The Thorn Exotic Hand Cannon might be a long-standing staple of Destiny 2, but it’s never enjoyed popularity quite like it has in Season of the Wish. Its new Catalyst has supercharged its potential in the PvP sandbox, and Bungie has already decided to address it.
In Destiny 2’s Update 7.3.0.5, which released today, Thorn’s Catalyst got its statistical benefits significantly reduced. The change that players will likely feel the most is to its range, with the Catalyst’s additional 20 range being reduced down to 15. It doesn’t sound like a lot on paper, but even 5 range converts to a difference of around half a meter when it comes to damage falloff distances.
It might not completely curtail Thorn’s rise to the top, but it should make the gun more balanced against its contemporaries.
Range isn’t the only part of the Thorn Catalyst getting nerfed. Its stability bonus is also getting reduced from 10 down to five, which puts its stability back in line with similar Legendary picks within the 140 RPM Hand Cannon subfamily. It isn’t all doom and gloom though—to compensate for some of Thorn’s lost power, the Catalyst has been given a small bonus to airborne effectiveness. It won’t do much to mitigate the power lost in Thorn’s mid-range capabilities, but it will at least help the weapon to feel more consistent for players running airborne builds.
Alongside the nerfs to Thorn, Titans got hit with a nerf to a popular Exotic, too. Peacekeepers leg armor has been something of a staple comfort pick for the class, with the immediate and massive bonuses it gives to any equipped SMGs through its Mecha Holster Exotic perk. Bungie has come down hard on this facet of it in this update, reducing the buffs to handling, mobility, and aim-down-sights movement speed by 50 percent.
It’s not clear just how much these nerfs are going to move the needle. After all, Thorn’s usage rate in quickplay PvP is currently over 1.2 percent higher than the next best primary weapon according to insights provided by Destiny Tracker. There’s always a chance these tweaks could meaningfully re-organize the current Destiny 2 meta, but the sheer scale of the divide between Thorn and its closest competition makes it hard to believe.
