Destiny 2 is disabling the exotic weapon Jotunn during the upcoming Garden of Salvation raid. An exploit was discovered with the weapon that gave it the ability to do inordinate amounts of damage, and rather than taint the World’s First runs in the new Shadowkeep raid, Bungie will take the weapon out of the equation.
Although Jotunn has been in Destiny 2 for close to a year – released during the Black Armory DLC – only recently had players discovered a major exploit with the exotic. Apparently, if players get close enough to an enemy that Jotunn both damages the enemy and themselves, the output increases exponentially.
In most cases the Jotunn damage exploit is a non-factor since taking damage and getting close to an enemy is likely to get the player killed. However, in the case of Strike and raid bosses, where many of the targets stand still during a damage phase, the Jotunn exploit could cause problems.
Shortly after the exploit was discovered, top Destiny 2 PvE players were calling for Jotunn to be fixed or disabled before Shadowkeep. Any advantage that a weapon can offer to raid teams in Shadowkeep’s raid is sure to add an asterisk to the World’s First completion of the Garden of Salvation raid. Not that raid completions have been without controversy, like when a team used the Wardcliff Coil glitch in Leviathan.
It took a couple of days but Bungie’s Luke Smith confirmed that Jotunn will be disabled for the Garden of Salvation raid. It’s unclear if this means only for the World’s First, 24-hour time period or until a fix is released. Smith did say that Bungie has identified the issue and a fix is in the works, but it doesn’t look like it will arrive any time soon. The Garden of Salvation raid releases on October 5th, which is about 2 weeks away.
Though it’s not unheard of for a weapon glitch to appear and require swift action from Bungie, it is surprising that this Jotunn damage glitch was only just found. Perhaps some other change made this possible, but it seems like someone randomly found the glitch. Either way, props are due Bungie for making a change to ensure that Destiny 2’s World’s First raid race is not impacted by the glitch.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep releases October 1, 2019 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The Garden of Salvation raid opens on Saturday, October 5th.