All Destiny 2 buffs and nerfs coming in Episode Heresy

The next episode of Destiny 2 is coming soon, with Bungie now revealing all of the buffs and nerfs on the way, and it’s easily going to be the game’s biggest update since The Final Shape.

Revealed in a huge 7,000 word TWID, Bungie has outlined a massive series of balance changes coming in Episode Heresy – arriving on Feb 4, 2025.

This huge patch will impact 21 Exotic weapons and 17 Exotic armor pieces, while also adjusting many perks, archetypes, and weapon subfamilies. These total over 100 changes, with the sheer scale of this update being sure to shake up the sandbox and evolve both the PvE meta and PvP meta.

That’s incredible news, as the sandbox has become stagnant, with largely the same weapons and even builds dominating for some time. Hopefully, these changes, which we’ve outlined in their entirety below, will finally see some of the looter shooter’s less appreciated options like D.A.R.C.I. get some love.

Exotic Weapon buffs and nerfs

• Borealis (The Fundamentals)
  • Grants a 30% damage buff (10% in PvP) to this weapon for 10 seconds when you apply or receive an elemental keyword that matches the currently selected damage type of this weapon.
  • Removed Effect: No longer grants different stats based on current element.
  • Increased Stability by 20 and Aim Assist by 10 to permanently grant it the Void element bonus that it will no longer have access to, since Borealis is a sleeper pick in PvP.
• Centrifuse
  • Increased mag size to 45.
• Cloudstrike
  • Added behavior to Stormbringer perk: Rapid precision hits create a lightning storm at the point of impact and grants a stack of Bolt Charge.
  • Added behavior to Mortal Polarity perk: Precision final blows generate a lightning bolt at the target’s location and grants a moderate amount of Bolt Charge.
• Dead Messenger (The Fundamentals)
  • The Fundamentals new effect: Grants a 30% damage buff (10% in PvP) to this weapon for 10 seconds when you apply or receive an elemental keyword that matches the currently selected damage type of this weapon.
  • Removed Effect: No longer grants different stats based on current element.
• Delicate Tomb
  • Increased the chance to make an Ionic Trace from minor combatants from 4% to 10%.
  • Increased the PvE damage bonus on the Tempest Cascade shot from 30% to 100%.
  • Removed the timer from Tempest Cascade. Lasts until fired.
• D.A.R.C.I.
  • Added a new catalyst perk – Networked Targeting
  • Hits with Personal Assistant active grant you and nearby allies improved overall weapon performance and precision damage with non-Exotic Sniper Rifles.
    • Improves recoil, flinch, target acquisition, handling and precision damage.
    • Stacks up to 5x.
    • D.A.R.C.I also gets this buff itself.
  • D.A.R.C.I user also gets +15% damage after granting five stacks to a teammate.
• Edge of Action
  • Special shot is no longer tied to Glaive energy.
    • Now triggered on six weapon hits to allow the special reload.
    • Increments off both shots and melee hits.
  • Effects of Destabilizing Rounds trait added to intrinsic perk.
• Edge of Concurrence
  • Special shot is no longer tied to Glaive energy.
    • Now triggered on six weapon hits to allow the special reload.
    • Increments off both shots and melee hits.
  • Effects of Jolting Feedback trait added to intrinsic perk.
• Edge of Intent
  • Special shot is no longer tied to Glaive energy.
    • Now triggered on six weapon hits to allow the special reload.
    • Increments off both shots and melee hits.
  • Effects of Incandescent trait added to intrinsic perk.
  • Added Cure pulse to special shot impact.
  • Healing Turret no longer targets allies at full health.
    • Allies need some damage done to their shields to be eligible targets.
• Hard Light (The Fundamentals)
  • Grants a 30% damage buff (10% in PvP) to this weapon for 10 seconds when you apply or receive an elemental keyword that matches the currently selected damage type of this weapon.
  • Removed Effect: No longer grants different stats based on current element.
• Lord of Wolves
  • Increased range, reduced base damage.
  • Removed accuracy penalties from standard fire mode.
  • Release the Wolves now triggers on hip fire instead of special reload
    • Fires full auto.
    • Greatly increased damage and rate of fire.
    • Reduced accuracy and range.
  • New Catalyst
    • Reload Speed and Stability boosts are now built in.
    • When Release the Wolves is active, dealing damage to targets scorches them.
    • When ADS, defeating targets spreads scorch to nearby combatants.
• Lorentz Driver
  • Picking up a bounty tag now grants one ammo to the mag.
  • Triggering Lagrangian Sight by picking up a bounty tag adds six ammo to the mag, the first time you trigger it.
    • Returns to adding one ammo per tag on extensions while the buff remains active.
• Quicksilver Storm
  • Reduced shots required to trigger a rocket by 17%.
• Telesto (Harbinger’s Pulse)
  • Now only refills Telesto’s ammo from reserves (instead of Telesto and your Kinetic slot weapon).
  • Now triggers with any Void final blow.
  • Final blow requirement increased from two to three, however Telesto final blows count double (in other words, will trigger from two Telesto final blows, one Telesto final blow + one other Void final blow, or three other Void final blows).
  • Multikill timer increased from 2 seconds to 4.5 seconds.
  • New catalyst: Harbinger Seethe
    • After three activations of Harbinger’s Pulse, special reload the weapon to cause a rain of Telesto projectiles on your next direct hit.
• The Colony
  • Increased detonation damage by 40% -. This puts its damage per shot a little above Legendary Drum Grenade Launchers
  • Increased number of bots spawned by one for all enemy tiers except players:
    • Player: 1
    • Minor: 1->2
    • Elite/Major: 2->3
    • Champion/Miniboss/Boss: 5->6
• The Fourth Horseman
  • Reduced the rate of fire slightly to give more control over wasting shots.
  • Loads ammo from reserves to the magazine per kill.
• The Legend of Acrius
  • Reduced spread angle by 33%.
  • Increased maximum projectile range from 12 to 18 meters.
• The Queenbreaker
  • layers can special reload at any time to swap between scopes.
  • Marksman Sights retains the previous behavior of firing a single shot that chains to nearby targets and blinds them.
    • The range of the chain has increased from 8 meters to 10 meters to make chaining easier.
  • Combat Sights now alters the weapon to fire a three-round burst at a charge time of 533. Sustained damage on a target decreases the charge time of the weapon down to 300 charge time (with no loss to damage), useful for quickly dealing damage to bosses or other high health targets
  • The scope that you select in the inspection screen will determine which scope is active by default when spawning into an activity.
• Thunderlord
  • Added behavior to Reign Havoc perk: Final blows with this weapon generate lighting strikes from above. Lightning strikes grant a stack of Bolt Charge. Strong against Overload Champions.
• Vexcalibur
  • Triggering ‘Perpetual Loophole’ (by scoring a melee kill while your overshield is active) now also fills your Glaive energy to full.
  • Slightly increased Void Overshield trickle-on rate to nearby allies and yourself when guarding.
  • Increased the potency of Vexcalibur’s (secret!) innate advantages against the Vex.
    • Vexcalibur’s secret damage bonus when striking with its projectiles against a certain enemy faction has been increased from 10% to 25% to match Wish-Ender and Malfeasance.
    • Vexcalibur now briefly disorients non-boss Vex with its melee attack.
• Wardcliff Coil
  • New intrinsic effect: Grants one stack of Bolt Charge to all nearby allies for every two rockets fired (four stacks per trigger pull).

