Destiny 2 is one of those games that still manages to garner lots of players long after release, and it being a live service title ensure there is new content to play through every few months. This is where annual expansions and Destiny 2's seasonal model come into play, as they are the perfect means to deliver all sorts of gameplay features, gear, and story arcs. Annual expansions like Beyond Light and The Witch Queen are the big game-changers that introduce a new campaign and a plethora of other features that range from subclasses to game modes, with the upcoming Savathun-themed DLC also introducing a way to craft weapons.
Destiny 2's Seasons are more bite-sized formats where Bungie crafts a new storyline that is rooted in the game's story up to that point, while also shaping the gameplay meta into something different thanks to activities and mods. Seasonal mods are one of Destiny 2's most interesting additions because they add a lot of temporary diversity to the game by enabling certain builds or loadouts, and they always come in tiers on the seasonal artifact, with the last tier usually providing the strongest options. Some of the mods that Bungie added to the game in recent Seasons were very good and offered plenty of utility or damage boosts, but some of them are also problematic to a degree, and thus could be setting a bad precedent moving forward.
Destiny 2's History With Powerful Seasonal Mods
One of the strongest mods that players had gotten in Destiny 2 prior to the Beyond Light era is Oppressive Darkness, which granted the ability to Weaken opponents hit by damage from any Void grenade. This made grenades deal constant damage or deal damage more reliably, which was a great asset that would promote the use of Void subclasses in order to get a powerful debuff applied onto enemies virtually for free. Many players found Oppressive Darkness to be one of the best mods to ever come to Destiny 2, but it was one of the first to create a problem with power creep, even though it was removed at the end of Season 8 and Season 11.
There weren't other comparable mods in between those Seasons, despite some good ones being added in Destiny 2 Season 10 in the form of Lightning Strikes Twice and Thunder Coil, as nothing was on the same level as Oppressive Darkness. The first Season in the Beyond Light era was Season of the Hunt, and players had access to a mod called Spoils of War, which was a largely improved version of the Heavy Finisher mod from a while back because it provided Heavy ammo to the whole team, rather than the player using it. This wasn't nearly as powerful as Oppressive Darkness, however, because it didn't provide a team-wide debuff that was easy to apply and keep active for a long time.
Regardless, Spoils of War was still a very powerful tool that allowed players to provide the entire team with ammunition for their Heavy slot, which could prove to be essential in taking on bosses and Champions alike. Destiny 2's Season 13 followed, and while it did feature something similar to Oppressive Darkness' level of power thanks to Sundering Glare, it didn't quite hit the mark due to difficult trigger conditions. In fact, Sundering Glare Weakened enemies if players hit them with rapid precision shots while firing from long distances, which was much more situational than simply throwing a Void grenade.
Why Destiny 2's Particle Deconstruction and Breach and Clear are Problematic
Season of the Splicer was when everything changed, as it introduced a mod called Breach and Clear, which did the same thing as Sundering Glare and Oppressive Darkness, but with an even easier trigger method. What Breach and Clear did was Weaken the enemies hit as long as they were bosses or their shields were broken by the shot, and all it required was using a grenade launcher to do that. This made Destiny 2's grenade launchers extremely potent in Destiny 2, to the point that they were almost mandatory to use in all game modes, and Breach and Clear was so effective because its associated weapon archetype was available for all three slots.
This made an already over-tuned weapon such as Anarchy deal even more damage and become the absolute best DPS option in the entire game, especially because it could be fired once every now and then and deal damage passively. Then, Season of the Lost came, and with it, Bungie released a seasonal mod called Particle Deconstruction. What Particle Deconstruction does is apply a stacking debuff on any enemy when players deal damage to them with a fusion or linear fusion rifle, and while Bungie made it stack with other debuffs like Weaken, this was eventually changed because of how powerful the interaction was.
Particle Deconstruction is so strong because it works with a specific weapon archetype, like Breach and Clear, but it multiplies the damage dealt up to 40% at five stacks - and that's more damage than the Weaken debuff grants. Thus, by bringing a new level of power creep, Breach and Clear and Particle Deconstruction risk setting a bad precedent in Destiny 2 due to making players used to feel so strong. Furthermore, if the trend does continue in Season 16, it might be too late for Bungie to revert to mods that are much less impactful, like the aforementioned Spoils of War and Sundering Glare.
Ultimately, the case for Destiny 2's seasonal mods to feel powerful makes sense because of the fact that they are temporary, but they can also impose a specific meta for months and reduce build variety. With The Witch Queen, Destiny 2 should strive to feature good mods that do benefit players greatly, but without making them grow accustomed to a degree of potency that cannot be sustained forever.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.