Bungie reveals massive Destiny 2 weapon and armor change list for Season 17

Bungie has revealed Destiny 2’s Season 17 sandbox changes, and there’s plenty of updates coming across weapons and armor in the loot-shooter. Here’s everything we learned.

With over five years of weapons, abilities, armor and various classes to balance, Bungie’s Destiny 2 is in a state of near-constant flux. That means the best weapons change regularly, with buffs and nerfs, while some classes gain more utility from season to season.

Season 17 looks to offer more of the same, with an upcoming subclass overhaul and plenty of changes to come. Bungie’s latest blog post reveals a huge number of changes, with no weapon type left untouched.

Here’s what we learned from the mammoth post.

Destiny 2 Season 17 sandbox preview

Bungie’s Staff Designer Chris Proctor noted that Bungie wanted to allow for more customization for how players engage in airborne combat, while also allowing players to minimize the effects of flinch – a mechanic that sees player accuracy suffer when taking damage.

Proctor also said the team wants to examine weapons capable of one-hit kills in PvP while making more weapons viable across the game’s sizeable arsenal.

Starting with Glaives, which already saw updates during Season of the Risen, Bungie is making a series of changes going into the as-yet-untitled Season 17.

“We’re pushing Glaives deeper into their roles of hard-hitting melee damage and near-complete protection when shielded, as well as increasing projectile speed to make them more reliable at range,” Proctor explains. Players can expect increased melee damage in PvE, with faster projectiles based on the range stat and buffs to the shield. That applies to exotic Glaives, too.

Flinch will also be altered, with the stability weapon stat being rebuilt to grant flinch resistance between 10 and 25 percent. As per Proctor, “with this change players can build for flinch resistance, more easily on weapons that feel flinch more than others, and less so on Special weapons, which we don’t want to be easier to use when under fire.”

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Different weapon types will see a different rate of flinch resistance, with fast-firing weapons like Auto Rifles and SMGs (and bows, curiously) hitting the 25% threshold, right down to Shotguns, Fusion Rifles, and more in the 10% section.

On the subject of airborne gameplay, Bungie notes that a new “Airborne Effectiveness” stat will be included on all weapons.

“Your Primary weapons will have less randomness in projectile accuracy in most cases, you’ll have less aim assist instead, and will need precise aiming to land your shots without building heavily into airborne,” Proctor reveals.

The blog post goes into exhaustive detail, but the short version is that you’ll want to build into airborne to be able to rely more on aim-assist. Interestingly, the stat can also be influenced by armor and your subclass of choice.

“This is a big weapon system change. We’ll be monitoring how it rolls out and expect to make adjustments post-ship,” Proctor explains.

Onto playlist weapons, then, and Bungie has revealed that playlist weapons will have a chance to roll with additional traits in one or both columns. The more you level up your rank, the more chance you’ll have to bulk out your weapon with additional traits.

Weapons will now more clearly display their stats, too, with stat bars ranging from 0 to 100 on all stats.

Some weapons are a little too powerful, though, Bungie admits, so players can expect a change in how weapons dish out “one-hit kills” in the Crucible. Bungie notes that many of these are external to the weapons themselves, and so Empowering Rift, High Energy Fir, and Inertia Override’s damage buff is being reduced to 15% from 20% in PvP only, while the Special ammo is going to be tweaked to make it tougher to chain Special ammo kills.

That involves a reduced ammo count when collecting a Special brick, and the removal of ammo scavenger mods in PvP.

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There are also changes made to the weapons themselves, but we’d advise checking the full post for that information.

Primary weapons haven’t been forgotten, though, with Auto and Pulse rifles being buffed, with SMGs also getting a slight increase in zoom to increase their competitiveness in PvP.

Heavy weapons are also being tuned, with Machine Guns being buffed against non-boss PvE enemies, Swords have more unified stat screens, and Rocket Launchers are getting additional differentiation between subfamilies; Precision will now drop 10% damage, Adaptive and Aggressive will be buffed 10%, and High Impact will stay the same.

Exotics are also having a series of ad hoc changes made, with big standouts being increased blast radius and reload speed (when Thin the Herd is active) on Fighting Lion, and a 30% damage increase against bosses and Champions by 30% for Eyes of Tomorrow.

Bungie also confirmed that a series of weapons are being rotated out of the game in Season 17 and Season 18 across Iron Banner, Trials of Osiris, and Nightfalls.

The developer does note that these weapons could change ahead of Season 18, though.

Finally, update 4.0.1.1 will arrive on Tuesday, April 26, with a series of changes to abilities and armor from The Witch Queen. Axion Bolt and Titan Barricade’s cooldowns have been increased, while there are changes to Renewal Grasps to more than half the Duskfield Grenade’s cooldown.

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