Exotic Armor buffs and nerfs

Hunter

• Foetracer
  • Increased the bonus weapon damage duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Gwisin Vest
  • Now progresses its Super returns on Super hits as well as kills before becoming invisible.
  • Improved the maximum possible Super energy gains per return while also increasing the amount of progress needed for maximum gains.
  • Now also emits a cloud of weakening smoke when you exit invisibility while nearby an enemy. Works both in neutral and while in Super.
• Radiant Dance Machines
  • Improves airborne effectiveness and hip fire mobility, range, and accuracy for Primary ammo weapons.
  • Multi-kills with Primary ammo weapons refund dodge energy. When dodge energy is full, multi-kills grant extra charges. Powerful combatants and Guardians count as more than one kill.
• Relavitism
  • Spirit of the Foetracer
    • Reduced the maximum amount of energy refunded for Silkstrike and Golden Gun to 30% (down from 50%).
  • Spirit of Galanor
    • Spirit of the Foetracer has inherited the changes made to Foetracer.
• Renewal Grasps
  • Doubled the rate of Frost Armor gain while in the enhanced Duskfield grenade.
• Sealed Ahamkara Grasps
  • Powered melee and finisher final blows grant Nightmare Fuel, increasing handling and airborne effectiveness. While active, freshly drawn weapons deal additional damage and grant Nightmare Fuel on final blows. Gaining Nightmare Fuel reloads all holstered weapons.

