Destiny 2 – Update 2.15 (Patch 3.1.1.1)

Destiny 2 has received the massive patch released on March 23rd. It has brought some relatively small changes along with some remarkable game-changers, particularly to abilities that have been nerfed. The Titan’s Glacial Quake has had its AoE freeze effect removed on Super cast, reduced damage resistance while in Super from 60% to 50%, and an increase in Shiver Strike’s energy cost while using Glacial Quake from 3% to 7% Super energy. Penumbral Blast, a great Warlock ability, has had its damage against players (PvP) significantly nerfed from 80 damage to just 30, although its PvE damage has been unchanged.

The Hunter has not been excluded, as the Withering Blade ability is also being nerfed in PvP by reducing the ability’s damage against players from 90 to 65. Again the PvE damage has not been affected. Shatterdive, an ability used by the Revenant subclass of Hunter, will no longer increase the player’s damage resistance while using the ability and also has had a cool-down added so the ability can no longer be spammed.

Apparently, almost anything related to Stasis is simply too OP for PvP, as the Duskfield Grenade, Stasis Crystals, and Whisper of Chains are significantly weakened. According to official patch notes released by Bungie, these are the changes players will see (keeping in mind that these are only PvP changes and these abilities will remain the same in PvE):

Duskfield Grenade

• Decreasing the pull range from 9.5m to around 6m.
• Decreased the slow stacks applied by the grenade detonation from 20 to 10 stacks.
• Reduced the slow stacks applied per tick to the target from 10 per tick to 5 stacks per tick.
• The way the “Slowed” status is displayed in UI will indicate the number of stacks as being out of a hundred (X/100) instead of being out of ten (X/10), to make it more clear how many slow stacks are being added.

Stasis Crystals

• Decreased crystal shatter damage against players from 55 – 85 damage to 25 – 55.

Whisper of Chains

• Reduced bonus to damage resistance from 25% to 5% while in Super form. This change is only affecting damage from other players.

Ultimately, if you’re mostly a PvE player of Destiny 2, you probably won’t be noticing many changes. Quite a few bugs have been fixed, including a bug that caused “Immune” to appear above the High Celebrant, a bug that caused the player to die instantly if they stood in a particular spot of the Quitter’s Well in Tangled Shore, one that allowed players to regenerate infinite Super energy from teammates running through hallways, and a bug where the Cabal Pyro Flamethrower caused a spike in network usage which resulted in unexpected and unusual behavior from Battlegrounds combatants.

Apparently, the Frenzy perk caused an interesting bug that allowed players to damage their teammates, which has been fixed. Additionally, a UI issue in which the Prismatic Recaster wasn’t correctly displaying all available engram types on a single page was fixed. A fairly minor bug that prevented the Triumph “Thrash the Thresher” from being completed even when the conditions were met has also been fixed.

That pretty much sums it up. Overwhelmingly the most major changes have been to the PvP aspects of the game. Still, it was expected, considering that so many Stasis elements were too overpowered for what should be a fair PvP setting.