This is not an INSANEdrive recap.

This TWAB... this TWAB has some real chest hair. It is apparently 6500 words, which is a fancy way of saying cheapLEY can go eat the contents formerly steaming out of my ass. lol. As I write this, I'm not sure I'm 100% on all of it, but enough to make a mild TWAB TL;DR. I'm mostly going to go over big name perk notes here, as I'm not too sure on all the ins and outs with the weapon crafting system yet. Well, other than it's a very D1 system that feels very D2 system updated. There doesn't seem to be as much "festering cores" or "sparkling jars of unicorn farts" currency with this one, and more about "unlocking" through use. That's all I really have to say about that for the moment (and even that impression may be wrong).

Anywho, with the patch note stuff the biggest most obvious thing is...

Exotic Primary weapons and Trace Rifles aren't sufficiently stronger than Legendaries for them to be worth bringing into hard PvE content, particularly against minors. Note that this change applies to all Exotics that use Primary ammo, and includes most secondary effects (e.g., perk-triggered explosions).

• Increased damage vs minors in PvE by 40 percent.

I'll give you a second to let that marinate. ...

Exotic Primary weapons (and Trace Rifles). In PvE. 40 damage bump against trash mobs. INCLUDING secondary.
This means that even in GM's all sorts of exotics that may have been off the table, are now slammed back onto the menu.

...And because it's me!...

• Sweet Business
  
• Sturm
  
• Vigilance Wing
  
• Rat King
  
• MIDA Multi-Tool
  
• Crimson
  
• The Jade Rabbit
  
• The Huckleberry
  
• SUROS Regime
  
• Cerberus+1
  
• Wish-Ender
  
• Malfeasance
  
• Ace of Spades
  
• The Last Word
  
• Thorn
  
• Outbreak Perfected
  
• Bad Juju
  
• Lumina
  
• Monte Carlo
  
• Travelers Chosen
  
• No Time to Explain
  
• Hawkmoon
  
• Dead Man's Tale
  
• Cryosthesia 77K
  
• Ager's Scepter
  
• Coldheart
  
• Fighting Lion
  
• Sunshot
  
• Graviton Lance
  
• Skyburners Oath
  
• Riskrunner
  
• Hard Light
  
• Prometheus Lens
  
• Polaris Lance
  
• Trinity Ghoul
  
• Wavesplitter
  
• Le Monarque
  
• Tarrabah
  
• Divinity
  
• Symmetery
  
• Devil's Ruin
  
• Tommy's Matchbook
  
• Ruinous Effigy
  
• Ticuu's Divination
  
• ...and Vex Mythoclast...

All OF THESE EXOTICS, INCLUDING THEIR (if they have them) SECONDARY SOURCES OF DAMAGE got a 40% bump against PvE trash mobs. I'mma keep talking about this, like... Outbreak Perfected nanites? 40%. The Huckleberry? NEVER RELOAD! 40%! Ace of Spades? ONE SHOT EXPLODE ALL THE THINGS! Trinity Ghoul is just... holy shit over kill. Why EVEN SHOOT! Just holding in your hands will kill all the trash. Graviton Lance could finally see some more use, might even see that perk shine! It's really cool when that chains. Bad Juju... faster kills means supers for days, that's going to be nuts... and so on. Korny might even have a reason to use Fighting Lion, or something.

It's good. It's really good.

That said, while we're on exotics. Buffs and Nerfs.

• Chaperone - Reduced passive range buff from 2m to 0.5m. (Because PvP.)

• Duality
  • Reduced passive range buff in slug mode (i.e., when aiming down sights) from 1.25m to 0.5m (pellet mode is unaffected).
    
  • The On Black Wings damage buff no longer clears on reload.

• Tarrabah (which is part of the 40% above)
  • Now reduces perk progress by half instead of clearing it on weapon stow.
    
  • Increased Ravenous Beast duration increases for damaging a player slightly.

• Ruinous Effigy (which is part of the 40% above)
  • Increased the damage dealt by guarding with a transmutation sphere by 66 percent (30percent against players).
    
  • Note: Transmutation Sphere multikills now count for Orb generation armor mods (previously only kills with the beam would trigger this).

• Lumina (which is part of the 40% above)
  • Increased range stat from 44 to 59.
    
  • Increased base stability stat from 46 to 56.
    
