Now that we're back from Shanksgiving, we've got a few more things we need to wrap up before the new year ahead. Not only are we talking about our latest adventure into unknown lands, this time channeling incredible characters from one of Ubisoft's most iconic franchises, we've also got a sneak peek at even more weapon tuning ahead, a fresh look at some new gear, and the community weapon ornament voting has begun with a special sit-down with the artist herself to talk about the process coming later this week.
Just like the previous TWAB, here's a quick rundown on what we're going to be chatting about this week before diving right in:
Let's get into it.
In case you missed it, we're getting our stealth on, Guardians! Earlier today, we shared our latest venture out into the great unknown once more, this time partnering up with one of Ubisoft's most iconic franchises. To celebrate our latest crossover, we are challenging players to take a Leap of Faith and embrace the way of the Brotherhood with new cosmetic items that will let you live out your best mysterious-hooded-figure-looking-for-adventure fantasy. From recent heroes to classic favorites, it's a phenomenal way to get the best of both worlds. Plus, more fashion. Who could say no to that?
Prepare to take a leap of faith, Guardians. In partnership with @Ubisoft, worlds are about to collide with brand new cosmetics.
— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) December 1, 2022
📅 Dec. 6 pic.twitter.com/Os2bmPi4mJ
Even better? That "hidden order" love works both ways with Valhalla players enjoying some Destiny 2-themed gear themselves inspired by some of the greatest warriors fighting against the Darkness with new armor sets and unique weapons inspired by some of the most iconic weaponry in the world of Destiny. Oh! And a new mount, because you can't fight crime if you ain't cute.
After all, it technically is still stealth if nobody is left to rat you out to the Templars.
To learn more, make sure to check out the full blog post right here about what's new!
It's a new Season on the horizon, which means more loot to earn. For those Guardians with a penchant for a different kind of challenge, there is a new array of weapons to earn. Whether you're heading for the Lighthouse or just looking to make 'ol Saladin proud before heading out to run Nightfalls, here's what you can look forward to with the upcoming Season:
One more thing! We also have shiny new Season 19 ornaments for ritual activities like Gambit, Crucible, and Vanguard strikes. Feast your eyes on more activity-themed fashion for the upcoming Season and marvel at our ability to always come in hot with that clutch green snakeskin look.
With a new Season on the horizon, a fine weapons-tuning update is just what Banshee ordered. We've got Senior Design Lead Chris Proctor back to chat about even more tweaks to gunplay that Guardians should know about. From an accessibility standpoint (it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me), the Full Auto toggle that has been implemented is one of the changes we're particularly excited for, but that's just one small part of a bigger update. From weapon philosophy to global goals, here's what Chris had to say about what's next.
Chris: First up, if you haven't looked at a weapons TWAB since the Season 18 one, you may want to catch up on the Festival of the Lost mid-Season (6.2.5) Weapons Balance update, which can be found here, which has important info for what's coming next. Additionally, several hotfixes landed over the course of the current Season, one of which included the following balance changes:
- Reduced aim assist on Special ammo Linear Fusion Rifles.
- Applied previous sniper flinch changes to Linear Fusion Rifles.
Global
We've seen very positive player responses to the Full Auto Retrofit weapon mod over the past several Seasons. Because of that, we have added a Full Auto toggle to the Gameplay section of the Settings menu that will be going live with the launch of Season 19. This setting will allow for all weapons to become fully automatic.
We'll be watching how players end up using this and are looking into additional ways for players to pick which types of weapons this setting applies to sometime after Lightfall. For now, we have this new toggle. On a related note, we're also aware that certain melees also require speedy clicking and are looking at something similar for a subset.
- For example: Glaive, Sword, and roaming Super melees (though currently, not regularly charged and uncharged melees).
Weapon Archetypes
We pulled quite a few weapons archetype changes from Season 19 into the previously referenced 6.2.5 update, so this section is smaller than it would otherwise have been. That said, we have some substantial changes here, particularly to Shotguns and Glaives, so it's worth diving into if weapon theory is your thing.
Shotgun
Shotguns were previously able to one-hit kill (OHK) from too far away and needed adjustment. Once that was addressed, the weaknesses of random pellet spread became clear: they've become less reliable, even at close ranges. This gave us a solid starting point to do something we have been looking into for a while: Giving each Shotgun subfamily a custom, fixed spread pattern, and a matching custom reticle. Each of these spread patterns is intended to give a subfamily a unique style of gameplay and predictable effectiveness at specific ranges.
The reticles are tuned to match the size of the actual spread pattern at the default field of view (FOV) but note that this is not the case as FOV changes, or as spread angle changes (like if you are jumping, for example). We'll update reticles to react dynamically to spread angle in Lightfall and FOV in a later release, though this first step was crucial for getting that prepped for implementation in the future.
