinch imparts is unnecessarily jarring, so we are going to begin walking that back until we find an acceptable middle ground.

• Sniper Rifles
  • Reduced flinch against Combatants by 50%.
  • Reduced camera roll against players by 10%.
  • Increased Damage against:
    • Minors - 60%
    • Majors - 75%
    • Minibosses - 35%
    • Champions - 25%

Glaives are going to get a more substantial overhaul in Episode: Heresy, but for now we wanted to correct a long-lingering issue where previews of the magazine size could be incorrect depending on your perks.

• Glaive
  • Corrected an issue where perks that changed the magazine size could sometimes display incorrect preview values.

Shotguns have struggled to find their identity in PvE in a world where Fusions and Rocket Sidearms are strong and less risky to use, so we have taken the step of greatly increasing their range in PvE only, to allow players to utilize them at slightly safer distances in high-end content.

• Shotguns
  • Minimum damage after falloff has been increased from 0% to 40% for damage vs AI only.

Rocket Assisted Sidearms are the kings of the mountain in PvE right now, and in large part that stems from their ability to be effectively used as a Primary weapon. We’ll be taking a larger look at their dominance in Heresy, but for now we will reduce their Ammo Reserves by 25% to make them not quite as freely usable without building into Special ammo.

• Rocket-Assisted Sidearms
  • Reduced reserve ammo by 25%.

Trace Rifles can be strong in the right hands in Crucible, but for most players they are too ammo hungry to get good use out of them.

• Trace Rifles
  • Increased base (spawn and crate) PvP ammo from 25 to 29.

Right now, Adaptive Machine Guns are the strongest in both Crucible and PvE, but we feel High Impacts have some room to grow, so we have increased their critical hit damage slightly.

• Machine Guns
  • High Impact
    • Increased critical hit damage by 4%.

Heavy Ammo Grenade Launchers have turned into something of a “fire in the general direction and get kills” weapon that also benefits from having a substantial amount of ammo in both sandboxes. We want to push them slightly more in the direction of accurate fire on stronger targets and reward direct impacts. In addition, Rapid Fires have lingered on the low end for a while, so we are directly buffing their damage to be more competitive.

• Heavy Ammo Grenade Launchers
  • General
    • Decreased damage from the detonation by 5% against combatants.
    • Increased projectile impact damage correspondingly, globally.
    • In PvE, total damage is the same, just split differently between detonation and impact.
    • In PvP, Heavy GLs now deal approximately 7% and 26% more impact damage, depending on the Blast Radius stat.
  • Rapid Fires
    • Increased Rapid Fire frame impact and detonation damage by 7%.

PvP Weapon Micro-Tuning

The global weapon tuning that we made to Crucible in our 7.3.5 update was done in the form of a perk that was applied to all players the moment they loaded into a Crucible game. While this gave us freedom to iterate far more rapidly than normal, it came at the cost of us not having nearly as much granularity as we normally would in terms of balancing weapon sub-families.

In Revenant, we have undertaken the task of moving all of that tuning out of the weapons and into the base PvP damage values, which means almost every Primary weapon in the game has had its damage changed by a small fraction of a percent. Most weapons had their damage changed by less than 0.1 per bullet (where possible we erred on the side of a damage increase) and the exact changes will be in the 8.1.0 patch notes, but we have collected some highlights below where we changed weapons by larger amounts to alter their behavior in the Crucible.

• Nerfs
  • Adaptive Hand Cannons
    • Base Damage from 44.7 to 44.5, Critical Hit Damage from 80.3 to 80.1
      • Slightly reduces 3-tap range once damage falloff has begun (<1m).
  • Adaptive Auto Rifles
    • Critical Hit Damage from 26.5 to 26.25.
      
