Destiny 2 Season 18 Patch Notes Detail Exotic Changes, Arc 3.0 Additions

Alongside a massive showcase of the upcoming Lightfall expansion and the newly released Season of Plunder, Bungie also dropped a new patch for Destiny 2. Update 6.2.0 brings a host of new changes to Season 18, including the massive Arc 3.0 revamp for player subclasses, adjustments to PvP matches in the Crucible, and balance adjustments for a host of weapons.

Most of the changes coming in Update 6.2.0 are items Bungie previously detailed in weekly blog posts. Arc 3.0 makes huge changes to the electricity-based player classes, bringing new abilities to players and reworking old abilities. All three Arc subclasses focus on speed and aggression, with players getting boosts for running into danger and shocking their foes. Bungie ran down most of what players can expect from the Arc revamp last week.

Also coming with the new update are changes to the Crucible, Destiny 2’s player-vs.-player arena. The adjustments bring back some loose skill-based matchmaking to Crucible matches, something Bungie talked about back in July. Destiny 2 previously eschewed SBMM in favor of connection-based matchmaking, but has more recently made adjustments on that front for certain Crucible game modes.

Update 6.2.0 is also full of changes to various weapon archetypes and adjustments to Exotics that rebalance them significantly. Bungie also ran down many of those changes in a previous blog post as well, including changes to some previously dominant Exotic weapons such as Lord of Wolves and Dead Man’s Tale. The update sees buffs to a number of Exotics, like Wish-Ender, Malfeasance, Legend of Acrius, and Ticuu’s Divination, to go along with nerfs.

Apart from those alterations Bungie already discussed, the update sees a number of fixes to activities, like the Skydock IV Lost Sector, and more general elements such as Triumphs and Seals. Check out the full patch notes below.

UI/UX

ROSTER

Fixed an issue where exploring the Director screen would impact FPS. The team will continue to monitor FPS while using this tab.Added a new option to allow players to invite their friends to their fireteam without redirecting them to the Roster tab.Updated the visuals to make it easier to understand when a player has been blocked.Fixed an issue where viewing one’s own details in the Roster might not consistently respect the Share Platform Names.

CRUCIBLE

Fixed an issue where pre-match cinematics would end before the countdown timer reached zero.Fixed an issue where an opponent’s nameplate would not pulse when their Super is active.

MISCELLANEOUS

Fixed an issue where Derelict Leviathan did not have a Director labelFixed an issue where some items would show extra spaces near the bottom.Updated the UI on the Clan tab to match other locations in the game where multiple pages are present.Fixed an issue where some perk information was not displayed when inspecting another player’s equipped Stasis Aspects and Fragments.Triumphs or Seasonal Challenges that are claimed and tracked may now be untracked. The team is investigating situations where players may get into these states.Starting with Season 18, Seasonal Challenges and your currently tracked Triumph, weapon catalyst, pattern, medal, etc. will be untracked at each Seasonal reset to help avoid similar issues.Updated the parallax boundaries on armor inspection screens to keep the armor stats from moving off screen on consoles

GAMEPLAY AND INVESTMENT

CRUCIBLE

Fixed an issue in Survival where tied rounds still granted a point to one of the teams.

CRUCIBLE

Loose skill-based matchmaking enabled on Control playlist. Please see the TWAB for more information.In 3v3 Crucible modes, special ammo will no longer refresh upon being resurrected, bringing them inline with Trials of Osiris.Self-reviving still restocks with special ammoFixed an issue where Crucible streak protection message was unnecessarily displaying when joining a match in progressFixed an issue where the Three Birds, Three Stones triumph did not progress in all Crucible playlistsFixed an issue where pre-match cinematics would end before the countdown timer reached zero.Fixed an issue where an opponent’s nameplate would not pulse when their Super is active.

IRON BANNER

Fixed an issue where the Fourth Daily Challenge would not contribute to Iron Banner reputation multiplierFixed an issue where seasonal metrics did not display during the intro scene when loading into a matchFixed an issue where there was a missing progress display string in the Iron Banner introduction questFixed an issue where an outdated loading screen hint about power level being enabled in Iron Banner was showing up

RITUALS

Fixed an issue where Crucible, Gambit, and Vanguard dropped and focused weapons could not drop with more than 3 combinations of multiple perksThey can now drop with more combinations of multiple perks for each seasonal reputation resets, up to 4.Added new Arc 3.0 bounties for Crucible, Gambit, and VanguardTuned bounties with Void 3.0 status effects

LOST SECTORS

Fixed an issue where all Skydock IV Lost Sector champions were not counting properly for scoring

WELLSPRING

Wellspring now uses the proper scoring during Master difficulty; players can now earn Platinum rewards based on score rather than killing Champions

RAIDS

Vow of the Disciple: Fixed an issue where The Bombardiers Hunter Exotic could break the payload route during the entrance encounter. No more payload escaping.