The changes listed evolve the experience of using a Shotgun so much that we expect to revisit tuning on these over the next few Seasons. That's OK. Tailoring to different playstyles while maintaining a balance takes time, but we're on a good path. Also, note that we have held off on adjusting Fusion Rifles because the balance between Shotguns and Fusion Rifles depends a lot on how these changes work out after Season 19 launches. "The numbers, Mason, what do they mean?"
Here are the spread patterns for each Shotgun subfamily:
Aggressive: fixed, evenly distributed cone
Precision (includes Duality hip-fire): vertical oval
Lightweight: diamond
Rapid-Fire: square
Slug: updated reticle to properly show precision
Additional changes:
- Aggressive
- Fixed several Shotguns that were using the incorrect intrinsic Aggressive perk. All Aggressive Shotguns will now increase rate of fire after a kill, as intended.
- Rapid-Fire:
- Increased PvE damage by 5%.
- The reload speed benefit for the Rapid-Fire Shotgun Frame now always applies instead of only when reloading from an empty magazine.
Sidearm
Sidearms are now much more viable in PvP since the 6.2.5 buff to this weapon type's auto-aim falloff distance, but this caused a notable over-buff to Drang, allowing it to compete too far outside Sidearm range.
- Reduced zoom stat on Drang and Drang (Baroque) from 14 to 13.
Fusion Rifle
Now onto Fusion Rifles. Main Ingredient is still wildly effective as a range-y Fusion Rifle due to being able to roll with stability perks in both columns. We've adjusted some of those perks, but we don't want to poke at them further if it isn't needed, so we're just hitting the (slightly out of band) stats of this weapon directly:
- Reduced stability from 49 to 35.
- Reduced aim assist stat from 59 to 45.
Fusion Rifle reticules don't react much to changing accuracy due to firing or jumping, even when on mouse and keyboard and at a high FOV.
- Rebuilt the Fusion Rifle hip-fire reticle so that it reacts more obviously to changes in the accuracy cone.
Glaive
Glaive projectiles have not hit our quality bar for hit registration yet, so we have reworked them. We're also loosening the restrictions on some melee damage Exotics and have adjusted base melee damage and some PvE damage scalars to avoid degenerate damage multipliers.
- Glaive projectiles have been adjusted for more reliable hit detection over the network.
- Glaive melee attacks can now benefit from the Exotic armor perks on Synthoceps, Wormgod Caress, and Winter's Guile.
- Glaive melee damage multipliers reduced by 25-30% against Champions, mini-bosses, bosses, and vehicles.
- Damage against major and minor enemies is unchanged.
- Glaive melee base damage reduced from 75 to 67.
Hand Cannon
When we updated stats for Hand Cannons that used to be Lightweights (now Adaptives), we didn't touch Rose. Now that Rose is returning, we've adjusted its stats for smoother re-integration.
- Updated Rose's stats to work for an Adaptive Hand Cannon.
- Increased range from 38 to 43.
- Reduced stability from 45 to 40.
- Reduced handling from 68 to 60.
- Airborne effectiveness is 20.
Blinding Effects
Grenade Launchers, The Queenbreaker, and Grand Overture all previously used the older blinding screen effect, which players have reported could feel jarring and pose some photosensitivity concerns.
- Switched these to the new Arc blind effect, which has significantly reduced screen effect brightness and is overall less intrusive.
Weapon Mods
Weapon mods that increase the effects of weapon perks do not make for interesting decisions, so we've made a long-awaited (and long-requested) change to them:
- The Dragonfly, Rampage, and Surrounded perks now have their spec mod behaviors enabled by default.
Perks
Reworks
We're not happy with how the prior redesign of Air Assault turned out, so we've taken a second pass at it. It now directly rewards success and is much more dependable for players.
- Air Assault now grants a stacking bonus to airborne effectiveness.
- Maximum two stacks: one per final blow, two per airborne final, each stack is +30 AE.
Headseeker has been a boring and questionably useful perk on most Pulse Rifles for quite a while, so we've redesigned it, as well:
- Body shots now increase your precision multiplier and increase aim assist. Additional body shots reset the timer.1
- It has a 0.55s base timer. Body shots while Headseeker is active reset the timer.
Encore's initial implementation was a little complex and fiddly to use, so we've redesigned that one too:
- Final blows now grant stacks of Encore and stacks grant increased stability, range, and accuracy.
- Body shot final blows grant one stack, precision final blows grant two stacks, with a maximum of four stacks.
- Lasts 7s, enhanced lasts 7.5s. Final blows refresh timer.
