Destiny 2 Is Finally Nerfing an OP Multiplayer Gun

If you’re someone who plays Destiny 2’s PvP multiplayer on a regular basis, you’re probably familiar with the fact that Hand Cannons have been pretty strong for quite some time now. Assuming you’re playing multiplayer to actually pick up wins as often as possible, Hand Cannons have been one of the more reliable weapons types that you can count on to get kills at a high rate. After quite some time with this being the status quo, Bungie says it will be looking to make a change.

Outlined in Bungie’s latest blog post that talks about future updates for Destiny 2, the studio said it’s looking to nerf Hand Cannons just a bit in PvP. While not outright wanting to make them useless, Bungie’s weapons lead Chris Proctor said that the studio is looking to reduce the distance at which these weapons are effective. Specifically, Bungie says it’s planning to reduce the damage and aim assist at a certain distance.

As for when this update will arrive, we don’t know just yet. Bungie has said that Season 14 is going to start on May 11 of next month. This patch is one that will release within Season 14, but it’s not known if these tweaks that have been outlined are ones that will come on the same day of the seasonal change. We should learn more about all of this in a future blog from Bungie, though.

Destiny 2 is available to play right now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and Google Stadia. If you’d like to check out the full list of balance changes that Bungie is looking to implement in the future, you can find them down below.

• Aggressive (120 rpm) Hand Cannons are very dominant in PvP, and we’ve received enough feedback that we want to rein them in a bit, without completely taking away their range benefits.
• These weapons will now have damage and aim assist falloff distance reduced by between 2 and 4 meters, based on the Range stat.
• This roughly halves the range buff they received in Beyond Light.
• Vortex Frame Swords — With Falling Guillotine now viable forever, we need to adjust it a little, as its damage output is flat out higher than all other Legendary swords. With this change we allow it to keep its high damage output, but are reducing its full-reserves damage output by reducing the number of Heavy attacks you’ll be able to perform.
• Full energy Heavy attack ammo cost increased from 4 to 6.
• Chip damage — Certain weapons (Swords and Bastion) bypass shields by varying amounts, which has caused numerous issues with Stasis-encased enemies, encounter mechanics, and other content.
• We have removed chip damage from Swords and Bastion.

• Quickdraw — This perk is intended to provide faster swap speed, but it also passively buffs handling by +100. This completely negates the downside of using low-handling weapons (such as Aggressive Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, and Hand Cannons), which isn’t something we want to encourage. Those weapons should have downsides and working around those completely via a perk isn’t healthy. We don’t think allowing a fast-swap to the Shotgun subfamily with the highest one-hit-kill range is great either.
• The Handling bonus is now removed one second after switching to this weapon, or upon aiming down sights.
• Replaced Quickdraw with Surplus on new and existing drops of Felwinter’s Lie and Astral Horizon.
• Frenzy — This perk has extremely high uptime in PvE, to the point where it is clearly a better choice than most other damage perks. We like the high uptime and want to preserve that, but want it to award less damage than harder to activate damage perks
• Reduced bonus damage from +20 percent to +15 percent.
• Reservoir Burst — Now increases magazine size in addition to its other effects, reduced full battery bonus damage from 33 percent to 25 percent.
• Upcoming content requires revisiting the Power Level of a damage perk that can be activated simply by having a full magazine.

• The Lament — This weapon is a clear outlier for Sword damage, so for the health of Heavy weapon diversity, we’re pulling it back a bit.
• Reduced damage of revved Heavy attack by approximately 16 percent.
• Note that The Lament retains standard anti-barrier despite removing chip damage.
• Bastion — Since we’re removing chip damage, Bastion gets something else instead. We’ve noticed increased feedback on Bastion and higher than normal usage in PvP, so are making a small change here and will revisit Bastion later.
• Intrinsically staggers Unstoppable Champions.
• Increased spread angle by 13 percent.