#update 2.3.0

2.3.0 - The One about Hunters.

Classes

For a detailed review of Class changes in 2.3.0, read the full

Class Balance Update Preview

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Titan

Sunbreaker

Super: Hammer of Sol

Hammer travel speed increased by 1.3%

Hammer detonation radius increased by 10%

Damage increased by 10% against AI combatants

Striker

Super: Fist of Havoc

Base damage increased by 50%  and an additional 50% against AI combatants

Defender

Grenades

Spike Grenade: damage impulses per second reduced to 5 from 10

Spike Grenade: damage per impulse increased by 100%; total damage unchanged

Hunter

Gunslinger

Grenades

Swarm Grenade: increased arming radius 0.5 meters

Swarm Grenade: detonation damage increased by 7%

Tripmine: no longer attaches to targets; arms on impact then bounces and attaches to terrain

Tripmine: damage reduced by 3%

Super: Golden Gun

Base damage increased by 50% and an additional 30% against AI combatants

Deadeye: now increases golden gun damage by an additional 30%

Melee: Throwing Knife

Base damage reduced by 10%

Circle of Life: modified functionality: precision kills with Throwing Knife reduce the cooldown of Golden Gun

Circle of Life: no longer extends the duration of golden gun

Circle of Life: +1 armor removed

Passives

Scavenger: increased the amount of grenade and melee energy awarded by 33%

Chain of Woe: +1 recovery added

Over the Horizon: +1 recovery removed

Bladedancer

Grenade

Skip Grenade: tracking time reduced to 8 seconds from 12

Skip Grenade: detonation damage reduced by 13%

Double Jump

Blink: now incurs a -1 recovery penalty

Super: Arc Blade

Base duration increased by 2 seconds

Hit detection test range increased by 0.5 meters

Damage increased by 30% against AI combatants

Added a 0.8 second cooldown between Arc Blade swings while airborne

Energy cost per swing increased by 20%

Energy cost on hit decreased by 20%

Vanish: now causes the player to vanish on cast in addition to its normal functionality

Showstopper: damage radius extended by 1 meter

Melee: Blink Strike

Lunge distance decreased by 0.4 meters

Backstab: valid backstab angle reduced by 30 degrees

Escape Artist: invisibility effect delayed by 0.5 seconds

Fast Twitch: recharge reduced by 20%

Passives

Encore: killing an enemy with Arc Blade now extends its duration and grants a 150% increase to arc blade damage for a short time

Nightstalker

Grenades

Spike Grenade: damage impulses per second reduced to 5 from 10

Spike Grenade: damage per impulse increased by 100%; total damage unchanged

Super: Shadowshot

Now applies the suppression effect on impact

Melee: Smoke

Impact damage increased by 34%

Impact suppression and damage over time duration reduced by 1 second

Jump suppression removed from initial impact status effects

Un-upgraded smoke cloud duration increased by 1 second

Envenomed: cloud duration increased by 1 second

Envenomed: Jump suppression removed from cloud status effects

Vanish in smoke: +1 agility removed

Snare: cloud duration increased by 1 second

Passives

Courage of the Pack: now increases recovery, armor and agility by 2 per stack

Courage of the Pack: now stacks 3 times

Lockdown: now increases smoke duration by 2 seconds (+2 additional seconds with the Snare upgrade)

Predator: now reduces the cooldown of the Shadowshot ability

Shadestep: moved to a single dodge on a 3 second cooldown

Warlock

Sunsinger

Grenades

Firebolt: increased arming time by 0.2 seconds

Firebolt: decreased victim search radius by 1 meter

Melee: Scorch

Flame Shield: 0.3 second delay added before the overshield activation

Passives

Viking Funeral: no longer extends the duration of Ignite effects

Viking Funeral: now weakens targets afflicted with Ignite effects, causing them to take 5% more damage from all sources, stacking up to 3 times.

Voidwalker

Glide

Blink: now incurs a -1 recovery penalty

Super: Nova Bomb

Base damage increased by 50% and an additional 50% against AI combatants

Lance: now increases Nova Bomb damage by an additional 25%

Weapons

For a detailed review of weapon changes in 2.3.0, read the full Weapon Tuning Update Preview.

