While players approach Season 22, the developers at Bungie shared a Developer Insights blog post previewing armor and ability tuning. Destiny 2’s combat gameplay team dedicated a chunk of the post to discuss changes nerfing Titans in PVP.
"In PVP specifically, the prevalence of Barricades can slow down the pace of play in a manner that doesn’t have much in the way of meaningful counterplay," Bungie said. The developer provided examples saying how “this ability is a potent tool for closing off lanes, bunkering under fire, creating safe spaces to get a revive, and gathering information from relative safety.”
Although Bungie is experimenting with offensive ways players can combat Barricades — like Anti-Barrier Rounds or tuning special weapons — it’s still making fundamental changes to the Titan ability. Starting in Season 22, Barricade health will reduce to 500 from 600, and Towering Barricade’s base cooldown will increase to 70 seconds from 48.
Bungie clarified that Bastion Void Aspect for the Towering Barricade will still have a 100-second base cooldown, but the health will reduce to 417 from 500. Based on an earlier patch, players will still deal 20% extra damage to Bastion Barricades.
Striker Titans can expect PVP changes too. According to Bungie, Striker Titans are overperforming in Trials of Osiris and Competitive modes, so Season 22 will update Thundercrash and Knockout Arc abilities. Bungie wants to align Thundercrash with other roaming Supers, while “Knockout is currently too forgiving in letting players clean up engagements with melee attacks early in a duel.”
Thundercrash’s base cooldown increases to 556 seconds next season, and Knockout reduces the damage bonus against players to 30 from 50. As for PVE, Bungie said that Barricade damage resistance against combatants will increase to compensate for other changes, and Thundercrash tuning won’t strongly impact Striker Titans.
The Developer Insights blog post shared more changes to the new Strand subclass abilities, Aspects, and Fragments. Additionally, Bungie announced that players will get even more Strand Aspects in a recent State of the Game post. The State of the Game post also shared Season 22 updates that will help players easily acquire Stasis abilities, and announced the upcoming Relic Crucible mode and PVP modifier.
