The Destiny 2 Vesper of Radius Exotic Warlock chest armor has been disabled, Bungie has tweeted, and it’s apparently due to issues regarding an interaction with the Destiny 2 Skyburner’s Oath Exotic scout rifle that led to unintended chaining explosive Arc damage in the FPS game.
“Due to an issue where the Warlock’s Vesper of Radius exotic can cause enemies to explode, it has been disabled until a fix can be implemented,” the Bungie Help Twitter account tweeted.
However, Bungie’s framing of the issue confused Guardians. The Exotic armor piece is designed to cause enemies to explode in some cases. A Destiny 2 armor tuning preview published May 10 in advance of Destiny 2 Season of the Deep‘s May 23 launch described changes to the Vesper of Radius’s effects that players could expect with the new season.
“Your rifts emit an Arc shockwave every 5 seconds that deals damage (200 in PvE and 70 in PvP). Enemies defeated by these shockwaves explode for an additional 100 damage and, if you have an Arc subclass equipped, also blind nearby enemies,” the blog post says.
However, it seems that after the update, Guardians who used the Exotic armor piece with the Skyburner’s Oath Exotic weapon experienced unintended effects. The sidearm’s perk, Slug Rifle, may have been the issue.
“This weapon lobs explosive slugs,” the Skyburner’s Oath weapon perk text says. “When you’re aiming down sights, the slugs travel fast and straight. When you’re firing from the hip, the explosion is larger and applies Scorch to the target.”
When used in combination with the armor, it appears to have caused the weapon to become too powerful. Reddit user Hawkmoona_Matata posted a video suggesting that Bungie disabled the armor due to the Skyburner’s Oath interaction, and the unintended mega-explosions are hilarious to witness.
Although Bungie hasn’t expressly confirmed this is the issue with the armor, it seems likely this is what drove the development team to disable it. It’s unclear whether the armor led to interactions with any other weapons.
Bungie has not stated how long it will take to integrate the fix. Unfortunately, Vesper mains may have to wait until the next hotfix to use their favored, recently-reworked armor piece again.
While Destiny 2 Season of the Deep is now in full swing, Bungie has already begun teasing the Destiny 2 The Final Shape release date and narrative elements designed to bring together a storyline spanning ten years in the multiplayer game. But, with the forthcoming DLC’s launch many months away, you have plenty of time to grind for any Destiny 2 Lightfall Exotics you may have missed with the game’s most recent campaign content.