Fixed an issue where the Year 2 version of "Thunderlord" was not available for some players in the Kiosk

Fixed an issue where incorrect UI bars were displayed on Red Spectre

Fixed an issue where Exotic machinegun stability was ignoring the base stats for recoil (Thunderlord, Super Good Advice)

Fixed an issue where Defiance of Yasmin did not have the adjusted zoom for sniper rifles introduced in 2.2.0 (5x) & increased the inventory stat by 10

Auto Rifles

Reduced damage of high rate of fire autos by 6% (Doctrine of Passing)

Hand Cannons

Increased initial accuracy and decreased accuracy drop for low range hand cannons

Made damage falloff curves steeper to better coincide with intended effective range of hand cannons

Small increase to PvE damage to all hand cannons (amount depending on enemy class)

Ammo

It now takes less time for your Ghost to automatically grab ammo for you when you’re running low on ammo

Exotics

Slight reduction to Hawkmoon stability (-5 stability)

Perks

Slight reduction to Counterbalance effectiveness (Reduces 80% of recoil angle instead of 90%)

Armor

Exotics

Moved Tactical Air Support ability to a single dodge on a 3 second cooldown

Activities

The alternate ending to "Paradox" can now be completed at any time by selecting it from the Director on the Heroic difficulty

The alternate ending to "Lost to Light" can now be completed at any time by selecting it from the Director on the Heroic difficulty

The "Firewall" mission will now be available as soon as the player has turned in the required items to access it

Prison of Elders

Point Deduction = (50 x number of times he has grown impatient)

Crucible

All weekly rotating activities in Crucible now feature weekly rewards

Fixed an issue where Trials of Osiris boon icons from House of Wolves persisted after deleting a Trials passage

Items

These have a chance to be found in Sterling Treasures or from dismantling the Spektar gear set

UI

Fixed an issue where equipping the "Armor of Vows" New Monarchy ship caused a false Postmaster notification

Your friends are now displayed in the Director when hovering over activities they are currently playing - Updated 6/14/16 to add missing note

I apologize for not uploading this yesterday. Because I had uploaded the class and weapon upcoming balance i forgot that there would actually be patch notes :P

Destiny Update 2.3.0 is scheduled to deploy tomorrow. The following is a preview of how it will impact weapon balance.

From the desk of Greg Peng:

Hi everyone! Sandbox Designer Greg Peng here. Pleased to meet you. I've been working with Jon Weisnewski on weapons since The Taken King (he’s my boss), and I'll be your gunsmith for the upcoming Rise of Iron. I am honored for this opportunity to step up as another representative for Sandbox.

For 2.3.0, our primary goal has been to address some of the most commonly voiced concerns from the Destiny community, and to continue to bring balance and improvements to our little piece of the Destiny universe.

Weapon Balance

Hand Cannons

After a shot has been fired from a weapon in Destiny, there is a short period where accuracy drops to simulate how weapon recoil affects re-acquiring a target. This helps dissuade players from spamming the trigger and emphasizes precise aiming. The degree of accuracy drop is controlled by the Range stat per archetype. Because of the increased importance of landing every shot, this effect is especially heightened on Hand Cannons.

It is our intention to reduce the necessity of rolling range perks on Hand Cannons in order for them to be considered usable. However, we also do not want to return to a world where Hand Cannons can contest Scout Rifles at long range.

Changes

Increased initial accuracy and decreased accuracy drop for low range hand cannons

Made damage falloff curves steeper to better coincide with intended effective range of hand cannons

Small increase to PvE damage to all hand cannons (amount depending on enemy class)

Auto Rifles

Doctrine of Passing. Soulstealer's Claw. Arminus-D. These names strike fear into opponent's hearts, not only due to their quick kill times, but also the amount of screen shake or "ping" they inflict upon their targets. The family of high rate of fire auto rifles currently leads the pack as most used, and so we will nudge it lower once again.

Changes

Reduced the damage of high rate of fire autos (Doctrine of Passing) by 6%

Ammo Economy

Running out of ammo? The recommended solution is to grab some fresh ammo that just dropped at the feet of a dead combatant. But we recognize that there are certain dire combat scenarios where gathering blocks is not a viable solution. In these cases, we currently detect that you're low on ammo, round up ammo from the field, and automatically deposit it in your backpack. As an improvement, we've significantly sped up the time this process takes.

