Bungie is making some very bold moves with the new Season of the Wish. Not only are the gutting fan-favorite Destiny 2 builds, they’re buffing builds that haven’t been in vogue for probably years. On the one hand, good for Stasis and game balance, but not necessarily for fun.
Bonk and Banner Titans in Shambles, Slam Titans Ascendant
Pour out a cold one for Throwing Hammer Solar and Banner of War Titan builds. Both are being gutted with the Season of the Wish update. The changes come from the November 22 This Week in Destiny post.
Between the two, the Banner of War changes are less impactful. Its effects aren’t changing, but it will now take about double the enemies defeated to get it to maximum power. I mention Banner first for one reason. While this is a major nerf, Strand Titan will still be absurdly powerful. It’s not hard to kill enemies in huge numbers with the subclass equipped.
The real killer here is the neutering of Throwing Hammer Solar Titan (bonk) builds. Since the Solar 3.0 update, if you run a Solar Throwing Hammer setup with the right perks, you’re almost invincible. Endless healing, ridiculous damage output, and unlimited uptime? Yep, if you played bonk, you could care almost not at all about most activities in the game.
Big Bonk-y Boi Changes
To push players away from relying on the bonk-y boi, Bungie is making two huge changes.
- Picking up your hammer now starts a 1.4-second melee energy regen rather than instantly refunding your melee
- Sunspots created with the Sol Invictus Aspect now last 12 seconds rather than 20 so long as you’re standing in them.
To compensate (somewhat), bonk hammers now have 20% stronger tracking. Honestly, though, I’m not sure if that makes up for the above two changes. The actual ability regen from Sunspots appears untouched. So that 1.4 seconds might be more like .5 seconds or less with the right setup, essentially making the nerf inconsequential. If the timer is build-agnostic, however, then we have a problem.
Woven Mail and Restoration Nerfs
In addition, both Woven Mail and Restoration received nerfs. The Strand ability’s damage reduction got a 10% decrease to 45%, keeping it strong but not as overpowering. More important are the reductions to Restoration. Both the x1 and x2 healing amounts got hit, seeing a 5 HP per second a 15 HP per second reduction respectively.
While not related to the Solar and Strand adjustments, the Void abilities Devour and Feed the Void were adjusted. Now, rather than granting an instant full-heal on its own, Devour rewards only 100% unless you have Feed the Void equipped. For its part, Feed the Void now increases your grenade energy regen while Devour is active on top of the improved Devour functionality.
Stasis Lovers Rejoice
If you’ve been on the Stasis train since Beyond Light or have just discovered what can be a really fun subclass, good news! Stasis is (mostly) getting buffs across the board. Hunters, Titans, and Warlocks all received substantial improvements to Stasis functionality. In particular:
Hunter Stasis Buffs
- Increased projectile speed, lifetime, bounce count, and tracking consistency to the Withering Blade melee
- Winter’s Shroud in PvE now applies more slow stacks, has longer slow duration and slow detonation size
The Withering Blade buffs will be of particular note in PvP, I expect, but both updates should make Stasis in PvE more viable overall. Not launch Shatterdive effective — I hope — but better.
Titan Stasis Buffs
- Slows enemy players on hit again and functions with the Melee Kickstart armor mod
- Glacial quake freezes nearby players on cast again, but the radius is slightly reduced
Behemoth Titans were the bane of PvP for a long time after their introduction, and now will be more of a threat again. I don’t know how I feel about that, but we’ll see how it plays out.
Warlock Stasis Buffs
- Frostpulse is now much more consistent against fast-moving targets
- A slight increase to freeze detonation size
- The Penumbral Blast melee now has a slightly increased detonation size when it hits the environment
Nothing too major here, but if there are Stasis Warlocks on the enemy team, they are now a bit more annoying to deal with. PvE Stasis ‘lock might be a bit better as well.
General Stasis Buffs
There were a number of general-purpose buffs to Stasis as well, particularly to the Glacier and Coldsnap grenades and the Freeze status.
- Glacier grenades have a 31-second reduced cooldown. The cooldown penalty for Coldsnap and Duskfield Grenades when using Bleack Watcher now matches Glacier nades.
- Coldsnap Grenade seekers should now follow the direction they were thrown. They also arm from farther away, and their tracking strength increases over their lifetime rather than for only 0.5 seconds.
- Special ammo weapons now deal 10% extra damage against frozen targets, up from 5%
Additionally, a new Stasis keyword on the horizon called Frost Armor (for now) will hopefully address survivability concerns with Stasis equipped. Stasis Fragments will continue getting adjustments, and there will be more behavior added to Harvest Aspects.
Other Needed Adjustments
Oh, and before I forget, both Well of Radiance and Ward of Dawn are getting their Super cooldowns increased by 38 seconds, to a total of 455 at base. Bungie also says they’re taking a more fundamental look at both abilities, so we’ll see how that pans out.
Lastly, Bungie removed Titan shoulder charges being able to one-hit-kill players a while back. However, there was some movement tech that could get around the nerf, essentially removing it entirely. That tech, which involved sliding and firing your weapon, should no longer work, though the Tempest Strike Arc Titan charge should function a bit more consistently.
So, that’s the news about the new ability updates coming to Destiny 2 with Season of the Wish, and some analysis to go with it. If you want more content on the game, check out our guides on the 13 Exotics you need right now, the best ways to catch up on the story, and more in our D2 guides hub.
Published: Nov 22, 2023 03:52 pm