      • Reduces forgiveness against high resilience tiers.
  • High-Impact Pulse Rifles
    • Critical Hit Damage from 40.1 to 39.6.
      • Lowers the resiliency threshold to force 6C instead of 5C1B to 5.
• Buffs
  • Adaptive Submachine Guns
    • Base Damage from 10.9 to 11.5.
      • Decreases body shot time-to-kill.
  • Precisions Auto Rifles
    • Base Damage from 19 to 19.4, Critical Hit Damage from 33.6 to 33.95.
      • Reduces the nerf they received in Destiny 2: Into the Light by ~50%.
  • High-Impact Auto Rifles
    • Base Damage from 22 to 23, Critical Hit Damage from 40.1 to 41.4.
      • Slightly increases forgiveness and range after damage falloff.
  • Precision Hand Cannons
    • Base Damage from 40.4 to 45.3, Critical Hit Damage from 70.25 to 70.2.
      • Decreases body shot time-to-kill.
  • Heavy Burst Hand Cannons
    • Base Damage from 23.8 to 24, Critical Hit Damage from 49.6 to 52.8.
      • Slightly increases forgiveness and range after damage falloff, allows better interaction with damage boosts.
  • Heavy Burst Pulse Rifles
    • Critical Hit Damage from 41.95 to 42.55 (RPM increased to ~320).
      • Decreases optimal time-to-kill from 0.87s to 0.80s.
  • Aggressive Scout Rifles
    • Critical Hit Damage from 91.1 to 91.8.
      • Allows better interaction with damage boosts.

Exotic Weapons

For our Revenant Exotic weapons balance pass we focused on weapon types and elements that would be featured in the artifact as well as those that had been in need of some love for a while.

Choir of One shipped just a little bit hot in PvE, both in terms of how much ammo it could carry in reserves and how much damage it was dealing at point blank range. On the other hand, in PvP players quickly realized they had the opposite problem, with not nearly enough ammo and insufficient damage against players when fired from the hip.

• Reduced base reserves from 250 to 200.
• Reduced max reserves from 384 to 300.
• Reduced impact damage of the Point-Blank projectile by 50%.
• Increased hip fire projectile damage against players by 10%.
• Now starts with seven ammo in Crucible and gains seven from crates and ammo bricks.

Huckleberry has been overshadowed by many more recent Exotics, so we wanted to give it something a little more exciting.

• Huckleberry – Now fully reloads on kills. Replaced catalyst with Kinetic Tremors.

Tarrabah can be a beast in the right situation, but can struggle in higher end content. We took a note from Riskrunner to try to help solve that.

• Tarrabah - When Ravenous Beast is active, gain damage resistance against incoming Solar damage.
• 50% vs combatants, 15% vs players

Symmetry still can have a hard time getting going in high pressure situations, so we added a secondary trigger of kills to help keep its perk rolling.

• Symmetry - Now gains a stack of Dynamic Charge on kills in addition to precision hits.

Duality has been popular in PvP for its versatility for a long while but has not been able to compete against similar options in PvE. We’ve made it a bit easier to activate this perk and keep going alongside the above global shotgun changes.

• Duality - On Black Wings stacks for max effect reduced from 5 to 3. Extended duration of buff from 7s to 10s.

Bad Juju has a hard time getting its kill streak going in PvE, especially in higher end content. We’ve made some changes to help it reach the higher stacks of String of Curses a bit easier.

• Bad Juju - Increased lifetime of String of Curses from 3.5s base to 5.5s base; 7.5s with the catalyst. Increased magazine size from 27 to 36.
• The weapon also appears to have become more haunted than it used to be…

Ex Diris is fairly hard to use and more ammo-hungry compared to similar options, without a significant enough payout. We’ve made some adjustments to make this easier to use and also allow the weapon to scale a bit better into higher end content.

• Ex Diris
• Increased direct hit damage vs combatants by 33%.
• Adjusted recoil and projectile to have a much flatter trajectory by doing the following:
• Reduced camera recoil from firing by ~50%.
• Increased projectile velocity.
• Reduced projectile gravity.
• +5 ammo in reserves.
• Now spawns a moth on 2 direct hits.
• Reduced moth cooldown from 4s to 3s, shared with the kill trigger.

Fighting Lion still has a dedicated fanbase but has been overshadowed by more recent additions to the sandbox. We added something to help it fit into some Void-centric builds.

• Fighting Lion
  • Now spawns a volatile burst on direct hits.

Prospector’s Exotic perk has long been something largely impractical to most activities. We’ve made some significant changes to make the weapon more viable, while still remaining true to its core fantasy.

• Prospector
• Now spawns three powerful cluster bombs on detonation dealing substantially more damage per shot over a much larger area than previously.
• Removed sticky grenade, flame grenade, and remote detonation function.
• Mag size reduced to 6.
• Bonus ammo reserves on the catalyst changed to +50 Reload speed.

Chaperone is another Shotgun with a long and storied history in PvP. These changes in addition to the above global Shotgun changes open up new possibilities for this Exotic in PvE activities.

