There is almost always an imbalance between classes in any multiplayer game, however small that may be, and Destiny 2 is no exception. It features three classes, each with three Light subclasses that have three different branching trees, as well as a single Darkness subclass in the form of Stasis. As such, there have often been times in Destiny 2 where one class would outperform others for a given span of time, which is natural when a game has so many moving pieces that often collide with one another.
For example, Hunters were considered exceptionally powerful when Destiny 2 launched, and that was mainly due to lack of options for all classes as well as the extreme utility that Void tether brought to the endgame when combined with Exotic Orpheus Rig boots. Things have changed, however, and now Hunters are the weakest class when it comes to PvE content. There are several reasons why; some are longstanding problems tied to the seasonal model that Bungie adopted for Destiny 2, whereas others have been introduced with the sandbox update released last Tuesday alongside the 30th Anniversary Pack.
Longstanding Issues With Hunters in Destiny 2's PvE Meta
One of the most prominent issues for Destiny 2's Hunters in PvE is that they currently do not outperform any option available to Warlocks and Titans. Hunters were once believed to be great at bursting down bosses thanks to their Golden Gun Super combined with the famed Celestial Nighthawk Exotic helmet, which would limit the Golden Gun to shoot a single bullet with immense damage to compensate. The only caveat to this was - and still is - that Hunters would need to land a precision hit for the bullet to matter, otherwise the damage provided was negligible by comparison.
This level of burst damage was then overthrown by Supers like Chaos Reach, and especially the Titan's Thundercrash with the Cuirass of the Falling Star Exotic chest armor, which bumps up the Super's damage to incredibly high levels. Thundercrash with its complementary Exotic can not only compete in terms of damage with Hunters using Golden Gun and Celestial Nighthawk, but outperform them due to ease of use and no damage penalty with misses. Another instance is that Hunters became very useful in endgame teams with their Blade Barrage Super thanks to it being very easy to use and fast to regenerate with the Shards of Galanor Exotic gloves, which refund Super energy based on the number of knives hitting enemies.
This combination was nerfed not long ago, with Shards of Galanor only providing up to 50 percent Super energy instead, and also preventing them from being combined with mods like Energy Converter for extra quick Super energy. This was one of the best strategies to kill Atheon from Vault of Glass efficiently, but after the nerf it became apparent that this would no longer be the case. A similar treatment was given to the aforementioned Orpheus Rigs boots, which now recuperate up to 50 percent Super energy when used with the Void Hunters' tether ability.
Many of Destiny 2's strongest seasonal mods all provide players a way to apply the Weaken debuff to enemies, which was previously exclusive to the tether applied by Void Hunters. As such, because anyone can do the same thing with little-to-no downsides, Void Hunters have been stripped of their most interesting PvE ability, as two different sources of Weaken do not stack. Thus, the best use for Hunters at the moment is to go with bottom tree Void and use Omnioculus, which can provide team-wide invisibility with Smoke Bombs, as well as good damage resistance.
Destiny 2's Nerfs to Hunters With the 30th Anniversary Pack
Another issue was introduced a few days ago, with Destiny 2's 30th Anniversary Pack. The sandbox patch didn't benefit Hunters in meaningful ways, it instead increased the cooldown on Hunters' Dodge drastically, making their use much less frequent than before. This means Hunters can more rarely use their Marksman Dodge to immediately reload their weapons and increase burst DPS. They can scarcely benefit from their Gambler's Dodge to regain melee charges, which usually makes some niche builds more reliable.
The second issue for Hunters introduced with the latest patch is that Warlocks' Well of Radiance Super no longer grants synergistic bonuses to allied players with Focusing Lens, which would previously grant bonus damage to the whole party for standing in the Well. This is problematic for Hunters because they were the most reliable class to apply Stasis Super damage to bosses and tougher enemies, but now that option is no more. Destiny 2's Hunters are incidentally also the most played class, meaning many players will now find it problematic to progress due to some LFG groups automatically kicking Hunters because they don't really bring anything too useful to the table.
The best thing Hunters can do in Destiny 2's current endgame is to either use Omnioculus for a few specific encounters or go the Divinity route, maybe combining the Exotic trace rifle with Mask of Bakris and an Arc Lasting Impression rocket launcher in Gjallarhorn teams. While Hunters will never be completely useless, it does feel like they were overlooked in the most recent patch, and them finally getting the win they deserve has been relegated to the next patch - likely coming with The Witch Queen and Void 3.0 update.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.