- +8 stability, +5 range, and +1.25% accuracy per stack.
Seraph Rounds will be appearing on more weapons next Season, but in its current form, it's the strongest magazine perk by a large margin, so we've pulled it back a little and made it more of a tradeoff:
- Removed +10% range scalar.
- Now offers +7 stability, +3 range.
Tunnel Vision plus Kill Clip not being refreshable while active has always been counterintuitive, so we've now set them up to allow that. That being said, this makes Kill Clip too strong compared to other damage perks, so we've pulled it back a little:
- The duration of these buffs can now be refreshed if activated while already active.
- Reduced Kill Clip damage bonus from 33% to 25%.
Redirection didn't use our standard method of checking for weak versus strong enemies, so we've changed it to be consistent with other perks since it'll be appearing on more weapons.
- Now builds stacks against red bar enemies and consumes them on everything else (i.e., matches minor spec and other perks that use similar language).
Buffs
We want players to be able to use the Hakke Breach Armaments origin trait to bring down Ward of Dawn, Well of Radiance, and Stasis crystals in PvP.
- Now increases damage vs. Ward of Dawn and Well of Radiance sword by 30% (60% with the artifact mod).
- Damage bonus against Stasis crystals has been increased by 15% (both base and with artifact mod).
Gutshot Straight shipped a little weak on Auto Rifles, so we've bumped it up a little:
- Increased bonus Auto Rifle body shot damage 10% to 20%.
Compulsive Reloader's reload speed benefit is enjoyable, but on certain weapon types, it doesn't remain active deep enough into a magazine:
- Now remains active down to half ammo.
The High-Impact Frame intrinsic perk can be hard to use since it switches off with little movement. We've tweaked this so that that slow movement (e.g., crouching and strafing) doesn't deactivate the perk.
- Now allows a small amount of movement instead of turning off with any movement.
Ambitious Assassin's recent adjustment gives it a remarkably high potential for overflowing a magazine, but in areas with sparse enemies, it can be hard to chain kills quickly enough:
- Increased allowed time between kills from 5s to 7s.
For Well-Rounded:
- Duration increased from 10s to 15s.
- Stacking the effect still resets the timer.
Recombination had some reliability issues, so we made some tweaks and adjusted the damage. This was important since this is now available on new weapons:
- Tweaks to make this function in PvP as intended.
- Now grants up to 100% bonus damage at max stacks in PvE.
- 50% in PvP.
Zen Moment provides an extraordinarily strong (if not well understood) reduction to recoil angle, but missing would reset the perk completely, making it difficult to sustain:
- No longer deactivates on a miss. Now has a 1s timer.
As part of the work on Divinity this Season, we looked at other related hiccups, including Rewind Rounds:
- Rewind Rounds now work as intended when hitting the cage created by Divinity.
Genesis has always refilled weapon ammo on breaking shields in PvE, but that hasn't been the case in PvP. We've determined that it was a safe call to make to remove this restriction entirely:
- Now triggers on breaking player shields.
One Quiet Moment wasn't really doing the job of providing fast reloads out of combat in cases where a player has dealt with all nearby threats, so we've made the following change:
- Faster reactivation after a final blow.
Gun and Run was hard to trigger in PvP or encounters with few enemies, so we also decided to half the number of final blows needed to activate this when going up against most enemy types.
Nerfs
Box Breathing has been providing too strong of a benefit for too little investment on Scout Rifles, so we've pulled it back a smidge to avoid crossing time to kill (TTK) thresholds:
- Reduced damage bonus on Scout Rifles by 5%.
Unstoppable Force's damage was a little too high for the level of investment, surpassing other damage perks for strength and uptime. We're keeping the uptime but adjusting the damage:
- Reduced damage bonus from 30% to 20%.
One-Two Punch is one part of several combos that allow stacking melee damage buffs to get far higher than intended. Here's what One-Two Punch will look like:
- Reduced bonus melee damage as follows:
- From 3x to 2x vs most enemies with unpowered melees.
- From 1.8x to 1.4x vs most enemies with charged melees.
- Reduced the additional bonus vs bosses from 0.5 to 0.25.
Bug Fixes
To Excess (Opulent weapon origin trait)
- Triggering this perk across multiple weapons no longer displays a stacking counter on the UI.This perk never stacked its effects, so this change does not change its behavior.
Enhanced Perks
We've taken a pass over several enhanced perks to bring their functionality more in line with the base perks:
- Enhanced Unrelenting
- Shifted to +5 health regen; removed +5 handling.
- Enhanced Perpetual Motion
- Removed .1s faster activation and removed the .1s grace period upon ending.
- Added 1s faster activation of x2 stacks.
