Destiny 2’s PvP meta in Episode Heresy consists predominantly of Void Hunters and Lightweight pulse rifles. The two dominate the Crucible like nothing we’ve seen in recent times, and Bungie is taking action to nerf them in the upcoming Act.
In This Week in Destiny weekly blog post on March 6, Bungie provided an update from the Destiny 2 Crucible Strike Team on changes coming to PvP in Act Two, which is set to be released on March 11. The elephant in the room is the Redrix’s Estoc pulse rifle that dominates PvP, with a whopping 17 percent usage rate in last week’s Trials of Osiris, according to Trials Report.
The first change comes to the Sword Logic perk that Redrix’s Estoc can get. These changes affect only PvP and damage against other players. Bungie reduced the base damage bonus for kills against players from 20 percent to 15 percent and increased the damage bonus for kills against players in super from 35 percent to 50 percent.
“We do allow damage perks to surpass the 15% limit when an additional action is required, for example Kill Clip (25%. kill + reload), Harmony (20%, kill with another weapon), Desperate Measures (20%, ability kill), etc., but we want to avoid allowing a single kill to grant the same damage bonus as other perks with harder to activate triggers,” the blog post reads.
The Lightweight pulse rifle archetype (which includes Redrix’s) got a buff in Heresy, and you can see that from the top-performing Trials of Osiris weapons, including Redrix’s Estoc, Outbreak Perfected, and BxR-55 Battler. Bungie toned down the changes to “shift some of the forgiveness and optimal kill thresholds downward.” Body shot damage against players is reduced from 20.4 to 19.7, and critical hit damage against players is reduced from 31.8 to 31.5. Redrix’s Estoc specifically got a handling nerf from 79 to 74.
Next comes the Hunter’s smoke and the On the Prowl Aspect. With Act Two, the smoke no longer reduces player move speed or jump height, weapon handling, and suppresses movement abilities. Bungie also removed the pink glow from the first-person perspective when marked by On the Prowl.
This marks the second smoke nerf in the last year, and as players already pointed out on Reddit, it completely kills smoke’s functionality. “I wouldn’t care that smoke bomb was nerfed into the fucking ground and barely even exists as a button now if there was at least something else to use. But there isn’t,” a player wrote.
These changes are coming to Destiny 2 with the launch of Act Two on March 11, so if you want to get the Keen Thisle sniper from Trials of Osiris this week, you must suffer through one more weekend of smokes and Redrix’s.
