Exotic Weapon Changes Coming in Destiny 2 Season 19

We’re a week out from the next season of Destiny 2, and Bungie has just released what we in the biz call a “meaty TWAB” detailing a laundry list of sandbox changes coming when the game updates next Tuesday. Notable among those changes are buffs and nerfs to many of the most and least popular Exotic weapons in Destiny 2. Let’s take a look at the changes, with the nerfs first.

Destiny 2 Season 19 Exotic Weapon Nerfs

Witherhoard is an extremely strong Destiny 2 weapon, and Bungie is finally taking action to reduce its omnipresence:

• Reduced Taken portal duration from 7.5s to 4.5s. 

Divinity, as has previously been discussed by Bungie designers, is also receiving a nerf to its effectiveness:

• Reduced Divinity’s weaken from 30% to 15% (still self-buffs to 30%). 

Arbalest is another popular Destiny 2 weapon, and it, too, is taking a hit:

• Reduced body shot damage to match Lorentz Driver.

Gjallarhorn is being reined in a little to focus on its support role:

• Reduced primary rocket’s impact and detonation damage by 25% (Wolfpack Rounds are unaffected). 
• This just brings it into the desired band without nerfing it past other Rocket Launchers.  

Forerunner is getting a slight damage reduction owing to its power in PVP:

• Reduced Forerunner base damage from 40 to 37, and crit damage from 72 to 67. 

Destiny 2 Season 19 Exotic Weapon Buffs

A number of Destiny 2 Exotic weapons are receiving changes that will improve their utility, perhaps bringing up some of these less-used weapons into more common usage.

Every Exotic weapon that had Full Auto Trigger System as a perk is receiving a replacement, as Full Auto will now be a toggle for all Destiny 2 weapons:

• No Time to Explain: replaced with Feeding Frenzy. 
• Traveler’s Chosen: catalyst perk replaced with Surplus (it still has Osmosis). 
• Vigilance Wing: catalyst perk replaced with Ensemble. 

Dead Man’s Tale is being adjusted slightly:

• Now prefers critical hits over body hits in hip-fire if both types of targets are inside the precision aim cone. 
• Increased body shot damage from 46 to 54, and reduced crit damage from 81 to 80. 

D.A.R.C.I. sadly isn’t moving to the Special weapon slot. However, it is getting a bit of an improvement:

• Now applies Jolt when damaging targets affected by Personal Assistant. 
• Increased base airborne effectiveness to 80. 

Wishender has always done more damage to targets hit by Witherhoard’s blights, and this modifier is increasing:

• Increased bonus vs. Witherhoard-blighted targets from 10% to 25%. 

Whisper of the Worm is getting a boost to airborne effectiveness:

• Increased base airborne effectiveness to 80. 

The Prospector is getting an additional perk that should help with add clear:

• Added Chain Reaction to the intrinsic perk. 

The Fourth Horseman will be a little easier to use:

• Decreased recoil by 50%. 

Forerunner is receiving several buffs to make it a more viable pick in PVE:

• Increased crit damage by 30% and The Rock’s damage by 60% in PvE.
• Reduced ammo cost to activate The Rock from 6 to 4. 
• Increased damage at the outer edge of The Rock’s damage radius from 0% to 20%. 

Merciless is going to be a little easier to keep in its accelerated charging state:

• Merciless’ decreased charge time on hit now resets on a 5s timer. This timer is refreshed when you land hits. 

Rat King now casts a wider net:

• Radius required to activate its perk increased from 15m to 20m. 

Legend of Acrius continues the Acrius sweep, losing its penalty to mobility:

• Removed movement penalties. 

Bastion is becoming a little more accurate:

• Reduced spread angle by 6%. 

Quicksilver Storm, the Lightfall preview weapon, will now have more potent grenades:

• Increased PvP maximum grenade damage from 80 to 120, and increased the explosion radius from 3m to 4m. 
• Switched rocket damage from Arc to Kinetic. 

Coldheart is going to be generating more Ionic Traces:

• Reduced cooldown on Ionic Trace generation from 3.5s to 2s. 
• Now maxes out stability and reload speed when at maximum damage. 
• Picking up an Ionic Trace now reduces the time it takes to get to max damage.  

Grand Overture‘s missiles will be more powerful, though I doubt if that will make it a top-tier pick anytime soon:

• Increased missile damage by 50%. 

Xenophage is receiving a slight damage increase, and now deals direct impact damage, not just AOE:

• Now deals roughly half of its damage as impact damage, and the rest as detonation. 
• Overall damage increased by 5%. 

Cloudstrike will now work properly with Divinity:

• The lightning storm will now correctly activate when hitting Divinity’s cage. 

Destiny 2 Season 19 Exotic Weapon Changes

Lastly, some Destiny 2 Exotic weapons are receiving changes to how they operate that can’t clearly be classified as buffs or nerfs. First, The Fundamentals perk, which is found on Hard Light, Borealis, and Dead Messenger.