Bungie dropped a new TWID post ahead of Destiny 2 Season of the Wish last week, setting up some of the biggest changes to abilities, weapons, Exotic armor, and more. A section of this post talked about the significantly high player survivability and changes that will impact Titans. For those who don’t maximize all options available to them to an unhealthy degree, they may have missed some builds like utilizing Titan’s Banner of War aspect for Strand. The “Bonk Hammer” Titan build may be the oldest of these builds — which combines high survivability and extreme damage — but players will see its use effectively plummet next season.
One of the Titan’s most popular melee options is the throwing hammer on the Solar subclass. It can be thrown at an enemy to activate Scorch and deal pretty good damage, but more importantly, the hammer could be picked up off the ground to completely reset the melee cooldown, priming players for another throwing hammer. When picked up, the hammer gives players a burst of Cure, healing them in a loop of throw, bonk, grab, and repeat.
However, Season of the Wish will slightly nerf this ability. When retrieving the hammer, there will be a 1.4-second window where the melee charge slowly restores itself instead of happening right away — which will fundamentally change all the interactions above. The hammer will still deal damage, apply Scorch, and the player will still get Cured when picking up the hammer, but getting in the face of a huge boss and throwing the hammer over and over again until it burns up could be a thing of the past.
A key buildcrafting complement to the “Bonk Hammer” is the Synthoceps gauntlet, which is, and has always been, one of the best Titan Exotics. Paired with Synthoceps, a melee kill with the hammer creates a stacking buff of damage that, when applied to a boss up close, can lead to bosses crumbling in just a few seconds. It makes a nerf like this feel almost targeted at a build — which we’ve seen before, though usually focused on PVP.
Even the recent rework of Hallowfire Heart, an Exotic that now lets the hammer, abilities, and Solar kills create Sunspots, seemed like an alternate path away from Synthoceps. But, adding the always-present cooldown to the hammer hurts the pummel fantasy, slowing down every way to play Solar Titan — beyond burning things down with Synthoceps. The Bonk Titan is a core fantasy of that class: get in the face of your enemy and start damaging. The hammer nerf arriving next season will likely reduce damage output and healing and make Solar Titans more vulnerable than they have ever been.
This cooldown change comes alongside a slew of updates to Stasis, Solar and Void Warlock, and Well of Radiance, and the message is clear that Bungie seeks to crack down on overpowered builds leading into The Final Shape. Titans will just have to stick to Banner of War for now.
