Season 14 is in its final stages as Destiny 2 players continue to wrap up any outstanding quests or challenges, and snag this seasons unique weaponry such as the Timelost Fatebringer inside the Vault of Glass. Even with the anticipated Epilogue event expected to arrive next week, Bungie has continued to divulge new information regarding Season 15 including upcoming sandbox changes, balancing efforts, and more.
For longtime players, there appears to be a lot to look forward to outside of the latest narrative arc in Season 15. Not only are weapons getting another round of balancing, but one of the bigger additions will be the arrival of Crossplay. Following the weekend test in Season 14, Bungie is finally implementing this feature which will allow players across all platforms to finally play together. The changes don't stop there as Bungie just announced numerous changes coming to various subclasses in Season 15 as well.
Inside of the weekly Bungie Blog, the developer announced a number of major changes coming to each of the subclasses for Warlocks, Hunters, and Titans. Across the board, Bungie is finally allowing Destiny 2 players to change their melee action inputs, so players can specify whether they want to use the special charged attack, or a basic melee hit. Alternatively, players can continue to allow the game to decide using the Auto-melee option.
Titans
Rally Barricade is getting a buff to make it more appealing by adding +30 to weapon stability, +10% range, and cutting flinch by 50%. In addition, all Titan barracde options are more damaging to enemies, especially those moving at higher speeds, as well as dig deeper into the ground to better protect the legs and feet of players.
Behemoth
Stasis enabled Behemoth Titans are getting a buff to help the subclass feel better overall in PvE content following a midseason nerf. Shiver Strike grants 25% increased movement speed, Cryoclasm enables the slide to shatter crystals and frozen enemies and it's screen FX duration that notifies players that the long slide is ready has been increased from 1 second to 4.5 seconds. Finally, Whisper of Rime had a bug fixed where the overshield was not scaling precision damage correctly.
Sunbreaker
Middle-tree Sunbreakers are getting an improved Throwing Hammer, increasing the timer it can remain on the ground from 6.5 to 10 seconds. In addition, the damage against powerful PvE combatants was increased by ~50%.
Striker
Top and Bottom Tree Strikers had their Fist of Havoc supers buffed to make melee supers more viable. Slam damage fallout has been reduced entirely while the activation cost was lowered from 21% to 18%. The slam detonation radius has also been increased by 14%.
Middle Tree Striker changes only impact the Inertia Override ability, increasing the duration from 4 to 6 seconds while sliding over an ammo brick gives players 20% more melee energy.
Sentinel
Top Tree Sentinels were the only Void-powered Titan subclass to be tweaked to make Ward of Dawn less of an easy solution for most boss encounters in the game by simply dropping it on the enemy. Bungie wants Titans to make a more conscious choice when selecting Ward of Dawn, so at 0 Resilience, the damage taken from bosses while inside the bubble has been increased from .25 to 7. This number can scale back down to .25 based on how high the Resilience stat is.
Hunter
Revenant
Similar to the other Stasis-powered subclasses, the Revenant is getting slight buffs as Bungie felt it went too far with the Season 14 nerfs. Specifically, Squall received a few buffs to make it equally as dangerous as Silence. Namely, Squall movement speed was buffed by 20% and the Squall storm now stops when it touches a boss, improving its single target damage output on higher level enemies. Finally, Withering Blade now has 10% increased projectile speed and tracking.
Gunslinger
Not much to report for solar-powered Hunters. For those using the middle tree, the Knife Trick ability now burns for 1 second longer, going from 3-4.
The top tree, which gives players six shots of their super, is having its range extended. Damage fallout now starts at 25m instead of 20m.
Arcstrider
The biggest knock from this subclass, is similar for all melee-centric supers in that ranged supers generally outperform them. To alleviate this issue, Arc Staff across all three trees has had its passive super duration extended from 16 to 20 seconds. Heavy-slam detonation radius was also increased to 6m and the damage output against PvE enemies was buffed by 33%.
Deadly Reach, inside of the top tree, now lasts for 10 seconds. Lightning Weave from the middle tree is now triggered after dealing damage from Tempest Strike, and the timer can be extended by dealing damage with any weapon.
Nightstalker
Finally, the void subclass is seeing another slight nerf to the middle tree's Spectral Blades super. Damage reduction while the super is active has been decreased by 5% moving from 52% to 47%. In addition, the team reduced additional damage reduction when invisible from +5% to +3%.
Warlock
Shadebinder
Unlike the Behemoth and Revenant, the Shadebinder is getting a slight nerf when going up against close range supers. Bungie already recognizes the Shadebinder as one of the best dueling supers available, so Shatterpulse damage has been reduced against all close-range supers. the Warlock must now freeze and then shatter twice to beat Burning Maul, Fists of Havoc, Sentinel Shield, Nova Warp, Arc Staff or Spectral Blades.
Dawnblade
All three trees are getting changes in Season 15. Top Tree, which is already incredibly strong in PvP, is seeing a bunch of nerfs. Celestial Fire is getting a reduced tracking cone angle, proximity detonation shrinks over time, detonation size has been reduced by 1m, and the damage fallout is increased at short distances. Icarus dash now provides one air dodge every 4 seconds or 2 dodges every 5 seconds with Heat Rises active. Finally, Heat Rises now lasts 15 seconds and the time extension awards for air kills has been increased. Players using Heat Rises also appear on enemy radars.
For Well of Radiance users in the middle tree, Bungie made similar changes to what it did with Ward of Dawn. Boss damage has been increased from .25 to 1.5 at 0 Resilience, though with a higher stat, the damage scale will return to original values. However, against players, the Well has increased damage resistance buff against enemy players from 20% to 40% as well as being immune to stasis, though the Well Sword can be frozen and shattered. Finally Guiding Flame now lasts for 10 seconds and buffs damage by 25%.
Finally, the bottom tree, which many considered to be the weakest of the three, is getting enhanced functionality. Phoenix Dive now has reduced delay before the dive starts and players cna input a direction to dive that way. Igniting Touch has been reworked completely. Now, Solar ability kills and kills on burning targets now cause targets to explode and burn other nearby enemies, which also causes them to explode if they die while burning.
Stormcaller
Middle tree Stormcallers are getting an environmental fix that addresses the issue of hitting enemies and players behind walls. Not only that, in PvP, Chaos Reach beam damage radius has been reduced by 20% while beam end-point-sphere radius got nerfed by 33%.
The bottom tree is getting numerous buffs as both player feedback and data from playtests have indicated it is currently lacking compared to the other options available. Arc Soul has a 10% increased fire rate and lasts a second longer than it did previously. Electrostatic Surge now increases sprint speed when allies are near and Landfall fires five arc ground projectiles on cast.
Voidwalker
Finally, the middle tree is getting buffs, especially to the currently underperforming Nova Warp super. Bungie is going to be monitoring these buffs, as the studio doesn't want to overdo it as it has done in the past. Nova Warp now has 73% more damage against PvE enemies, detonates on cast, and no longer slows movement speed while the attack is being charged. Handheld Supernove has an increased hold time from 2.5 to 3.2 seconds, and its damage is now 100% stronger against PvE enemies.
In addition to all these changes, Bungie finally detailed big plans for the popular PvP mode, Crucible. The multiplayer mode has seen plenty of criticism over the years due to the fact that it hasn't received much in the way of meaningful new content in quite a while. Thankfully, that's about to change as assistant game director Joe Blackburn detailed both short term and longterm plans for the mode including new maps, including the return of popular Destiny 1 PvP maps, modes like Rift, and much more. Ultimately, the plan is to release new Crucible content each year, avoiding long droughts the mode currently finds itself in.
Destiny 2 is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.