How weapons and Perks will change in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Destiny 2‘s first saga is about to enter its endgame with the launch of The Final Shape expansion on June 4. In the build-up to the game’s next chapter, Bungie has been taking the time to showcase sneak peeks at certain content, like the new Dread enemies and unique Exotic armor. Now, the studio is diving into the nitty gritty, explaining how weapons and their Perks are due to change in The Final Shape.

Typically, Bungie rebalances weapons and Perks twice an expansion, with one overhaul coming just before launch and another happening around the mid-way point. While these changes may see a powerful gun or Perk combination fall out of favor, the alterations are made in the spirit of keeping Destiny 2‘s meta fresh. Not only are most weapons seeing some kind of change with The Final Shape, but Bungie’s also taking a swing at some over-relied-upon strategies.

Weapon changes

In a Dev Insights post, Bungie detailed how weapons would be tuned in The Final Shape. The studio kicked things off with changes to weapon mods, mentioning that Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec would be absent for the expansion. However, Bungie noted that all weapon base damage has increased to offset this. Conversely, the damage bonus for Exotic primary weapons and trace rifles has been decreased from 40% to 30%.

Additionally, Bungie will remove the damage bonus Kinetic weapons have against bosses, and burst weapons will shoot a number of shots reflective of their burst type. Here’s how weapon archetypes are specifically changing:

• Pulse Rifles – 20% damage buff to all PvE enemies (excluding Graviton Lance and Revision Zero). Additional 15% damage increase to Minors (includes Graviton Lance and Revision Zero).
• Pellet shotguns – 10% damage buff to all PvE enemies (not including Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, or The Fourth Horseman).
• Slug shotguns – 9% damage buff to all PvE enemies.
• Fusion rifles – 7% damage buff to all PvE enemies (excluding One Thousand Voices).
• Sniper rifles – 7% damage buff to all PvE enemies (excluding Izanagi’s Burden’s Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike’s storm). Minimum reserves have been increased to 17 from 14.
• Glaives – 7% damage increase to projectile damage against all PvE enemies.
• Linear fusion rifles – 5% damage increase against all PvE enemies. Adaptive Frame linears benefit from decreased recoil and “firing animation kick.”

• Auto rifles – 15% damage buff against Minor PvE enemies.
• Sidearms – 20% damage increase against Minor PvE enemies.
• Trace Rifles – 20% damage increase against Minor and Major PvE enemies.
• Scout Rifles – 20% damage increase against Minor PvE enemies. Updated hip-fire aim reticle.
• Bows – 20% damage increase against Minor PvE enemies.
• Submachine guns – 10% damage increase against Minor PvE enemies.
• Handcannons – 5% damage increase against Minor PvE enemies. Increased stats for Crimil’s Dagger and Something New.
• Machine guns – 7% damage increase against all foes (including PvP).
• Swords – 7% damage increase against all foes (including PvP). Sword reticles will display the weapon’s charge state in The Final Shape.
• Wave frame grenade launchers – The Blast Radius stat will dictate the size of the weapon’s wave in The Final Shape. At 50, the wave will be roughly the same size as it is now, going up or down from there with the stat. Special ammo wave frames will have their wave’s length reduced to 15 meters from 22.

Exotic weapon changes

Alongside the more general weapon tuning, Bungie also targeted a few specific Exotic weapons. Before the studio got into specifics weapon by weapon, it did note that certain Exotic primary weapons proved too powerful with the above buffs, so Sunshot, Trinity Ghoul, Polaris Lance, and Graviton Lance will each see a 10% decrease in splash damage.

