Because of the rippling effects of the pandemic on video game studios and development times, Bungie was affected in a way that made the company reschedule the launch for Destiny 2's The Witch Queen. The expansion was initially meant to launch around a year after its predecessor, Beyond Light, but it was eventually postponed until February of next year, making the current Season the longest Destiny 2 has witnessed. Season of the Lost launched in August and will end with the launch of the upcoming yearly expansion, meaning that its lifespan is double that of regular Seasons, which in turn led Bungie to opt for a sort of Season 15.5 in December.Rumors regarding a possible Anniversary Pack for Bungie's 30th anniversary had been circulating for a while prior to the official announcement and, despite the actual recurring date was in July, the company decided to have the DLC drop in the holiday season. This will give Bungie a chance to have a much larger mid-Season patch, and thus far the team has confirmed a lot of changes coming to Destiny 2 - such as the nerfs to Dunemarchers, Shatterdive, and Vex Mythoclast. These changes can drastically alter the current meta for the remainder of Season of the Lost, and there are both good and bad things that can come out of it, depending on how Bungie handles the December patch.RELATED: Destiny 2 Players Can Cheese Activities to Gain Festival of the Lost Pages and Candy Insanely Fast

The Case For December Nerfs to Vex Mythoclast, Abilities, and Exotics

A fire team wearing full raid armor from the Vault of Glass in Destiny 2 with a Titan carrying the Vex Mythoclast. (From Left to Right: Warlock Class Guardians, Titan Class Guardian, and Hunter Class Guardian.)

A good reason for Destiny 2's most powerful items and abilities to change is that it fosters further changes in how players approach the game, coming up with different builds to adapt their playstyle to the new sandbox. This is essentially what each Season does with a handful of new activities and seasonal mods, thus it makes sense for this sort of Season 15.5 to do something similar. Changes to Dunemarchers and Shatterdive have been a recurring community concern for a long while, and even if they might feel bad to those players who like the Titan Exotic or the Stasis Hunter ability, this might be for the best.

Considering how Bungie teased buffs to the Adrenaline Junkie perk via a tweet, it's not unlikely that the December patch will feature beneficial changes as well, much like the Season of the Lost patch did. With this Season, Bungie made a lot of targeted improvements to fusion rifles and a few Exotics, also trying to revamp a few class-specific Exotic armor pieces that had fallen off the radar for a long time. As such, while there will be nerfs and some things will need a bit of fine-tuning, it doesn't mean the December patch will not bring good things with it - apart from the new content itself, coming with the Destiny 2 Anniversary Pack.

This is good for the longevity of the game, and it can be especially great if Bungie decides to refresh some of the seasonal activities or mod pools, or even the rotation of Nightfalls and the seasonal challenges. With Season of the Lost going for six months, changing the rotation of Nightfall Strikes and Grandmaster Nightfalls might be a smart idea, particularly because players are not happy with the current selection due to bugs and generally hard or annoying Strikes being featured. Refreshing seasonal mods and challenges could also let players have huge motivation to shake things up in their approach to the Season, transforming current builds into something else or looking forward to new ways to earn big experience boosts and Bright Dust.

Generally speaking, everything that dominates the meta too much is deserving of a nerf in order to make other options feel more valuable and viable. Because Vex Mythoclast has been an extremely powerful pick for both PVE and PVP ever since the changes to it with Season of the Lost, it does make sense for Bungie to tune it to make it as good as other choices and let it fulfill a specific niche.

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The Case Against December Nerfs to Vex Mythoclast, Abilities, and Exotics

Destiny 2 Hunter Shatterdive

On the other hand, Vex Mythoclast is a Raid Exotic that not many players have gotten since the release of Vault of Glass, and nerfing it in December might hamper the experience for those who will get a chance to use it later on. Specifically, the main issue with this is that the drop rates for Vex Mythoclast seem to be extremely low in Destiny 2, meaning that even running the Raid every week on all characters might not be enough for players to get this powerful weapon to drop before the nerfs. As such, gamers getting their hands on Vex Mythoclast after the nerfs will have never had a chance to try it out when it was all the rage, taking away some value from the drop itself.

While the same logic can be applied to all abilities and more common Exotics, it is also true that these options are quite strong on a few specific occasions or in a handful of activities. Shatterdive is a tad too potent in PVP as of now, meaning that a nerf is not completely unexpected, but Destiny 2 not having separate sandboxes for PVE and PVP also means that the ability will likely never be used again in non-competitive content. A more gunplay-focused sandbox, where most abilities are nerfed or less frequently cast, can be a very different one for players who are used to building their characters around some of those class-specific actions.

Destiny 2 already has an issue with customization and diversity within the game, but if Bungie doesn't balance things well with the December patch, it's likely that this could get worse. Nerfing dominant items and Exotics can limit the players' options just as much as buffing underused ones can increase them, and while striking a perfect balance between these things can be excruciatingly hard, buffing worse alternatives instead is a much better approach. Ultimately, while the content of the December patch will seemingly be outlined in a TWAB in November, players shouldn't expect this patch to completely change the status quo of the game - at least, not until The Witch Queen drops.

Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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