Bungie is making radical changes to Destiny 2 leading up to the launch of its Shadowkeep expansion. Today Bungie revealed some of those changes, including specific gameplay balance changes regarding Destiny 2 class abilities.
Of special note is how Bungie is changing Super abilities, both broadly and specifically. With these changes, Bungie makes clear that nothing is sacred. Supers in Destiny 2 post-Shadowkeep will be very different.
Starting with the broad changes, Bungie is putting Super Energy Regeneration on the chopping block. "These changes will reduce the speed with which players are able to earn their Super," is the stated goal. Bungie makes clear that its intention is to increase the "support" Destiny 2's difficulty and avoid situations where content is trivialized through chaining Supers. This nerf also allows mods and perks that influence Super generation to have more impact.
Here's how Bungie is nerfing Super generation specifically. To start, Super Orbs and Masterwork Orbs will be worth 50% less Super energy. Then both kill and assist energy is being nerfed by 25% across the board. Destiny 2 players in Shadowkeep are going to have to work that much harder to earn their Super ability.
The second broad change to Supers is a nerf to Super Damage Resistance. The thought is that Supers should be "powerful" but not "mindless." To do that, Bungie wants to introduce more risk in both PvE and PvP. Specifically, Super Damage Resistance is being removed from Masterwork armor. Beyond that, all but three Supers are having their bonus Damage Resistance nerfed between 5-8%. The unchanged Supers are Spectral Blades, which was already nerfed, Golden Gun, which has no bonus resistance, and Chaos Reach, which already has low resistance.
Bungie is also making several big changes to specific Super abilities and their respective Perks. One area specifically targeted is abilities that wither boost player damage or boost enemy damage received. Ward of Dawn Titans will get a 10% increase to the Weapons of Light damage buff. On the other end, Shadowshot Hunters are getting a small nerf. Damage to tethered enemies will be 5% less in both PvE and PvP.
Additionally, there are quite a few changes being made to specific Supers' abilities. Here's a complete list of the changes.
Sentinel - Code of the Protector - Ward of Dawn
Increase ward health versus supers. Most supers will require the whole thing to be dumped on the ward to destroy it but will (usually) not kill the players inside. Ward grants weapons of light buff when passing through it (35% weapon damage for 15 seconds). Grants an additional super orb (3). Auto-generated orbs now grant the same amount of super energy as regular super orbs (previously the orbs gave less super energy on par with masterwork orbs).
Voidwalker - Attunement of Hunger - Vortex: Nova Bomb
Initial explosion damage increased 15%. Lingering damage increased 15%.
Dawnblade - Attunement of Grace -Well of Radiance
Grants an additional super orb (3). Auto-generated orbs now grant the same amount of super energy as regular super orbs (previously the orbs gave less super energy on par with masterwork orbs).
Nightstalker - Way of the Pathfinder
Provision: Killing tethered enemies creates super orbs and increases agility, armor, and recovery for allies. New Perk (old perk benefits moved to be part of Mobius Quiver). Damaging enemies with your grenades reduces the cooldown of your smoke bomb (6% per damage tick). Making allies invis gives you grenade energy (17.5% per ally).
Moebius Quiver: Fire super multiple times and deals massive damage to tethered targets. Added the old Provision perk to naturally be part of Mobius Quiver. Killing tethered enemies creates super orbs and grants stacks of Heart of the Pack for allies. Expanded the range of Heart of the Pack from 20 > 30 meters.
Shadowshot (Top and Bottom path): Damage increased from 150 > 250. One-shot kill in PvP. Improved tether accuracy near obstacles. Suppress on hit is more consistent
Nightstalker - Way of the Trapper - Shadowshot
Damage sharing for the Nightstalker player specifically reduced from 100% to 50%. Now all allied players have 50% damage sharing on tether.
Nightstalker - Way of the Wraith - Flawless Execution
Truesight now lasts 3 seconds (down from 9).
These changes are just some of the many planned for Destiny 2. While only the changes being made to Supers are collected here, others are being made to a broad range of Destiny 2 class abilities. Bungie has more plans in store, including a plan to follow up on these changes with readjustments where necessary. For better or worse, Shadowkeep will be a completely new Destiny 2 experience.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Shadowkeep releases October 1.
Source: Bungie