Ever since Destiny 2 launched, it’s easy to say the developer Bungie hasn’t exactly done a stellar job with updating the game and giving players what they want. That all might be changing though as today it released the March Update for the popular first-person shooter MMO, and it seems to change a ton of different features.
Some highlights found in the new update include changes to rewards in Nightfall Strikes, the reduction of the amount of back-to-back repeating found in the Strike playlist, and the reduction of Exotic weapon engram duplicates, as well as a whole slew of changes to weapons including Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles, Hand Cannons, and more.
You can check out the full list of patch notes, straight from Bungie, at the end of the article.
In addition to the new changes, it was also revealed that certain events are also coming to the game in the near future. On March 27, 2018, Rumble will be returning, on April 3, 2018, players will be able to take part in Mayhem, and on April 10, 2018, 6v6 Iron Banner will be taking over the game.
To celebrate the release of the March update, Bungie also released a brand new trailer, which shows off some of its new features. You can check it out at the end of the article.
Destiny 2 was released last year and is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC.
Strikes
- Nightfall strike unique rewards
- Possible rewards include Legendary weapons and Exotic accessories
- Drop rates increase in likelihood based on score thresholds
- Strike repetition reduction
- Players will no longer see the same strikes back-to-back in strike playlists
- Challenge Card
- Increased the Power handicap maximum from 40 to 45
- Fixed an issue where “Tree of Probabilities” wouldn’t end immediately after Valus Thuun’s death if he was killed very quickly
- Fixed an issue where players could respawn below the boss fight of “A Garden World”
- Fixed an issue where vehicles were not rewarding points when destroyed
- Fixed an issue where Orbs granted points in public areas
Other
- Exotic repetition reduction
- Protections were put in place that prevent back-to-back duplicate Exotics from Exotic Engrams
- Fixed an issue where some emblems were not displaying what statistic they track
- Prometheus Lens correctly appears in the Exotic weapon collection for players who acquired the item from Xûr without owning Curse of Osiris
- Reduced interaction time for patrol beacons and activity totems from 3 seconds to 1 second
- Fixed an issue where applying or previewing a shader on an item would return players to the top page of the shader inventory
SandboxWeapons
- Pulse Rifles
- Increased PvE damage for all Pulse Rifles by 16%
- Increased rate of fire for adaptive and high impact Pulse Rifles
- Adaptive: from 360 rpm to 390 rpm (+8.3%)
- High Impact: from 320 rpm to 340 rpm (+6.3%)
- Increased base damage for adaptive, high impact, and rapid-fire Pulse Rifles
- Adaptive: from 14.5 to 16 (+10.3%)
- High Impact: from 16 to 18 (+12.5%)
- Rapid-Fire: from 12 to 12.5 (+4.2%)
- Increased precision multiplier for lightweight Pulse Rifles from 1.5x to 1.6x (+6.7%)
- Decreased precision multiplier for adaptive Pulse Rifles from 1.55 to 1.475 (-5.8%)
- Design Note: This keeps precision damage close to where it is now, when you factor in the base damage and rate of fire buffs above. This puts most of the buff into body shots, but in the end, this still increases precision damage overall.
