Following Bungie's efforts to make Destiny 2: Lightfall a more well-rounded and challenging experience, one crucial aspect of its rebalancing was left by the wayside. The damage output by Legendary Primary weapons in Destiny 2 is in rough shape, maybe rougher than it has ever been across the game's tenure, bordering on total irrelevance outside a few choice archetypes. Now fans are pleading with Bungie to go back to the drawing board and rethink its current stance on difficulty.
While the release of Lightfall has brought some much-needed and requested changes to Destiny 2's gameplay loop, its critical reception has been something of a mixed bag. The story laid out in Lightfall sets up the payoff of nearly a decade of buildup, but the execution has fallen short of the gravitas players expected, with unresolved plot lines and grating dialog. The myriad balance changes in Destiny 2 are similarly contentious, with the game feeling somewhat inconsistent in its ramping difficulty. Most fans remain hopeful that the forthcoming seasonal content will address these issues, but as it stands, there are several glaring issues dampening this otherwise solid entry in Destiny 2's run of expansions.
Destiny 2's Legendary Weapons Are on Life Support
Several of the shakeups to the balance of difficulty in Destiny 2's Lightfall have been well met. Changes to the Power Level treadmill have been received favorably and the new enemy design for the Tormentors is a high watermark for an enemy that feels tough but fair. However, Bungie's push for harder content across the bulk of its pinnacle activities has some fans feeling as though its updates might be slightly half-baked. With increased Power Level for enemies across endgame content and while patrolling Neomura, Primary weapons have never felt less impactful. Without the damage buff offered from Exotic weapons, the ability to effectively clear adds, even Red Bars, is an arduous uphill climb if using anything besides submachine guns and a few select scout rifles.
Gone are the days of one-tap headshots from hand cannons and effective long-range damage from pulse rifles. The damage negation from enemies 10-30 points over the pinnacle Power Level cap feels extremely over-tuned. The addition of the Strand subclass and the redesign of armor mods should have been a renaissance for build variety in Destiny 2, but players are now finding themselves locked into fewer viable builds than they had access to throughout Witch Queen, especially for Nightfalls and other score-based modes on higher difficulties.
Bungie has shown its ability to react to player feedback in a timely manner within areas it deems worthwhile. The March 17 hotfix patch for Destiny 2 added a highly-requested buff to the Exotic drop rate in Legendary Lost Sectors while soloing, which helps to solve one part of the criticism surrounding its push for more challenging content. While struggling through these brutal encounters is now more rewarding, the issue of Legendary Primary weapon irrelevance remains. With the hundreds of available weapons in Destiny 2, pigeonholing players into loadouts with two Special weapons or relying on an Exotic Primary is a flaw that Bungie more than likely overlooked, in lieu of being an intentional choice in design.
Bungie's track record should make fans optimistic this issue will be addressed in time. Like the reversal of its stances surrounding sunsetting weapons and vaulting content shows, if reception is poor enough, the studio will pivot. As Bungie makes changes to Destiny 2 ahead of The Final Shape, which will conclude its Light and Dark Saga, as well as Destiny's 10-year plan, tweaking these imbalances is a matter of when and not if. But until then, players will have to keep their favorite Legendary Weapons vaulted for the most part, taking on PvE content with an Exotic Weapon like Osteo Stiga, Witherhoard, or Izanagi's Burden, paired with a well-rolled SMG, that is, unless they enjoy firing bullets that hit like feathers.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.