• Chaperone
• Added the ability to trigger Roadborn on two rapid precision hits.
• Precision hits with Roadborn active also extend it by three seconds.
• +20 stability, +25% reload speed with Roadborn active.
• Increased base ammo reserves.

Lumina has been overshadowed a bit by Support Auto Rifles since their release, so we did a pass over it to let the weapon inherit some of the new things we made for those Auto Rifles.

• Lumina
  • Updated hip fire projectiles to behave more closely to Support Auto Rifle healing shots.

Weapon Perks

In Revenant, we have corrected an issue where the Sever debuff was not appropriately reducing outgoing damage from players.

• Slice
  • Now works correctly in Crucible.

Managing the invisible cooldown on this perk in comparison to Slideshot has been a long-standing annoyance, so we have fixed that.

• Slideways
  • Can now be refreshed if you slide again following the completion of the initial slide.

Widened the trigger on Alloy mag so it provides value more often.

• Alloy Mag
  • Now increases reload speed when the magazine is near empty.

These two auto loading perks have long been too high value for their effort in comparison to similar options, so we are making them take a bit longer to trigger their effects. With that in mind, we are adding more perk options that are viable in damage rotations that require a bit more effort from the player.

• Auto-Loading Holster
  • Increased time to reload by one second for both base and enhanced
• Reconstruction
  • Increased time to start reloading by two seconds for both base and enhanced

The return of this perk was not as exciting as we wanted it to be, so we are giving it a bit more love.

• Master of Arms
  • Can now stack up to x2. x1 grants 15% damage for 7s, x2 grants 25% damage for 4s and drops back to x1 when the timer expires.

The trigger for this perk was unnecessarily difficult for its output.

• Dawning Origin
  • Removed the time limit between kills, now requires kills in a life instead of in rapid succession.

The Iron Banner perks have long been divisive on their use due to their stat downsides, so we are reducing the downsides.

• Iron Reach, Iron Gaze, Iron Grip
  • Reduced the downside stat penalties from -30 to -20 at base, and -25 to -15 for the Enhanced.

Weapon Mods

The landscape of weapon mods has been a bit stale for quite some time, so we are adding a number of new weapon mods to add a bit more variety. This set of mods is testing the waters for potentially adding more mods in future releases.

• Added several new weapon mods. These can be equipped on enhanced or crafted weapons. Here's the list broken down by category.
• Combo stat mod: Bundles two stats (+6 / +6)
• Ballistics: range/stability
• Tactical: reload/handling
• Aerodynamics: blast radius/projectile speed
• Tension: draw time/accuracy
• Edge: charge rate/guard resistance
• Anti-flinch: 15% flinch reduction
• Ammo Finder enhancement:
• Special Finder Enhancement: Progresses roughly 10% faster per kill with this weapon.
• Heavy Finder Enhancement: Progresses roughly 10% faster per kill with this weapon.
• Optics mod: Allows customization of weapon zoom
• Marksman Optics: Sniper Rifle, Linear Fusion Rifle, Scout Rifle, Bow, Machinegun, Trace Rifle, Rocket Launcher
• Marksman Optics: High: +2 zoom
• Marksman Optics: Low: -2 zoom
• CQC Optics: Hand Cannon, Pulse Rifle, Auto Rifle, Submachinegun, Sidearm, Fusion Rifle, Breech Grenade Launcher, Drum Grenade Launcher
• CQC Optics: High: +1 zoom
• CQC Optics: Low:  -1 zoom
• Synergy: Escalating chance to spawn a subclass bauble matching this weapon's damage type. Kinetic weapons spawn an orb of power instead.
• Stunloader: Partially refills this weapon's magazine on stunning a Champion.

Thoughts on the Future

With Revenant in the bag we’re looking ahead to Episode: Heresy and beyond. We have some great changes upcoming including significant updates to Glaives, a particularly underutilized Heavy-ammo Sniper, and even Aggressive Frame Fusion Rifles. Further down the line, we have big plans for wide changes to the overall ammo economy, introducing more determinism and buildcrafting options.

Hunting Scorn with New Gear

Speaking of weapons, it's high time we present to you the Seasonal weapons dropping along Revenant. They all share the same Origin Trait, called Dark Ether Harvest, their perks can be enhanced, and during Act I you'll have the following seven available. There are some redacted perks in there we prefer you find about while playing.

