Destiny 2 Season of the Wish early patch notes: Major Exotic changes, ability buffs, more

Destiny 2’s Season of the Wish patch notes bring about a huge amount of changes to the looter shooter, including ability buffs, exotic changes, and more. Here’s the early rundown

The next season for Destiny 2 is on the horizon, Season of the Wish will bring a brand new seasonal content trove for players to explore. It will also be the final season before the launch of the finale of the Light and Dark saga, The Final Shape.

But before we get there, Bungie has started lifting the veil on what Guardians can expect in terms of changes to the sandbox. With dozens of tweaks already listed, there’s plenty to wrap your head around.

Looking to get the low down on what’s changing? We’ve got you covered.

When does Destiny 2 Season of the Wish update go live?

Destiny 2 Season of the Wish is set to commence on Tuesday, November 28, with the daily reset at 5PM UTC. Though as usual with major updates, there’s sure to be some downtime in advance to let everyone download and install the big patch.

Destiny 2 Season of the Wish early patch notes

The early Destiny 2 Season of the Wish patch notes are as follows, courtesy of Bungie. Though keep in mind these are all early changes and could be adjusted before the final update rolls out.

Exotic Armor Changes

Hunter

Shards of Galanor

• Throwing Knife kills now grant Super energy ranging between +2.5% and +5% depending on the type of enemy killed.

Ophidia Spathe

• Knife kills now grant a stacking damage bonus (+30%/+60%/+100% for 5 seconds) to throwing knives. Dodging refreshes the duration.

St0mp-EE5

• Removed requirement to have full class ability energy to benefit from the movement bonuses.
• Reduced the airborne lateral acceleration bonus.
• Now provides damage resistance against combatants while airborne.

Mechaneer’s Tricksleeves

• The Sidearm damage bonus now persists for 5 seconds after your shields begin to recharge.
• Sidearm kills extend the damage bonus’ duration by 3 seconds and completely reload your Sidearm from reserves.
• The damage bonus has been reduced in PvP to compensate for it lasting longer. It is now +10% Sidearm damage (down from +35%).

The Bombardiers

• Now applies 20 slow stacks to enemy players and 40 slow stacks to PvE combatants.

Triton Vice

• Increased Glaive melee damage bonus while surrounded to +100% for both PvE and PvP (up from +30% in PvE and +10% in PvP).

Celestial Nighthawk

• Precision kills now grant Super energy ranging between +1.5% and +4.5%, depending on target type killed.

Titan

Severance Enclosure

• Increased size and damage of the explosion.
• Kills with the Exotic’s explosion will now trigger an additional explosion.

Peregrine Greaves

• You now have to be airborne for a brief time before the Exotic effects will apply.
• Damaging Champions, Tormentors, or mini-bosses with a shoulder charge deals further increased damage and refunds your melee energy.

Wormgod Caress

• The Burning Fist Exotic effect has been reworked. It is now a meter that increases with melee kills and finishers and decays over time.
  • The meter is broken up into five sections which provide escalating melee and Glaive melee damage bonuses. The upper end of the meter also provides escalating weapon damage bonuses.
  • As the meter decays, it passes back through the earlier tiers rather than deactivating immediately. The meter decays more quickly the more full it is.

Ashen Wake

• Fusion Grenade impacts now stun Unstoppable Champions.

Synthoceps

• Removed extended melee lunge distance.
• Now improves weapon handling and reload speed while surrounded.
• Reduced the PvE surrounded melee damage bonus to +165% (from +200%).
• Increased Glaive melee bonus to +100% (from +50%).

Precious Scars

• Kills with weapons matching your subclass now apply Restoration Tier 1 for 1.5 seconds in PvP and 3 seconds in PvE.

Warlock

Ballidorse Wrathweavers

• Now when you cast a Frostpulse rift, nearby allies gain a Tier 2 Stasis Surge weapon bonus for 10 seconds in PvE and 5 seconds in PvP. They also gain a 50hp overshield.
• The stasis damage bonus provided to allies by the Winter’s Wrath Shockwave is now the Tier 4 Stasis Surge weapon bonus. When your Winter’s Wrath ends, you gain the Tier 4 Stasis Surge weapon bonus as well.

Apotheosis Veil

• Casting your Super now grants Cure Tier 3 for you and nearby allies.
• After your Super ends, you now temporarily gain greatly increased melee and grenade regen for 8 seconds.

Felwinter’s Helm

• Moved the size of the weakening burst and duration of weaken up one tier against all targets, except for finishers against bosses, which retains the maximum size and duration.

Karnstein Armlets

• Melee kills now grant Cure T3 and Restoration T1 for 8 seconds.
• Finishers now grant Cure T3 and Restoration T2 for 8 seconds.

Aeon Cult

Aeon Swift, Safe and Soul all received the following changes to their “sect” mods.

Sect of Force

• Rapid precision hits provide quicker reload and weapon swap speeds, and the bonus now lasts for 10 seconds (up from 6 seconds).
• No longer grants bonus melee, grenade, or Super energy on stunning a Champion or defeating a boss or miniboss. Instead, stunning a Champion or rapid precision hits against Champions, elites, or minibosses will mark them for your allies.
• Allies deal +20% more damage to marked targets.
• When a target is first marked, nearby Aeon cult allies who do not have the Sect of Force role equipped gain grenade and melee energy.

Sect of Insight

• Nearby Aeon cult allies who do not have the Sect of Insight role equipped no longer gain a bonus to weapon damage for a short time. Instead, they gain a burst of Super energy.

Sect of Vigor

• Now provides damage resistance against combatants when an ally dies or is resurrected, in addition to the existing class ability energy.
• When you cast your Super, nearby allies no longer gain an instant burst of healing or an overshield. Instead, nearby critically wounded allies gain damage resistance from combatants as long as they stay near you. Nearby Aeon cult allies who do not have the Sect of Vigor role equipped will also recover class ability energy more quickly.

