Bungie is kicking off Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen today with the introduction of a new story, a new PvE mode called Battlegrounds, and a very attractive exotic bow that can track several targets at once. But behind the headlining content is also an accompanying patch that fixes a bunch of bugs and cements some significant balancing changes to weapon archetypes.
You can read the shockingly thorough patch notes on Bungie's site, but here are some balancing highlights going into Season of the Chosen.
Rocket Launcher
- Increased Rocket Launcher damage by ~30% against Miniboss tier enemies and above.
- Exotic Rocket Launchers have been adjusted individually and are affected by this change to different degrees.
Fusion Rifle
- Increased Fusion Rifle damage falloff start distance, by an increasing amount based on range (6% with 0 range, 16% with 100 range).
- Reduced camera movement from firing a Fusion Rifle by 9.5%.
Breech Grenade Launcher
- Breech Grenade Launcher projectiles will now detonate on impact with enemies, even if holding the trigger.
Submachine Gun
- Reduced camera movement from firing an SMG by 24%.
Pulse Rifle
- Reduced camera movement from firing a Pulse Rifle by 7%.
Machine Gun
- Reduced camera movement from firing a Machine Gun by 9.5%.
Sniper Rifle
- Scaled flinch from damage from other players while aiming a Sniper Rifle by 1.6x.
Sword
- Damage against Miniboss tier enemies and above reduced by ~15%.
Also notable is an overarching change to recoil on mouse and keyboard. Recoil on a mouse is increasing about 40 percent for the following weapon archetypes: Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Submachine Guns, Hand Cannons, and Machine Guns. Bungie says the adjustment brings mouse recoil more in-line with what it already is on controller.
It makes sense to standardize recoil across various inputs, but that sure is a lot of muscle memory that will have to be relearned from here on out. Speaking of PC, Bungie has also removed notifications and sound options from the PC version that it says "didn't do anything." Good call on that one.
