Destiny 2 – Exotic Armour Buffs and Nerfs, Mods Changes, and NEW Iron Banner Loot

Bungie was back this week with their This Week At Bungie Update talking about Exotic armor buffs and nerfs, Mods Changes plus some new Iron Banner loot that’s dropping next season, including weapons and armor. Today I am going to run through all the latest news, so you are right up to date as we go into the last week of Season of the Splicer.

Let’s check out the This Week At Bungie update from 12th August 2021.

Each Season gives an exciting opportunity for pieces of the sandbox to move up or down. Activities and encounters are one piece of the puzzle, providing fresh challenges for Guardians to take on with the plethora of tools in their toolbox. This week, the Armor and Expressions Team has some notes on how a few of your tools are changing. Some will be slightly more limited in dominating your enemies, but still perfectly viable options to take into battle. Some will get a bit hotter…

Team: Hello from your loyal blacksmiths working at our digital forge. Over the next few seasons, we’re aiming to bring some Exotic armor outliers back into line. Though this does mean that some overperforming favorites are going to get a little off the top, it also means that we get to inject some excitement into some less popular choices. First, we’ll start with something that’s been top of mind for many controller players since Destiny 2 was released, followed by details on our upcoming balance pass.

Controller Sensitivity and Traction

The Traction mod felt mandatory for PvP on controller and unnecessary on mouse and keyboard. This felt to be more appropriate as an accessibility option rather than a balance choice. Players (including us) have also long felt that maximum 10 sensitivity wasn’t enough on controller, so we’re making some changes to bring controller input closer to parity with keyboard and mouse.

Added a sprint turn speed scalar option (allowed values 0.3 to 0.8).
Removed the Traction mod.
Added additional controller sensitivity options (1-10 sensitivity is the same as before, 11-20 increases over that).
Added an ADS sensitivity modifier (allowed values 0.5 to 1.5).

Super Regenerating Exotics

The first set of changes, coming in Season 15, have to do with Exotics that refund Super energy. As a group, these Exotics tend to outshine other Exotic choices, especially in high difficulty, endgame activities. In some cases, they can trivialize the content or make it feel like the only reasonable option to equip for your build. Most of our changes here aim to standardize how these Exotics work and to place a cap on how much Super uptime they can grant by themselves. To offset these changes, some of the perks were reworked to be more generous with their refund minimums. There’s also a new member of the family!

Shards of Galanor: Increased the amount of Super granted for hits, but total Super regain is now capped at 50%.

Ursa Furiosa: Capped the amount of Super energy you can regain once your Super ends at 50%.

Skull of Dire Ahamkara: Increased the amount of Super refunded per kill, but total Super gain is capped at 50%. 

Phoenix Protocol: Capped the amount of Super energy you can regain once your Super ends at 50%.

Stormdancer’s Brace: Now also refunds up to 50% of your Super energy after your Super ends, based on the number of kills.

Geomag Stabilizers: Removed “sprint to top off your Super.”

This part of the perk led to a higher uptime in PvP than was healthy and gave Attunement of Control Warlocks an immediately renewable supply of Super energy for paying for mod costs like Special Finisher in PvE.

Retunes and Reworks

The next batch of changes is focused on injecting some more power and excitement into some less popular choices. There are a few Exotics that missed the boat this time that need some extra special attention (like a certain pair of Hunter boots), and a lot more that could benefit from a nudge or two.

Hunter

The Bombardiers
The bomb now has a secondary effect based on your subclass type:
Blind for Arc.
Burn for Solar.
Slow for Stasis.
Suppress for Void.
Note: The suppression will not affect a Guardian in Super.

Graviton Forfeit
Increased the bonus invisibility duration.
The melee regeneration speed now increases based on the number of enemies near you.
While you are invisible, your Recovery is greatly increased, and your weapons reload more quickly.

Lucky Pants
Added intrinsic Hand Cannon Holster mod, replaced previous functionality with the following:
“When you ready a fully-loaded Hand Cannon that deals Kinetic damage or damage matching your subclass energy type, for a short time each hit against a combatant from that Hand Cannon increases the damage of the next shot.”

Note: No, Hawkmoon won’t be able to one-shot a raid boss using these legs. Other Hand Cannons will get a fun edge in combat, though!

What is a Hand Cannon Holster mod? A new kind of mod that reloads stowed weapons. More on that below…

Titan

Precious Scars
Will now also create a burst of healing and bonus Recovery around you whenever you kill an enemy with a weapon whose damage type matches your subclass type.

Icefall Mantle
Removed the slower class ability recharge scalar. 

Warlock

Verity’s Brow
Changed to trigger when you get a weapon kill that matches your subclass energy type.
Increased grenade damage bonus to 20% per stack (up from 10%).