- Scout Rifles
- Increased PvE damage for all Scout Rifles by 15%
- Increased base damage for high impact Scout Rifles from 37 to 40 (+8.1%)
- Hand Cannons
- Increased PvE damage for all Hand Cannons by 15%
- Precision Hand Cannons deal 0.15x more precision damage, increasing from 1.5x to 1.6x (+6.6%)
- Increased hip fire accuracy when using controllers on console and PC by 33%
- Increased ADS accuracy when using controllers on console and PC by 25%
- Sidearms
- Increased PvE damage for all Sidearms by 15%
- Increased hip fire accuracy; reduced cone by 20%
- Increased ADS accuracy; reduced cone by 12%
- Increased inventory (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
- Increased range falloff start by +1 m
- Increased ADS movement speed
- Submachine Guns
- Increased PvE damage for all Submachine Guns by 10%
- Set optics to 1.3x
- Increased inventory (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
- Linear Fusion Rifles
- Increased PvE damage for all Linear Fusion Rifles by 50%
- Increased aim assist
- Decreased flinch multiplier
- Shotguns
- Increased PvE damage for all Shotguns by 35%
- Increased inventory (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
- Increased aim assist on SUROS precision Shotguns
- Sniper Rifles
- Increased PvE damage:
- By 20% for yellow bar enemies
- By 40% for red bar enemies
- Increased precision damage, which now scales with the weapon’s rate of fire
- Changed from 2.5x for everything to 3.0x at the lowest rate of fire up to 3.5x at the highest rate of fire
- Increased aim assist
- Increased inventory (allowing more reserve ammo to be stored)
- Grenade Launchers
- Increased blast radius
- Drum-Fed Grenade Launchers: +0.5 m
- One-Shot Grenade Launchers: +1.0 m
- MIDA Mini-Tool
- Decreased the MIDA Mini-Tool’s optics to match other Submachine Guns
- Prevented the stacking of Lightweight and the MIDA Mini-Tool’s Lightweight perks
- Adjusted player movement speed to match the MIDA Multi-Tool
- Auto Rifles
- Decreased range by 10 for all precision Auto Rifles
- Decreased aim assist for all precision Auto Rifles
Perks
- Scaled up PvE damage for the following perks:
- High Impact Reserves
- From 1.12x to 1.30x (+16%)
- Kill Clip
- From 1.33x to 1.53x (+15%)
- Rampage
- From 1.33x at 3 stacks to 1.65x while at 3 stacks
- Also increased duration from 3 seconds to 3.5 seconds
- Dragonfly
- Buffed damage
- From 50 to 65 (+30%)
- +30% additional damage against combatants
- Updated FX
- Explosive Rounds
- Decreased PvE Explosive Rounds damage multiplier by 15%
- Increased PvE damage for the base weapons to compensate for this decrease
- Grave Robber
- Reloads 50% of the magazine instead of 30%
- Timed Payload
- Splits damage 55/45, explosive/direct instead of previous split which was more direct damage
Abilities
- Increased Super regeneration rates from 6:40 minutes to 5:00 minutes
- The output of every increment of the Mobility stat, from 2 – 10, has been increased allowing for a significant boost in player speed
- Vanishing Step (invisibility upon dodging) and Vanish in Smoke (Smoke Bomb invisibility)
- Dodging remains unchanged and still breaks both aim assist and projectile tracking for the duration of the actual dodge
- The invisibility granted by Vanishing Step no longer breaks aim assist or projectile tracking in PvP (unchanged in PvE)
- Increased the duration of invisibility granted by Vanishing Step by 1 second
- Increased the duration of Smoke Bomb invisibility by 1 second
- Increased the movement speed of “melee Supers” (Fist of Havoc, Sentinel Shield, and Arc Staff)
- While these Supers are active, sprint speed is automatically set to the fastest possible sprint speed (no additional perks needed)
- Characters automatically sprint when you request forward movement
- Increased movement acceleration to reach max speed almost instantly
Titan
- Increased the distance the player travels with an untargeted airborne shoulder charge attack (Shield Bash, Seismic Strike, and Hammer Strike) back to 4.5 m
- Lift
- Strafe Lift
- Increased top speed of Strafe Lift
- Catapult Lift
- Increased the initial horizontal acceleration gained from activating Catapult Lift
- Increased the amount of time Catapult Lift can be active to allow for more control
Hunter
- Arc Staff
- Increased the speed of the Arc Staff dodge animation
- Increased the speed of all Arc Staff attack animations
- For Arc Staff Super cast animation and all Arc Staff melee attacks, reduced the amount of time you’re locked in animations before you can move or attack
- Increased the AoE range of all Arc Staff attacks
Warlock
- Glide
- Overall
- Increased the initial extension of vertical speed gained from activating Glide to allow for quick, on-demand bursts of speed
- Strafe Glide
- Increased the top speed of Strafe Glide
- Greatly increased the horizontal acceleration of Strafe Glide to allow for more in-air maneuverability
- Increased Strafe Glide’s max height to match the other vertical movements
- Burst Glide
- Greatly increased the top speed of Burst Glide (higher than Strafe Glide’s top speed)
- Balanced Glide
- Recalibrated Balanced Glide to gain some of the added speed of Burst Glide and some of the added horizontal acceleration of Strafe Glide.
- Design Note: Our intent is for Balanced Glide to have some of the properties of both Burst and Strafe Glide without being as potent as either version.
