Season of the Splicer

Destiny 2 – Everything We Know About Season 14

This week in video games , ,

The next season of Destiny 2 kicks off next week on May 11th, 2021, but there’s still plenty of details to be filled in. This week is right about the time for Bungie to fill us in on the details, and hopefully, we’ll be getting a trailer later on in the week. Today I am going to round up all the info we have on season 14 at the moment, ignoring the rumors and the so-called leaks, and focusing on the facts.

Start Date

First things first we know that the Season is going to start on Tuesday 11th May 2021. We can see this on the roadmap for the current Season of the Chosen, and it’s right after the Guardian Games closing ceremony. It’ll be interesting to see if anything happens during that ceremony, or if there’s an event of some kind leading into the next season.

New Power Cap

Starting in Season 14, we will only be raising the Power cap by 10 for each non-expansion season. This means if you reach the maximum Power in Season 13, when next season rolls around you will be directly in the 10-point Pinnacle band of the Power pursuit. This Power increase should feel familiar to anyone who played Season of Dawn last year, and we’re excited to see how this progression feels alongside our new systems.

Vault of Glass

The story isn’t changing, but you may notice other differences. Our goal was to keep the feeling similar to how you remember, but we have made some updates to bring this content up to Destiny 2 standards. We don’t want to spoil anything though; experience it for yourself starting May 22.

The goal is to not fundamentally evolve this raid into something completely new. So, this will be the first race (outside of previous hard modes) where players have a broad understanding of what to expect while still encountering changes they’ll have to adapt to.

Challenge Mode and the Tempo’s Edge Triumph will only be available for the first 24 hours and then that node will disappear. The encounter challenges will become available again later in the season. We will have a full array of raid rewards and Bungie Rewards associated with Vault of Glass as well as an emblem available for completing it. We’ll cover all of the details on how to get them soon.

One quick thing to call out is that the opening area of the Vault of Glass will now be a private space for your fireteam, so don’t expect any backup from wandering Guardians. You won’t be able to abandon the mission and explore Venus (as tempting as that is). There is only one way forward and that is into the Vault.

Armour Synthesis

Ada-1 will be returning to the Tower to become our new armour vendor. Here’s a quick list of steps that players will take to convert their armor appearance into Universal Armor Ornaments:

  • Defeat enemies to earn Synthstrand.
  • Spend Synthstrand on bounties to earn Synthcord.
  • Convert Synthcord at the Loom in the Tower into Synthweave.
  • Use Synthweave to convert an unlocked armor appearance (Legendary quality or lower) from Collections into a Universal Armor Ornament.

To start, players will begin earning Synthstrand when defeating enemies in Destiny 2. After earning 150 Synthstrand, players may visit Ada-1 in the Tower to acquire class-specific bounties, which will reward Synthcord. We’ve spoken a bunch already about Transmog, and it’s coming bext season.

Vendor Changes

With the return of Ada-1 to the Tower in Season 14, we are introducing some small quality of life upgrades to a couple of our Tower vendors. First, in addition to being the primary vendor associated with the upcoming transmog system also known as Armor Synthesis, Ada-1 will become the vendor who delivers a variety of armor-focused items and upgrades. Each day, Ada-1 will now sell one randomly chosen armor mod from the general and armor slot (Helmet, Gauntlets, etc.) groups, and one randomly chosen Combat Style armor mod (chosen from the Charged with Light and Warmind Cell mod groups), which should make it easier for players who missed these in the past to get their hands on some of the armor mods from Year 3.

Additionally, on a weekly basis, Ada-1 will sell one armor set randomly chosen from the World Loot Pool, with a stat roll that also changes on a weekly basis. Finally, Ada-1 will also sell armor upgrade materials (Upgrade Modules, Enhancement Prisms, and Ascendant Shards) in the same way that the Banshee-44 does right now.

With Ada-1 taking on armor responsibilities, Banshee-44 is getting a few revisions to his inventory as well. The Gunsmith will no longer sell armor mods, but will retain the rest of the items that he currently sells. Additionally, on a weekly basis, Banshee-44 will sell a selection of six weapons, randomly chosen from the weapons in the World Loot Pool (two weapons each from the Kinetic, Energy, and Power slots) with perk rolls on each weapon that are randomly determined at the start of the week. So, at each weekly reset when you log in, you can head to the Tower and see what the Gunsmith is selling, and maybe pick up a weapon you’ve been looking for with a roll you are excited to use.

New Nightfall Weapons

Next Season, three new Legendary weapons will be added to Nightfall rotation, which will also receive Adept treatment when Grandmasters become available. As such, Palindrome, Shadow Price, and The S.W.A.R.M. will be taking a hiatus for the first half of the Season. When they return, all three will be available as potential post-game rewards when completing Nightfalls on featured weeks.

New Iron Banner Weapons

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.

Sandbox changes

Buffs

Weapon types

  • Precision (450 rpm) Auto Rifles: Increased Precision (450 rpm) Auto Rifle damage per bullet from 17 to 18.
  • Linear Fusion Rifles: Increased precision damage by 15%. Increased reserve ammo by 20%.
  • Fusion Rifles: Increased damage falloff start distance for Fusion Rifles, no effect on 100 range stat, +2m on 0 range stat.

Perks

  • Subsistence: No longer reduces reserve ammunition. Submachine Guns now receive the same ammo fraction per takedown that Auto Rifles do (was 10%, like most weapons, now 17%, same as Auto Rifles).
  • High-Impact Reserves and Under Pressure: These are now active as long as their conditions are met.
  • Unrelenting: Now easier to trigger in PvE (immediate trigger on majors) and heals 20% more.
  • Sympathetic Arsenal: Now grants +20 reload in addition to its primary effect.
  • Dragonfly: Now works on heavy shanks and servitors, and occurs even faster than after the Season of the Chosen fix.
  • Hip-fire Grip: +1 degrees precision hip fire angle threshold, +1.2x reticle stickiness falloff distance.
  • Iron Grip, Iron Gaze, Iron Reach: Reduced secondary stat penalty from -40 to -30.
  • No Distractions: Reduced trigger time from 1.5s to 1s and increased flinch reduction from 30% to 35%.

Nerfs

Weapon Types

  • Aggressive (120 rpm) 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. Full energy Heavy attack ammo cost increased from 4 to 6.
  • Chip damage. We have removed chip damage from Swords and Bastion.

Perks

  • Quickdraw – 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 – 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.

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.

That’s a roundup of everything we know so far about season 14 in Destiny 2. Let me know what you think in the comments. Keeps your eyes on the channel this week for the Season 14 trailer and reaction.