‘Destiny’ Rebalances Hunters And Weapons In Tuesday Patch

Bungie already announced Destiny: Rise of Iron last week, and it is spending the week of E3 deploying a new update to balance weapons and the Hunter classes. PlayStation and Xbox owners will receive patch 2.3.0 Tuesday with a couple of hours of downtime for the online shooter.

The Destiny 2.3.0 update will be deployed at 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT and will take the game offline for approximately two hours. Bungie will bring the game back online at around 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT.

Hunters in Destiny will receive a series of buffs and nerfs to their various sub-class abilities via the 2.3.0 update. Bungie’s goal is address abilities that feel underwhelming to use along with other abilities that feel frustrating or unfair against other players.

The Gunslinger subclass will see an increase in damage dealt by the Golden Gun super ability, while the Tripmine Grenade and Throwing Knife received some nerfs. The Blink jump for the Bladedancer now has a recovery penalty while the Arc Blade super has increased damage output against AI, but the ability to swing your way across a map has been addressed. Meanwhile, Nightstalker’s Spike Grenade and Smoke Grenade are buffed, while the Shadestep receives a pretty big nerf.

Here are the changes for each of the Hunter subclasses.

Gunslinger

Grenades

• Swarm Grenade: increased arming radius by 0.5 meters
• Swarm Grenade: detonation damage increased by 7%
• Tripmine no longer attaches to enemies; instead arms on impact then bounces
• Tripmine damage reduced by 3%

Golden Gun

• Base damage increased by 50% and an additional 30% against AI combatants
• Deadeye now increases Golden Gun damage by an additional 30%

Throwing Knife

• Throwing Knife base damage reduced by 10%
• Circle of Life modified functionality: precision kills with Throwing Knife reduce the cooldown of Golden Gun
• Circle of Life no longer extends the duration of golden gun
• Circle of Life +1 armor removed

Perks

• Scavenger: increased the amount of Grenade and Melee energy awarded by 33%
• Chain of Woe: +1 Recovery added
• Over the Horizon: +1 Recovery removed

Bladedancer

Mobility

• Blink now incurs a -1 Recovery penalty
• Blinkstrike lunge distance decreased by 0.4 meters

Blinkstrike

• Backstab valid backstab angle reduced by 30 degrees
• Escape Artist invisibility effect delayed by 0.5 seconds
• Fast Twitch recharge reduced by 20%

Arc Blade

• Base duration increased by 2 seconds
• Hit search range increased by 0.5 meters
• Added a 0.8 second cooldown between arc blade swings while airborne
• Energy cost per swing increased by 20%
• Energy cost on hit decreased by 20%
• Arc Blade damage increased by 30% against AI combatants
• Vanish now causes the player to vanish on cast in addition to its normal functionality
• Showstopper damage radius extended by 1 meter
• Encore killing an enemy with Arc Blade now extends its duration and grants a 150% increase to Arc Blade damage for a short time.

Nightstalker

Grenades

• Spike Grenade damage impulses per second reduced to 5 from 10
• Spike Grenade damage per impulse increased by 100%; total damage unchanged

Shadowshot

• Shadowshot now applies the suppression effect on impact

Smoke

• Impact damage increased by 34%
• Impact suppression and damage over time duration reduced by 1 second
• Jump suppression removed from initial impact status effects
• Base smoke cloud duration increased by 1 second
• Envenomed cloud duration increased by 1 second
• Envenomed Jump suppression removed from cloud status effects
• Vanish in smoke: +1 Agility removed
• Snare cloud duration increased by 1 second

Perks

• Courage of the Pack now increases Recovery, Armor and Agility by 2 per stack
• Courage of the Pack now stacks 3 times
• Lockdown increases smoke duration by 2 seconds(+2 additional seconds with the Snare upgrade)
• Predator now reduces the cooldown of the Shadowshot ability
• Shadestep moved to a single dodge on a 3 second cooldown

Titans and Warlocks also receive some minor tweaks with this update. Most notably, the Hammer of Sol has its damage increased by 10 percent against AI combatants and slightly improved tracking. The Striker Titan’s Fist of Havoc and Warlock’s Nova Bomb both have their damage output increased by 50 percent, plus another 50 percent against AI. You can get the full details in Bungie’s patch notes.

On the weapon side, Hand Cannons get a pass to increase accuracy for low-range versions of the weapon. This is countered with a steeper damage falloff curve to reduce the effective range of Hand Cannons while giving a slight boost to PVE damage.

The Hawkmoon is the only specific weapon that receives in changes with this Destiny patch. The Exotic Hand Cannon has received a 5 point decrease in stability.

High firing rate Auto Rifles are also receiving a tweak that reduces their damage by 6 percent. Meanwhile, the Counterbalance perk effectiveness has been reduced to 80 percent of recoil angle from 90 percent. Additionally, the automatic restock of ammo when players are running low will be detected more quickly now.

What do you think of these changes to Destiny with the 2.3.0 update? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image va Bungie]