Armor Mod Changes

Heavy Handed, Firepower, and Reaper

• These now have a 10-second cooldown for generating an Orb of Power.
• Reaper also requires a kill be secured within 10 seconds of using your class ability.

Melee Kickstart, Grenade Kickstart, and Utility Kickstart

• Now provides between +16% and +45% ability energy and requires at least a single armor charge be consumed.

Momentum Transfer, Bolstering Detonation, Impact Induction, and Focusing Strike

• Now provide 12%/17%/20% ability energy for 1/2/3 stacks respectively and require a powered melee attack.

Outreach and Bomber

• Now provides 12%/17%/20% ability energy for 1/2/3 stacks respectively.

Outreach, Bomber, and Distribution

• Outreach and Bomber now provides 12%/17%/20% ability energy.
• Distribution now provides 4%/6%/7% ability energy.
• Energy provided is further reduced based on the cooldown of the class ability used, with the shortest cooldowns reducing it by 60%.

Ability Changes

Survivability Buffs

Restoration

Reduced healing rate at Restoration x1:

• Old:
  • 40hp/s (PvE)
  • 20hp/s (PvP)
• New:
  • 35hp/s (PvE)
  • 17.5hp/s (PvP)

Reduced healing rate at Restoration x2:

• Old:
  • 65hp/s (PvE)
  • 32.5hp/s (PvP)
• New:
  • 50hp/s (PvE)
  • 25hp/s (PvP)

Woven Mail

• Reduced damage resistance vs. PvE combatants from 55% to 45%.

Devour

• Healing amount (both on activation and when refreshed) reduced from a full heal to 100hp unless Feed the Void is equipped.
• Now refills both health and shield sections more smoothly rather than adding health to each section separately.

Feed The Void

• Increased grenade energy regeneration per kill while Devour is active. This amount varies based on the type of target defeated.
• Now also improves the strength of Devour’s heal when equipped.

Sprint and Slide Melees

Sprint- and slide-activated melees can no longer be activated after the player fires their weapon during a slide.

• This affects the following melee abilities:
  • Seismic Strike
  • Shield Bash
  • Hammer Strike
  • Howl of the Storm
  • Consecration
  • Flechette Storm
  • Lightning Surge
  • Tempest Strike

Tempest Strike

• Increased base damage from 110 to 125.
• Reworked tracking behavior to be more consistent at longer ranges.
• Improved consistency when traveling over rough terrain.

Titan

Banner of War

• Increased the number of enemy defeats necessary to level up the Banner by approximately double and increased the amount of time added per enemy defeat at each level to compensate.
• These values vary depending on the type of target defeated.
• Fixed an issue where unpowered Swords were being granted a damage boost by Banner of War.

Throwing Hammer

• When picked up, now returns melee energy over 1.4 seconds rather than instantly.
• Increased projectile tracking strength by about 20%.

Sol Invictus

• Reduced maximum Sunspot duration from 20 seconds to 12 seconds.
  • This duration is only ever reached when the player is standing inside the Sunspot. Sunspot duration without the owner standing inside it remains unchanged at 5 seconds.

Well of Radiance and Ward of Dawn

• Increased base cooldown time from 417 seconds to 455 seconds.

Stasis

Whisper of Hedrons

• Removed -10 Strength penalty.

Whisper of Impetus

• Now provides +10 Resilience.

Whisper of Shards

• No longer provides +10 Resilience.

Whisper of Hunger

• Stat penalty changed from -10 Mobility and -10 Intellect to -20 Strength.

Whisper of Bonds

• Removed -10 Discipline penalty.

Withering Blade

• Increased projectile speed by 10%.
• Increased maximum projectile lifetime by 10%.
• Increased maximum bounce count from 2 to 3.
• Increased tracking consistency.

Winter’s Shroud

• Increased slow stacks applied to PvE combatants from 40 to 60.
• Increased slow duration applied to PvE combatants from 4s to 8s.
• Increased slow detonation size vs. PvE combatants from 8m to 9m.

Shiver Strike

• Now slows players on hit, a behavior previously removed in Hotfix 3.2.0.3.
• Fixed an issue where Shiver Strike would not function with the Melee Kickstart armor mod.

Glacial Quake

• Now freezes nearby players on cast, a behavior previously removed in Hotfix 3.1.1.1.
• On-cast freeze impulse size vs. players has been reduced from 8m to 6m.

Howl of the Storm

• Fixed an issue where Howl of the Storm was not consistently freezing targets in contact with the created Stasis crystals.

Frostpulse

• Significantly increased consistency against fast-moving targets.
  • This change involved reworking how this ability applies freeze to targets, reducing the latency between when the ability is activated and when the target is actually frozen.
• Freeze detonation size vs. PvE combatants increased from 8m to 8.5m.

Penumbral Blast

• Increased detonation size when impacting environment from 1.5m to 2m.

Glacier Grenade

• Reduced base cooldown time from 152 seconds to 121 seconds.
• The cooldown penalties for Duskfield Grenade and Coldsnap Grenade when Bleak Watcher is equipped have also been updated, so that their cooldown times match the new Glacier Grenade cooldown time.

Coldsnap Grenade

• Fixed an issue where the seeker was not consistently created in the direction the projectile was moving after a bounce.
• Increased arming shape size from 0.9m to 1.4m.
• Tracking strength now ramps down from full strength to 0 over the course of the grenade’s lifetime, rather than immediately turning off after the seeker had reached 0.5s lifetime.

Freeze

• Increased Special ammo weapon damage bonus vs. frozen targets from 5% to 10%.