GLOBAL CHANGES

Fixed an issue introduced in the 30th Anniversary update that caused too much Heavy ammo to drop when running double Special weaponsSeveral weapon stats were previously hidden, which made fully evaluating weapons difficult. Airborne effectiveness, recoil direction, zoom, and aim assist are now visible on the weapon inspection screen.

ARMOR

Increased the vibrancy of the glow colors in the “Candescent Prism” Solstice ornament sets in order to bring them back to parity with Update 4.1.5. This also fixed shaders not correctly applying to these sets.Fixed an issue where The Path of Burning Steps would not admit to killing a Guardian with its Solar burst and blamed The Architects instead.Fixed an issue where the Antaeus Wards was not changing its glow color based on the Guardian’s current subclass.

WEAPONS

Stasis Rocket Launchers and Stasis Grenade Launchers with the perks Chain Reaction, Dragonfly, and Cluster Bombs will now have cool Stasis-themed VFX and audio.Updated the Polaris Lance catalyst requirements to be more achievable. Removed Perfect Fifth kill objective entirely. It now only relies on kills by the weapon.Fixed various issues where the Wish-Ender Exotic Bow would lose its Truesight in certain circumstances.The shaping alloy “Drowned Alloy” has been renamed to “Harmonic Alloy.”Dismantled weapons with Deepsight will provide pattern progress if a pattern is available. Dismantled weapons with Deepsight will provide 100 Neutral Element.If the objective is completed and the item is dismantled or the Deepsight mod extracted, 300 Neutral Element will be acquired.When a Deepsight weapon with a pattern is dismantled or extracted, players will be notified via loot stream that pattern progress has been made.Starting in Season 18, Deepsight weapons that are acquired prior to their pattern becoming available will no longer output pattern progress. The Deepsight weapon’s tooltip will indicate whether a pattern is available or not.Fixed an issue where One for All would grant more bonus damage than intended on Grenade Launchers.Fixed an issue where using Shoot to Loot with Enhanced Overflow would overflow the weapon much more than intended.Explosive Payload detonations will no longer pick up ammo via Shoot to Loot to prevent an ammo exploit. This interaction will be re-enabled once the underlying issue has been fixed in a future patch.

WEAPON ARCHETYPES

Scout RiflesIncreased damage of all Scout Rifles vs minor enemies (red bars) in PvE by 10% This change is in addition to the baseline damage buff given in the Solstice balance patch.High-Impact (360 RPM) Auto RiflesIncreased base stability stat of all non-sunset High-Impact Auto Rifles by 6-12, depending on the weapon. Herod-C: 27-33False Promises: 17-29Age-Old Bond: 18-30Chrysura Melo: 13-25Come to Pass: 14-26Lightweight BowsReduced base draw time by 5% (from 612ms to 580ms).Increased the “perfect draw window” (how long you can hold the drawn bow before you begin to lose accuracy and damage, stability modifies this window).From .30s to .50s on the low end.From .55s to .80s on the high end.Hand CannonsFixed Dire Promise’s zoom stat (got changed to 13 inadvertently, it’s now 14 again).GlaivesGlaive melee attacks can now activate the Exotic armor perks on ACD/0 Feedback Fence, Karnstein Armlets, and Necrotic Grip.Breech Grenade LaunchersConcussion grenades can no longer roll in the magazine slot.Heavy Grenade LaunchersIncreased damage vs. majors and above by ~10%, excluding Parasite.

WEAPON POOLS

Updated the Dares of Eternity weapon set’s perk pools and added an origin trait.Addressed an issue where Playlist (Crucible, Gambit and strike) weapons weren’t randomizing perk count correctly based on number of resets.