- Enhanced Timed Payload
- Shifted from range to +5 stability.
- Enhanced Explosive Payload
- Shifted from range to +5 reload.
- Enhanced Firing Line
- Added additional 10 handling when in proximity.
- Removed increased neutral range.
- Enhanced Grave Robber
- Swapped +5 reload to +5 handling.
- Enhanced Explosive Light
- Added one more charge (stack caps at 7).
- Enhanced Cornered
- Added +10 stability when active.
- Enhanced Cold Steel
- Weapon energy and weapon magazine capacity now add +10 to be consistent with other ammo capacity-increasing Perks.
- Enhanced Vorpal Weapon
- Changed from +5 reload to +5 stability.
- This will apply to the guard resistance stat on Swords.
- Enhanced Genesis
- Removed Primary ammo overflow.
- Added additional handling.
- Enhanced Flash Counter
- Increased ammo capacity.
- Enhanced Chain Reaction
- Updated the description as this provides a different benefit to Swords.
- Enhanced Ambitious Assassin
- Increased allowed time between final blows from 6s to 8s.
Exotics
Reworks
We identified a handful of weapons that we felt needed a substantial change to really hit the level of "exoticness" that we expect from Destiny 2 Exotics.
The Fundamentals perk (which can be seen on the damage-type switching Exotics: Borealis, Hard Light, and Dead Messenger), while functional, felt like it could do more to grant the modes some identity based on selected damage type, so each damage type now grants different weapon stats (think Elemental Capacitor, if that perk checked the damage type on the weapon instead of the player's subclass).
- Added stats to each element
- Arc: +25 handling and +5 range.
- Solar: +35 reload speed and +20 airborne effectiveness.
- Void: +20 stability and +10 aim assist.
Even with the above change to The Fundamentals, we felt like Borealis needed a more substantial change:
- Breaking a matched shield now refills the magazine from reserves and allows your next 5 shots to deal bonus damage. Not deactivated by reloading.
Jade Rabbit is a strong Scout Rifle, but its Exotic perk was lackluster, so we've redesigned it to be more of a gameplay loop:
- Quickly landing 3 crits returns a round to the magazine and increases the damage of your next body shot.
- Stacks up to 3 increased damage body shots.
- Resets if you reload.
Nerfs
Three weapons dominate raid Exotic weapon usage, largely because of their effectiveness and ammo efficiency.
Raid Exotic weapon usage, November 15
For example, looking at raid Exotic weapon usage back on November 15 (this chart shows each weapon's share of all Exotic weapon usage in raids), it's clear that Arbalest, Divinity, and Witherhoard are extremely popular. Divinity coming right behind Arbalest is no accident, but an entire team of six players in a raid only needs a single Divinity, so it's even more popular than it looks when simply looking at numbers. Another interesting aspect of this data is that Divinity ownership is roughly half the number of those who own Arbalest and Witherhoard. If that number were to go up, popularity of this weapon would also increase.
PvP Exotic Special weapon usage, November 15
Witherhoard is extremely strong in both PvE and PvP, dealing high damage quickly, and for an extended duration. We aren't making changes to direct hits, and we're leaving the damage and ammo capacity alone, but since this weapon in its current iteration is too strong in PvE (not to mention that the Taken portal is difficult to deal with in PvP), we've made the following change:
- Reduced Taken portal duration from 7.5s to 4.5s.
Regarding Divinity, this is a must-have weapon in endgame PvE. That said, the combination of the strongest possible weaken effect, the cage making critical hits trivial, and intrinsic Overload being too strong (as is evident in looking at how this weapon is used in instances like raids), it was time for a change. We looked at several options, including making the weapon harder to use or reducing its uptime by bringing its ammo down, but ultimately felt that its identity is all about making damage phases more enjoyable. Cage uptime remains the same, but we've brought the weaken strength down to match other standard weakens in-game. It's also important to call out that you can still apply a 30% weaken debuff with the cage by combining Divinity with Tether or Tractor Cannon.
- Reduced Divinity's weaken from 30% to 15% (still self-buffs to 30%).
Arbalest missed out on the body damage reduction that Lorentz Driver received, making it too easy to get one-hit body shots in a PvP while also not requiring enough precision in PvE:
- Reduced body shot damage to match Lorentz Driver.
Gjallarhorn is the highest DPS Rocket Launcher and a great support weapon for Legendary Rocket Launchers, so we picked one of those two roles and opted to lean into its support power:
- Reduced primary rocket's impact and detonation damage by 25% (Wolfpack Rounds are unaffected).
- This just brings it into the desired band without nerfing it past other Rocket Launchers.
