As promised, this week’s Destiny 2 blog post focused on the game’s sandbox, a term used to refer to the balance of its weapons and abilities. Bungie wants players to know what’s in store for them this month, and more specifically, how their weapons will be changing over that time.

Almost across the board, Bungie is buffing damage for every weapon class in Destiny 2, but there’s a catch. Most of these buffs will only apply to PvE, with a few perk-specific changes affecting weapons in The Crucible.

Some highlights from the rundown include a buff for Sniper Rifles that will increase the weapon’s precision multiplier, aim assist, and inventory size; better accuracy for hand cannons on consoles; and faster rate of fire for the high impact pulse rifle class. Essentially, Bungie wants these weapons to be more accurate and have a chance to eliminate opponents faster, while still presumably keeping them balanced.

  • Pulse Rifles
    • Increased PvE damage for all pulses
    • Increased rate of fire for adaptive and high-impact pulses
    • Increased base damage for adaptive, high-impact, and rapid-fire Pulses
    • Increased precision multiplier for lightweight pulses
    • Decreased precision multiplier for adaptive pulses
    • This keeps precision damage close to where it is now, putting most of the buff into body shots, though it is still an increase in precision damage overall.
  • Scout Rifles
    • Increased PvE damage for all scouts
    • Increased base damage for High-Impact Scouts
  • Hand Cannon
    • Increased PvE damage for all Hand Cannons
    • Increased precision multiplier for precision hand cannons
    • Increased hip fire accuracy on consoles
    • Increased ADS accuracy on consoles
  • Sidearms
    • Increased PvE damage for all sidearms
    • Increased hip fire accuracy
    • Increased ADS accuracy
    • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
    • Increased minimum range
    • Added an ADS movement bonus
  • SMG
    • Increased PvE damage for all SMG’s
    • Set Optics to 1.3x
    • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
  • Linear Fusion Rifle
    • Increased PvE damage for all linear fusions
    • Increased precision multiplier
    • Increased aim assist
    • Reduced flinch multiplier
  • Shotgun
    • Increased PvE damage for all shotguns
    • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
    • Increased aim assist for Suros precision shotguns
  • Sniper Rifle
    • Increased PvE damage for all snipers
    • Increased precision multiplier
    • Increased aim assist
    • Increased inventory size (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
  • Grenade Launcher
    • Increased blast radius
  • Assault Rifles
    • Decreased range and aim assist stats for precision autos (Uriel's Gift). Base damage is not changed.
Destiny 2 Hand Cannon
  • High Impact Reserves
    • Increased PvE damage
  • Kill Clip
    • Increased PvE damage
  • Rampage
    • Increased PvE damage
    • Increased duration
  • Dragonfly
    • Increased damage
    • Increased radius
    • Stronger visual effects
  • Grave Robber
    • Reloads .5 magazine instead of .3
  • Timed Payload
    • Splits damage 55 Explosive / 45 Direct instead of previous split which was more direct damage
  • Explosive Rounds
    • Decreased PvE Explosive Rounds damage
    • This decrease has been compensated for with an increase in PvE damage for the base weapons - your weapons with explosive rounds will not do less damage after 1.1.4

There are a small number of nerfs in the update as well, including a decrease to the range and aim assist stats on precision auto rifles (popular PvP auto rifle Uriel’s Gift was mentioned by name) and a decrease to Explosive Rounds on any weapon that has the perk. But, Bungie was quick to point out that the Explosive Round nerf will not decrease the damage of weapons like the Better Devils and Nameless Midnight, since all of the weapon classes that feature the perk are getting an overall damage buff.

Overall, it sounds like Bungie is trying to give PvE players a better experience by decreasing the time to kill and making certain weapon classes more viable. On the PvP side, the goal of a faster experience with more exciting moments apparently comes from more power ammo on the weapon, faster respawn times, and faster recharge for abilities.

Whether all of that will improve Destiny 2’s PvE and PvP experiences will have to wait for the update’s official release later this month, but the changes seem to be very promising. Whereas in the past Bungie had a tendency to nerf more often than buff, this update wants to make players feel more powerful no matter where they are.

Destiny 2 update 1.1.4 releases March 27th.