The Stag
Grants damage reduction to allied Guardians standing in your Rifts.
25% against combatants, 15% against players.

Promethium Spur
Has additional functionality:
While standing in a Rift, Solar weapon kills give you class ability energy.
When your class ability energy is full, Solar weapon kills consume that energy and spawn a combination healing/empowering Rift at the target’s location.

Keep your eyes open for other changes to come in the wake of these as well. Our goal for the next few Seasons, especially following the launch of The Witch Queen, is to increase the variety of fun and powerful choices available to players in PvE and PvP alike.

Finders, Scavengers, and Holsters – Oh My!

We are also rolling out some changes to mods that affect the ammo economy. Running double ammo scavenger mods makes it too easy to have 100% uptime with special weapons in both PvP and PvE. In PvP specifically, we believe this is an important factor in how oppressive certain Special weapons feel. Reducing their effectiveness is a step towards addressing this – we’re prepared to revisit this depending on how it plays when it’s out in the wild. We’re also looking to improve Ammo Finder to make it a bit easier to earn Special and Heavy ammo in PvE, while introducing a new type of Leg armor mod that reloads stowed weapons.

Ammo Finder

Now have an increased chance to spawn ammo on kills with primary weapons, and a further increased chance with Exotic Primaries.

Scavenger

Multiple copies of Scavenger mods of the same type no longer stack.

Holster

This is a new type of leg armor mod that will gradually reload stowed weapons of the matching type over time.

Multiple copies of Holster mods of the same type will increase the rate ammo is reloaded.

The following weapon types will have Holster mods: Auto Rifle, Fusion Rifle, Grenade Launcher (Power), Hand Cannon, Linear Fusion Rifle, Machine Gun, Pulse Rifle, Scout Rifle, Shotgun, Sidearm, Submachine Gun, Sniper Rifle, and Trace Rifle.

Hand Cannon excludes Eriana’s Vow.

Rocket Launchers, Breech-loaded Grenade Launchers, and Bows will not have Holster mods, as we didn’t want to affect any weapon that has a magazine size of 1.

Warmind Cells. Interlinked.

To be blunt: these are currently too powerful.

This isn’t a surprise. Even at their introduction, we knew they were very strong. That was the point! At the time these were created, they were only expected to last for about a year, so we could push the envelope on something cool and flavorful knowing that they wouldn’t be around breaking things forever with the force of Rasputin’s explosive wrath. They would have a time to shine, but eventually leave and make room for the next exciting thing. Now that they are able to remain viable in endgame content indefinitely, we feel it’s necessary to bring them down to be more in line with what the rest of the sandbox is capable of. If we didn’t, it would cause ongoing problems for activity design and weapon rewards.

Base Warmind Cells
Reduced radius of the explosion/effect range of Warmind Cells (10 → 6 meters).
Reduced damage of the explosion of Warmind Cells (previously 200-400 → now 50-250).
Global Reach
Increase the mod cost of Global Reach to 3.
Reduce the amount of radius increase (20 → 10 meters).
Cellular Suppression
Reduce the duration of the suppressing effect when using Cellular Suppression (3 seconds → 2 seconds).
Wrath of Rasputin
Reduce bonus Solar damage (previously 100-200 → now 25-100).

Elemental Wells

Two Elemental Well mods are getting improvements in order to make them a more competitive choice when compared to other Combat Style mods.

Elemental Armaments now has an increased chance to spawn an elemental well based on the tier of the enemy defeated.

Font of Might’s base duration has been increased to 10 seconds and increased the damage bonus provided from 10% to 25%.

And there you have it! With abilities and armor down, we have one sandbox topic left to cover: weapons. We’ll see you again next week for our final Season 15 flight check.

FIT FOR AN IRON LORD

Last Season, Lord Saladin brought some fresh weapons to the fold for Guardians to earn in the Iron Banner. Riiswalker packed a punch in the Crucible, and Archon’s Thunder could go on a rampage in PvE. Next Season, two new weapons will make their appearance: the Forge’s Pledge Pulse Rifle and Peacebond Sidearm, each available through vendor packages, bounties, match rewards, and the Seasonal Iron Banner quest.

But that’s not all…

It’s been some time since Saladin brought a fresh set of armor to earn. Pulled from the depths of forgotten seas, these pieces worn by warriors of the past are ready for battle once more. Introducing the Iron Forerunner set.

Starting next Season, we’ll be introducing the Iron Lord’s Pride intrinsic perk through this set. Wearing a piece of this armor grants a small chance of an Enhancement Prism dropping at the end of an Iron Banner match. Each additional piece worn increases the chance, capping out at four pieces total. Defeat your foes with the fury of an Iron Forge. Show no mercy.

In just a few weeks, you can begin to collect all these new rewards. Stay tuned for announcements!

Let me know what you think down in the comments.