Forerunner received an unintended (and relatively small) damage buff in Season 18's balance update that made it a little too easy to use. After the change, all it took for a final blow was 1-crit and 3-body shots, or 5-body shots in PvP. Here's what we've changed for Season 19:
- Reduced Forerunner base damage from 40 to 37, and crit damage from 72 to 67.
Buffs
We track Exotic weapon popularity when deciding what Exotic weapons to buff by looking at how many active players own a weapon and how much they use it in-game.
Lowest 20 Exotic usage by owners, with ownership percent, November 15
Typically, we choose from the 20 or so of the least popular weapons for a potential buff, either directly or via a Catalyst addition. In this case, we've adjusted some that have languished for years and others we simply felt strongly about. We have more of these types of changes coming in Lightfall, though we'll share those in a later update.
With the addition of the Full Auto setting, we're replacing the Full Auto Trigger System perk on each Exotic that had it.
- No Time to Explain: replaced with Feeding Frenzy.
- Traveler's Chosen: catalyst perk replaced with Surplus (it still has Osmosis).
- Vigilance Wing: catalyst perk replaced with Ensemble.
We've fixed an issue where crits from Dead Man's Tale were landing inconsistently depending on whether your aim was above or below the target. We've also made some small changes to its base damage, which will apply to all 120 RPM Scout Rifles:
- Now prefers critical hits over body hits in hip-fire if both types of targets are inside the precision aim cone.
- Increased body shot damage from 46 to 54, and reduced crit damage from 81 to 80.
We've also been looking for a way to help D.A.R.C.I. players. We know many Guardians would like it to move to the Energy slot, but there's plenty of competition for Sniper Rifles there, even Exotics. With the below change, it's a more interesting choice in the Heavy slot:
- Now applies Jolt when damaging targets affected by Personal Assistant.
- Increased base airborne effectiveness to 80.
Wish-Ender has always had a hidden damage bonus vs. targets affected by Witherhoard due to its identity as a Taken hunter's weapon:
- Increased bonus vs. Witherhoard-blighted targets from 10% to 25%.
While we don't want Special ammo Snipers to be perfectly accurate from the air without significant investment, we don't have the same concerns with their Heavy ammo counterparts. That's where this Whisper of the Worm change comes in:
- Increased base airborne effectiveness to 80.
The Prospector has surprisingly high burst damage, but ultimately doesn't excel enough at add clear or DPS for it to have a secure place. With the below change, it is substantially more effective at add clear, though we will continue to monitor when it's live in-game:
- Added Chain Reaction to the intrinsic perk.
The Fourth Horseman has some niche uses, but ultimately suffers from extremely hard-to-control recoil, which we've pulled back:
- Decreased recoil by 50%.
Forerunner is a fun weapon in PvE, but it's never been a top pick. Changes to the weapon and its grenade should make it a lot more viable:
- Increased crit damage by 30% and The Rock's damage by 60% in PvE.
- Reduced ammo cost to activate The Rock from 6 to 4.
- Increased damage at the outer edge of The Rock's damage radius from 0% to 20%.
Merciless is extraordinarily strong when ramped up, but it's hard to keep it in that state:
- Merciless' decreased charge time on hit now resets on a 5s timer. This timer is refreshed when you land hits.
Rat King is a lot of fun to use, but the allowed distance from allies feels a little too strict as it stands:
- Radius required to activate its perk increased from 15m to 20m.
Legend of Acrius has some movement penalties to make it feel weightier. We think that the feel of using the weapon does that sufficiently though, so this is what Acrius users can look forward to:
- Removed movement penalties.
Bastion's Season-14 nerf was a little more than it needed, so we've halved it:
- Reduced spread angle by 6%.
Quicksilver Storm's grenade intentionally shipped on the weak side. We wanted to see what the uptime of grenades was like in the wild rather than ship them too strong, but we believe it's safe to increase the damage and the radius a fair bit. We've also fixed a bug with the rockets: they weren't intended to be Arc, and this bug—unchanged—would interfere with the catalyst coming in Lightfall:
- Increased PvP maximum grenade damage from 80 to 120, and increased the explosion radius from 3m to 4m.
- Switched rocket damage from Arc to Kinetic.
Coldheart's Arc 3.0 rework wasn't generous enough with Ionic Traces, so:
- Reduced cooldown on Ionic Trace generation from 3.5s to 2s.
- Now maxes out stability and reload speed when at maximum damage.
- Picking up an Ionic Trace now reduces the time it takes to get to max damage.
Grand Overture's loop doesn't feel rewarding enough in its current form, so we've dramatically increased the reward:
- Increased missile damage by 50%.