• Insurmountable - Void Precision Frame Sidearm
  • Column 3: [REDACTED], Repulsor Brace, To The Pain, Threat Detector, Attrition Orbs, Demolitionist, Air Trigger
  • Column 4: Destabilizing Rounds, Desperate Measures, One For All, Surrounded, Rampage, [REDACTED], Harmony
• Sovereignity - Void Adaptive Frame Sniper Rifle
  • Column 3: Explosive Payload, Discord, Reconstruction, Enlightened Action, No Distractions, Demolitionist, Strategist
  • Column 4: Harmony, Desperate Measures, Precision Instrument, [REDACTED], Box Breathing, Adrenaline Junkie, Firing Line
• Red Tape - Stasis Lightweight Frame Scout Rifle
  • Column 3: [REDACTED], [REDACTED], Keep Away, [REDACTED], Attrition Orbs, Fourth Time's the Charm, Envious Assassin
  • Column 4: Headstone, High-Impact Reserves, Focused Fury, One For All, Explosive Payload, Harmony, Rampage
• Vantage Point - Arc Adaptive Frame Pulse Rifle
  • Column 3: [REDACTED], Keep Away, Stats For All, Deconstruct, To The Pain, [REDACTED], Feeding Frenzy
  • Column 4: Voltshot, One For All, High-Impact Reserves, Desperate Measures, Multikill Clip, Swashbuckler, Headseeker
• Exuviae - Stasis Aggressive Frame Hand Cannon
  • Column 3: [REDACTED], Triple Tap, To the Pain, Encore, [REDACTED], Stats for All, Outlaw
  • Column 4: Headstone, Precision Instrument, Desperate Measures, Adrenaline Junkie, Redirection, Harmony, One For All
• Bitter/Sweet - Arc Adaptive Frame Grenade Launcher
  • Column 3: Reverberation, Strategist, Stats For All, Unrelenting, Perpetual Motion, Attrition Orbs, Loose Change, [REDACTED]
  • Column 4: [REDACTED], Cascade Point, Explosive Light, Bait and Switch, Harmony, Killing Tally, Frenzy
• Liturgy - Stasis Double Fire Grenade Launcher
  • Column 3: [REDACTED], Envious Assassin, Overflow, Reconstruction, Pugilist, Slideways, Surplus, [REDACTED]
  • Column 4: Chill Clip, Harmony, Lead From Gold, Swashbuckler, Chain Reaction, Desperate Measures, One For All

An Update on Seasonal Weapon Crafting

In our Developer Insight - Core Game: Rewards article, we briefly discussed the future of weapon crafting. While those changes are months away and we are not ready to share them in detail yet, we can comment on  the new direction we are moving towards with Revenant.

As we looked back at Destiny 2: Into the Light, we believe that part of its success was the chase for Brave Arsenal weapons, with the attunement system helping to focus that pursuit. We want to move more towards that experience, so starting in Revenant, the Seasonal weapons will not be craftable. Perks can still be enhanced using extra materials and there will be updates to unlock as you play the Episode to target specific weapons and even get extra perks per columns.

We believe the activities in Episodes work better when built around the gear chase, rewarding you with more than other activities and unlocking improvements like vendor focusing to help you get your desired rolls or even the option to get more perks in a given column.

Crafting will remain a way for players to get that roll they desire and it's not going away, as you can see below, but for some time the value of individual weapon drops in that godroll pursuit has been replaced, if not nullified, by whether or not they dropped with Deepsight activated. We hope this change will revitalize the passion to hunt down new weapons.

Reprised Garden of Salvation Weapons

While Seasonal weapons return more towards a focus on the chase, we still want to reward invested players with great weapons that can be crafted. That's why we are reprising Garden of Salvation weapons with new perks, and a new element even in the case of a certain Hand Cannon.  

We believe that the frictioned nature of the rotator and the revamped content are more closely aligned with our goals for weapon crafting. So, get ready to jump back into the raid and don't forget to visit Hawthrone at the Tower, as she will offer a quest that grants a Deepsight version of a weapon every week. Here’s a preview of the returning weapons. We have highlighted some very unique perk combos we think you might find intriguing, to say the least.

