Destiny 2 6.2.5 update patch notes: Festival of the Lost, Exotic changes & more

With the Destiny 2 6.2.5 update patch notes Bungie is once again looking to offset the meta with an assortment of weapon archetype changes along with a handful of key Exotic tweaks. Before the patch rolls around, brush up with an early rundown on what to expect.

As Bungie strives to keep the state of both PVP and PVE fresh in Destiny 2, sizeable new updates often shake things up across the board. Major balance passes come through every so often and with the 6.2.5 patch notes, yet another sweeping set of changes is locked in for the update which also includes Festival of the Lost 2022.

11 different weapon types are all being adjusted to some degree while four Exotics are also coming under the microscope, so there’s plenty to wrap your head around.

Before the update is deployed, be sure to get ahead of the curve with an early look at what’s to come in the Destiny 2 6.2.5 patch notes.

Destiny 2 6.2.5 update release date & time

The Destiny 2 6.2.5 update is officially set to go live at 10 AM PT on Tuesday, October 18. As always, Bungie will be taking the game down for maintenance during this time, but players will be able to jump back in as soon as this downtime ends at 11 AM PT.

For more on the server status, be sure to check out our guide.

Festival of the Lost

For our full rundown of Festival of the Lost, be sure to check our dedicated page.

11 weapon types changing in Destiny 2 6.2.5 update

From Auto Rifles and Bows to Rocket Launchers and Trace Rifles, a wide variety of weapon types are set to change in the upcoming Destiny 2 patch. For some, specific archetypes in the category are being honed in, while other weapon types are receiving broad changes on the whole.

Starting with the former, Associate Designer ‘Mercules’ addressed Auto Rifle feedback head-on in the latest TWAB blog post.

“We often hear suggestions that we should decrease the TTK, or increase the range of Auto Rifles, but we have investigated those options and found that with very minor changes to either, they can quickly become oppressive across PvP sandboxes.”

As a result, rather than carelessly pushing key buffs, only Precision Frame Auto Rifles are getting an improvement in the update, with the crit damage multiplier increasing from 1.5x to 1.55x.

Meanwhile, for Bows, a weapon category that’s admittedly “nearly impossible to counter in high-level gameplay” due to their rapid swap speed, Bungie is seeking to increase stow duration in order to scale things back slightly without ruining the class altogether.

Scout Rifle damage is being nerfed, Glaive shield protection is being reduced, and Rocket Launcher blast radius is being upped across the board. But those are just scratching the surface of the full list of changes in the 6.2.5 patch notes below.

Destiny 2 6.2.5 update patch notes:

The full notes can be found on Bungie’s site.

Weapon archetypes

Auto Rifles

• General 
  • Increased the effects of the stability stat on recoil reduction by ~20% at the high end
• Precision Frames 
  • Increased the crit damage multiplier from 1.5x to 1.55x (crit damage goes from 30 to 31)

Bows

• Increased Bow stow duration (varies by sub-family and handling stat): 
  • Before, 0 to 100 handling stat 
    • Lightweight Frame: 0.4s to 0.2s
    • Precision Frame: 0.433s to 0.2s
  • After, 0 to 100 handling stat 
    • Lightweight: 0.45s to 0.3s
    • Precision: 0.48s to 0.33s

Pulse Rifles

• General 
  • Rebalanced the effect of the handling stat across Pulse Rifles (the handling stat affects a weapon’s ready, stow, and aim down sights speed)
    • Increased effects of handling by 5% at the high end (mostly affects Lightweight and Adaptive Frame Pulse Rifles)
    • Reduced effects of handling by 2% at the low end (mostly affects High Impact and Rapid Fire Frame Pulse Rifles)
  • Adjusted damage falloff scale based on the range stat: 
    • 0 range: reduced from 16m to 15m
    • 100 range: unchanged
  • Adaptive Frame Pulse Rifles 
    • Increased the precision multiplier from 1.6x to 1.65x (crit damage goes from 30.4 to 31.4)
    • This allows a weapon to kill Guardians below tier 4 resilience with 6 crits (two bursts) in 0.60s
  • Rapid-Fire Frame Pulse Rifles: 
    • Piece of Mind base zoom reduced from 19 to 18

Scout Rifles

• High –Impact Scout Rifles 
  • Reduced body damage from 42 to 40, and crit damage from 73.5 to 70

Sidearms

• General 
  • Increased auto aim fall off distance by 30% across the board 

Submachine Guns

• General 
  • Reduced damage fall off end (the distance at which the damage dealt by the weapon in hip fire reaches its lowest point, aiming down sights extends this distance by a factor of the zoom) from 24m to 23m across the board
• Precision Frame SMGs 
  • Increased base damage from 16 to 17, crit damage goes from 22.4 to 23.8
  • Reduced the zoom of Shayura’s Wrath, Shayura’s Wrath (Adept), and Friction Fire from 16 to 15
• Lightweights Frame SMGs 
  • Reduced base damage from 11 to 10.85, crit damage from 18.2 to 17.9

Fusion Rifles

• Precision Frame Fusion Rifles 
  • Reduced the effect the intrinsic Precision Frame perk has on recoil direction by 50% for Fusion Rifles only

Glaives

• Reduced Glaive shield damage resistance vs. players from 75% to 50% 
  • Damage from player supers unchanged at 50%
  • Damage from non-players unchanged at 97.5%

Sniper Rifles

• General 
  • Increased the settle time after receiving flinch by 60%
  • Reduced received flinch in PvE
  • Now that this has had sufficient playtest time, we’re making a similar change to Linear Fusion Rifles in Season 19

Trace Rifles

• General 
  • Increased the effect the stability stat has on recoil reduction at the low end of the stat by ~10%, at the high end of the stat by ~25%

Rocket Launchers

• General 
  • Increased blast radius by 0.4m across the board

Perks

Gunshot Straight

• General 
  • Removed audio from activation

Rangefinder

• General 
  • Removed the additional 20% bonus on aim assist falloff

Exotics

Jade Rabbit

• General 
  • Reduced aim assist by 20

Lord of Wolves

• When Release the Wolves is active  
  • Reduced aim down sight (ADS) accuracy penalty 10x to 3x
  • Removed the 25% universal base damage buff
  • Added a 40% additional PvE damage buff
  • Removed the 50% critical hit multiplier penalty
  • Added full auto as an intrinsic perk

No Time To Explain

• Reduced recoil direction stat from 90 to 73
• Reduced aim assist stat from 45 to 40

Riskrunner

• Reduced damage resistance versus players when Arc Superconductor is active from 50% to 15%