Destiny 2 Episode: Revenant Offers Reward Changes, and Power Level Increase

This week in Destiny confirmed a number of reward and balance changes set for Destiny 2 Episode: Revenant.

After years of requests, Bungie increased the drop rate for non-adept Nightfall and Lost Sector rewards. Advanced, Expert will have an unspecified increase, whereas Master will guarantee the weapon on a platinum run, and 50 percent chance at gold. Grandmaster runs will still guarantee an adept weapon with a platinum clear, with gold having a slightly higher chance than before.

Featured Nightfall weapons will also be moved to a special featured category, and have an updated cost. Non-adept weapons will cost one Vanguard Engram and a Nightfall Cipher, with an Adept remaining one Vanguard Engram, 50,000 Glimmer, and 10 Nightfall Ciphers.

The post did not confirm whether or not Nightfall Ciphers will be changed in response. Currently, Nightfall Ciphers are exclusive to Grandmasters, and the occasional event/seasonal activity. This might be a net negative for less skilled players, though time will ultimately tell.

Next Episode Lost Sectors will add the latest world drops to its loot table. This is a slight improvement from the current system, which adds them the following Episode.

Bungie also confirmed next Episode the hard cap will increase by 10 to 2010. Players have already expressed disappointment at this change, as removing the Seasonal power level grind was considered one of the best quality of life changes in recent memory. It will be interesting to see how Bungie responds to these concerns.

Finally, the list of balance changes can be found below.

TITAN’S WEEK IN DESTINY

Last but not least, our Sandbox team has a hefty update on abilities, with a focus on Titans. But remember, all our Guardians are perfect and equally loved whether they wear shoulder pads the size of a stadium, owe you Glimmer that you know is lost forever, or  they lecture you about Vex portals on your way to Europa.

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Howdy, folks. Combat Gameplay team here with a preview of what to expect with the launch of Revenant. It’s been a minute since our last article back in May, and since then we’ve seen the launch of the Prismatic subclasses which seismically shifted the sandbox landscape. From multiple Warlock buddies to Diamond Lances as far as the eye can see, we’ve been extremely pleased to watch players push Prismatic to its limits as they combine gameplay atoms in ways that weren’t possible before The Final Shape.

Now that the Prismatic subclasses have had time to settle, we’re making some adjustments. We’ve collected a mixture of player feedback and game data about abilities across the sandbox, and we have slew of ability changes coming for both Prismatic and non-Prismatic subclasses alike.

We’ll cover most of this Season’s ability changes in this writeup, but you can read the full patch notes when Revenant launches. 

Today we’re going to focus on:

• Titan class-identity reinforcement
• Super ability changes
• General ability tuning

So, let’s get right into it.

UNBREAKABLE WILL

Titans are the bulwarks of their fireteam. They live and die on the frontline of battle, barking out orders while never backing down from an encounter. Titans wield defensive staples like Barricade and Stasis Crystals with practiced ease. They specialize in doling out lifesaving buffs like Void Overshield and Woven Mail to their grateful fireteams. And they throw a mean right hook, to boot. But Titans deserve a class identity that’s more than the sum of its fists.

We’ve heard your cries for more depth to Titan gameplay and more viability in high-tier endgame content, and we agree with you. Titans have so much more to give than mere blunt force trauma. They’re frontliners, damage mitigators, and battlefield commanders. Now, we don’t want to take away from or replace what the Titan already has. Instead, we want to find nondestructive ways to add depth to the Titan’s kit. These kinds of shifts take time, but we’re starting down that road in Revenant.

Starting with Revenant, we’re testing a change to barricades and other shields that will give the Titan more of a traditional “tank” role:

• Titan Barricade now taunts enemies in front of the barricade.
  • This taunt only occurs while there is a player standing behind the barricade.

This is a substantial change for Titans and for Destiny. For the first time, Titan players can use their defensive abilities to draw enemy fire, thereby shielding their fireteam from harm.

The Titan’s Unbreakable shield and Sentinel Shield’s guard also taunt enemies, allowing you to become a mobile aggro magnet. If this change plays well, we’re hoping to add this functionality to more of the Titan’s defensive abilities, such as Ward of Dawn, in the future.

While enemies will typically prioritize bringing down the Barricade above all else, there are combat situations where combatants may have higher priorities than the Barricade, such as a Vex Wyvern with a directive to march toward a conflux, or a Cabal Legionary desperately trying to bring down a Guardian in their Super. The Barricade taunt doesn’t turn enemies into mindless zombies, and enemies who are on a mission may prioritize that mission over the barricade. But for the general rank-and-file enemies you see in activities from patrol to raids, this has been quite fun in our playtests. One important detail about this change is that combatants now shoot at the Barricade itself instead of at Guardians behind the Barricade, making aiming at enemies from behind your Barricade safer than before.

We’ll be monitoring this change closely, and you can expect tweaks in the future as we see how these changes play out in the live game.

To support the Titan’s new aggro lifestyle, we’ve made some adjustments to Barricades and Unbreakable:

• Towering Barricade and Rally Barricade (all subclasses)
  • Reduced non-boss combatant damage dealt to the Barricade by 50%.
  • Increased splash-damage reduction from combatants for players behind the Barricade from 20% to 60%.
  • Barricades now grant moderate damage resistance vs. combatants during cast animation.
• Unbreakable
  • Damage blocked by Unbreakable now generates grenade energy.
  • Increased max duration the shield can be held.
  • Forward movement speed now slows down briefly when the shield is shot.
  • Reduced Unbreakable’s throw attack damage vs. players by 20%.
  • Increased damage bleed through from players by 15%.
  • Fully charged Unbreakable attacks will now one-shot Barricades in PvP except when the Barricade is under the effects of Heart of Inmost Light.