  • Sorry Thorn fans, Thorn is already strong and popular, and a similar buff would turn it into a monster in PvP.

• Ager's Scepter (which is part of the 40% above)
  
  • Fixed being able to activate or continue using empowered mode while suppressed or Stasis encased.
    
  • Rebuilt the perk — used to modify Super charge rate, now freezes Super recharge and deducts Super directly, fixing several issues with activities that change charge rate and outliers for recharge based on Intellect stat.
    
  • Super should now drain more slowly while empowered.

Note: Seems with all the differences in Super timings now, Ager's Scepter was having consistency trouble with its catalyst perk, hence the rebuild.

• Dead Man's Tale (which is part of the 40% above)
  • Reduced the catalyst's hip-fire rate of fire from 150 RPM to 130 RPM.

Note: I hope this doesn't nuke how this weapon feels like it did with Xenophage, but... RIP?

• Lorentz Driver and Arbalest
  • Increased flinch received. (Because PvP)

• Forerunner
  • [In PvP] Increased ammo picked up from a Special ammo brick from two to three (and from four to five with a scavenger mod).

Still nothing about Jötunn, and it's cross mapping, round the corner auto aiming, gosh darned projectile. :/

Up Next, here is some quick highlights on existing perks. This is not all of them, because this is a TL;DR, not a retelling of a bedtime story. Biggest one here is...

• Tap the Trigger is the meta-breaking perk on a particular Fusion Rifle. When stacked with other elements of this roll, it makes Fusion Rifles much too stable. So much so that we stopped putting it on Fusion Rifles, and then squidface sold it a few times. With this change we believe it's still quite a strong perk without being overpowered, so it's likely to appear on future Fusion Rifles (note: we did try reducing stability from +40 to +20, but in playtests the difference wasn’t perceptible).
  • On Fusion Rifles only:
    • Reduced stability bonus from +40 to +10.
      
    • Changed max recoil angle scale from 0.5 to 0.875.
      
    • Changed error angle scale from 0.9 to 0.975.
  • Unchanged on all other weapons.

In other words, squidnh3's frustration with The Squid Face roll of Main Ingredient is being remedied

• We want players to be able to choose to build into hip-firing more easily, so we're adjusting the Hip-fire Grip perk to support this.
  • Now increases damage falloff start and end distances by 20 percent (except on Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, and Fusion Rifle).

Hip Fire is getting buffed again. Not a big deal at first, until you realize what weapons, exotics included, roll with hip fire.

Other perks mentioned are...

• Adagio
  
• Dual Loader
  
• Danger Zone
  
• Headseeker
  
• Eager Edge (really bummed about this one. Classic "can't have nice things" reasoning)

Also hey, some perks are being removed from the pool (if they haven't been already)

• Bottomless Grief and Celerity (Both were attempts to inject some uniqueness into Trials of Osiris and Nightfall weapons, which we’re now doing with Origin Traits.)
  
• Underdog
  
• Shield Disorient
  
• Air Assault (though note that this may get a redesign in a future Season)

....and... I'm going to post this. I have other obligations I must tend to. There is alot more that I could summarize, but I have no trouble admitting this TWAB is large enough that I may need back up summarizing the full thing at a quality I strive for. I mean, I didn't even scratch the surface and this is already pretty large. I didn't even really touch the Legendary Weapons changes, such as Archetypes buffs and nerfes and the new perks based on gun type AND where you get it. Talk about the changing philosophy over the years, from Pinnacle to Pursuit Weapons and beyond. If other folks would like to fill in the gaps, then hey have at it.

The Near Future

• In Season 17 we’ll have a set of PvP-focused weapon changes, including:
  
• New ways for players to build for flinch resistance.
  
• Balance tuning for primary weapons (looking at you, Pulse Rifles; Lightweights in particular).
  
• Special weapon tuning (Snapshot feeling mandatory on Sniper Rifles in PvP, other balance changes).
  
• Another PvP Special ammo economy change, if needed.
  
• Adjusting how zoom outliers (both low and high) affect the performance of a subset of weapons (i.e., the Scope column shouldn’t be the most important thing on a weapon). This could take various forms but the intent is to bring both high and low outliers towards the average (to the overall benefit of the weapon archetype).
  
• We’re also adjusting several much-requested Exotics, along with Legendary perks.