An upcoming Destiny 2 patch will soften the impact of airborne effectiveness, a newly introduced weapons system which has quickly become a massive point among the game's PvP community.
Senior design lead Chris Proctor outlined the impending changes in Bungie's latest blog post. Proctor says that after "a lot of playtest time" targeting the next season, the balance team's decided to bring some of the planned changes into an earlier patch which should arrive around the final month of the current season, with another patch also due for the Season 18 launch.
Airborne effectiveness (AE) is at the top of the list. Simply put, all primary weapons are getting baseline mid-air accuracy and aim assist buffs so they don't feel totally unusable mid-air at low airborne effectiveness. The exact buffs vary between weapon types, with hand cannons and sidearms benefiting the least and auto rifles, pulse rifles, scout rifles, and SMGs getting the biggest buffs. Several Exotic weapons will also have their AE buffed independently to account for their fixed rolls which don't allow for mods.
"These changes are roughly equivalent to increasing the base AE stat of Primary weapons by ~15 at low stat values," Proctor explains. Investing in AE will also provide more of a performance boost thanks to reduced auto-aim (for mouse and controller) and airborne magnetism (for controller only) penalties.
A few perks will also provide further AE buffs, making it easier to improve your weapon's performance. The unpopular Air Assault perk will provide a minimum AE buff even when you're at full health (scaling up to a much stronger buff as you take damage), and the more popular extended mag and steady rounds perks will also give some bonus AE.
This patch includes some noticeable weapon changes for us groundlings, too. Pellet shotguns will deal more damage in PvE, linear fusion rifles won't get flinched to the other side of the screen all the time, and Gjallarhorn rockets will no longer detonate on proximity – which could be a buff or a nerf depending on what you're shooting at. 180 RPM scout rifles and hand cannons are getting some universal damage buffs for PvP, while The Last Word and Lorentz Driver are about to eat a few nerfs.
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