Destiny 2’s Tonics are finally worth using but they’re still not a crafting replacement

Much-needed buffs to Episode Revenant’s Tonics have finally gone live in Destiny 2, but they’re still not a worthwhile replacement for crafting.

In the December 17 patch, Bungie made sweeping improvements to the Tonic system, employing a two-pronged approach.

First and foremost, Legendary Tonics now guarantee their associated loot when used while also boosting the odds of finding the same targeted weapon or armor from chests in their respective activity. Tonic durations have also been increased across the board for all rarities, so you won’t need to reapply them as often.

All welcome improvements, no doubt, but are they enough to justify Tonics as the replacement for crafting they were designed to be? Not even close.

Jumping through hoops

There are still far too many caveats and questionable design decisions attached to Revenant’s main gimmick.

I use that word deliberately, as even after the December 17 changes, Tonics require players to jump through far too many hoops to achieve a result that previously required little more than just playing the game.

The whole system reeks of overdesign, requiring a lengthy, multi-step process to guarantee you find what you’re looking for.

Ingredients gathering – an issue in itself, as certain materials only drop from specific activities – crafting time, usage, and reapplication; it’s all micromanagement that only serves to waste your time.

Just as no Guardian wants to spend hours sifting through their Vault, deciding what to keep and dismantle, Tonics are admin for admin’s sake. They feel like a gameplay regression in every sense, attempting to present a solution to a problem that was already solved years ago with weapon crafting.

Out with the new, in with the old

While crafting still exists, Bungie’s comments throughtout this season indicate that it wants to move away from offering direct, deterministic loot and restore the excitement of the chase.

Is the system, introduced in Witch Queen, perfect? Not at all – there’s even a good argument for its complete removal – but Tonics fail to even hold a candle to weapon focusing or Attunement, the latter of which was universally praised for providing a satisfying loot chase during Into the Light.

There’s a sense that Bungie feels the need to continually reinvent the wheel when all Tonics needed to be was Attunement in a bottle, yet what we’ve ended up with is something far more convoluted than that.

Focused feedback

These pain points haven’t gone unnoticed by the community, either.

Following the December 17 patch, many of the same criticisms were commonplace on Destiny 2’s subreddit, commending Bungie for delivering much-needed changes while questioning “Why was this not the base way Tonics worked” from day one.

Tonics aren’t useless, at least not anymore, but they’re still a far cry from being a worthwhile substitute for what’s already present. The feeling that they’re inferior to what’s come before is tough to shrug off. “It doesn’t matter how buffed they become, Tonics will remain dumb as sh*t as long as other focusing options are in the game.”

Whether Bungie will scrap Tonics entirely and return to the drawing board remains to be seen. Historically, any content introduced in a season isn’t considered evergreen, anyway, and teasers of a so-called “Heretical Arsenal” for Revenant’s successor suggest the loot chase will change once again when Episode Heresy arrives in February.