Since the release of Beyond Light in November 2020, Bungie has added a new subclass to Destiny 2 and tweaked the three Light-based subclasses, bringing their “3.0” versions. Starting in season 19, Bungie will revisit all of its four subclasses in a major balancing update, as detailed in today’s This Week at Bungie blog post.
The changes will take place starting in season 19, which is scheduled to launch on Dec. 6, and will adjust all four subclasses and all three classes—meaning you’re bound to find a difference or two regardless of how you play the game.
“For season 19, our primary goal is to more closely normalize the power of our existing subclasses, giving us a more standard baseline that we can use for future tuning,” Bungie’s sandbox team wrote in the blog post. To do so, the team will push outliers from both the high and the low end of all four subclasses, including Stasis.
For Solar 3.0, Bungie will touch deeply on Restoration and superficially on Radiant, two of the most important elements of the subclass rework. Bungie will also tweak all Hunter supers and their synergy with the Knock ‘Em Down Aspect, and bring a slight buff to Warlocks’ Celestial Fire damage, allowing them to trade in the Crucible more efficiently.
Bungie’s plans for Void, on the other hand, include touching on Overshields, making them grant the intended 50-percent damage reduction. Warlocks will also see some more juice in their Vortex Nova Bombs, with increased projectile speed and better pull. With the upcoming nerf to Divinity, Bungie is also tweaking Hunter Supers to make them a more attractive choice. Bungie isn’t touching on Invisibility in the season 19 balancing patch, despite admitting it’s “a severe pain point in high-level PvP.” Bungie is looking for longer-term solutions to making Nightstalkers less frustrating to fight against.
The new kid on the block, Arc 3.0, is also receiving some tweaks at the beginning of season 19. Titans’ Touch of Thunder Storm Grenades are particularly pervasive in the Crucible since they “linger in the world too long and are difficult to read from the target’s perspective,” according to the team. So Bungie is touching on those elements by reducing their lifetime and making them easier to identify as friendly or foe.
Titans won’t be the only class to get a touch-up, however. Arc Hunters are getting increased PvE damage on their Tempest Strike Aspect to make it more competitive, and Warlocks are getting a slew of new tricks under their belt—including highly empowered Arc Souls, improvements to melee, and a much shorter cooldown on Chaos Reach.
Lastly, Stasis is the oldest subclass to boast Aspects and Fragments, so Bungie is tweaking it to bring it more in line with the Light-based subclasses. Bungie will touch on Slow effects, Coldsnap and Duskfield Grenades, and give Whisper of Rending’s increased Kinetic damage to all Primary weapons. Revenants and Behemoths will also get an extra Fragment slot on their Winter’s Shroud and Cryoclasm Aspects, respectively, while Warlocks’ Glacial Harvest is getting a global cooldown reduction.
Players can see these sets of new changes in action when Destiny 2‘s yet-unnamed season 19 releases on Dec. 6.
