Destiny 2 – Big Weapon Nerfs And New Iron Banner Loot Coming Soon In Season 14
Bungie revealed the latest news with us this week, giving us a sneak peek into some of the changes coming in Season 14, as they continue to try and balance the ever-changing sandbox. Plus we have news of some new weapons coming to Iron Banner, as well as some returning weapons too. Today I am going to go over all the news, so let’s get into it.
This Week At Bungie was released on 8th April 2021, and it goes over some big changes that are coming with the new Season of [REDACTED], which starts on May 12th 2021. We have a good idea of what’s coming next season, and I’ll be having a look at Season 14 in the coming days, and I’ll go over all the info we have so far in prep for the next season. We’re not too far away from the start of the new season now, plus we have Guardian Games coming in just over a week.
Before that let’s get into the changes, and lets start with Iron Banner, as Lord Saladin is coming back to the Tower next Tuesday.
Iron Banner
It’s almost time for the final Iron Banner of Season of the Chosen. This will be your last opportunity to complete the Iron Sharpens Iron Seasonal Challenge, so get in there and smash some heads! If you’re also trying to get your Power to 1325 for Grandmaster Nightfalls, don’t forget the four Pinnacle-powered weekly bounties that Saladin offers.
Iron Banner
Start: April 13 at 10:00 AM PST
End: April 20 at 10:00 AM PST
Before we go, we’d like to take a moment to look forward in time. Season of [REDACTED] is coming in a few short weeks, and Saladin has a few new items up his sleeve for you to earn when the new season begins in May.
A familiar Hand Cannon and Sniper Rifle will be rejoining the fight, but two new weapons are also making their debut. Our goals moving forward are to continue bringing some Year-1 weapons up to speed with random rolls, but also bringing some new rewards into the fold when possible. This always depends a bit on what resources we have for a given Season, but we’re looking forward to a few new Iron Banner-themed tools for your arsenal.
Looking even further out, we’re planning new armor for Iron Banner. These sets won’t appear for a few Seasons, but we have heard your desire for some new digs. Once we have more information, we’ll let you know! Until then, we hope you enjoy the new weapons.
The shotgun looks pretty similar to Mindbenders Ambition, with the runes on the barrel of the shotgun. A new machine gun added into the game is always nice and I feel that’s one of th emost under represented types of weapons in the game and got hit hardest by sunsetting. Overall, definitely looking forward to these new weapons, as loot is what makes Destiny great and these new additions always have a habit of mixing things up with The Steady Hand being a recent addition that just took off in popularity.
Next up let’s have a look at some balancing coming soon.
Sandbox Balancing
Prepping for Season of [REDACTED], we have a few changes that will be coming to the Destiny sandbox. This week, we’ll be focusing on things that are hot, so to speak. Weapons and archetypes that need to be tuned in order to create breathing room for other aspects of the Destiny sandbox to shine. We’re also planning quite a few buffs to underused perks, Linear Fusion Rifles, and more! The current plan is to cover perk and weapon buffs in an upcoming TWAB towards the end of April once they’re solidified, but we wanted to get this information out earlier than normal to keep you all informed!
Weapon Archetypes
Aggressive (120 rpm) Hand Cannons are very dominant in PvP, and we’ve received enough feedback that we want to rein them in a bit, without completely taking away their range benefits. These weapons will now have damage and aim assist falloff distance reduced by between 2 and 4 meters, based on the Range stat. This roughly halves the range buff they received in Beyond Light.
Vortex Frame Swords — With Falling Guillotine now viable forever, we need to adjust it a little, as its damage output is flat out higher than all other Legendary swords. With this change we allow it to keep its high damage output, but are reducing its full-reserves damage output by reducing the number of Heavy attacks you’ll be able to perform. Full energy Heavy attack ammo cost increased from 4 to 6.
Chip damage — Certain weapons (Swords and Bastion) bypass shields by varying amounts, which has caused numerous issues with Stasis-encased enemies, encounter mechanics, and other content. We have removed chip damage from Swords and Bastion.
Perks
Quickdraw — This perk is intended to provide faster swap speed, but it also passively buffs handling by +100. This completely negates the downside of using low-handling weapons (such as Aggressive Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and Hand Cannons), which isn’t something we want to encourage. Those weapons should have downsides and working around those completely via a perk isn’t healthy. We don’t think allowing a fast-swap to the Shotgun subfamily with the highest one-hit-kill range is great either. The Handling bonus is now removed one second after switching to this weapon, or upon aiming down sights. Replaced Quickdraw with Surplus on new and existing drops of Felwinter’s Lie and Astral Horizon.
Frenzy — This perk has extremely high uptime in PvE, to the point where it is clearly a better choice than most other damage perks. We like the high uptime and want to preserve that, but want it to award less damage than harder to activate damage perks
Reduced bonus damage from +20 percent to +15 percent.
Reservoir Burst — Now increases magazine size in addition to its other effects, reduced full battery bonus damage from 33 percent to 25 percent. Upcoming content requires revisiting the Power Level of a damage perk that can be activated simply by having a full magazine.
Exotics
The Lament — This weapon is a clear outlier for Sword damage, so for the health of Heavy weapon diversity, we’re pulling it back a bit.
Reduced damage of revved Heavy attack by approximately 16 percent.
Note that The Lament retains standard anti-barrier despite removing chip damage.
Bastion — Since we’re removing chip damage, Bastion gets something else instead. We’ve noticed increased feedback on Bastion and higher than normal usage in PvP, so are making a small change here and will revisit Bastion later.
Intrinsically staggers Unstoppable Champions.
Increased spread angle by 13 percent.
With all balance changes, we will continue to watch how they play once they’re in the wild and will look to make further adjustments based on our observations and player feedback.
Given that sunsetting is no longer a thing we were bound to see some nerfs incoming and it looks like we’re back to the delicate game of balancing weapons individually once again. I think this is a better solution that having a time limit of weapons personally, so I am happy to see this. Falling Guillotine and the Lament have been strong for a long time now, although I’ve seen less swords about since the buff to rocket launchers. 120 hand cannons are absolutely everywhere and very powerful, so I guess a nerf was inevitable. Felwinter’s is getting a nerf via quickdraw, which make a lot of sense given the power of Felwinter’s. I doubt we’re done with the Felwinter’s nerfs and would expect more.
This update was all about the nerfs, and we have some buffs coming. Linear Fusion Rifles are getting some love. I think they’re going to have to get a LOT of love to be viable, but then again no one was using 120 hand cannons until a few short months ago, so who knows, Linear Fusions could be great in the not too distant future.
Let me know down in the comments what you think of the news.
That’s it for this Destiny 2 News update. For more This Week In Video Games content like this check out YouTube and subcribe today.
