Lists of the most used weapons in each Destiny 2 Trials of Osiris weekend this season have put a pretty clear pattern on display, and Bungie is doing something about it in a mid-season balance patch dropping next week. Two Exotics, the No Time To Explain pulse rifle and the scout rifle Jade Rabbit, will both be receiving nerfs aimed at curbing their PvP dominance.
In the most recent This Week At Bungie blog, Bungie associate designer Mercules went into detail about a number of balance changes dropping next week. Many of these changes were aimed at ease of use, adjusting most weapon archetypes to better fit into their intended roles. Alongside those adjustments, a spotlight was put on overperforming Exotics and the PvP-centric nerfs they will be receiving.
No Time To Explain has topped the majority of lists put out by Trials Report on Twitter this season, often leading a top three comprised entirely of pulse rifles in the endgame PvP experience. But Mercules noted that much of this usage comes exclusively from players on mouse and keyboard.
“This weapon sees over twice the usage, and dramatically higher effectiveness, on MnK than it does on controller,” he said. “With MnK having higher stability, accuracy, and auto aim, two bursts from NTTE are much easier to achieve in that sandbox, so we needed to tune it in a way that the difference was noticeable on MnK but did not ruin gun-feel for controller players.”
To do that, No Time To Explain will be receiving a major nerf specifically to its recoil direction as well as a smaller reduction to its aim assist stat. The pulse rifle’s recoil direction will be lowered from 90 to 73, and its aim assist will go from 45 to 40. It’s a drastic change on paper, but according to Mercules, tests with the change showed it “spreads out the burst pattern a noticeable but not uncontrollable amount.” Bungie hopes skilled players will still be able to use it effectively, but the gun “will be less dominant compared to other weapons operating within the same range.”
No Time To Explain will also be affected by a wider set of changes coming to pulse rifles as a whole, with a previous range buff given to the weapon type a few balance passes back now being reverted on the lower end of the range stat. Pulse rifles with rolls that spec into range will still benefit at the high end, but popular rapid-fire frame picks like Piece Of Mind may noticeably suffer now in fights at longer ranges.
The Jade Rabbit scout rifle is not as commonly seen as No Time To Explain but notoriously rears its head when a map features extremely long sightlines. According to Trials Report, on the weekend that it topped the most used weapons in July, the nine percent share of all weapon kills it had was the biggest of any gun since Felwinter’s Lie in one 2021 weekend. According to Mercules, its uniquely high aim assist is a leading cause of its pick rate, and its upcoming nerf hits it directly. “The aim assist puts the weapon’s ease of use well above what we find to be acceptable for a weapon with nearly unlimited range,” he said. Therefore, its aim assist stat is getting reduced by 20.
The changes to both weapons may seem small on the surface, but the smallest adjustments to a weapon’s effectiveness in PvP can lead to drastic changes in their usage. With some additional buffs to auto rifles, the tweaks and nerfs to pulse rifles, and the stat adjustments for these Exotic weapons, endgame PvP matches could look very different in the second half of Season of Plunder in Destiny 2.
