Destiny 2

While servers are offline for maintenance, Bungie has released patch notes for Destiny 2’s update 7.0.0.1. It’s available to pre-load on all platforms and comes with several changes. You can read about the removal of Adept difficulty, along with Surge and Overcharged weapons, here and about the removal of Resonant Elements from crafting here.

In terms of balance changes, the biggest nerf is to Heart of Inmost Light. A very strong Exotic that helped enable Arc 3.0 Titans, its duration for empowered ability buffs in PvE has gone from ten to five seconds. Furthermore, the bonus class ability regeneration during the empowered state is now 25 percent per stack in PvE and PvP, previously 150 percent and 38 percent.

Other changes include updates to Verity’s Brow, Mantle of Battle Harmony and Chromatic Fire to support Strand. Interestingly, Claws of Ahamkara won’t grant an extra melee charge when using a Strand sub-class.

Check out some of the patch notes below. Destiny 2: Lightfall is out later today for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. You can learn more about it from Bungie’s ViDoc.

Destiny 2 Update 7.0.0.1

GAMEPLAY AND INVESTMENT

ARMOR

Armor energy type has been deprecated. Armor now has untyped armor energy, and all mods use that untyped energy when socketed.
Armor mods that were previously based on weapon archetype are now based on weapon damage type.
Most armor mods that are based on weapon damage type also have a harmonic version, which is discounted when the weapon’s damage type matches your subclass damage type.
Armor mod costs have been generally reduced across the board.
The Combat Style mod socket has been deprecated and replaced on all armor pieces with an extra socket for mods associated with that armor slot (helmet, gauntlets, etc.).

The Charged With Light and Elemental Wells armor mods have been merged into a single system: Armor Charge.

Players using the Armor Charge system can gain up to three stacks of Armor Charge at a time (expanded up to six stacks by equipping Charged Up mods).
Picking up an Orb of Power grants one stack of Armor Charge.
Many mods that previously created Elemental Wells or granted stacks of Charged With Light directly have been modified to instead spawn Orbs of Power.
Mods that provide an ongoing benefit (such as Font of Wisdom) now grant that benefit as long as you have stacks of Armor Charge; these mods cause Armor Charge stacks to decay every 10 seconds.
Some redundant mods have been deprecated when their effect would overlap with an existing mod’s effects.
Some armor mods (such as the Kickstart mods and most mods triggered by using a finisher) now make use of the Armor Charge system.
Some of the functionality of Elemental Wells and their associated mods have been moved into subclass fragments and the new Firesprite and Void Breech.
Warmind Cells have been deprecated.

Seasonal Artifact

Unlocking a perk in the Seasonal Artifact now grants that perk directly to the character when it is relevant; you no longer need to socket an armor mod to gain an Artifact perk’s effect.
Column 2 of the Artifact now unlocks multiple discounted mods per node.
The maximum number of unlocked perks has been reduced to 12.
Resetting your selections in the Seasonal Artifact is now free.
Removed the one-second button hold to unlock an Artifact perk; a single button press now unlocks the perk.
Artifice armor has had its bonus socket converted into a socket that allows you to increase any one stat on that armor piece by +3.
Adjusted the amount of damage reduction provided by the Resilience stat in PvE. At tier 10 damage reduction now caps at 30% (down from 40% in Season 19), and the progression of the damage reduction across tiers has been smoothed to give more relative value to lower tiers of Resilience.
The armor mods granting Resilience have had their armor energy costs increased to 4 (+10 Resilience) and 2 (+5 Resilience).
The Iron Lord’s Pride perk has been added to all Iron Banner armor sets from Season 8 to the present.

Exotic Armor changes

Khepri’s Sting: Truesight is now granted when damaging an enemy with a smoke bomb. Additionally, when you have an undetonated smoke bomb on the battlefield and have not been made invisible by a smoke bomb, you gain significantly increased melee energy generation.
Heart of Inmost Light: Reduced duration of the empowered ability buffs in PvE to five seconds (down from 10 seconds). Reduced bonus class ability regeneration while empowered to +25% per stack in both PvE and PvP (down from +150% and +38%, respectively). This change is intended to decrease how easy it is to get and maintain a 2x empowerment bonus in PvE, as well as reduce the total amount of bonus ability energy provided. The goal is for Heart of Inmost light to remain strong in ability-focused builds, while giving room for other Exotics to shine as well.
The Bombardiers now cause targets damaged by its explosive to become severed when used by a Strand Hunter.
Chromatic Fire has been updated to work with Strand.
Mantle of Battle Harmony updated to work with Strand.
Verity’s Brow updated to work with Strand.
Felwinter’s Helm triggers weaken burst off Strand melees.
Claws of Ahamkara will not provide an additional melee charge when equipped to a Strand subclass.

Armor that supports coloration and appearance change based on your currently selected subclass has been updated to support Strand. This includes the following:

2020, 2021, and 2022 Solstice Armor sets.
Antaeus Wards and ornaments.
No Backup Plans and ornaments.

WEAPONS

Crafting changes

Resonant elements have been removed.
Crafting component costs have been replaced with standard currencies such as Glimmer and Enhancement Cores.
Deepsight will now only manifest on weapons that have a pattern available to unlock.
Deepsight has been removed on existing weapons that do not have a pattern available to unlock.
The Deepsight attunement objective has been removed. You can immediately extract or dismantle the weapon to obtain pattern progress.