From the desk of Greg Peng.
With every new Destiny expansion, we find an opportunity to try to holistically address Sandbox balance. We learn from our success and mistakes, scrutinize player activity from our vast reserves of player data, and come up with a plan of execution. With an expansion, we can change the balance landscape not only by modifying old guns, but also by creating new ones to fill missing roles and satisfy player desires.
The changes in 2.4.0 will go hand in hand with the weapon ecosystem of Rise of Iron.
Fabian Strategy
Doubling down on a Titan's role to hold the front line, Fabian Strategy users will now be able to hold down the trigger to melt enemies until there are none left.
Thorn
Since we are bringing back Thorn for Rise of Iron, it was worth re-evaluating its place in the weapon ecosystem. What are Thorn's strengths?
To avoid a repeat of year one, we decided to remove one of those elements from the equation.
Universal Remote
An exotic shotgun not gated by the special ammo economy was already a dangerous tool, but as players honed their mastery over the strong mobility options that Destiny has to offer, a hair-pulling combination was born. A range reduction helps bring the efficacy of these sorts of tactics down a bit.
Dreg's Promise
Fitting in with the retune of Sidearms (see below), Dreg's gets a little bit more love.
Touch of Malice
It is intended that Touch of Malice still shine best in King's Fall, but outside of the Raid, clever players figured out how to avoid Touch of Malice's single drawback by imbuing themselves with the Blessing of Light - but the Darkness has been boiling stronger within the gun...
Boolean Gemini
This super versatile weapon receives another tool in its kit.
No Time to Explain
I'm going to respect the spirit of the weapon with this one.
Snipers are being utilized extremely effectively in both the Crucible and against the Minions of the Darkness. However, one family of Sniper Rifle stands out from the rest - the mid-high impact family of sniper rifles (of which 1000-Yard Stare and Y-09 Longbow Synthesis belong).
Let us evaluate the benefits of the family:
The resulting Sniper Rifle has all the strengths of other families but without the drawbacks. To spread the power a bit, we touched two elements:
As a result, the slowest firing family of Sniper Rifle (Black Spindle) should be your key tool to take down Supers, balanced by lower magazine size, fire rate, and aim assist.
Aim Deflection (aka Flinch)
"You get the drop on an enemy sniper, reducing him down to a pixel of his life. Right before you pull the trigger for the last bullet to exit your scout rifle's chamber, you see the glint and hear the sound of your head turning to mush. You raise your fist in the air and release a silent scream so as not to wake the baby."
With these changes, we want to give your primary weapon a better chance at contesting sniper rifles.
Bugs
With new Auto Rifles being introduced in Rise of Iron, playtests revealed a decrease in the importance of reloading - high rate of fire Auto users had enough bullets for multiple encounters. We do not want players feeling starved for ammo, but creating an opening for opponents to attack is an important part of the "combat dance" for Destiny.
Middle rate of fire Autos also received a small damage boost to help with damage falloff, but the resultant damage does not drastically change its time to kill.
While strong against combatants, fast firing Shotguns have generally experienced low up time in PvP. The following changes are meant to sweeten the value proposition, starting with everyone's favorite Titan class weapon.
With high rate of fire Pulse Rifles being strong contenders in the crucible, we put our lens on the mid and low rate of fire models, nudging them slightly forward while still maintaining Pulses around the three burst kill.
When evaluating player loadout data across the game, we can see that Sidearms are being underutilized. With 2.4.0 we aim to change that, pushing Sidearms to shoot further, faster, and more predictability.
While super satisfying, Cluster Bombs are not always super reliable. At times, the bombs land inches out of their effective range and hit for single point damages.
Grenades and Horseshoes is by and far the most popular Rocket Launcher perk. While decreasing the chance that a rocket misses, it also removes or reduces many of the interesting combat prediction elements that make the weapon archetype interesting to play.
By making Cluster Bomb more reliable and Grenades and Horseshoes less effective, we hope to mix up the Rocket Launcher perk selection and inject a bit more technique into the archetype.
The high rate of fire family of Machine Gun really hits the fantasy when it comes to face melting crowd control weapons. Increasing their DPS will also help them shine in other scenarios as well (i.e. boss battles).
You will only find small bug fixes for 2.4.0 for this weapon category. However, as a preview to Rise of Iron, newly minted low rate of fire hand cannons have a higher maximum possible range stat, giving players a distinct reason to choose that type of weapon.
Again, only small bug fixes. You can stop making that joke now.
After months of collecting player feedback and analyzing usage data, we decided upon a list of perks that could benefit from a refresh. We also decided to reduce the effectiveness of Unflinching, which otherwise would have negated the aforementioned sniper flinch changes without tradeoff. Finally, classic magazine perks like Armor Piercing Rounds now give additional range bonuses.
Take a Knee
Exhumed
Cascade
Surplus
Grave Robber
Guerilla Fighter
Magazine Perks
Unflinching
As a final note, sometimes there are bugs that require a more careful roll-out than can be achieved through a small update. The stakes are much higher when the issues lie deep within the foundation of the Destiny engine. This bug has been an incredibly difficult one to fix and test - we hope that we got it this time.
Firefly
That's all for 2.4.0 Weapons Update Preview. I hope it's been informative, and I'm looking forward to reading your questions and comments.
[Editor's Note: The full Patch Notes for Update 2.4.0 will also be published soon, during scheduled maintenance and deployment.]