Changes

It takes less time to automatically grab ammo from the battlefield for you when you’re running low.

Hawkmoon

With the recent Hand Cannon improvements, the Hawk was flying a bit too high. A minor stability reduction brings it into line, but may encourage a reexamination of one's barrel selection...

Changes

Slight reduction to Hawkmoon Stability (-5 Stability)

Counterbalance

There are some cases where a perk's effectiveness makes it seem like an absolute necessity to run. For many players this is currently true for Counterbalance; not only is it an extremely effective perk, but it nullifies the uniqueness of each gun’s recoil pattern. We hope these changes will let the personality of each gun shine through a bit more.

Changes

Slight reduction to Counterbalance effectiveness (Reduces 80% of recoil angle instead of 90%)

Bugs

Fixed incorrect UI bars on Red Spectre (no gameplay changes)

Fixed Exotic Machine Gun Stability where some weapons were ignoring their own base stats for recoil (Thunderlord, Super Good Advice)

Fixed Defiance of Yasmin to have the correctly adjusted zoom for Sniper Rifles introduced in 2.2.0 (5x), increased inventory stat by 10 to compensate

Sandbox Mythbusters

I’m hoping to also use this opportunity to clear up some common questions and misconceptions for how weapons in Destiny work. Knowledge is power!

What does Rangefinder REALLY do?

According to the description on the Perk: “Aiming this weapon increases its effective range.”

There are a couple ways to interpret this description. A common interpretation is that the Rangefinder increases the Range stat when a player goes into aim down sights (ADS). In reality, it is a bit more nuanced than a simple sentence can encompass.

Rangefinder impacts two primary things:

Target acquisition falloff

Zoom factor multiplier (1.1x zoom, 1.05x on shotguns)

So why do we call it “Rangefinder?” Well, Zoom itself is a huge component of damage falloff! We scale down damage falloff by the Zoom factor because enemies FEEL closer in zoom view, even though they can be quite far away. This is super important to keeping things feeling consistent.

What’s more, ADS accuracy and recoil are also calculated based on the zoom view. So with greater zoom, your bullets will also stay closer together, which is another element of extending the effective range of your weapon. Everything is relative!

What is Weapon Handling?

While we don’t display it in the UI like we do the other weapon stats, Weapon Handling is a stat that controls three things to make your gun feel heavier or snappier in your hands:

Ready time – amount of time it takes to bring  out your weapon

Away time – amount of time it takes to put away your weapon

ADS time – amount of time it takes to fully reach maximum zoom in ADS

Different guns have different Weapon Handling stats, but as a general rule of thumb, the longer range and more damage a weapon does, the lower the Weapon Handling stat.

That’s all for the 2.3.0 Weapons Update Preview. I hope it’s been informative, and I’m looking forward to hearing your questions and comments.

Destiny Update 2.3.0 is scheduled to deploy tomorrow. The following is a preview of how it will impact class balance.

From the desk of Grant Mackay:

Hello, this is Grant. You might remember me from the previous round of Warlock class balance changes. Well, I’m back and I’m excited to have the opportunity to talk about another round of changes, this time focused on Hunters.

So why are we changing Hunters?

On the Sandbox Design Team, we talk about build diversity a lot. We want to ensure that a number of different builds are viable for any given Class. It’s important to us that players have meaningful choices to make when customizing their characters.  

We also want to make sure that the choices between the classes themselves are interesting. Ideally, we’d like to address any ability that feels underwhelming to use. We also want to address abilities that feel frustrating or unfair when used against you by another player.

Ultimately, balance is an ongoing effort to improve the game. We have a lot of data on class performance and the choices that people are making. We want to try and use that data to inform improvements to overall game health and keep things interesting. We’ve taken a design pass with this in mind for Titans and Warlocks already, so now it’s time for the Hunters.

Gunslinger

Grenades

The Tripmine Grenade has been a dominant grenade choice for a while. It’s possible that this because it was the grenade that did everything: set a trap, stick it to an opponent, miss an opponent and end up setting a trap anyway. The original intent with this grenade was to be used as a trap, not a sticky, so we moved it back in that direction. Conversely, we increased the Swarm Grenades damage and ability to detect opponents to improve that option.

