A major update launches for Destiny Tuesday, June 14 that will rebalance a number of weapons for PvP play, as well as sweeping changes to the Hunter class.

Destiny fans are eagerly awaiting Rise of Iron, Destiny's fall expansion, which was revealed last week. But that doesn't mean Bungie is not also paying attention to the current state of the game. The developer today announced that as of tomorrow, Tuesday June 14 Update 2.3.0 will bring a rebalance to weapons and the classes, especially focused on all three Hunter subclasses.

Class Rebalancing

Bungie has already put the spotlight in the past on Warlocks and Titans, rebalancing those classes as a whole. And now that attention has turned toward Hunters. The hot topic buzzing in the Destiny community is the changes coming to the Gunslinger subclass, most notably to Tripmine Grenades. Tripmines will no longer attach to an enemy and their damage has been reduced by 3%. Bungie says players are using the grenades outside of their original intention—and they are doing so very effectively:

The Tripmine Grenade has been a dominant grenade choice for a while. It’s possible that this because it was the grenade that did everything: set a trap, stick it to an opponent, miss an opponent and end up setting a trap anyway. The original intent with this grenade was to be used as a trap, not a sticky, so we moved it back in that direction.

In addition, Swarm Grenades are getting a buff as Bungie hopes to increase the grenade diversity for Gunslingers.

For the Bladedancer subclass, Bungie is adding a -1 Recovery penalty to the Blink ability so that there is a tradeoff for players using the mobility ability to escape. This penalty also applies to Blink on Voidwalkers. Further Arc Blade is being focused as more offensive and less as a mobility super, getting increased accuracy, slower drain when a hit is made, but with a bigger drain on swings that don't connect.

The Nightstalker's Shadowshot will now suppress enemies on impact, which will eliminate the delay that currently exists and gives opponents a chance to trade kills with the player. The Shadestep ability also got a nerf, giving it a 3 second cooldown, which means players won't be able to spam it.

Bungie also increased the damage of many supers against PvE enemies, specifically Hammer of Sol, Fist of Havoc, Nova Bomb, and Stormtrance. The Sunbreaker is also getting a buff, with increased Hammer of Sol travel speed and detonation radius.

Lastly, the most controversial perk and ability combination of the Sunsinger—Firebolt Grenades and Viking Funeral—is getting a change. Firebolt Grenades are getting a slightly increased arming time before they fire (allowing opponents a little more time to get away) and reducing the grenades' reach by 1 meter. Viking Funeral will no longer cause damage over time, but will weaken targets to increased damage from other sources.

Weapon Rebalancing

For weapons, hand cannons will get increased initial accuracy but a sharper curve in damage dropoff to help keep them in their intended range class and out of the range of scout rifles. As a result of this, the exotic hand cannon Hawkmoon will specifically get a reduction in Stability because Bungie found it became too strong with these changes implemented.

Lately, the Trials of Osiris auto rifle Doctrine of Passing has been very popular. Its high fire rate and ability to stagger opponents have made it a formidable weapon. The auto rifles in its class (high fire rate/low impact) like the Soulstealer's Claw and Arminius-D will receive a 6% damage reduction.

The last weapon balances with the April Update made ammo more scarce. Bungie has found it did so a little too much. There is a mechanic that tracks when a player's magazine is empty. After a certain amount of time, that timer will run out and the game will automatically gather up ammo in the area and add it to the player's reserves. This timer has been reduced, meaning if players run out of ammo and can't get to an ammo brick, their weapon will be automatically refilled much sooner.

Bungie has also found that the perk Counterbalance, found on numerous weapons, was too effective. It reduces the right/left recoil of any gun by 100% so that players only have to deal with up/down recoil. Bungie has pulled back Counterbalance's effectiveness in Update 2.3.0 to only mitigate 80% of the left/right recoil.

Lastly, the King's Fall sniper rifle Defiance of Yasmin, which has received increase attention since the sniper rifle adjustments made in the April Update, will have it scope zoom adjusted to match the changes made to the other short range scopes in the April Update.

Read the full changes coming to weapons and classes on Bungie.net.

What do you think of the changes coming to Destiny in Update 2.3.0?