• Reckless Oracle - Void Rapid Auto Rifle
  • Column 3: Destabilizing Rounds
  • Column 4: Paracausal Affinity
• Accrued Redemption - Kinetic Precision Compound Bow
  • Column 3: Offhand Strike
  • Column 4: Archer’s Gambit
• Zealot's Reward - Void Rapid Fire Fusion Rifle
  • Column 3: Destabilizing Rounds
  • Column 4: Reservoir Burst
• Ancient Gospel - Void Adaptive Hand Cannon
  • Column 3: Rampage
  • Column 4: Kill Clip
• Sacred Provenance - Kinetic Aggressive Pulse Rifle
  • Column 3: Demolitionist
  • Column 4: Kinetic Tremors
• Prophet of Doom – Arc Precision Shotgun
  • Column 3: Threat Remover
  • Column 4: Voltshot
• Omniscient Eye - Solar Rapid-Fire Sniper Rifle
  • Column 3: Fourth Times the Charm
  • Column 4: Precision Instrument

And Even More Weapons

Let's keep this going. You already had a nice preview of what weapons are coming to Trials of Osiris, so it feels wrong not to share some more details of what other activities are getting. We can share some names, and even put some emphasis on interesting facts about them, but you will have to discover the rest by yourselves.

• Pursuit
  • Fair Judgment – Stasis Precision Auto-Rifle
• Crucible
  • Anonymous Autum - Arc Lightweight Sidearm
• Competitive
  • Deadlock - Stasis Precision Frame Shotgun
• Vanguard Ops
  • Wicked Sister – Strand Adaptive Grenade Launcher
• Nightfall
  • Rake Angle - Stasis Aggressive Glaive
  • PLUG ONE.1 - Arc Precision Fusion Rifle
• Gambit
  • Bygones – Kinetic Adaptive Pulse Rifle

There are even more weapons coming in this Episode once each new Act launches. Starting October 11, you'll also have the new dungeon weapons to try. And let's not forget about the four weapons from Season of Splicer that are getting reprised. Let us know what your favorite rolls are when you get them!

New Iron Banner Armor and Weapons Inbound

You may have noticed a set of weapons missing in the previous section, worry not. Gather around the fire, wolves old and young. Lord Saladin has some news to share with you all. Reminder that he also goes by Valus Forge of the Cabal Empire now, but we've known him for so long he allows us to use the old title.

To honor the old traditions, his Iron Banner will be back at the Tower for two consecutive weeks starting November 5. And to reward your might and to push you to hone your skills further, he's brought new armor and weapons.

Behold, the new Iron Intent armor sets in all its glory:

Now feast your eyes with the new weapons. We are pretty sure they will have you very eager to go back into the fray. The first weapon is the first ever of its kind, while the second is an old friend revitalized with a new element.

• Tinasha's Mastery - Stasis Rocket Frame Sidearm
  • Column 3: Air Trigger, Offhand Strike, Deconstruct, Enlightened Action, Impulse Amplifier, Loose Change, Reverberation
  • Column 4: Adagio, Bait and Switch, Chill Clip, Desperate Measures, Frenzy, One for All, Surrounded
• Archon's Thunder – Stasis High-Impact Machine Gun
  • Column 3: Air Trigger, Enlightened Action, [REDACTED], Dynamic Sway Reduction, Envious Assassin, Fourth Times the Charm, High-Impact Reserves
  • Column 4: Desperate Measures, Onslaught, Headstone, Killing Tally, Tap the Trigger, Target Lock, Rewind Rounds

Fixing Some Weapon Ornaments

Hello from the Player Gear Systems & Workflow team! We found an issue with certain weapon ornaments that causes them to not look the way they were supposed to. This includes bits of extra geometry that shouldn't be there, extra decals, and corrupted textures. It's something that can happen when new ornaments are made for old weapons.

When an artist makes a new ornament, they build it like they are making a whole new weapon model. Weapons are split up into different regions. In olden times, weapons were composed of seven regions, but now they use four of those as it makes the texturing process easier for artists. Using fewer regions also allows greater control over how artists use their texture space. While new weapons use fewer regions, old weapons still live in the game with the old region setup.

Let's use the Theoretical Endothermics ornament for Coldheart as an example. Here it is before the fix.

This ornament was made in the modern era, so it's of the four-regions variety. The base Coldheart has the old seven-region setup, so there are three regions in the base weapon that don’t exist on the ornament. When the game loads up a weapon, it gathers all the regions from the base weapon, and then it takes the regions from the ornament and applies them on top of the base. This led to the game mixing some pieces from the base weapon on top of the ornament. This resulted in extra geometry poking through and corrupted textures. Luckily, there's a pretty easy fix for ornaments that have this problem, we just add the old regions to the ornament but don’t put anything in them. That makes it so it doesn’t load anything from the base weapon, and only the ornament gets loaded. Here’s how it looks after the fix. Can you spot the differences?