Changes:

Swarm Grenade: increased arming radius by 0.5 meters

Swarm Grenade: detonation damage increased by 7%

Tripmine no longer attaches to enemies; instead arms on impact then bounces

Tripmine damage reduced by 3%

Golden Gun

Golden Gun was feeling a bit lackluster damage wise, so we boosted that and provided further damage gains to the Deadeye perk which wasn’t seeing a lot of use. The hope is that this brings it into a place where it is considered a valid option in comparison to Shadowshot for Strikes and similar activities.

Changes:

Base damage increased by 50% and an additional 30% against AI combatants

Deadeye now increases Golden Gun damage by an additional 30%

Throwing Knife

The Throwing Knife was creating some frustration, especially with the Incendiary Blade upgrade, so we nudged the damage down slightly. This will ensure that low armor players can’t be killed in a single headshot (with the extra burn damage from the Incendiary Blade upgrade). We also reworked the Circle of Life upgrade to be about building up your Golden Gun instead of maintaining it, since very few players where opting into the original incarnation.

Changes:

Throwing Knife base damage reduced by 10%

Circle of Life modified functionality: precision kills with Throwing Knife reduce the cooldown of Golden Gun

Circle of Life no longer extends the duration of golden gun

Circle of Life +1 armor removed

Perks

We took a look at some of the passives in the Gunslinger build and tried to improve some of the least used options. On the whole, we’re pretty happy with the various choices and build paths there, so these changes are minor.

Changes:

Scavenger: increased the amount of Grenade and Melee energy awarded by 33%

Chain of Woe: +1 Recovery added

Over the Horizon: +1 Recovery removed

Bladedancer

Mobility

Bladedancer mobility, particularly the ability to quickly relocate, is proving to be a bit too advantageous. We made some changes to try and reduce this. The Blink ability now has a recovery tradeoff and Blinkstrike doesn’t lunge as far.

Changes:

Blink now incurs a -1 Recovery penalty

Blinkstrike lunge distance decreased by 0.4 meters

Blinkstrike

The Backstab upgrade has been the source of some confusing behavior for a while, particularly when it appears to hit from the front. The valid region for Backstabbing should now be more solidly behind the target. Escape Artist had some visual issues that we tried to smooth out and Fast Twitch was too fast so we slowed it down.

Changes:

Backstab valid backstab angle reduced by 30 degrees

Escape Artist invisibility effect delayed by 0.5 seconds

Fast Twitch recharge reduced by 20%

Arc Blade

Arc Blade has a number of changes in this patch, many related to the mobility issue. We wanted it to be more about decisive strikes and not swinging frantically to try and cover ground, avoid enemy fire, or stay airborne for long periods of time. It will last longer but cost more to swing if you have no target. On the other hand it should hit the target you’re aiming at more consistently.

Changes:

Base duration increased by 2 seconds

Hit search range increased by 0.5 meters

Added a 0.8 second cooldown between arc blade swings while airborne

Energy cost per swing increased by 20%

Energy cost on hit decreased by 20%

Being effective against AI Combatants with the Arc Blade has traditionally been difficult so we upped the damage against those foes. The Encore perk will now provide a significant damage boost if kills are chained together, and the Vanish and Showstopper upgrades should now have more utility.

Changes:

Arc Blade damage increased by 30% against AI combatants

Vanish now causes the player to vanish on cast in addition to its normal functionality

Showstopper damage radius extended by 1 meter

Encore killing an enemy with Arc Blade now extends its duration and grants a 150% increase to Arc Blade damage for a short time.

Nightstalker

Grenades

The Spike Grenade was seeing very little use, likely due to how easy it was to escape the damage, so we’ve changed the rate at which it pulses to improve its output. The total damage dealt remains the same.

Changes:

Spike Grenade damage impulses per second reduced to 5 from 10

Spike Grenade damage per impulse increased by 100%; total damage unchanged

Shadowshot

Hitting another player with Shadowshot only to have them kill you with their Super before the effects kicked in was frustrating and confusing (often to both players involved) so we made it suppress when it hits.

Changes:

Shadowshot now applies the suppression effect on impact

Smoke

The Smoke ability received a number of modifications making it less frustrating to victims, but also adding some utility against slower opponents. The package of status effects delivered on impact could be overwhelming so we opened up more opportunities to escape. At the same time, the cloud will last longer and the initial impact of a direct hit will hurt more.