Titan

• An Insurmountable Skullfort
  • Now grants energy to Arc melee abilities when hitting targets with any melee attack. Amount granted varies based on the melee used
• Citan’s Ramparts
  • Removed several downsides applied by Assault Barricade to bring it in line with base Towering Barricade behavior. Cumulatively, these changes result in a Towering barricade you can shoot through with no other downsides while Citan’s is equipped.
    • Increased barricade health from 400 to 500.
    • No longer increases Barricade cooldown.
    • No longer decreases Barricade duration.
  • Further increased damage dealt to Citan’s barricades by Guardians from 125% to 160%.
• Eternal Warrior
  • Final blows with Fists of Havoc now grant extended Super duration.
• Khepri’s Horn
  • Now sends out three waves of flame instead of just one.
    • These waves no longer return towards the Barricade – they only travel outwards once.
    • Tracking on the waves has been enhanced.
    • Combatants damaged by these waves are enveloped in a Sunspot. Players are enveloped if they are defeated.
    • Now requires a Solar Super to be equipped to create the flame waves from the Barricade.
• Stoicism
  • Spirit of the Bear
    • Spirit of the Bear has inherited the changes made to Ursa Furiosa.
  • Spirit of the Horn
    • Spirit of the Horn has inherited the changes made to Khepri’s Horn. On Thruster, Sprit of the Horn will now emit four waves in an X-pattern.
• Ursa Furiosa
  • Blocking damage with Unbreakable now returns grenade energy instead of Super energy.
    • Grenade energy is returned at the end of Unbreakable and is scaled based on the amount of damage you blocked with it.

Warlock

• Geomag Stabilizers
  • Added a new perk: “Sprinting while near max Bolt Charge will top it off.”
    • Starts at six stacks of Bolt Charge.
    • Reenabled VFX where boots spark while sprinting near max Bolt Charge.
  • Increased Super energy gained from ionic traces from 2% to 7%.
• Secant Filaments
  • Now gives class ability energy per kill while Devour is active.
• Speaker’s Sight
  • Healing Turret no longer targets allies at full health.
    • Allies need some damage done to their shields to be eligible targets.
• Stormdancer’s Brace
  • Doubled the damage benefit per stack of Ascending amplitude (up to 20% per stack, from 10%).
  • Now also reduces the cost of Ionic Blink during Super by 50%.
  • Reduced the maximum amount of energy refunded to 30% (down from 50%).
• Verity’s Brow
  • Now uses a tiered meter to track Death Throes
    • New durations per tier:
      • x1: 8 seconds
      • x2: 7 seconds
      • x3: 6 seconds
      • x4: 5 seconds
      • x5: 4 seconds
  • When one tier’s duration elapses, the buff will downgrade to the next lower tier rather than expiring entirely.
    • Bonus grenade recharge per tier:
      • x1: 0.5% per second
      • x2: 1% per second
      • x3: 1.5% per second
      • x4: 2% per second
      • x5: 2.5% per second

Weapon balance changes

Archetype changes

• Scout Rifles
  • +15% vs minors
  • +30% vs majors
• Auto Rifles
  • +10% vs minors and majors
• SMGs
  • +5% vs minors
  • Additionally, in 8.1.5.3 we increased base magazine size by 10-15% rounds based on the mag stat.
• Trace Rifles
  • +20% vs minors
• Linear Fusion Rifles
  • +10% vs all combatants
• Glaives
  • Significantly increased Aim Assist, Aim Magnetism, and Damage Falloff Ranges across the board for all Glaives.
  • Improved Glaive projectile hit registration.
  • Increased the baseline effects at all stat values for handling, magazine size, projectile speed, and reload speed.
  • Final hit of the melee combo deals double damage.

Subfamily changes

• Aggressive Frame Fusion Rifles
  • Aggressive Frame Fusion Rifles now fire three bursts of four pellets in increasingly wide spreads.
  • Increased minimum damage when fully outside of damage falloff range from 45% to 65%.
  • Increased range falloff start by 4m relative to normal Fusions.
  • Increased range falloff end by 3m relative to other Fusions.
  • Increased damage versus minors and majors by 15% relative to normal Fusions.
• Support Frame Auto Rifles
  • Range now increases how far away you can heal another Guardian.
• Rocket-Assisted Frame Sidearms
  • Reduced PvE detonation damage by 45%.
  • Increased PvE impact damage by 100%.
  • Reduced Aim Assist falloff and maximum distance by 8m.
  • Reduced magnetism falloff and maximum distance by 8m.
  • Reduced damage by 30% vs boss, vehicle, and miniboss targets.
    • Buried Bloodline’s body shot damage is unaffected, critical hit damage is buffed by 8%.
  • The range stat was vestigial to the weapon subfamily, so we’ve removed it.

Weapon Perk changes

• Ambitious Assassin
  • Removed both multikill and reload timers.
• Destabilizing Rounds
  • Now grants volatile rounds for 2s if any targets are hit by the volatile burst from the initial final blow.
  • Reduced internal cooldown from 4s to 1.5s.
• Flash Counter
  • No longer requires a timed input or melee to trigger.
  • Deals moderate damage in a large cone in front of you, disorienting combatants.
• Full Court
  • Now scales the detonation and burn damage of Area Denial Grenade Launchers.

Those are all of the buffs, nerfs, and changes coming in Episode Heresy that Destiny 2 players can look forward. To learn more about next season, check out BXR-55 Battler’s successor and Bungie’s plans to reintroduce weekly story content.