Image: Bungie
Destiny 2’s Exotic Trace Rifle Divinity has been the spine of loads of gamers’ arsenals for finish sport content material ever because it was first launched again within the Shadowkeep enlargement in 2019. Yesterday, Bungie lastly introduced a long-awaited nerf to how highly effective it’s, and whereas many are welcoming the change, it’s additionally reignited a months-long controversy initially sparked by one of many sport’s prime gamers.
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There are two issues that make Divinity a ridiculously great tool for Destiny 2’s most difficult content material like raids. First, it weakens enemies by 30 p.c, letting gamers deal a bunch of additional harm for an prolonged time frame. Second, it expands the critical-hit goal space, making it simple for a whole crew to land increased harm pictures, even when their purpose isn’t spot on. As a consequence, Divinity is the go-to Exotic for many actions, and even gamers who haven’t but obtained the uncommon weapon have in all probability benefited from another person on the crew utilizing it.
So it’s not shocking that Bungie determined Divinity was overdue a recall. “We’ve been looking at Divinity for a while now, and have tested a variety of changes in Season 19 over the last few months, landing on reducing Divinity’s weaken from 30% to 15%,” Destiny 2’s weapon crew wrote in a weblog submit yesterday, previewing a bunch of upcoming steadiness modifications. Here’s the developer’s expanded reasoning behind the choice:
We don’t imagine that Divinity in its present kind is definitely a steadiness drawback, i.e., it’s not essentially too robust in isolation. That stated, Divinity is extremely dominant in endgame PvE as a result of it trivializes aiming precision weapons and has an especially excessive uptime for weaken. The most essential difficulty is that Divinity granting 30% weaken sucks the air out of the room for all different weaken sources (resembling Tether and Tractor Cannon), and we don’t need to energy creep previous Divinity to make them attention-grabbing.
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TL;DR: Bungie desires gamers to utilize Destiny 2’s full suite of weapons and skills. Divinity was crowding out different help skills and tools that do related issues, so Bungie has decreased its effectiveness to deliver these different instruments—just like the Hunter’s Tether and the Tractor Cannon Exotic—again into play. Like each huge choice in Destiny 2, nevertheless, it’s inflicting no small quantity of shock amongst sure components of the group.
The controversy dates again to a now notorious Twitter thread by a participant named Saltagreppo, whose raid crew is three-time world’s first champions (i.e. even amongst Destiny 2’s prime gamers he’s in a category of his personal). “The gun is basically mandatory for most Boss encounters and it makes aiming a non factor, which is very unhealthy for the game for multiple reasons,” he wrote on September 8. Saltagreppo went on to say the gun undermined the talent hole in finish sport content material, after which provided potential options resembling making gamers select between increased harm or simpler crits. “The whole point is that Div shouldn’t be both the best and easiest option,” he wrote.
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The thread didn’t go over nicely with some gamers, who thought it was too centered on the distinctive considerations of a really small proportion of elite gamers. They aren’t “bored” with Divinity. In truth, they actually like the way it makes fast work of sure raid bosses which may in any other case trigger an evening’s work to finish in frustration. A perpetual rigidity inside Destiny 2 is that some gamers like feeling tremendous highly effective, making the most of damaged builds, and hammering on the newest loot exploit. Others don’t. Especially those who like competing in raid races and PVP modes like Trials of Osiris. A longtime suspicion among the many former group is that Bungie spends an excessive amount of time catering to Destiny 2’s prime gamers and content material creators who’re taking part in dozens of hours every week.
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So as quickly as Bungie introduced the nerf, which to be clear is a fairly gentle one, it appeared like proof to some gamers that Saltagreppo had ruined the occasion for everybody else. However, the studio made clear that this variation was deliberate far sooner than the controversy on Twitter. “The Div change was planned before the spirited debates on social media began,” Destiny 2’s group lead tweeted yesterday. “It’s fine to give your constructive feedback to Bungie, but do not harass anyone in the community for having a different opinion.”
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On Reddit, gamers shared clips from earlier podcasts the place the builders talked about that the problems with Divinity had been already on their radar, even when they weren’t but able to announce any particular modifications. But that didn’t cease some from nonetheless attempting guilty Saltagreppo for the nerf, or for merely being a signifier of Destiny 2’s 1 p.c in what’s arguably an ongoing lowkey class battle between completely different components of the group. Of course, in case you have Divinity within the first place, not to mention are posting about it on a message board, you’re already a part of Destiny 2’s elite. The weapon stays one of many extra concerned Exotics to amass, with a number of quest steps, together with discovering hidden rooms within the Garden of Salvation raid itself. And even with this buff coming later this 12 months in Season 19, it’ll nonetheless be well-worth getting. It simply gained’t be as overpowered because it has been for the final three years.