Bungie has given a preview of a wide weapon rebalancing coming to Destiny next month, which addresses many of the complaints in the game, including a nerf to shotguns and pulse rifles.

Just days after Destiny's November update, which made many changes to Crucible quests and bounties, Bungie has given a preview of new weapon balancing coming in next month's Destiny update.

The December Update plans to seriously tweak many of Destiny's weapons. Sandbox Designer Jon Weisnewski tweeted a few days ago, "So far all major feedback items are addressed in some way." After getting a sizeable preview from Bungie today, that looks to be true.

Each weapon type and some specific exotics will be affected by the December update. Bungie's goal is to keep each weapon class in its specified role and try to eliminate the tendency for players to fall back on the same kind of loadout.

Auto rifles, which have seen a little more action since the last major weapon balancing in patch 2.0, are becoming even more lethal up close with an overall damage increase. However, their drastic damage falloff will remain intact to keep them less lethal at range (a problem in the first few months of Destiny).

Since The Taken King launched, pulse rifles have become the dominant primary weapon. Their accuracy, range, and damage are incredible right now. Within the Crucible, there really isn't much reason to use any other primary weapon type. To mix things up and level them to other weapon classes, all pulse rifles are getting a damage decrease as well as having their damage falloff tweaked to keep them in their intended medium-range combat role. To help them remain viable in PvE, they are getting the slightest of damage increase to AI combatants only.

By the end of Year 1, hand cannons reigned supreme in Destiny (Thorn, anyone?). Now, they are hardly used. With the other changes to other weapon types, Bungie will only make one change to hand cannons, which is a buff to their ADS (aim down sites) accuracy.

Next up are shotguns, the bane of many in the Crucible. Shotguns have been nerfed hard since The Taken King was released, but players are still finding ridiculously long-range shotguns to use in PvP. Bungie's answer is to further bring their damage falloff to within melee range, and also slowing down the time it takes to ready, reload, and aim them. Bungie will also be adding more recoil and a longer delay to how fast a player can fire a shotgun coming out of a sprint. Holding a shotgun will also slow down a player's base walking speed, but sprinting speed will be unaffected.

The December Update will also change two common complaints about sniper rifles, making sure headshots are always one shot kills (unless at extreme ranges) and making the perk Luck in the Chamber (which can currently one-shot body shot a player in PvP) only activate on headshots.

Fusion rifles and Sidearms are each receiving small changes to help them be more competitive. Bungie also detailed changes coming to specific exotics:

  • The First Curse (judged useless by the Destiny community in general) will now refill the magazine to allow its namesake perk to really be taken advantage of.
  • Hawkmoon is getting a slight nerf, with Bungie staitng that with the other weapon changes it became dominant in playtesting.
  • Bungie found that The Chaperone also became too strong in playtesting, so they are nerfing its damage but increasing its precision damage.
  • Sleeper Simulant is getting its magazine size increased from 7 to 9.
  • Black Spindle's first column will change to barrel upgrades instead of scope upgrades.
  • Fabian Strategy is receiving many changes to push it into a rapid firing, close range weapon most effective up close.

Next month's weapon tuning will seriously mix up Destiny's competitive meta. Bungie also teased that they will be giving more details soon about other changes in the December Update that will address subclasses, specifically Sunbreakers.

What do you think of the new weapon balance coming to Destiny?

Destiny is available now for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.One.

Source: Bungie