While we’re here on Unbreakable and Titans, we should mention Void Overshield. This is a staple of the Sentinel kit, and we think it could use a little help in PvE to better compete with other damage-mitigation options.

• Void Overshield
  • Increased Void Overshield PvE damage resistance from 50% to 70%.
    • This increases maximum effective HP from 90 to 150.

Next stop, Prismatic Titan. While Prismatic Titans will inherit all applicable changes to Barricade, Unbreakable, and Sentinel Shield, we’re also buffing several other Titan abilities featured in the Prismatic Titan subclass. These changes are global, meaning that they are applicable to both the ability’s standard subclass and Prismatic.

• Consecration
  • Scorch and slam waves now shatter Stasis Crystals.
• Diamond Lance
  • Thrown or slammed Diamond Lances will now shatter Stasis Crystals.
  • Slamming a Diamond Lance will grant you and nearby allies two stacks of Frost Armor.
  • Changed the weapon tray HUD to display how many seconds are remaining before the Diamond Lance disappears, like a Tangle.
• Knockout
  • Melee kills now cancel health and shield stun, in addition to healing, allowing you to immediately start regenerating.
    • Note: this is a revert of a previous nerf that had too much of a negative impact on PvE.
• Shiver Strike
  • Now attaches a Stasis explosive to the target on impact.
    • This detonation slows players and freezes combatants.
  • Now refunds 80% melee energy on whiff.
  • Increased energy recharge rate by 12.5%.
  • Immediately after landing a Shiver Strike attack, the attacker’s melee ability is now suppressed for 0.5s.

While not specifically a Prismatic Titan-only option, we know they felt the nerf the most when Facet of Command’s cooldown was moved to 11 seconds. We agree that 11 seconds feels too long.

• Facet of Command/Echo of Domineering
  • Cooldown reduced from 11 seconds to 4 seconds.

Alas, the Titan buff train approaches its final destination. Yes, there’s more to Titans than brute force, but at the same time, one of the pillars of Titan class identity is physical strength, so they should punch harder than the other classes, right? Well, we’re increasing the Titan’s unpowered melee to be more powerful than a Hunter or Warlock unpowered melee. We’re also increasing the likelihood that the Titan’s unpowered melee will stun enemy combatants.

• Titan Unpowered Melee
  • Increased damage against players by 5%.
  • Increased damage against PvE combatants by 20%.
  • Increased stun multiplier.

UNLIMITED POWER

We want Super abilities to feel like the ultimate expression of a Guardian’s power, and we’re dedicating some time in this release and in future releases to make sure we’re delivering on that. For this release, we’ve primarily focused on making certain roaming Supers feel better, particularly in terms of survivability.

• Warlock
  • Stormtrance
    • Increased damage resistance from 53% to 58%.
  • Chaos Reach
    • Increased damage resistance from 45% to 55%.
    • Fixed an issue where Chaos Reach would not Jolt at high framerates.
    • Fixed an issue where Chaos Reach would not go through Sentinel Shield’s guard or a Citan’s Barricade.
  • Nova Warp
    • Increased PvE damage by 20%.
    • Increased damage resistance from 51% to 58%.
    • Now any Nova Warp detonation applies Volatile, regardless of charge duration.
• Hunter
  • Golden Gun – Marksman and Deadshot
    • Increased damage against base, elite, and miniboss combatants by 30%.
  • Spectral Blades
    • Increased PvE damage by 20%.
    • Increased damage resistance from 47% to 58%.
• Titan
  • Glacial Quake
    • Howl of the Storm can be used while Glacial Quake is active.
  • Twilight Arsenal
    • Thrown axe projectiles now more consistently track towards targets closer to the reticle.
    • Increased Twilight Arsenal’s axe relic weapon damage vs combatants by 23%.
  • Thundercrash
    • Increased base detonation damage by 33%.
  • Fist of Havok
    • Increased damage resistance from 51% to 58%.
    • Changed how the light attack works under the hood to improve consistency in hitting targets.
    • Slightly increased light attack lunge range and ability to target enemies vertically.

For Act 2 of Revenant, we’re investigating increasing roaming Super uptime so they’re more often available when you need them. Stay tuned for that!

SPACE LIGHTNING AND SHARP KNIVES

For both Stormcallers and Prismatic Warlocks, we want to increase the usability of Lightning Surge. To support this, we are making two changes to it:

• Lightning Surge
  • The Warlock casting Lightning Surge now has 50% damage resistance vs. Titan Barricades during the lunge.
  • Casting Lightning Surge now also makes you Amplified.

Since the launch of The Final Shape, Prismatic Hunter has been both a highly used and a highly effective subclass, according to our data. We’ve made some PvP-focused changes to Prismatic Hunter abilities during the past Season, and we’ll continue to monitor its PvP performance and make changes as necessary. In Revenant, we’re making the following changes to Prismatic Hunter and other Hunter subclasses that feature these abilities:

• Hailfire Spike Prismatic Grenade
  • Added projectile tracking and aim assist to increase consistency in hitting targets.
• Threaded Specter
  • Increased detonation damage against PvE combatants by 33%.
• Swarm Grenade
  • Swarm grenade submunitions are now easier for players to shoot down.
  • Swarm grenade submunitions can now chain detonate other submunitions when destroyed.

On the PvE side, the Hunter’s Combination Blow melee in particular has been a little too hot, so we’re making some changes to make it more about damage than survivability.

Removed the 1.5 second internal cooldown on healing.

Combination Blow

Rescaled healing from a flat 80 HP per kill to 100/80/60/40 per kill based on stack count.

No longer clears health and shield stun on kill.