‘Destiny’ Raid To Receive Major Mechanic Change, Mythoclast To Be Un-Nerfed

Bungie announced Friday that another hotfix is on the way for Destiny next week. PlayStation and Xbox players reacted negatively to the Mythoclast nerf last week, so that is being undone to a degree. However, a major Raid mechanic for the Vault of Glass is also being changed which is causing yet another backlash.

As I reported for The Inquistr last week, the Mythoclast was too dominant in Crucible multiplayer matches. That led to the Exotic weapon that could only be obtained via the Raid to suddenly be underpowered in PVE. This created a backlash which Bungie has answered with another planned change to the weapon.

Visit the Gunsmith in the Bungie Weekly Update. http://t.co/AG4sOYZqcA pic.twitter.com/a6dzwx1VTi

— Bungie (@Bungie) October 17, 2014

According to Bungie, the Mythoclast nerf had a bigger impact on PVE then intended. It shouldn’t be a dominating weapon in PVP, but it should be a weapon that players can rely on for PVE. Thus, the following changes are being made.

• We are adjusting the base damage on Mythoclast. We are going to find a value that works for both PVP and PVE.
• In addition, we intend to raise Mythoclast’s attack value above and beyond the other exotics. Attack value dictates how much damage players deal to combatants and Mythoclast attack value being raised will make it more effective in PVE.

Bungie wouldn’t give a definitive date on when this update will come other than soon. So, it could be during next week’s hot fix or as part of “a more substantive update” that is currently in certification.

Of a larger concern for Destiny players are changes to the Atheon encounter in the Vault of Glass. Bungie is fixing the bug that allows players to knock the Raid boss off a ledge instead of killing him, as seen in the video below from GameTuts. However, the part of the encounter where the half of the team furthest away from Atheon is teleported to another location will be changed as well.

The encounter goal for Atheon is to act as a climax and the culmination of learning for a given Raid group. Part of that is making sure that each player in your group can perform every job as required. A change will take effect next week which fixes a bug with Atheon’s target selection. When using its Timestream ability, Atheon will select 3 players at random, instead of choosing the three players furthest from it.

Destiny Raid veterans are not pleased with this change. There are multiple posts on Reddit filled with complaints along with the official Destiny forums and elsewhere. The general theme of the complaints revolves around taking what was one of the few points that involved strategy and making it completely random. The fear is that this will result in players who are not as well versed in Raid mechanics or are fully equipped will not be picked up by groups.

Bungie has responded to the big player complaints since Destiny’s launch. Granted, it’s not always been to the player’s satisfactions, but it should be interesting to see how the developer responds to concerns over this Raid mechanic change.

What do you think of these changes to Destiny? Sound off in the comments below.