Some of Destiny 2’s less satisfying weapons and tools are due an upgrade, Bungie admits in its latest edition of This Week in Destiny. That’s just what they’ll be getting, then, and the Destiny 2 developer already has some plans to tweak Hand Cannons, Glaives, and Grenades in upcoming updates to its FPS game.
In the TWID (rebranded last week from This Week at Bungie in anticipation of the Marathon release date, in case you missed that), Bungie discusses the various weapons that it feels are currently falling a little short of where the team would like them to be. There are already some ideas in place for how to resolve this, although some are still being cooked up.
For Hand Cannons, Bungie notes that “the current PvE damage numbers mean that compared to pre-Shadowkeep they currently deal roughly the same damage per crit, and almost double the body damage.” That makes them a lot more consistent to use if you don’t perfectly land your shots, and make their damage output pretty strong. However, “reload speed and a small-ish magazine make it painful to run out of ammo.”
Bungie has a fun idea, however: “What if [Hand Cannons] did what they looked like and became a primary ammo option for chunking down tougher single enemies?” As such, the current playtesting numbers give them a 20% damage increase against minor enemies, but a whopping 75% bonus against major enemies (those with orange health bars). They’ll also get a 15% reload speed increase at 0 reload stat, though this scales down as the stat increases so the fastest-reloading weapons won’t see any benefit.
There’s also a new subfamily coming – Heavy Burst Hand Cannons. The first of these will be the Warden’s Law legendary, with its two-round burst seemingly the format for the new set of weapons. Bungie says its new incarnation “is overall much more satisfying to use than the previous version, while still benefiting from some of the unique properties of the original.”
Also on the block are Glaives and Grenades. For Glaives, Bungie is attempting “to make them more satisfying to use, particularly in PvP,” which should lead to a “substantial” tuning pass currently loosely penciled in for season 23. Class-specific Exotic Glaives are due some “major changes,” meanwhile, which is likely to see them get new methods to activate their specific Exotic perks.
Bungie addresses the current Grenade lineup, noting that “some grenades are fundamentally better-suited to specific situations or modes.” Of course, this is inevitably going to happen in certain cases, but Bungie wants to avoid “situations where a single option is clearly the best across many different combat roles.” To start with, some of the less popular choices are having their uptime buffed in season 22, and then Bungie plans to tune further from there.
There’s of course even more to dig through in the TWID, including talks about the Rainbow emote currently available for Pride month, and a tease of some potential new features to help you sort shaders. The team isn’t ready to announce anything specific, but says you can expect more in the runup to the Destiny 2 The Final Shape release date.
For now, keep your eyes on the current Destiny 2 Lost Sector, and make sure you haven’t missed out on any of the free Destiny 2 emblem codes that are currently available to help spruce up your profile.