Bungie are switching up the meta for weapons with their huge patch coming to Destiny 2 on 5th March 2024. We’ve got changes coming to Grenade Launchers, Scout Rifles, Rockets, plus HUGE changes to some exotic weapons. So it’s time to dust off these weapons from your vault, or accquire them if you haven’t got them yet, because these changes are going to mix up your loadouts come 5th March in Destiny 2.
Without further delay, lets have a look at the changes coming.
Exotics
Vigilance Wing
Vigilance Wing is strong in PvP already, but it’s fairly hard to control with how much that 5-round burst kicks, so we’ve made that easier to compensate for.
Now has a deterministic recoil pattern.
Manticore
Players must now be airborne for 0.5 seconds and deal damage with the weapon to activate the perk. (This prevents accidental activation while running down stairs or doing small jumps.)
We gave it a special reload to quickly disengage antigravity thrusters. (Swapping weapons will continue to disengage as well.)
Tarrabah also receives this special reload animation.
While antigrav thrusters are engaged, combatants will be less accurate when targeting the player, similar to the Always on Time Sparrow.
With the catalyst, final blows and sustained damage with Manticore while airborne grant a Void overshield and return ammo to the magazine.
Ex Diris
Players enjoyed the Ex Diris Grenade Launcher for delivering on the Boomer Knight fantasy, but ultimately it just wasn’t hitting hard enough in PvE to be a top-tier pick. Fortunately, this was easy to address by bumping the damage and rate of fire.
Increased impact damage against PvE enemies by 50%.
Detonation damage is unaffected, so the total damage increase works out to be around 20% (varying by target type).
Increased the maximum rate of fire by 17%.
Breakneck (Auto Rifle)
Added the missing 12th perk (Target Lock) to Breakneck’s second trait column.
Lightweight Scout Rifles
Lightweight Scout Rifles have always had a following, but they’ve suffered from being unforgiving when missing crits. We’re making a change that reduces the proportion of crits required for optimal time to kill (TTK) from 4 crits to 3 crits + 1 body. Increased base damage by 5%.
Tarnished Mettle
Vouchsafe
Nightwatch
Heavy Grenade Launchers
We’ve touched Heavy Grenade Launchers a few times lately, and while they’re fairly strong mathematically, it hasn’t moved the needle. It’s time to make some more substantial changes. We’re pushing them more into sustained damage and add clear, and we’re also tweaking Spike Grenades to make them less of a dominant pick. Note that this change is not a nerf to overall Grenade Launcher damage output, as we’ve increased impact and detonation damage to compensate and dramatically increased reserve ammunition.
Increased reserve ammo by a minimum of 6 rounds, maximum of 10 rounds, depending on the Grenade Launcher.
Reduced Spike Grenade’s impact damage buff from 50% to 12.5%. With the below changes, this reduces the total Spike Grenades damage buff from about 8% to 3%, making them less mandatory.
Increased direct hit impact damage by 10%. Combined with the above change, this brings non-Spike Grenade Launchers almost up to the level of Spike Grenade Launchers, and very slightly reduces damage output with a Spike Grenade Launcher.
Increased detonation damage by 5%. (In PvP, this is offset by a reduction to detonation damage, for no overall change.)
Marsillion-C
Wendigo GL3
Regnant
Cry Mutiny
Wave Frame Heavy Grenade Launchers have struggled to find an identity, with not enough ammo to really work for add clear (as addressed above) and not as much single-target damage as standard Grenade Launchers. With these changes, they will be able to compete with other Grenade Launchers, and it will be easier to land damage.
Wave Frame Heavy Grenade Launcher
Increased damage by 20%.
Increased wave width by 40%.
Rocket Launchers
The Rocket Launcher meta has become more set than we’d like, with Adaptive and Aggressive subfamilies outperforming the rest. We’re making changes to the Precision and High-Impact subfamilies that give them more reserve ammo than the others, as well as making other adjustments to give them some unique strengths.
Precision
Increased reserve ammo by 2 and reduced damage penalty from -10% to -5%.
High-Impact
Increased reserve ammo by 2.
Semiotician
Now deals more detonation damage and less impact, for roughly the same total damage.
This should make them more effective vs. groups, or when getting splash damage on a target with a near miss.
The above changes also affect Deathbringer, Gjallarhorn, and Truth.
Let me know in the comments what you think about the weapons changes coming soon.