Changes:

Impact damage increased by 34%

Impact suppression and damage over time duration reduced by 1 second

Jump suppression removed from initial impact status effects

Base smoke cloud duration increased by 1 second

Envenomed cloud duration increased by 1 second

Envenomed Jump suppression removed from cloud status effects

Vanish in smoke: +1 Agility removed

Snare cloud duration increased by 1 second

Perks

A number of Nightstalker perks have had small changes, mostly to power up perks that weren’t being chosen as frequently. The exception is Shadestep. The ability to evade, shedding tracking projectiles and the aim of your opponents, was overwhelming all the other choices in the build. We don’t want it to be so easy to completely disengage or bewilder enemies so we’ve disabled the ability to perform two evades in rapid succession. Nightstalkers will only be able to Shadestep once before they have to wait for the ability to recharge, but it takes less time to recharge.

Changes:

Courage of the Pack now increases Recovery, Armor and Agility by 2 per stack

Courage of the Pack now stacks 3 times

Lockdown increases smoke duration by 2 seconds(+2 additional seconds with the Snare upgrade)

Predator now reduces the cooldown of the Shadowshot ability

Shadestep moved to a single dodge on a 3 second cooldown

Other Classes

Universal Consistency

But wait, this was about Hunters?! It turns out some of the things we wanted to change are in use by other classes and we want the game to be consistent. The Defender Spike Grenade got the same treatment as the Nightstalker version, and Voidwalker Blink ability received the same tradeoff as the Bladedancer version. The Twilight Garrison Exotic armor, which was creating similar problems to Shadestep, has been adjusted in the same manner.

Changes:

Spike Grenade damage impulses per second reduced to 5 from 10

Spike Grenade damage per impulse increased by 100%; total damage unchanged

Twilight Garrison moved the Tactical Air Support ability to a single dodge on a 3 second cooldown.

Super Damage

Tweaking the Super damage output on Hunters led us to investigate the damage output of the other classes. It turns out many of them needed additional love.

Changes:

Hammer of Sol damage increased by 10% against AI combatants

Fist of Havoc base damage increased by 50% and an additional 50% against AI combatants

Nova Bomb base damage increased by 50% and an additional 50% against AI combatants

Stormtrance damage increased by 10% against AI combatants

Sunbreaker

The Sunbreaker has been suffering a little since we ended their reign of terror, so we made some changes to make Hammers hit more consistently again. These adjustments may seem insignificant, but we remember the harsh rule of the Solar Overlords, so we’re making more targeted changes.

Changes:

Hammer of Sol hammer travel speed increased by 1.3%

Hammer of Sol hammer detonation radius increased by 10%

Sunsinger

As promised, we kept an eye on Warlocks after the previous patch. Sunsingers, while not out performing other classes, are still creating frustrating encounters. Most of these encounters are the result of a combination of build perks and the Firebolt grenade so we adjusted the target search radius and arming time. This means that from the moment the grenade lands players will have a split second longer to get out of the area in which the bolts fire and that area is slightly smaller, so there should be a little more counter play.

Changes:

Firebolt: increased arming time by 0.2 seconds

Firebolt: decreased victim search radius by 1 meter

Viking Funeral

The biggest change to Sunsingers is to the Viking Funeral build perk. This perk will no longer extend the duration of Ignite (damage over time) effects. Instead it now causes those effects to weaken the target to other sources of damage (but not the Ignite itself). This will reduce the frequency and duration of the damage over time effect, but should still allow the Sunsinger interesting build options involving Ignite.

Changes:

Viking Funeral: no longer extends the duration of Ignite effects

Viking Funeral: now weakens targets afflicted with Ignite effects, causing them to take 5% more damage from all sources, stacking up to 3 times.

Flame Shield

We added a minor delay to the activation time of Flame Shield. Ideally this makes it so that there is a window of opportunity (if only very briefly) for people to win melee trades against Warlocks running this upgrade.

Changes:

Flame Shield: 0.3 second delay added before the overshield activation

Thanks so much for reading. These are the changes you’ll find in the June Update that will impact many of the Sub-Classes you find in Destiny. This won’t be the last time we talk about the way different Guardians fight, so be sure to let us know how combat feels in the new Sandbox. Player feedback is a huge part of what we do!