Additionally, Borealis, Hard Light, and Dead Messenger’s The Fundamentals Perk will see alterations persist through death. Here’s how other Exotic weapons are changing:

• Divinity – It will take 75% more hits before the weak spot (or “cage”) appears.
• Rat King – Rat King will now use the same auto-firing animation as other sidearms.
• Devil’s Ruin – The unique firing animation can no longer be applied to other weapons by switching to them while the animation is active.
• Symmetry – Catalyst additionally grants +10 Reload Speed, +10 Handling, and the Eddy Current Perk.
• Gjallarhorn – Wolfpack rounds now accounts for different elemental visual effects.
• Touch of Malice – The burn effect applied by the Darkness Ball has been increased to 3.5 seconds from 2 seconds.
• Osteo Striga – Added a 4-second cooldown between poison AOEs from defeated enemies. Poison AOEs from continuous damage are unchanged.
• Necrochasm – The burn effect from the Cursed Thrall detonation has increased to 3.5 seconds from 2 seconds, and its Intrinsic Trait now increases Reload Speed after precision kills. The Catalyst has also been reworked, rewarding bonus damage, range, and aim assist after rapidly damaging three enemies.

• The Lament – 20% decrease to healing received from The Lament and a 20% damage decrease to high-chain revved heavy attacks.
• Dead Man’s Tale – Stacks of Cranial Spike will now add +2 Stability and will provide a more noticeable increase to Reload Speed. Per Bungie, the Catalyst will see some “slightly reduced accuracy benefits,” but this will be compensated by the rise to its RPM, going to 140 from 130, and replacing the PvE-only damage buff with one that offers a 15% damage bonus when at full stacks of Cranial Spike.
• The Colony – Kills now create extra insect grenades, with tougher foes spawning more.
• Truth – Increased AOE damage to compensate for no impact damage and increased reserves by 3.
• Queenbreaker – 12% damage increase to bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles. Reserve ammo capacity was also increased by 3.
• Cerberus+1 – Catalyst rework makes Focus Fire activate with a special reload following a kill and no longer decreases range or fire rate.
• Bastion – The Saint’s Fists Perk has been reimagined, increasing charge rate, damage, and reload speed after damaging a foe with a melee. The Perk also now provides a melee damage boost if players hit an enemy with all projectiles in a shot.
• Eriana’s Vow – Destroying a Solar shield or an Anti-Barrier Champion’s barrier ignites the target.
• Deterministic Chaos – The machine gun will have an intrinsic Anti-Barrier, and its Perks have been updated a bit. Heavy Metal will imbue every fourth bullet with Volatile, and Vexadecimal makes every 16th bullet weaken targets.

Perk changes

Much like weapons, Perks need a refresh from time to time, too. Here are the Perks changing in The Final Shape and how they’ll be different:

• Alacrity – No longer works in Rumble PvP.
• Archer’s Gambit – Will see a reduction to the Perk’s draw time increase from 66% to 60%. The base buff duration will also drop to 4 seconds, but it can be stacked up to the original 8 seconds.
• Grave Robber will trigger via both Powered Melee and regular Melee eliminations.
• Chain Reaction – 20% less damage and have a 15% smaller radius on Special weapons. The radius remains unchanged on heavy weapons, and damage is increased by 30%.
• Eddy Current – Activation will happen after sprinting for 1.5 seconds instead of 3 seconds. It will also buff Handling and scale up all stats by 5%. Being Amplified automatically applies the Perk at peak effectiveness.
• Underdog – Will be swapped out for Pulse Monitor on all weapons.

• Osmosis and Permeability – Now partially fill ammo upon activation and no longer fall off when pulling out a Ghost.
• Osmosis and Tessellation – Will match the element of the equipped grenade.
• Permeability and Elemental Capacitor – Will match the element of the equipped Super.
• Chill Clip – Applies slow stacks based on the properties of a fusion rifle. All other weapon archetypes now take two shots to trigger.
• High Ground – Reworked to provide a stacking damage buff as players get kills. Players can instantly earn max stacks when attacking an enemy from above. The buff is 25% in PvE and 15% in PvP.
• Killing Tally – 21% Delirium has been updated to reflect the current version of the Perk.
• Deconstruct – Will refill ammo from reserves rather than generate it out of nothing. It should also work more reliably across different weapons.