This may be the first time the patch notes have been perfect (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Monday, June 13, 2016, 23:32 (3178 days ago) @ peaksutah

As I read through the patch notes for both the weapons and the classes, I kept thinking to myself, "Yes. Yes. Good change. Yes. That was needed. Good change. YES."

Holy crap. I seriously agree with every change made here.

Trip mine no longer sticking is going to F my K/D in the A, but it's a good call to weaken the second best grenade in the game and bring it more in line with the other hunter grenades (so now they all suck! Hooray!). That being said, the 3% damage reduction will drop the grenade from 194 damage to 188.18. I'm not sure how that rounds, but based on the armor values here, it means that you will no longer OHK with a trip mine on anyone running more than 2 armor.

The shorthand is that trip mine will no longer kill anyone on its own, ever. This fundamentally alters how hunters will play the game. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen, but it is the single most important change in these patch notes. Also: I tried for a while to find solid numbers on how much damage Hunter's other grenades do and was unable to find them. Destiny wiki was the only page with values and they haven't been updated since TTK launched (and didn't even have values for all of the TTK subclasses). I remember hearing that Incendiary grenade can 1-shot if it goes off right at someone's feet, but given that it's not sticky, gunslingers now completely lack a 1-shot grenade stick option for the first time since launch. Since they also lack armor and any sort of quick escape maneuver (no blink or shadestep), gunslingers are now being forced out of aggressive play and pushed back into setting trip mines and then watching them to get finishing shots on trapped enemies. Again, I can't say if that's good or bad, but it certainly will make me think long and hard about whether gunslinger is really useful in pvp anymore.

Another note: With the nerf, trip mines will no longer one-shot ressed players in trials if set below the orb as a trap. orb denial denied. Again, this fundamentally alters the way in which a hunter plays.

Personally, I always thought trip mine being a OHK was a good trade off since it was also easy to spot, had a narrow damage angle, and you can shoot it away, but I fully agree that it is heads and tails better than the other (very lackluster) gunslinger grenade options.

I'm also a bit sad that, with the utility of tripmine lessened, my gunslinger gear, carefully collected around use of the young ahamkara spine gloves, is basically gutted. No idea what exotic I'll use now. Such are the dangers of an investment game.

Now, this change also fundamentally alters the way in which everyone else plays, not just hunters. 7+ armor is no longer needed to survive a trip mine, so many more build options are open to you. Trip mines no longer kill most builds in one hit, so players will be less cautious rounding corners where trip mines tend to be since they know they can do so without fear of a one-shot. Unknown if this is good or bad for hunters, but it will certainly be different.

What disappoints me is that lightning grenade is not being changed, and it is far more powerful than trip mine ever was. Very, very disappointing to see that grenade not be adjusted down. I hope it gets revisited soon.

But at least burn was addressed! Because holy crap if there's one thing I hate, it's knowing you're just going to burn out of the course of the next seven seconds and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Can't even stop, drop, and roll. Good changes here.

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Enough with grenades, let's talk guns. The gun changes are all good. I like the clarification on what rangefinder and handling do (all exactly what we suspected, but now we know for sure), I like the nerf to counterbalance so it's not a "must have" perk (actually, I don't think the nerf was big enough and it will still be "must have"). I like changing the fast ARs to be slightly less effective (though that in no way makes the other AR archetypes viable... Slow firing ARs need at least 0.05% more love, guys).

After this patch, I predict Hawksaw to remain as the overall most common competitive primary in the game, with Eyasluna being probably the "best" option (for the lucky few who get one). Hand cannons, in general, will likely see a lot more use, and everyone's favorite Hawksaw will likely lead the pack just because it's easier to get than a "god roll" option elsewhere.

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The other really important changes here are PvE changes to make the supers feel more super. Absolutely needed. I'm really glad those buffs are coming in, especially given that my shotgun and sniper rifle both out-damage golden gun by a wide margin. Glad to see blade dancer and fist of havok get their due as well.

All in all, I'm happy to see the most commonly used and "must-have" skills, perks, and classes getting the adjustments needed to make the field more level. This is the first time I've felt like Bungie's finger was actually on the pulse of what was going on, and it continues the trend of good updates. There are lots of other changes I enthusiastically agree with, but didn't feel like they warranted discussion or analysis. I'm seriously happy across the board with these changes.

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Here's my wish list for things I'd still like to see addressed:

- Bring back SRL already. Come on, guys.
- Matchmaking is still awful. Why not form teams of 6 independently and then match them together based on overall MMR instead of trying to match individual players all at once and then randomly assigning teams?
- Lightning Grenade needs a big nerf. Like a 20% damage nerf and a 15 degree arc nerf.
- Stormcallers need to be slower, chain lightning needs a shorter range (or to only jump once from the target hit), and they need to lose more super on use similar to the new blade dancer change.
- Give players a non-RNG means of acquiring the hard to get pvp weapons such as eyasluna, lord high fixer, longbow synthesis, party crasher +1, etc. Just cycle them through the vendor or something.
- Chaperone needs a buff. The nerf was too big, especially combined with the ammo changes. Maybe change roadborn to give it +1 ammo per precision kill or something.
- TLW is still too good, and still suffers too much from phantom bullets due to bloom. For a gun that's supposed to be hip fired, it's a weird combination of too good and too bad all at once. Cut the damage by 10-20% and make it more accurate from the hip with a steeper range damage falloff, imo.
- Slow firing ARs need a buff.
- Certain "garbage" perks should be removed (such as reactive reload on rocket launchers, the vortex perk, guerilla fighter) and others need buffing (reactive reload on non-rocket launchers hardly lasts long enough for you to fire a single round after proccing it since the timer starts when the reload starts and not when the reload completes).
- HMGs need ammo values adjusted overall.
- Rocket Launcher perks other than Grenades and Horseshoes need buffing. Grenades and Horseshoes could probably use a tradeoff nerf, such as slower travel speed or reduced blast radius (reduced detection radius has already been applied and it makes no sense to have it detect in a smaller radius than the lethal blast radius anyway).
- MIDA still delivers an awful lot of flinch. Needs looking into.
- Low impact scout rifles could use buffing.