Everyone’s still eagerly anticipating the Destiny 2 showcase slated for August 23, and Bungie has said that in the meantime, we won’t be getting much in the way of big news from the weekly update posts. Still, the latest This Week At Bungie outlines some impactful changes – several Destiny 2 exotic weapons are getting buffed with new intrinsic qualities that make them effective against the MMO game’s champion enemies.
Bungie says it wants players to have a few more options to bring for each champion type, namely barrier, unstoppable, and overload champions. Each of these requires weapons kitted out with specific perks, which up until now has more or less ruled exotics out from consideration for these missions.
In all, eleven Destiny 2 exotic weapons are getting buffs, with several receiving intrinsic anti-champion buffs. Here’s the full list:
Le Monarque
- Added intrinsic Overload to poison arrows
Thunderlord
- Added intrinsic Overload
Malfeasance
- Added intrinsic Unstoppable to explosions
- Added +25 to the base airborne effectiveness stat (28 to 53) to match other precision hand cannons’ intrinsic bonus
Wish-ender
- Added intrinsic Anti-Barrier
- Increased number of hits vs most targets from 2 to 3 (more hits against vehicles, still 2 against players)
- Increased damage vs. champions, majors, and minibosses by 10%
- Draw time decreased from 828ms to 820ms
Ticuu’s Divination
- Benefits from a global buff to lightweight bows
- Draw time decreased from 612 to 580
Legend of Acrius
- Catalyst now grants the Trench Barrel perk in addition to its other effects
- Different versions of the Exotic Paired Legendary Weapons didn’t have matching stats, so we have brought them up to parity
Calus Mini-Tool
- Increased airborne effectiveness from 23 to 28 to match MIDA Mini-Tool
MIDA Mini-Tool
- Increased zoom from 13 to 14 to match Calus Mini-Tool
Drang (Baroque)
- Increased airborne effectiveness from 21 to 23 to match standard Drang
Sweet Business
- Increased airborne effectiveness from 27 to 32
Fighting Lion
- The 5% damage buff introduced in Season 17 was rolled back in a patch for a bug, and this is being brought back and increased to 8%
- Increased the grace time for the instant reload effect of Thin the Herd from 5 to 6 seconds
The exotic shotgun Lord of Wolves sees the beginning of a rework, too – although this doesn’t involve any actual buffs, mercifully. It’s driven PvP players nuts for ages, and Bungie is making some significant changes to it. In PvP, it’ll start with 10 rounds instead of 15 (this is unchanged in PvE), its burst size is going down from 10 to 5 shots when Release the Wolves is active, the time between bursts has been reduced by 60% when Release the Wolves is active, and its base damage is being decreased by about 20%. In PvE, it’s getting a 20% damage buff to make up for this.
This week’s TWAB also details buffs coming to several weapon archetypes, including scout rifles, high-impact auto rifles, hand cannons, glaives, and grenade launchers.