In its first This Week at Bungie update for 2021, the Destiny 2 studio discussed updates coming to Crucible and Gambit rewards, some reissued Dreaming City and Moon gear, and—this is the big one—a nerf to the Hunter's Shatterdive ability, which was introduced with the arrival of Stasis as part of the Beyond Light expansion, and has been enjoying an icy reign of terror ever since.
"Over the holiday break we saw Trials go live, and with that a wealth of valuable feedback from the community," Combat Area Lead Tomonori Kinoshita explained. "Along with this feedback, we have been tracking data from Trials and identified some short-term changes, as well as more mid-term goals we are focusing on in the coming weeks and months."
In the short term, Bungie wants to "address outlier Stasis abilities to keep subclass decision making interesting," which translates into:
Reduce the potency of Shatter Dive + Whisper of Fissures against Guardians, going live with Update 3.0.2.
- Shatterdive now has damage falloff vs. unfrozen targets
- Max range damage reduced from 50 to 5
- Damage reduction during ability reduced from 50% to 25%
Whisper of Fissures
- Reduced max-min damage vs. non-super players from 42-22 to 30-4
- Reduced max-min damage vs. super players from 42-22 to 16-2
- Reduced detonation radius vs. players from 10m to 9m
These sounds like substantial changes, and so they should be. The Shatterdive combo, by which Hunter's throw down a Glacier Grenade and then dunk on it immediately, creating a ridiculously potent explosion, has proved way too strong and cheesy in PVP.
And don't worry, it's won't just be Hunters coming under the hammer...
Investigate the efficacy of the Stasis Titan Behemoth Super. We want to let the above change settle to see where the Behemoth stands in our PvP hierarchy, but this is next on our radar.
Longer-term, the goal is to improve the balance between gunplay and powers: Bungie said the usage of powers has gone up "as we introduce more and more ways to charge them quickly," particularly in 3v3 playlists, and it wants to make adjustments to ensure that guns remain viable and rewarding.
Speaking of guns (and also armor), here's a list of some of the returning rewards you'll see in season 13:
Reissued Dreaming City Reverie Dawn and Moon Dreambane armor.
- These will also drop with high stats when earned in Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy.
- The final chest in Pit of Heresy will no longer drop a fully Masterworked Dreambane armor piece.
- Instead, the Dreambane armor piece that drops will have 7 armor energy and is guaranteed to drop with at least a +16 in two different stats and higher stats overall.
- Dreambane class items will not drop from this chest.
Honestly, it kinda sucks that the Masterworked Dreambane armor is being removed, as the rare materials you earned for dismantling these each week was one of the best sources to farm in the game. Which I guess is why Bungie has nixed it.
Reissued 4 weapons for Dreaming City with new Perk Pools.
- Waking Vigil, Sleepless, Vouchsafe, and Retold Tale.
- Dreaming City weapons that drop in the Shattered Throne dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Reissued 4 weapons for the Moon with new Perk Pools.
- Premonition (Pit of Heresy only), Heretic, Blasphemer, and Apostate.
- Weapons that drop in the Pit of Heresy dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
Expanding Lost Sector Legend and Master rotation to 4 Moon Sectors.
- K1 Logistics, K1 Communication, K1 Crew Quarters, and K1 Revelation.
"Activities where re-issues are acquired will be heavily weighted towards rewarding re-issued gear over capped gear -- though the exact weighting and mechanisms may differ," Rewards Area Lead Justin Dazet said. "For example: In the Dreaming City if you have already obtained an infusion capped weapon, it will not drop for you again."
Season 13 will also see a change to Gambit and Crucible reward structures, which will see the addition of two new unique weapons added to each of the three playlist rituals (six in total), and the addition of visible reward ranks on ritual vendors. Rather than dropping automatically, rank rewards will be manually picked up from vendor lists, which Bungie said "gives much better visibility into what you’ll be earning as you progress, and helps you make better choices about where to spend your time."
Ritual progression will occur individually, so you can be Crucible rank 10 and Gambit rank 4 for instance, and ranking up will continue to earn a base Ritual Engram. Rewards for individual ritual ranks are:
- Rank 4: 3x Upgrade Modules
- Rank 7: 3x Enhancement Cores
- Rank 10: Seasonal Ritual Shader (changes to 3x Enhancement Cores after resetting your rank)
- Rank 13: 2x Enhancement Prisms
- Rank 16: Seasonal Ritual Emblem (changes to 2x Enhancement Prisms after resetting your rank)
- Reset Reward: Ascendant Shard (changes to Exotic Engram after resetting your rank)
Also note that the change means Crucible Tokens and Token Gifts won't be used anymore, and will therefore become junk: Be sure to turn them in before the end of the current season.
Bungie said there will be a total of four This Week at Bungie updates leading into the next season of Destiny 2. The season 13 start date hasn't been announced yet but assuming the usual weekly cadence, that puts it sometime in the week of February 4-7.