PERKS

Ambitious Assassin Increased magazine overflow from 10% to 20% per kill on Primary weapons only (Special and Heavy weapons are still 10%).Increased overflow cap from 50% to 150%.Invader Tracker (Gambit origin trait)Renamed Gun and Run.Redesigned functionality to give a sprint speed increase on multi-kills.Skulking Wolf (Iron Banner origin trait)Redesigned to activate on kills while at low health.WellspringCooldown has been removed, allowing for Rocket Launchers and Grenade Launchers to return more ability energy when defeating groups with a single shot.Perpetual MotionDisabled audio/visual feedback on perk activation, since it was triggering frequently enough to be annoying.Lead from GoldNow gives the correct amount of ammo when two Special weapons are equipped.Concussion GrenadesCan no longer roll on Breech Grenade Launchers.Veist StingerFixed an issue where it was applying a charge time reduction to Linear Fusion Rifles. It will correctly only refill the magazine from reserves when it triggers on these weapons.Zen Moment, Particle RepeaterUpdated descriptions to say what they actually do.

EXOTIC WEAPONS

Buffs

Le Monarque Added intrinsic Overload to Poison Arrows.Thunderlord Added intrinsic Overload.Malfeasance Added intrinsic Unstoppable to explosions.Added +25 to the base airborne effectiveness stat (28 to 53) to match other Precision Hand Cannon’s intrinsic bonus.Wish-Ender Added intrinsic Anti-Barrier.Increased number of hits vs. most targets from 2 to 3 (more hits against vehicles, still 2 against players).Increased damage vs Champions, majors, and minibosses by 10%.Draw time decreased from 828ms to 820ms.Ticuu’s Divination Draw time decreased from 612ms to 580ms.Legend of Acrius Catalyst now grants the Trench Barrel perk in addition to its other effects.Exotic Paired Legendary WeaponsCALUS Mini-Tool Increased airborne effectiveness from 23 to 28 to match MIDA Mini-Tool.MIDA Mini-Tool Increased zoom from 13 to 14 to match CALUS Mini-Tool.Drang (Baroque) Increased airborne effectiveness from 21 to 23 to match standard Drang.Sweet Business Increased airborne effectiveness from 27 to 32.Fighting Lion Season 17 damage increase has been reimplemented and slightly increased from 5% to 8%.Increased the grace time for the instant reload effect of Thin the Herd from 5 to 6s.

Reworks

Lord of Wolves Decreased starting ammo in PvP from 15 to 10 (PvE unchanged).Reduced the burst size (shots fired per trigger pull) from 10 to 5 shots when Release the Wolves is active.Reduced the burst delay (the time between bursts) by ~60% when Release the Wolves is active.Decreased Lord of Wolves base damage by ~20% in (now deals 35 per shot to the body in PvP, 44 with Release the Wolves active). Increased damage in PvE by 20% to compensate.Dead Man’s Tale Changed Cranial Spike’s effects:Cranial Spike no longer buffs damage vs players; instead, it grants increased reload, aim assist, and range per stack. It still grants additional damage vs. PvE combatants.Upon reaching max stacks of Cranial Spike, the Catalyst will now increase hip-fire RPM by 50 (i.e., it will fire at 180 RPM), but will deal reduced damage per bullet (20% decrease).Collective Obligation Increased Void Leech timer to 15 seconds in PvE activities. PvP remains at 10 seconds.Removed the Void Leech cooldown.Add a 20% damage bonus against PvE combatants only while Void Leech is active.Takes fewer hits to fully charge Void Leech.Kills against debuffed targets instantly charge Void Leech.Void Leech is also instantly charged when your character is affected by Void debuffs. Does not work if hitting yourself with your own Suppressor grenade.Fixed an issue where Umbral Sustenance was activating with non-Void overshields.

