So, this is unusual. A mention about scout rifles is tucked away near the bottom of today’s Destiny 2 weapon adjustments preview. It says, “Long Arm was inadvertently receiving the damage bonus vs minors for Exotics, so we’ve addressed that.” Unless you’re familiar with the nitty gritty of Destiny 2 damage values, this may not seem like a big deal, but the upshot is that Long Arm was getting a free 40% bonus against all rank-and-file enemies in the game, which should have made it an easy meta pick in hard activities where even minor mobs have thick health bars.
[Update: I asked Bungie how long the bug has been in place, and they said it’s been there from the beginning of Season 19, which is December 9th, when the gun became accessible as part of the Spire of the Watcher loot table. I guess we should have been using it all along!)
What amazes me, as a gamer who watches a lot of Destiny 2 content on YouTube and reads the subreddit on a daily basis, is that nobody outside of Bungie noticed. This season, it hasn’t even made the list of most-used PvE weapons. Part of this is due to the fact that arc weapons haven’t been a popular choice this season, while damage surges in higher-end activities have centered on Solar, Void, and strands. Also, this season, Scout rifles have the ‘Unstoppable’ breaker effect, which means you may use them to stun the corresponding champion type, but the suspend Strand effect is so strong that many players haven’t bothered employing scouts, especially arc ones.
Anyway, given that this balance patch will be available when Season of the Deep opens on May 23, you still have a few days to experience Long Arm in its current state. The rest of the blog article concentrates on a slew of exotic weapon improvements, as well as a few quality-of-life tweaks, such as the addition of a full-auto melee setting. You may also rotate the weapon models on the inventory screen now. And if you’re asking who cares, the answer is clearly me.
Bungie also went into detail about the tremendous work that went into modifying the reticles on a variety of weapons. The goals here are to improve overall readability while also giving information on the weapon’s state, particularly when it comes to exotics—for example, displaying whether a perk is accessible or showing the number of special rounds currently loaded. The other goal, I believe, is to assist in cleaning up the left-hand side of the screen, which is struggling under the weight of buffs and debuffs that can be active at any time.
Speaking of exotic weapons, there will be a slew of changes coming next week, some of which seem particularly enticing. One, in particular, will appeal to gamers that enjoy combining Sweet Business (a minigun in the primary slot) with the Actium War Rig (a chest component that reloads auto weapons and LFGs as they shoot). It’s a meme playstyle for wannabe Rambos, but I’ll admit that if you queue into six titans with the same loadout, it’s quite annoying to face in The Crucible. Anyway, starting next week, that pistol will also fire an explosive shot on every 20th bullet, dealing extra damage and flinching opponents. So screw me, I suppose.
Here are some unusual weapon modifications that I like the look of:
Eyes of Tomorrow: The Deep Stone Crypt raid’s rocket launcher will now refund a rocket whenever you kill four or more foes at once. This one has the potential to be really potent.
Tommy’s Matchbook: When the exotic catalyst is installed, the sun auto weapon will do stacks of Scorch damage.
Bad Juju: The super-generating pulse weapon’s recoil, which had been mistakenly coded as an auto gun, is being repaired to be more stable.
Heartshadow: The void sword’s weakening effect now applies to all damage when the shot in the dark perk is active, rather than just heavy attacks.
Manticore: When hovering, the SMG gains higher damage resistance and mobility, as well as partially reloading the magazine when killing foes.
The post also includes some larger modifications to legendary weapon archetypes, such as a damage decrease for aggressive SMGs (along with a range nerf for The Immortal in particular) and a tiny benefit to sniper rifles, which I’m not sure will be enough to bring them back into PvE viability. I’m particularly intrigued by Bungie’s mention of buffing the Tyranny of Heaven bow, which comes from The Last Wish raid. That appears to be a clear indication that the next raid will have an upgraded perk pool for its weapons; otherwise, why bother?
With last week’s breakdown of changes to exotic armor coming in the same patch, as well as three new aspects for the Strand subclasses, Season of the Deep will have plenty of new builds to try when it launches next Tuesday. I’d add that only an idiot would schedule a critical work travel out of state on the same day. I’m guessing that fool will be playing on a laptop.
