Destiny 2: Beyond Light does a lot of things right, but loot isn’t one of them. Responding to a week and change of negative player feedback about the lack of new gear to chase in the game’s latest expansion, Bungie said it will add some old guns back into the rotation.
The loot changes are more of a band-aid than a longterm fix, but still welcome nonetheless. Here’s what they include based on Bungie’s latest weekly blog post:
Remove all legendary weapons that hit their infusion cap at the end of this season
Add all of the Seventh Seraph weapons from Season 10
Add all of the Season 11 seasonal and planetary reprisal weapons
Weight drop chances so the newer an item is, the more likely it is to drop.
One of the biggest problems so far about Beyond Light is it doesn’t add many new weapons, and the ones that are new aren’t necessarily as strong or fun as those from the past two seasons which were no long available. While Seventh Seraph and reprisal weapons are still viable power-wise (they don’t hit their infusion cap for a couple more seasons), they had been removed from the loot pool. Adding them back in not only continues to make fun Warmind mod builds from earlier in the year a thing, it also gives new and returning players who may have missed that stuff a chance to catch up.
[referenced id=”1192419″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/my-first-three-hours-with-destiny-2-beyond-light/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/11/11/brojcidwlh7tkiw6afng-300×169.png” title=”My First Three Hours With Destiny 2: Beyond Light” excerpt=”Today is Destiny 2’s big day. Beyond Light, the game’s third major expansion, is finally live after a seven-week delay, and with it a major new patch and the latest season. I have a lot of feelings right now that will take days, if not weeks, to fully shake out….”]
Another issue was the amount of old gear players were being inundated with that was about to become obsolete after this season. Removing those, and weighting drop rates to “fresher” loot will go a long way toward helping to alleviate that. Of course, neither of these things changes the underlying fact that due to Bungie’s decision to forcibly sunset players’ older gear, and the limited amount of new gear added so far in this year’s big expansion, the loot pool remains extremely limited. Outside of exotics, there’s not a whole lot of weapons that feel exciting or worthwhile to chase right now.
Beyond Light’s Deep Stone Crypt Raid will hopefully change that a bit when it launches November 21 alongside a new sets of raid gear, at least in the short term. In preparation for the raid, Bungie has fixed some bugs with the Stasis class that were allowing players to do extra damage and easily bring down bosses extremely fast. The studio went even farther in nerfing the subclass, however, especially in PVP, and Warlocks in particular.
Here’s a quick look at those changes:
Stasis Changes:
- Stasis Breakout Damage reduced (110->90hp).
- Penumbral Blast (Stasis Warlock Melee) projectile speed reduced by 20%.
- Penumbral Blast (Stasis Warlock Melee) range reduced (was 28m now 16m).
- Winter Wrath (Stasis Warlock Super) duration reduced (30s -> 24s).
- Winters Wrath Light Attack (Stasis Warlock Super) cost reduced (5% per burst -> 4.5% per burst).
- Cold Snap seeker speed reduced by 23%.
Against Guardians:
- Cold Snap freeze duration lowered (4.75s -> 1.35s).
- Ice Flare Bolts freeze duration lowered (4.75s -> 1.35s).
- Penumbral Blast (Stasis Warlock Melee) freeze duration lowered (4.75s -> 1.35s).
- Winters Wrath Heavy attack (Stasis Warlock Super) no longer affects players who are not encased.
The PVP-focused changes all look good, and will hopefully make Crucible a bit less of a chaotic mess. I’m much more sceptical of the PVE nerfs. Speaking as a Warlock main, the Penumbral Blast already felt too slow and short range to me, especially for some of the game’s bigger environments. Now that’s even more the case. On the other hand, it’s nice to Stasis breakout damage being reduced. Hopefully that means fewer one-shot kills from bosses.
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