Xenophage only deals Area of Effect (AoE) damage currently, which causes issues against some enemies in PvE. We're not changing the overall weapon much, but we are addressing that pesky PvE issue. Despite benefiting from solid ease of use, we felt that its damage could be a little higher:
- Now deals roughly half of its damage as impact damage, and the rest as detonation.
- Overall damage increased by 5%.
When adjusting Divinity, we also looked at some bugs relating to it, including Cloudstrike:
- The lightning storm will now correctly activate when hitting Divinity's cage.
Armor
Some Exotic armor pieces were part of combinations allowing extremely high damage output from melee attacks in PvE, so we've brought a couple of these down versus altering enemy health:
- Wormgod's Caress: Reduced maximum damage multiplier from 7.5x to 3.5x.
- Winter's Guile: Reduced maximum damage multiplier from 7.5x to 3.5x.
Note on Gyrfalcon's Hauberk: We have a change coming in 6.3.0.1. Here's a sneak preview of the changes that we believe will address balance concerns in PvP while maintaining a clear identity in the Void space:
- Gain Volatile Rounds when exiting invisibility.
- When executing a finisher while invisible, this Exotic now gives nearby allies a reserve overshield and give the wearer a temporary bonus to weapon damage.
Things players can look forward to in the future:
- A Heavy weapon damage rebalance:
- Tinkering with bringing some less effective options up while bringing some damage outliers down.
- What's the Lightfall DPS meta? Mysterious.
- A large rebalance of the airborne effectiveness stat, making Primary ammo weapons significantly more accurate while airborne without any investment in the stat. Think Icarus-level accuracy from before Season 17. Specifics are still in development.
- Some tweaks to the new Shotgun reticles.
- A pass at adding Subclass 3.0 verbs to several Exotic weapons:
- There are currently seven.
We all, at least at one point or another in our lives, wished for the power of invisibility. With great power comes great responsibility (you're a real one, Uncle Ben). The PvP community has spoken and they've said, "Y'all, something's gotta change with the power of invisibility when going up against other Guardians." Here to chat about that exact topic is Sandbox Designer Mike Humbolt.
Mike: Hey everyone! With update 6.3.0.1 scheduled to be released the week of December 13, we're moving up a change to Void invisibility to help reduce its power in high-level Crucible activities. For full context, we feel it's necessary to provide some background information on how the radar in Destiny 2 works:
The radar in Destiny 2 is divided into three range-defined sections:
- A close-range core, which covers a range of 0 - 6m that pings anytime an enemy - invisible or not - is within its range.
- The mid-range pie wedges, covering the 6 - 24-m range.
- The gutter, or the outer ring of the radar, which starts at 24m and has a maximum search range of 64m.
After update 6.3.0.1, when a player is invisible, their maximum radar range will be reduced to 24m, and they won't have access to the information in the gutter range until they are visible again.
While 24m sounds like a long range on paper, our playtests show this reduction in information availability has a significant impact on how invisible players approach engagements and allows potential targets more chances to get the drop on an invisible aggressor. It also offers a way to reposition when they hear the audio cue for invisibility. We've found this change has minimal impact on invisibility's role in PvE.
As always, we'll be keeping an eye on this as it drops and monitoring feedback and adjust further, if needed.
It's that time again, time to take a look at what the next Season's artifact will bring to the table when taking on ferocious enemies and baking treats with "Space Grandma" for the rest of the Tower. Here to chat more about what players can expect is Sandbox Design Lead Rodney Thompson.
Rodney: Each Season's artifact has focused on one of the Light subclasses, reinforcing and enhancing the 3.0 updates that players have been tinkering with throughout 2022. In Season 19, it's time to give a little love to Stasis . As we've always done in the final Season of the year, you'll see some reprisals, some reimaginings, and some more experimentation.
The Season 19 artifact will have anti-Champion mods for Hand Cannons, Scout Rifles, Bows, Pulse Rifles, Auto Rifles, and Submachine Guns, as well as the return of the Unstoppable Grenade Launcher mod. The Lucent Finisher mod returns to help you generate some Heavy ammo. We've also got some new twists on a few old favorites, including a version of Passive Guard that works with Glaives and a reprisal of Breach and Clear designed to interact with the Void 3.0 rework.
We're also trying out some experimental mods that don't follow our usual patterns. Be on the lookout for artifact mods for the chest and leg slots that grant bonuses to resilience and mobility, respectively. We also have a helmet mod that grants additional airborne effectiveness to the weapons you are wielding. The Monochromatic Maestro mod in the class item slot rewards you generously for using weapons and subclasses that match their damage types. We've even included a mod aimed specifically at solo players, which should be very useful in tackling those Legend Lost Sectors to get just the right roll on that Exotic you're looking for!
