Destiny 2 – Season 14 Will See Aggressive Hand Cannons, The Lament and More Nerfed

A new season is on the horizon for Bungie’s Destiny 2 and while the new content hasn’t been revealed, Bungie has already outlined some of the balance changes taking place in season 14. Weapons feature lead Chris Proctor revealed on This Week at Bungie that the team was planning “quite a few buffs” to underused perks, Linear Fusion Rifles and whatnot. In the meantime, he outlined some changes and nerfs coming to current weapons and perks.

For Aggressive Hand Cannons, the damage and aim assist fall-off distance will be reduced by between 2 and 4 meters (which is based on the weapon’s Range stat). Vortex Frame Swords like Falling Guillotine will see Heavy attacks costing six Heavy ammo instead of four while chip damage is being removed.

Quickdraw is also getting changed with the passive +100 Handling it provides to a weapon being removed one second after switching to a weapon or when aiming down sights. Newer versions of Felwinter’s Lie and Astral Horizon will also drop with Surplus instead of Quickdraw going forward. Then there’s The Lament, which has been fairly dominant among Heavy weapons for a while. Its revved Heavy attack will deal 16 percent less damage when season 14 hits.

The full balance changes are yet to be revealed so stay tuned for more details when season 14 hits.

Weapon Archetypes

• Aggressive (120 rpm) Hand Cannons are very dominant in PvP, and we’ve received enough feedback that we want to rein them in a bit, without completely taking away their range benefits.  These weapons will now have damage and aim assist falloff distance reduced by between 2 and 4 meters, based on the Range stat. This roughly halves the range buff they received in Beyond Light.
• Vortex Frame Swords – With Falling Guillotine now viable forever, we need to adjust it a little, as its damage output is flat out higher than all other Legendary swords. With this change we allow it to keep its high damage output, but are reducing its full-reserves damage output by reducing the number of Heavy attacks you’ll be able to perform.  Full energy Heavy attack ammo cost increased from 4 to 6.
• Chip damage – Certain weapons (Swords and Bastion) bypass shields by varying amounts, which has caused numerous issues with Stasis-encased enemies, encounter mechanics, and other content.
  We have removed chip damage from Swords and Bastion.