ABILITIES

Arc SubclassesReworked to fit the Subclass 3.0 system. There are too many individual systemic changes to list here, but the Arc subclasses now use the Aspect and Fragment system used by Stasis, Void, and Solar.Standardized a set of buffs and debuffs aligned to the Arc damage type: Amplified – Your movement speed and weapon handling are greatly increased. After sprinting for a short time, you enter Speed Booster, further increasing your sprint speed and granting damage resistance against PvE combatants. By default, rapidly defeating multiple targets with Arc damage will amplify you. Your equipped Aspects and Fragments provide additional methods to become and benefit from being amplified.Ionic Trace – A bolt of pure Arc energy that travels along the ground, seeking its creator. When picked up, Ionic Traces grant grenade, melee, and class ability energy.Blind – Combatants are disoriented and cannot fire their weapons. Enemy players’ HUD is removed and their vision is obscured.Jolted – The target is energized with destructive Arc Light. As they take additional damage while jolted, they chain lightning to nearby enemies. This chain lightning can occur multiple times while a target is jolted.Hovering over Aspects, Fragments, or abilities on the Arc subclass screen now displays a tooltip flyout detailing any relevant status effects.Some old subclass perks have been deprecated, while others have been rolled into base ability behavior, Fragments, or Aspects with some changes to behavior as a result.All classes now have access to all Arc grenades.GrenadesStorm grenade Total damage across the two detonations reduced from 170 (80/90) to 120 (70/50)Improved damage area consistency under certain network conditions to fix an issue where it was dealing delayed damage.Base cooldown increased from 91s to 105s.Lightning grenade Damage per strike reduced from 160 to 120.Arcbolt grenade Damage reduced from 105 to 85.Base cooldown reduced from 121s to 105s.Skip grenade Base cooldown increased from 105s to 121s.Flashbang grenade Blind duration decreased from 5 seconds to 3 seconds vs. Players.Pulse grenade Base cooldown increased from 105s to 121s.Vortex grenade Fixed an issue causing this to deal less damage than intended against PvE targets.HunterArcstriderArc StaffNow has both Whirlwind Guard block capability and Lightning Reflexes armored dodge as default behavior.Arc Staff damage vs. minor and elite combatants increased by 12.5%.New Super added: Gathering StormHurl your Arc Staff forward, embedding it into surfaces or large targets, dealing damage to and jolting nearby targets. After a short time, a devastating lightning bolt strikes the staff, overcharging it with Arc energy. While overcharged, your staff discharges lightning at nearby foes.New jump added: BlinkArc Hunters have recovered from a not-so-brief case of amnesia causing them to forget how to Blink.Disorienting BlowNow applies a short blind to nearby targets rather than a generic disorient, and also amplifies you on hit.Combination BlowNow also recharges your class ability when you successfully defeat a target with this charged melee, in addition to increasing your charged melee damage.Base cooldown increased from 15s to 40s.Tempest StrikeIncreased travel distance from 18m to 22m.Added a small amount of initial tracking to help Tempest Strike land on close targets.Now jolts targets on hit.Base damage decreased from 130 to 110.Lethal Current – ReworkedAfter dodging, your next melee attack has increased range, jolts the struck target, and leaves behind a damaging aftershock.Damaging a jolted target with melee attacks also blinds them.While using Arc Staff, your next attack strikes twice after dodging.Deprecated the Ebb and Flow subclass node perk.NightstalkerSpectral BladesSpectral Blades damage vs. minor and elite combatants increased by 33%.TitanStrikerFists of HavocNow has Terminal Velocity’s slam bonus as default behavior.The slam’s bonus damage when activated from the air is now constant rather than variable based on your height when you activate the slam.Light attack energy cost normalized between previous top and bottom tree cost at 8% (previously 12%/5.6%).Heavy slam radius normalized between the previous top and bottom tree cost at 7 meters (previously 8m/6m).Fists of Havoc damage vs. Champion, miniboss, and boss combatants increased by 25%. Damage vs. minor and elite combatants increased by ~40%. Note: Previously, Fists of Havoc relied on knockout bonus damage and trample energy refunds to consistently deal with standard combatants in PvE. We’d like this to be better able to stand on its own now to partially compensate for the increased attack energy costs.New class ability added: ThrusterActivate while grounded to perform a quick, first-person lateral evade.New melee ability added: ThunderclapHold melee while grounded to plant your feet and begin charging your fist with Arc energy. Release melee to punch forward, unleashing a large blast of force that deals additional damage the longer the melee button was held.Seismic StrikeBlind duration decreased from 5 seconds to 1.6 seconds vs. players.Now while amplified, the blinding radius is increased from 7m to 10m, and the blind duration is increased to 3 seconds vs. players.Ballistic SlamFixed an issue where the Ballistic Slam camera could sometimes cause you to dive straight down rather than at your aimed location.No longer applies Inertia Override on hit.KnockoutDefeating targets with melee attacks now also amplifies you in addition