There have been a lot of leaks circling Destiny 2 lately, datamines for the current season, but also a lot of stuff for the rest of the year, including next year’s expansion, The Final Shape.
My general rule is that I do not cover big content leaks or specific story leaks. At this point, most of these haven’t been proven true or false yet because it’s too early, anyway. But for something like a list of supposed exotic reworks? I mean, I don’t really consider that spoilery in the same sense.
So, I wanted to go through a list of exotic nerfs/buffs/changes are that allegedly coming next season during Season of the Deep. Bungie has been going through and updating a lot of exotics to work with 3.0 subclass keywords, and others are just…bad and need help. So what do we have?
Salvation’s Grip – Charged shot forms six crystals. Uncharged shot shoots a normal grenade that shatters crystals. (easily the worst exotic weapon in the game, I don’t think this will be enough to save it, especially if it remains a heavy).
Eyes of Tomorrow – Killing four targets in one volley refunds 1 ammo (you are going to have a tough time selling a rocket mostly based on ad clear, which Eyes is supposed to be).
Graviton Lance – Increase rate of fire to match Revision Zero two-burst (20% decrease to burst delay). Difference in damage between the two bullets is reduced (sounds like a decent buff for an exotic that’s already solid).
Tommy’s Matchbook – The catalyst is updated so that when overheated, sustained fire scorches targets. Every 5 shots applies 14 (+7) scorch (if any exotic should work with scorch it’s probably this one, which badly needs help at baseline).
Worldline Zero – Tesseract can be chained into itself once. Damage slightly reduced (I have no idea what this will do. Help skating?)
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Bungie
Vesper of Radius – Rifts now emit an arc shockwave every 3 seconds that deals 200 PvE and 70 PvP damage. If these shockwaves kill an enemy, they explode on a delay for 100 damage. When on Stormcaller, these effects afflict blind (sounds like it could be good but a little surprise it’s doing blind instead of jolt here).
Chromatic Fire – Precision final blows with your kinetic weapon create an explosion that damages and applies status effects in the element of your subclass (now THIS could be cool, as presumably that’s scorch, volatile, jolt, unraveling and maybe slow?)
Dawn Chorus – Daybreak projectiles scorch on contact and deal increased damage to scorched targets. (I’m already a secret Dawn Chorus fan so any buffs here are welcome. Sounds like this will increase boss damage even further).
Ophidian Aspect – Remove melee range extension (our first nerf here, and something PvP players have been asking for. Currently has nearly a 50% usage rate among Warlocks in Crucible).
Astrocyte Verse – Blink further and more frequently, leaving behind a burst of Void damage that also suppresses (sounds pretty cool but I hate blink so I’ll never use it)
Sanguine Alchemy – Gives a small damage bonus to weapons that match your subclass when standing in a rift (swear to god they’ll never buff this thing enough to make it as good as it looks).
Claws of Ahamkara – Powered melee kills spawn an orb of power (saving you I guess…one mod slot? Eh).
Mantle of Battle Harmony – Change to a non-stacking damage buff (did this really need a nerf? I assume it’s a nerf, anyway).
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Dunemarchers – Reduced chain damage range from 20m to 12m. Reduced chain PvP damage from 85 to 50 (pretty significant nerf here that also affects PvE unfortunately, at least in the range portion).
Point Contact Cannon Brace – Strikes added by this exotic now jolt targets as well. PvE damage buffed from 50 to 200. Being amplified now increases the damage of the strikes by 50%. Amplified no longer increases the range. (I hate this melee at baseline but these sound like genuinely significant buffs to an exotic that got absolutely butchered).
Second Chance – The second shield charge will now weaken (I assume both weaken?). When you stun a barrier champion, you regain the charge (I actually really like that idea).
Stronghold – After blocking damage, gain restoration on damaging an enemy (this is already crazy strong in many situations but restoration as a bonus effect could be huge).
Eternal Warrior – Arc kills grant an escalating bonus to arc weapon damage. After Fist of Havoc ends, gain the highest bonus to arc weapon damage (this is essentially a top to bottom rework of one of the worst exotics in the game, and it sounds pretty good).
Khepri’s Horn – Solar kills recharge your barricade and the solar barricade blast now scorches enemies (another easy pick for 3.0 application, and this sounds solid).
Path of Burning Steps – No longer stacks with Surge mods (boooo).
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Sealed Ahamkara Grasps – Powered melee kills reload the magazine of all weapons matching your subclass. When buff is active, increased movement speed and jump height (sounds potentially fun but we’ll have to see).
Raiju’s Harness – Deactivating your super creates a blinding explosion and grants a buff that increases arc weapon damage 5% in PvP and 15% in PvE (no sorry this still sucks)
Arthrys’ Embrace – Rapid precision hits grant Weighted Knife energy (depending on how much, could be good).
Oathkeeper – The longer an arrow is drawn, the more damage it will do in PvE only (really curious what this buff can get up to).
Stompees – Bonus only active with full dodge energy, remove the AE penalty (okay that sucks, especially if it’s true in PvE as well. Pretty absurd).
Radiant Dance Machines – Kills extend the duration of its effect (not enough to make it actually viable)
Mask of Bakris – Increased damage bonus in PvE from 10% to 25% and in PvP i gets a 7% buff. Doesn’t stack with surge mods (eh, we’ll see. I still think they should change the bonus to Stasis from Arc as this was made before Stasis weapons even existed).
Again, no way of verifying any of this until they happen or don’t happen. Most sound good, I’m not sure which of these will actually be potentially gamechanging, however. Some of the nerfs also seem kind of shortsighted.