Back in August, we opened the gates for Guardians to vote on which Exotic weapon gets a shiny new ornament. The eventual winner was none other than the Arbalest Linear Fusion Rifle. Since then, we got straight to work with a community artist to whip up some crafty new designs. After pouring over potential designs, three potential concepts for new ornaments emerged. As for which one will win, well, that's up to you, but I know which one I'm going to be personally rooting for.
Design #1: Historic
Design #2: Black Armory
Design #3: Synthwave
Guardians can vote through a special email coming out on December 5 alongside a highlight of your Season 18 moments! Check those spam folders (and for those having trouble getting emails, check out this resource here for a potential workaround while the team continues to investigate) and weigh in when you can, because the winning ornament will be announced in the December 15 TWAB before we head into 2023.
We're particularly excited because this marks the first community-created item that will make its way into the game. Who knows what other community-inspired designs could make it in? But first, we vote!
Now that the designs have been revealed, we want to reiterate a point made during the announcement of this initiative: It's going to take a bit to go through our content pipeline when looking at this created ornament, so we want to set some expectations up front that you likely won't see this design in Destiny 2 until Season 21. We know that's a long way out, but we're glad you get to be along for the ride on this one and an important part of that process.
Community-created and community-voted, we can't wait to see what you all decide.
For a little added treat, we sat down with the artist themselves, StellarStateLogic! Meet the creator behind the designs with a special TWAB-edition Community Focus dropping this Friday at 9 AM PT.
Look. It's the holidays. 'Tis the Season and all that, and while we aren't Santa (red was never really my color anyway), we do have some more free loot up for grabs for those Guardians hanging in the Prime Gaming club. For those looking to switch things up a bit when looking at their gear loadouts, we've got the last month of Prime Gaming drops for 2022 to indulge in.
For anyone a little confused on what we're talking about, Prime Gaming is a spiffy program with Amazon Prime that offers Guardians a select few Exotics and Legendary goods to unlock. It's super easy to use too. Just sign up for your Prime Gaming account and link it to your Bungie.net account (If you have Amazon Prime, congrats! You also have Prime Gaming). Once signed in, you can select the sweet cosmetics linked below to claim them, and then they'll be waiting for you in the Tower with Amanda Holiday the next time you log in.
The latest Prime Gaming drop is ready to rock now and includes a handy Sturm, an Exotic ship that would make Midas proud, and a few other goodies to claim:
Need a little refresher on Prime Gaming? No worries, we've got you! Feel free to mosey on over to our support article here for more details.
Yours, in time.
So, you've helped the Eliksni rebuild their quarters (or at least, provided a solid start to a new home), what next? Well, quite a few things have happened since then and we've got some updates on known issues. To go over what's coming down the pipeline, we've got our epic Player Support Team here with some updates.
Do your thing, Player Support!
Known Issues List | Help Forums | Bungie Help TwitterUPDATE 6.3.0 RELEASE SCHEDULE
Next Tuesday, December 6, Destiny 2 Update 6.3.0 will be released. View our Destiny Server and Update Status page for maintenance times, as well as the timeline below (all times are Pacific):
- 8 AM PST: Maintenance is scheduled to begin.
- 8:45 AM: Destiny 2 is brought offline.
- 9 AM: Destiny 2 will be brought back online. Update 6.3.0 will be playable on all platforms and regions.
- 10 AM: Destiny 2 maintenance is scheduled to complete.
For more information, please visit our Destiny Server and Update Status help article.LAST CHANCE BUNGIE REWARDS
As the end of Season of Plunder approaches, so does the chance to earn certain Bungie Rewards.
Players looking to earn the following Bungie Rewards should complete the associated in-game achievements before their earn-by deadlines between December 5-7:
- Gift of the Thunder Gods T-Shirt
- And Out Fly The Wolves Pin
- Season of Plunder Soundtrack
- 2022 King's Fall Raid Art Print
- 2022 King's Fall Raid Pin
- Beacon's Guidance Hat
- Scallywag Seal Collectible Medallion Pin
- Vidmaster Seal Collectible Medallion Pin
For specific earn-by and purchase-by deadlines for each item listed, please see the Bungie Rewards page.PREVIOUS SEASON PASS AND VENDOR REWARDS
As we approach the end of Season of Plunder, players should ensure that they have collected any earned but unclaimed rewards from their Previous Season Pass page for Season of the Haunted, as well as any unclaimed vendor rewards.
