Season of the Dawn patch preview: subclass, engram, bounty changes, and more

Changes to subclasses have been confirmed for the next Destiny 2 patch, to be released with Season of the Dawn on December 10, as well as changes to Bright Dust, Engrams, Bounties, and Escalation Protocol.

Subclass Changes

Striker Code of the Missile

• Increased Thundercrash base damage from 2,700 to 3,200
• Increased Thundercrash in-flight damage from 100 to 200
• Slightly increased the amount of time you have in the air after activation of Thundercrash

Since its release in Forsaken, the Titan Super ‘Thundercrash’ has been considered a fairly low tier Super. Sure, it can be fun to fly across the battlefield and obliterate minor enemies but the Super always struggled with its damage against higher health enemies such as Majors and Bosses. This buff to its damage is certainly welcome but it still might not quite be enough to put it on the same ranking as Nova Bomb, Chaos Reach or Blade Barrage for burst DPS against high-level targets.

Nightstalker Way of the Pathfinder

• Added a short period (0.8 seconds) after the invisibility is applied with ‘Vanish in Smoke’ where firing weapons or performing other actions will not break invisibility.

This is a small quality of life change that will stop allies from accidentally breaking the stealth when firing at targets due to them not being aware that the invisibility is about to be applied. A small change, but this will certainly make playing as and with Nightstalkers a little more forgiving.

Voidwalker Attunement of Fission

• Adjusted grenade charge time for Handheld Supernova so it lines up with the animations and FX.

This is another small quality of life change but this time for the Warlocks. This change to make the activation of Handheld Supernova more consistent and to avoid throwing the regular grenade by not charging the effect long enough.

Rewards

Anarchy

• Increased the drop rate of the “Scourge of the Past” raid Exotic weapon Anarchy from 5% to 10%

It has been reported an untold amount of times across social media about many unfortunate Guardians completing 30, 40, 50 or more Scourge of Past completions and still not being rewarded with the exclusive exotic Anarchy. This drop rate change from  5% to 10% won't alleviate all of these cases but will go a long way to ensure that those Guardians still out there grinding for Anarchy will stand a much better chance. 

Exotic Engrams

• The Exotic Engram and the Fated Engram have been collapsed into a single new Exotic Engram item. When opened, it awards a new Exotic if any remain to be collected; otherwise, it contains a random piece of Exotic armor. This Exotic is still class-specific.

It is always a disheartening experience to play Destiny 2 for many hours to finally see an Exotic drop randomly from a slain enemy, only for it to dismantle into your 10th Hard Light even though there are 8 other Exotics that you have yet to obtain.

It seems Bungie agrees with this experience and has decided to make all Exotic drops in the game into Fated drops and if all Exotics have already been acquired, then it will drop a random piece of Exotic armor. This will allow players to round out their Exotic collection and to farm for higher stat rolls on Exotic armor pieces.

Escalation Protocol

• Escalation Protocol wave 7 chest no longer requires a key to open.
• Chests can be opened upon every successful completion of wave 7.
• Each time opening the chest awards one piece of EP armor for your character class until you have the full set.
• After a full set is acquired, subsequent opening of the chest awards a random piece of armor.

This is a change that players have been arguing for quite a while. At the present time, it takes five weeks to farm a full set of Escalation Protocol armor as once a key has been charged and the final chest has been opened the chest cannot be opened again until the next weekly reset. With the new changes and a high-level fire-team it could take only 30 minutes to obtain a full set of armor as once wave 7 is completed, the activity can be started again at the beginning of wave seven. This time frame is only to obtain the gear for the first time though. To obtain a set of the specific element you want as well as having high stat rolls could take much longer. 

Silver-Only Content

More Items Available for Bright Dust

• Increased the amount of content available in the Eververse store for Bright Dust from 50% to 80% (rough estimates).

This is a very welcome change and one that is sure to win over many players that may have thought Bungie only had dollar signs in their eyes. As pointed out in our previous article, Season of the Undying had a large number of exotic ornaments and other highly sought after cosmetics that were only available for Silver during the entire length of the season. Bungie has decided to lower this number of Silver-Only purchases a significant amount to ensure that those players who are invested in their game will be able to buy the items they want with the Bright Dust they have earnt.

Bright Dust Economy

More Bright Dust Sources

• The Dawning and Crimson Days events to have weekly bounties that reward 200 Bright Dust and repeatable bounties that reward 10 Bright Dust.

Bright Dust income has slowed down somewhat with the changes brought about at the start of the season. This introduction of another Bright Dust source, albeit temporarily, is a step in the right direction for Bungie in their attempt at balancing profits and player approval.

For the full patch preview, as well as some exciting gameplay clips, head on over to Bungie.net to read the full weekly update.