[GameSpot] - Destiny 2 Season 19 Will Enhance Some Abilities And Nerf A Few Hunter Supers

[343iBot]

This year has seen some big changes introduce to Destiny 2's various subclass abilities, with these distinct sets of power building on the ideas introduced with Stasis in 2020's Beyond Light expansion. Void was the first subclass to receive a 3.0 overhaul, and with the launch of The Witch Queen expansion this year, Solar also received a hefty upgrade. Season of Plunder introduced Arc 3.0 to Destiny 2 players, and now that the three original subclasses have been reworked, more fine-tuning is on the way.

Bungie detailed these changes in its weekly blog post, revealing some of the changes lined up in the abilities sandbox in Season 19. These changes, similar to the mid-season weapon-tuning patch, are going to be more granular in nature ahead of bigger changes planned for Destiny 2 after the Lightfall expansion launches in February 2023. "For Season 19, our primary goal is to more closely normalize the power of our existing subclasses, giving us a more standard baseline that we can use for future tuning," Bungie explained.

Here's a look at what you can expect next month when these changes land.

Solar

Restoration is being changed to be slightly less effective in PvE and PvP, as this healing ability is seen to be too powerful in the current metagame. For Warlocks, Restoration will no longer stack with Healing Rift and its numbers will be dropped by roughly 10-20% in all activities.

Bungie says that it is mostly happy with the Radiant buff effect, but it'll be changing it to have a more meaningful drawback through the use of the two Ember fragments, Torches and Solace. Ember of Torches will apply Radiant for 8 seconds instead of 10 on top of a -10 Discipline penalty, and Ember of Solace provides a bonus 50% to Radiant duration rather than a flat 5 seconds.

The Knock 'Em Down aspect is being tweaked to function more cleanly across the two Golden Gun variants of a Hunter's Super. Deadshot will gain 15% damage resistance but lose its bonus duration, and Marksman will no longer provide bonus damage resistance while Knock 'Em Down is equipped.

Blade Barrage's bonus knife count is being reduced from 5 to 3 per wave, releasing a total of 20 knives instead of 24. For the Celestial Fire melee, expect slightly increased close-range damage. Players using Celestial Fire and the auto-melee option are no longer disadvantaged in close-range melee fights, according to Bungie.

Void

The big changes coming to Void include a focus on survivability overall. An issue where the overshield was only providing 25% PvE-only damage resistance to the overshield, rather than the intended 50%, will be addressed, and Warlock Voidwalkers can expect the Vortex Nova Bomb to have a bit more power. Bungie will increase the projectile speed by 21%, increase the radius of the inward pull on impact by 17%, and add a further boost to the strength of the inward pull on impact by 20%.

Sentinel Titans will get a Shield Bash that is more consistent and reliable when suppressing nimble enemies in PvP, and Hunters running a Shadowshot build are going to be using that Super differently in Season 19. Bungie's tweaks include pushing the Moebius Quiver further away from Deadfall's role as a long duration debuff tool by reducing its Tether lifetime, while simultaneously increasing the Tether lifetime of Deadfall Shadowshot.

As for Hunter Nightstalkers who rely on invisibility, more bad news. Changes are coming, and while Bungie doesn't have anything to announce just yet, expect invisible players to be less frustrating to deal with in PvP.

Arc

The most recent subclass overhaul, Arc 3.0's biggest changes in Season 19 will be focused Touch of Thunder Storm Grenades. "Our intention with this Aspect was to lean hard into Striker as the Titan's grenade-centric class, echoing Code of the Earthshaker’s role, and for the Storm Grenade to be used to force bunkered players to move when a Storm Grenade was approaching," Bungie explained.

To tweak this, enhanced Storm Grenade's roaming duration will be reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds alongside the benefit it receives from Spark of Magnitude. For Titans, Ballistic Slam damage against PvE combatants is being increased by 16% and Hunters can expect Tempest Strike damage against PvE combatants to be buffed by 30%.

For Warlock Stormcallers, a series of targeted changes to these subclass abilities will increase their potency. Arc Souls will do almost double base damage in PvE, Ball Lightning will travel much further, and Chain Lightning is going to do 50% increased damage in PvE. For the Chaos Reach Super, its damage will remain the same but it will have a greatly reduced base cooldown time.

Stasis

Bungie doesn't have any intention of returning Stasis to its original Beyond Light launch potency, but it will be tweaking certain elements of this subclass to make it a powerful option on par with Void, Solar, and Arc. Stasis Slow effects will have an increased movement speed penalty of 10%, Coldsnap grenades will be better at tracking enemies, and Duskfield grenades will apply slightly more Slow stacks to enemy Guardians.

One big change will see single-slot Stasis aspects across Revenant Hunter and Behemoth Titans overhauled, with those aspects having two slots for fragments. For Revenant Hunters, that'll be Winter's Shroud, and Behemoth Titans get an improved Cryoclasm fragment.

Warlock Shadebinders will get a 33% reduction on Glacial Harvest's cooldown, making it a more viable option in line with Iceflare Bolts, Bleak Watcher, and Frostpulse. Another big change is targeted at the Whisper of Rending fragment, which will provide bonus damage to Stasis Crystals and frozen targets for all Primary ammo weapons.

As Bungie noted, these are all small changes, and bigger tweaks to all four of these subclasses will come following Strand’s release next year.

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