Breaking down Destiny’s December weapon tuning

I can’t help but think of Destiny’s Crucible design team as a gaggle of addicts, routinely returning to a hooded, seedy dealer—Xur is a likely suspect—so they can huff down another weapon tuning patch. At least Bungie hopes “the change log becomes less of an almanac and more of a newsletter.” The now six-part shotgun chronicle is a particularly desperate tale. Still, Destiny’s PvP sees more well-intended balance patches than most games, especially shooters, so you can’t say Bungie’s not trying.

The studio recently pulled the veil off December’s 2.1 weapon tuning update, revealing a raft of changes focusing on primary weapons, shotguns and a few problem exotics. It’s all speculative until we see it in action, but at a glance patch 2.1 seems like a step in the right direction. Let’s take a deeper look at the high points.

Auto Rifles

Fully automatic rifles are far and away the most popular choice across multiplayer shooters, from Halo to Counter-Strike to Destiny. They’re flexible and forgiving, able to mow down multiple targets in a single magazine. They don’t punish their users for missing a shot or two. Built for close- and medium-range encounters, auto rifles embody user-friendliness.

Destiny’s problem is balancing approachability with effectiveness. In the game’s early days, auto rifles were ludicrously overpowered in and out of the Crucible. For the past few months, however, the archetype has fallen to the rise of pulse rifles and their low TTK (time-to-kill) scores. This, it seems, is where 2.1 comes in.

“Auto Rifles [will] effectively compete against Pulse Rifles in PvP,” Bungie promises in the patch preview. To put the two weapon types on even footing, auto rifles are getting a damage increase across the board—as much as seven percent for medium RoF (rate of fire) variants. Given the distribution of auto rifle damage, even a few percent can significantly impact TTKs, so I’ve little doubt that the boon will bring about a change.

I’m only hoping that the change brings auto and pulse rifles closer to the harmony the two have always missed. Pulse and auto rifles are virtually indistinguishable at medium range; the only difference is how many times you pull the trigger. The trick is in transitioning from medium range. Auto rifles gain the advantage as you shift from medium- to close-range encounters, whereas pulse rifles outperform when retreating to longer ranges. At least, that’s how things ought to be. We’ll see how things shake out come December.

Pulse Rifles

Pulse rifles are something of an in-between for scout and auto rifles. Their burst fire demands and rewards more precise aim than auto rifles, but they are more flexible in a firefight than scouts. There’s a bit of hand cannon in them as well, as both can tear through three or four enemies in a single magazine. This makes them a profoundly versatile archetype.

The problem is, in addition to their wonky effective distances, pulse rifles have long wielded well above-average damage. This created a “two-burst” meta—a competitive scene emphasizing killing your target in two precision bursts. Two-bursting is a problem because nothing (other than a procced Hawkmoon) can compete—certainly not auto rifles. To (finally) temper pulse rifle TTKs, update 2.1 will reduce the base damage of all pulse rifles. Low RoF models like Red Death and The Messenger are the most notorious offenders so they’ll be getting hit the hardest.

The graph shown in the update (seen above) paints a much prettier picture. In summary, only low-armor Guardians will be felled in two bursts from the highest-impact pulse rifles. It might not sound like much, but that’s a vast improvement. Being able to play and build around two-bursting makes all the difference, because if you up your armor stat even a little—which you should, ya’ squishy Hunter—you will fall into three-burst TTKs. Better still, rifles with impact on par or lower than Red Death will always require three or more bursts. If the damage falloff is in line with that long-awaited auto-pulse harmony, the Crucible should see far less rage in the coming months.

Shotguns

“Our last few attempts at curbing the lethal range of shotguns have made some dents in the legacy of The Felwinter Times,” Bungie says, showing a novel way to spell “failed miserably.” Clearly, nerfs to range aren’t enough—at least not the pussy-footed increments we’ve seen so far. Shotguns still kill far too when easily perks like Rangefinder are paired with high innate impact. So, smartly, Bungie is assuming a different approach with update 2.1: they’re nerfing everything else.

Shortened damage falloff, slower steady and ready times, added recoil, slowed reload speed, movement speed impairments, and, yes, reduced range. Shotguns are getting the works and may finally become the slow, close-range death-dealers they were always meant to be, rather than the inordinately spry irritants they’ve always been. Added delay to firing after sprinting is the biggest change, as it means kamikaze blinking and sprinting will no longer guarantee kills from absurd ranges.

Only after stepping away from the publicly appointed villain of kill range do we see that the (other) underlying problem with Destiny’s shotguns is their agility, the ease with which they can be pulled and fired. Collectively, these changes should make shotguns far more difficult to use without hampering their lethality at hugging distance.

Fusion Rifles

Fusion rifles are essentially the patient player’s shotgun. Both emphasize close-range burst damage, but fusion rifles can be used effectively from further away provided you have hands steady enough. Fusions are proactive weapons designed to intercept opponents—often charging, shotgun-touting Titans. And interestingly enough, they’re getting a hefty chunk of limelight next month.

With update 2.1, Bungie is dividing fusion rifles into two distinct groups: fast charging and long range. Think of them as the turtle and hare. Fast charging models, the preview reads, will charge even faster but give up projectile precision and range. Conversely, slower models will benefit from fast-moving, long-range and precise projectiles. The divide clearly defines the phantom fusion rifle archetypes that have long been debated, which in and of itself should make the class more popular. The option to more accurately tailor your special weapon’s applications will only add to that.

Exotics

With the balance changes to pulse rifles handling Red Death’s absurdly low TTK, the most dubious exotic left in the Crucible is Hawkmoon. I’ve railed against the hand cannon at length in the past, so I’ll give you the short version: Xur selling Hawkmoon introduced hundreds of thousands of weapons sporting sniper-contesting range, a massive magazine, limited recoil and RNG-dependent lethality. And that’s a problem, primarily because dying to two rounds of Hawkmoon—at least one round’s damage boosted by either the gun’s unique skill, Holding Aces, or Luck in the Chamber—is infuriating, unfair and unacceptably common. I should know; I have over 6,000 kills with the gun.

Hawkmoon survived patch 2.0’s global hand cannon nerfs relatively unscathed, and as Bungie said of their internal tests, continued to best all other hand cannons. So much so that, in their latest testing, “all other hand cannons paled in comparison no matter the activity.” So here we are, staring down a long-needed range reduction and, more pertinently, a change to Hawkmoon’s oft-vaunted lucky bullets: both Luck in the Chamber and Holding Aces will increase a round’s damage by 20 percent rather than the current 30.

In practice, that ten percent is monumental. At the moment, a Guardian of average armor rating has about 195 health in Crucible. And at the moment, a bonus damage Hawkmoon precision shot does over 110 damage, while base precision shots deal 84. Because precision shots are incredibly easy to land thanks to Destiny’s heavy auto-aim, Hawkmoon regularly two-shots on head.

With the reduced damage modifier, Hawkmoon will only deal around 101 damage with a bonus damage shot to the head. In other words, the only way to two-shot with Hawkmoon will be landing two lucky bullets to the head—which has a 3.8 percent chance of occurring on a fresh magazine. Compare that to the 24 percent chance of two-shotting Hawkmoon has now. It doesn’t solve the problem of RNG entirely, but it does dilute it to an acceptable level.

Altogether, these changes represent the most well-reasoned weapons patch Destiny’s yet seen. It lacks the scale of patch 2.0, but I suspect 2.1’s surgical accuracy will be more keenly felt by Crucible fans. I know I’m looking forward to it, if only because it will finally give me a reason to use something other than Hawkmoon.