- Dawnblade
- Decreased the cost of throwing sword projectiles with the Daybreak Super, allowing for one additional throw
- Increased the Super duration extension gained from the Everlasting Flames perk (~+20%)
- The buff granted by the Swift Strike melee ability now removes all in-air accuracy penalties while active
- Decreased the Icarus Dash cooldown from 10 seconds to 6 seconds
- Increased the grenade and melee energy that Heat Rises gives you per kill from 10% to 16%
- Fixed an issue where players could throw infinite numbers of Nova Bombs in Mayhem
Mods
- Mods that affect ability regen rates (i.e., for grenades, melee, and class abilities) now have increased output (16.667% per mod). They still cap at 3 mods (50% regen rate).
Crucible
- Weekly Featured Playlist (Rumble, Mayhem, Iron Banner)
- Each week we will rotate among Rumble, Mayhem, and Iron Banner playlists in the Crucible
- Crucible repetition reduction
- Enabled repeat map protection for Quickplay, Competitive, and Iron Banner playlists
- Quitter penalties
- Incomplete matches in Competitive Crucible playlists will now result in a warning or temporary (30 minute) suspension from Competitive and Osiris Competitive playlists
- Added invisible physics and kill volumes to keep players inside the intended playable area on a number of maps.
- Iron Banner
- Now features 6v6
- Time limit is 12 minutes
- Score limit is 125 points
- Respawn time is 7 seconds
- All Control Zones start off neutral
- Additional Guardians (max of 3) in a zone increases capture speed
- Emperor’s Respite has been removed from the Iron Banner Control playlist
- Power ammo
- Recurring side crate respawn times reduced from 90 seconds to 45 seconds
- Initial side crate respawn times reduced from 90 seconds to 30 seconds
- Crucible gameplay/ammo improvements
- Quickplay (Clash, Control, Supremacy) match length has been extended to 10 minutes, with score limits adjusted accordingly
- All modes
- Increased assist and kill credit time from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds
- Increased Super energy granted to players for both kills and assists
- Players who are defeated while carrying Power ammo will lose all of their Power ammo and drop 50% of it on the ground as a brick
- This brick is visible to all players, and anyone can pick it up
- The brick expires after 30 seconds
- The brick requires a full .25-second interaction instead of a passive walkover
- This interaction can be interrupted if the player takes damage
Quickplay
- All modes
- Match length has been extended to 10 minutes, with score limits adjusted accordingly
- Respawn time for all Quickplay game modes has gone down from 5 seconds to 2 seconds
- Recurring side crate respawn times reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds
- Neutral crates for Clash/Supremacy are unchanged
- The player Super display has been removed from the HUD
- Players can still access this information in the death screen and while in Nav Mode (when their Ghost is out)
- The player Super display remains unchanged in Competitive
- Control
- Reduced initial side crate Power ammo respawn times from 90 seconds to 30 seconds
- Changed the amounts of Super energy players get for capturing zones
- Players on the capturing team get slightly less than before
- Players participating in the capture itself get 2x that amount
- Clash/Supremacy
- Initial side crate Power ammo respawn times reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds
Competitive (Includes Trials of the Nine)
- All modes
- Tracker is now turned off
- Design Note: This is to enable more flanking and expression of individual power.
- Survival
- Reduced recurring neutral crate respawn times from 75 seconds to 45 seconds
- Reduced respawn time to 7 seconds
- Countdown
- Reduced recurring side crate respawn times from 60 seconds to 45 seconds
- Lowered revive lockout time from 20 seconds to 7 seconds
- Players no longer lose revive tokens on death
Crucible Power Ammo Crates
- Rockets
- Now: 1 rocket
- Was: 2 rockets
- Drum-Fed Grenade Launchers
- Stays at 4 grenades
- Single-Shot Grenade Launchers
- Now: 6 grenades (may be capped by weapon inventory size)
- Was: 4 grenades
- Sniper Rifles
- Now: 6 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 6
- Shotguns
- Now: 5 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 4
- Slug Shotguns
- Now: 6 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 4
- Fusion Rifles
- Now: 5 bursts
- Was: (variable) 4–5 shots based on mag size
- Wardcliff Coil
- Stays at 1 volley
- Swords
- Now: 6 swings
- Was: 30% of total Energy, capped at 9 swings
- Linear Fusion Rifles
- Now: 4 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 6
- The Prospector
- Now: 8 grenades
- Was: 4 grenades
- Legend of Acrius
- Now: 4 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 4
- Tractor Cannon
- Now: 6 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 4
- The Colony
- Stays at 4 shots
- D.A.R.C.I.
- Now: 8 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 6
- Borealis
- Now: 8 shots
- Was: (variable) 2 mags, capped at 6