Bungie reveals sweeping changes to Destiny 2 weapons in upcoming Season of the Worthy

Destiny 2 will see a series of sweeping changes for sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and more when the next season drops in March. While most are small tweaks that lessen the damage dealt by a variety of guns, the changes, detailed in the latest This Week at Bungie blog post will likely change the meta heading into the Season of the Worthy.

Destiny Tracker has all the changes below, and what it will mean for each weapon class heading into the seasonal change.

Sniper Rifles

• Damage to Major enemies and above have been reduced to pre-Shadowkeep values (~-20%).
• Adaptive Snipers precision multiplier has been reduced from 3.25x to 2.95x.
• Rapid-Fire Snipers base impact has been reduced from 100 damage to 90 damage.

Sniper Rifles will see a blanket nerf that will reduce their damage values by approximately 20% to essentially reverse the buff that was given to them when Shadowkeep dropped.

It is unclear whether these changes will affect Exotic Snipers such as Izanagi’s Burden and Whisper of the Worm as sometimes Bungie likes to exempt Exotics from certain changes. If the nerf doesn't affect these Exotics, and with the other nerf to Izanagi’s Burden, expect Whisper of the Worm to make a drastic comeback into the meta.

Adaptive Snipers will have their precision multiplier reduced. This might not seem like a massive change but Adaptive Snipers, such as Beloved, will soon not be able to kill a Guardian using their Super with a single-precision hit. Adaptives can still one shot if the weapon has the Box Breathing perk but it seems like the Super shutdown will be up to Aggressive Snipers such as Tatara Gaze.

Rapid-Fire Snipers will also see their base body shot damage lowered from 100 to 90. Like the Adaptive change, this might not seem like much at a quick glance, but it actually means that these Snipers will not be able to two-tap enemy Guardians in the body.

This was the main reason for using these Snipers as if a precision hit was missed and only a body shot was scored, the player could quickly follow up with another body shot for an easy kill.

Grenade Launchers

• Aggressive Frame grenade launchers are now Rapid-Fire Frame Grenade Launchers.
  • Rapid-Fire Frame Grenade Launchers have had their damage reduced to account for their Rate of Fire (0.8x), but now also have increased reserves.
  • Previously, Aggressive Frame Grenade Launchers fired faster than Adaptive but had the same damage.
• Damage to Major enemies and above by Power weapon Grenade Launchers reduced by ~10%.

Grenade launchers have been king for Boss DPS for the better part of 6 months now so Bungie has finally decided to attempt to bring them in line with other Power weapons. The Aggressive Grenade Launchers such as Love and Death or Swarm of the Raven have had their archetype renamed as Rapid-Fire and their damage reduced to match the fire rate. Admittedly it was odd that Aggressive Grenade Launchers had the highest damage but also the highest rate of fire. As compensation, the reserve size for these new Rapid Fire Grenade Launchers has been increased although it’s not stated by how much. On top of this, there will be a blanket nerf in damage to Grenade Launchers by approximately 10%.

These nerfs will significantly lower the height of Grenade Launcher DPS except for one weapon, Wendigo GL3. As Wendigo is an Adaptive Frame it is exempt from the lowering of damage being done to most other of the meta Grenade Launchers and all it will be hit by is the small 10% damage nerf. Expect the Wendigo to remain a solid weapon.

Shotguns

• Target acquisition for non-slug Shotguns has been adjusted to no longer account for precision locations.
  • Previously, target acquisition could actually cause the player's spread to deviate from the intended aim vector, causing most of the spread to miss.
• Cone angle is now adjusted on a per sub-archetype basis and is no longer adjusted by the range stat.
• Aiming down sights no longer adjusts an effective range for this weapon archetype.

According to Bungie, there was an unintended interaction in regards to Shotguns and aim assist where at certain ranges the spread of the pellets would prioritise the head and pull away from the center of mass leading to many of the pellets missing.

This interaction has been removed which should increase the consistency of 1 shot kills with Shotguns at certain ranges as the pellets will land where they are supposed to.

The change of cone angle based on archetype is an interesting one. This will basically mean that different archetypes, such as Aggressive, Adaptive or Rapid Fire, will have a different pellet spread rather than it simply being based on the Range stat of the individual Shotgun.

Fusion Rifles

• Target acquisition for Fusion Rifles has been adjusted to no longer account for precision locations.
  • Previously, target acquisition could actually cause the player's volley to deviate from the intended aim vector, causing most of the volley to miss.
• Damage falloff for this weapon archetype can now floor at 0.5x (Previously 0.75x).
• Effective range and the impact of the optics stat for this weapon archetype has been reduced across the board.
• Backup Plan
  • Backup Plan now adjusts impact to match the Rapid-Fire sub-archetype while active.
  • Charge time is now set to match the Rapid-Fire's sub-archetype * 0.85 while active.

Fusion Rifles, specifically High Impact Fusion Rifles, have been a hot topic of discussion within the Destiny community for many months with some calling for a hard nerf while others are saying they are totally fine. It seems Bungie agrees with the former as soon they will be getting hit hard with nerfs.

The floor for damage dropoff has been lowered, meaning that at decent ranges a 1 burst kill will be almost impossible as the damage per bolt will be lowered even further. The large increase in range and damage given by scopes such as Signal MS5, Impulse MS3, and Transmission MS7 have been lowered across the board, further reducing the effective range of Fusion Rifles.

The biggest change comes to the Backup Plan perk. This perk has been problematic as it completely circumvents the disadvantage of using High Impact Fusion Rifles, a long charge time. Overall, the increase in charge time has been lowered to match Rapid-Fire Fusion Rifle charge time with its damage being changed to match. Since Rapid-Fire Fusion Rifles need more bolts to hit for a 1-burst kill compared to their High Impact variants this could bring some balance to the perk.

The perk will still be useful when the player is ambushed at close range as a burst of Rapid Fire bolts will still be enough to kill the attacker. At that close a range it will be hard to not kill the enemy, even if Rapid Fire Fusion Rifles need to score more hits. The main nerf here will come from the wielder not being able to whip out their High Impact Fusion Rifle, round a corner and then fire off an instant burst at someone 15m down the firing lane for a quick kill.

Auto Rifles

The following impact values have changed:

• High-Impact Frame
  • 22/35.2 Default/Precision (Previously 22/33)
• Precision Frame
  • 17/27.2 Default/Precision (Previously 17/25.5)
• Adaptive Frame
  • 15.75/25.2 Default/Precision (Previously 13.75/22)
• Rapid-Fire Frame
  • 13.4/20.1 Default/Precision (Previously 12.5/18.75)

Auto Rifles have been in a rough spot for a while as their range, damage and subsequently their Time to Kill simply cannot compete with other options such as Hand Cannons and Pulse Rifles. These buffs could change that. There is an across the board increase in precision hit damage with Rapid-FIre and Adaptive archetypes also seeing an increase in body shot damage.

This change will help Auto Rifles against Guardians with high Resilience. As an example, a Guardian with maxed Resilience can have just over 200 health and currently it will take an Adaptive Auto Rifle 10 precision hits to kill them at 22 damage per hit.

After the change, Adaptive Auto Rifles will be doing 25.2 precision damage per hit and so it will only take 8 shots. This buff will create a level of consistency and forgiveness that is sorely needed for Auto Rifles. Expect Adaptive Frames like Hard Light, Monte Carlo and Arc Logic to become quite deadly.

Bungie is expected to drop another patch preview containing changes for Exotic armor, Supers, and Abilities in the coming weeks before the new season hits.