With the launch of Revenant, we're including a fix for all existing weapon ornaments that had this issue. Check the patch notes next week for the full list. This Coldheart example is probably the worst offender; the other ones are more subtle.

We don't like to make visual changes to gear that players have already obtained, but in this case, these ornaments never lived up to their intended glory. We want to be clear about why these will look a little different, and not catch the community by surprise.

The Re-Inverted Spire

Hey, remember The Inverted Spire, the very cool Nessus strike where you fight through some cannons, a cave, and a battlefield until you reach an enormous drill that went so deep it found trouble? Well, it's back with a Vex-geance. Not that it ever left, it was still possible to play it in game, but it was one of the original Destiny 2 strikes that were bound for an update. And so, it's coming.

There's a new narrative to go with it because this time the Vex are the main enemy present. That means they will have terrible defenses installed and new units deployed (don't you love Wyverns?). Spoiling it any further would be rude and ruin the fun, but you have been warned.

Our First Ever Discord Quest

Enjoy hanging out with your fireteam on Discord? Interested in freshening up your style courtesy of a brand-new shader? Then circle 'round, Guardians - because we've got a brand-new Discord Quest just for you.

Starting on October 8th if you play Destiny 2 for just 15 minutes while on Discord, you'll earn a code for the Celestial Ties Shader to spruce up your fashion. Once you get your hands on the code, head on over to Bungie.net/redeem, log into your account, and then redeem your code. From there, head over to the Special Deliveries Terminal between the Cryptarch and the Gunsmith in the Tower.

This Discord Quest concludes on October 22. For full info, head over here on October 8 to Quests – Discord, otherwise keep an eye on @DestinyTheGame on Twitter for updates as they arrive.

Hurricane Helene Support

Last week, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the US as an extremely powerful Category 4 Hurricane, devastating communities across Florida’s gulf coast, the Carolinas, Georgia, and much of the Southeast. Our heart is with all of those who were impacted and are just beginning the road to recovery. Bungie Foundation partner organizations Team Rubicon and Direct Relief have both been on the ground since the immediate aftermath of the storm and are doing tremendous work to help these communities recover. Direct donations right now are critical in meeting the needs of those affected by these storms.

Team Rubicon’s veteran-led volunteers are working across the Southeast clearing debris, freeing up roads and preparing for a large-scale response across the region. Click here to donate and support this vital work and learn more about volunteer opportunities with Team Rubicon.

Direct Relief is coordinating with local health centers and free clinics on medical needs and has made available $74 million in medicine and supplies to health organizations impacted by Hurricane Helene. Learn more about Direct Relief’s work, and donate or start a fundraising campaign via Tiltify today.

Player Support Report

Update 8.1.0

Next Monday, maintenance for Update 8.1.0 will begin. Below is a timeline of events:

• October 8, 2024, 6:45 AM PT (-7 UTC): Destiny 2 is brought offline.
• October 8, 2024, 10 AM PT (-7 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought back online.
• Update 8.1.0 will be playable on all platforms and regions.
• October 8, 2024, 12 PM PT (-7 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is scheduled to complete.

Claim Your Seasonal Rewards

Make sure to claim any expiring rewards before they’re gone, including:

• Season Pass items
• Season vendor rewards
• Shaxx, Zavala, Drifter, Saint-14 and Hawthorne rewards
• Banshee-44 and Rahool reputation items
• Xur engrams
• Bungie Rewards

Action Guardians

I feel these wonderful Guardian action figures would come in handy when completing Verity in Salvation's Edge. They look incredibly detailed!

By Necrolytus. Via Twitter/X.

We have an extra AOTW this week, just because. Well, because it's very good.

A glimpse, by Monoceros. Via Twitter/X

Gundam Mode Online

“No matter how many times they get wiped away, we will never stop punching them in the face” - Titan Yamato, probably.

And we also have an extra MOTW, just because this fail is too perfect not to be here.

Oh my Traveler, that was a lot for just one TWID, but we made it. We didn't break the record (as much as I tried, ehem), but it feels really good to share all the good stuff and all the updates coming really soon. We are proud of the work we've put into Revenant, and we are eager to play it along with you all when it launches next Tuesday.

Just five more days!

Destiny 2 Community Team