to starting your health regeneration.Knockout is no longer consumed on your next melee kill. Instead, knockout lasts for a set 6 seconds, after which it needs to be reactivated by breaking a combatant shield or critically wounding a target.Deprecated the Frontal Assault melee ability, and the aftershocks and trample subclass node perks.SentinelSentinel ShieldSentinel Shield damage vs. minor and elite combatants increased by 12.5%.WarlockStormcallerStormtranceNow has Ionic Blink and Landfall as default behaviors. Landfall seeker damage reduced from 250 to 150.Note: While the seekers added to bottom tree Stormcaller in Season of the Lost were a lot of fun, they made Stormtrance more of a shutdown Super than we’re comfortable with. Given that it is also a solid roaming option and now has increased base mobility with Ionic Blink, we felt we could reduce the seekers damage.Stormtrance no longer increases its attack upkeep cost when targeting multiple enemies at once.Note: We believe that Stormtrance’s greatest strength should be clearing hordes of enemies, and the increased cost based on target count was running counter to that intended role.Stormtrance damage vs. minor and elite combatants increased by 20%.Chain LightningWhile amplified, Chain Lightning now creates two sets of chains, up from one, jumping between more targets.Now also jolts your primary target.Lunge range increased from 4.5m to 5.25m.Ball LightningWhile amplified, Ball Lightning now detonates two additional times, for a total of three vertical damaging strikes.Increased arming shape length below the projectile by 2 meters to resolve some edge cases where targets that the detonation area could potentially damage were not triggering the projectile to detonate.Arc SoulsBeing or becoming amplified now also amplifies your Arc Souls, granting them a greatly increased fire rate.Damage per projectile increased from 25 to 35 vs. PvE combatants.Amplified Arc Souls projectiles per burst decreased from 6 to 5, fire rate decreased by ~10%. Note: We expect to see significantly increased uptime on supercharged Arc Souls, so we wanted to provide a bit more time between bursts where players could safely engage an enemy that has an Arc Soul in PvP activities. We hope the increased PVE damage offsets this change sufficiently, but we’ll be keeping an eye on it going forward.Deprecated the Rising Storm melee ability, along with the Transcendence, Pulsewave, and Arc Web subclass node perks.Arc AspectsHunter: Flow StateTempest StrikeLethal CurrentTitan:Touch of ThunderJuggernautKnockoutWarlock:Arc SoulLightning SurgeElectrostatic MindArc FragmentsSpark of BeaconsSpark of ResistanceSpark of MomentumSpark of ShockSpark of DischargeSpark of FrequencySpark of FocusSpark of RechargeSpark of VoltageSpark of Magnitude????????????????GeneralBlinkMaximum displacement distance increased from 4.5m to 5.25m.Maximum vertical offset (how high up or down you are displaced based on your aim angle from the horizon) increased from 2m to 2.5m.Increased forgiveness of mantling to ledges after exiting Blink.Energy model reworked: Previously, Blink charges recharged slowly one-by-one, and could be activated at a cadence that felt inconsistent and often left players confused as to how many charges they had available.Now, Blink has a consistent activation cost. You can carry two charges at once, and 2.2 seconds after activating your last Blink, both are immediately recharged. We’ve also added a screen wipe and sound effect when this occurs, similar to Icarus Dash, to help communicate when you’re ready to Blink again. The overall availability of Blink is similar to the previous version, but we hope it is more understandable and results in fewer instances of frustration from the energy recharge model.Note: These changes apply to Blink on all subclasses that have access to it.BlindScreen shader brightness has been significantly decreased to address photosensitivity issues from the previous fully whited-out version.Ionic TracesNo longer provide Super energy on pickup.Reduced melee, grenade, and class ability energy return to compensate for expected increased uptime: Base melee energy return reduced from 20% to 12.5%.Base grenade energy return reduced from 15% to 12.5%.Base class ability energy return reduced from 25% to 15%.RestorationFixed an issue where Restoration x2 could be removed by some PvE combatants’ attacks and certain debuffs like Overload rounds.Arc-focused Exotic armor updatesCrown of TempestsConduction Tines now also activate from defeating targets with jolt damage.Getaway ArtistNow amplifies you in addition to granting an Arc Soul when consuming your grenade.

PLATFORM AND SYSTEMS

Fixed an issue on PlayStation platforms where the text in many areas of the game would display an extra line break.

GENERAL

Fixed an issue where text chat messages persist after being kicked out to the login screen without exiting the game.Glimmer pickups will now play dematerialization VFX when picked up.Added key binding options for vehicles which support lateral dodging functionality. There is a known issue on Stadia where the title texts for these settings are not appearing as expected. The team is aware of the root cause, and a fix is expected in an upcoming hotfix.Updated tooltips for various vehicle key binding options with more relevant information. Multiple key bindings for vehicles have missing or incorrect definitions.Destiny 2 now available in the Epic Games Store.

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