Previous Season Pass rewards can only be claimed up to one Season after a Season concludes. Once we transition into Season of [REDACTED] on December 6, 2022, the Previous Season Pass page will be updated for Season of Plunder rewardsLast Call for Destination Materials
In case you missed it in an earlier TWAB, starting in Season 19, players will no longer be able to obtain the following Destination Materials:
- Dusklight Shards
- Microphasic Datalattice
- Helium Filaments
- Baryon Boughs
- Spinmetal Leaves
- Glacial Starwort
To learn more about the reasoning behind these changes, you can check out the full breakdown from Design Lead Josh Kulinski here.SAVE YOUR STADIA CHARACTERS
Destiny 2 players whose main characters are from Stadia should set up Cross Save with another platform so they do not lose access to their characters after the shutdown on January 18, 2023. Additionally, after January 18, players with Google Stadia as their primary account should not deactivate Cross Save for any reason. Doing so will result in players completely losing access to their characters
For more information, please see our Save Your Stadia Characters article.
Stadia players who encounter issues accessing their characters once they set up Cross Save should see our Stadia Cross Save Troubleshooting Guide.STADIA ACCOUNT BUNGIE.NET LINKS
Players who have Stadia accounts linked to their Bungie.net profiles who do not have their Stadia characters set as their active Cross Save do not need to unlink their Stadia accounts from their profile prior to the shutdown of the platform. Inactive Stadia account links will be automatically removed from player profiles after January 18, 2023.
Players who intended to set their Stadia characters as their active Cross Save prior to the shutdown but encountered issues should see our Stadia Cross Save Troubleshooting Guide linked above.KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help forum:
- Enemies may not spawn when entering the Chamber of Starlight Lost Sector too quickly.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Hippy: Look, I'm going to be 100% real with you: I'm a sucker for anything that's player-voiced just because it feels like getting let in on a secret. It's a chance for us to see you as a Guardian. Your voice, your thoughts, your decisions. Episode 1 of a new player-made series called Lights Inferno shows off one Warlock's journey with a nervous Ghost, and what I'm 99.99% sure is Morgan Freeman as a Titan based on that voice. Which... doesn't seem right, but it sounds cool so we're rolling with it.
Roll the clip!
Movie of the Week: Lights Inferno | Player-Voiced Series
This next one was just too good to pass up, because who wouldn't want to know what their loadout choice says about them? [hides Witherhoard in PvP]
Movie of the Week: Destruction Recipients
Bruno: Last week, there wasn't a TWAB because the team had some well-deserved time off during the holiday weekend. But we are back now with some incredible (and kinda deep) art for this week. I love it when the community focuses on certain characters that are not so well-known or popular and brings them to the front beautifully reimagined. Please, keep doing it.
Art of the Week: The Phoenix and The Pidgeon
Its 12:26 AM, thats the start of
— Scint-H ⭐️ Sharing custody w Misraaks (@aGhostsDestiny) November 28, 2022
Day 1, "Books" 👏✨️
Pigeon brought Phoenix some rare texts, & Phoenix loves them... but not as much as he loves Pigeon ❤💜#Destiny2Art #AOTW #O14 #O14Week2022 pic.twitter.com/P11P0I69SZ
Ivan: Is there a person who doesn't love Eido? Is there a person who knows what's inside Eido's backpack? Well, I'm not one of them. Eido sends her love, and we accept.
Art of the Week: Eido Love
Extra Art of the Week: The Weapon's Gardener
melakheth - on help#destiny2 #AOTW pic.twitter.com/YUvYUiH4V4
— the witness but better (@plasmometer) November 28, 2022
Even more extra Art of the Week: The Daughter Remembers
Recall and Recognition: In Which a Daughter Remembers and a Mother Forgets#DestinyArt #Destiny2Art #AOTW pic.twitter.com/AYrLrQqQJr
— Randy // Cheksmikskel of House Snaksis (@rivaldi22) November 26, 2022
OK, one more: Them
They stay winning ☝️#Destiny2 #Destiny2Art #destinyart pic.twitter.com/GPJK1HDvA0
— Quiblett :) (comms: open 0/3) (@Quib1ett) November 29, 2022
That was another lengthier TWAB, but we hope you enjoyed what the different teams had to share today. Only a few more TWABs left of the year, with December 15 being the final one before we get to be all cheesy and say, "see you next year" to everyone until someone finally decides to punch us.
Before we let y'all go, a small sneak peek into next week's TWAB includes more creative ways to get your stealth on with the Ubisoft announcement, we're getting those ovens ready for "Space Grandma," and a traceable outline of previous updates that you'll want to keep in mind for the road ahead. It'll be a good time, especially with all those cookies. We can't wait to get festive with everyone again to ring in a new year the right way! But while you're guzzling down all those space cookies, just your reminder to remember to drink that water, prioritize that self-care, and always lead with your kindest foot forward.
See you next time, friends.
"I should go,"
<3 Hippy
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