A change to the drop rate for the exotic Eyes of Tomorrow rocket launcher and a massive set of Stasis nerfs have arrived in the 3.1.1.1 update for Destiny 2, with Bungie implementing more tweaks to scale back Darkness subclasses across the board.
Since the release of Destiny 2’s Beyond Light expansion, Stasis has been controversially powerful. Specifically, in PVP, the ice-based subclasses have been among the most popular picks throughout Year 4, outpacing nearly all of their light-based counterparts.
Despite efforts to scale things back in Season 12, it quickly became clear to the developers that more nerfs were required. An early list of additional changes came through in February and now, the full 3.1.1.1 patch has arrived.
A March 23 update targeted Stasis more than ever before with over a dozen crucial changes to reduce its power in PVP, in addition to upping the drop rate for Eyes of Tomorrow to address a bug with the item’s bad luck protection.
Hunter nerfs
Up first are further nerfs to Hunters. After being the main focus of the previous nerfs in January, Shatterdive has once again taken a hit. This powerful ability now comes with a four-second cooldown, along with the complete removal of damage resistance.
Moreover, Withering Blade is also weaker than ever. Not only has damage been reigned in, but so too has the slowing effect applied to enemy targets that are hit by the Hunter ability.
In this instance, however, it’s worth noting that these changes only apply to the PVP version of the ability. Withering Blade is still just as deadly in PVE — a philosophy Bungie is attempting to follow with the nerfs to all Stasis subclasses.
Titan nerfs
Moving on to Titans, two Stasis abilities have been hit in the new update. Both Glacial Quake and Shiver Strike are now less effective in PVP.
The former no longer freezes nearby enemies when cast, uses far more Super energy per Shiver Strike activation, and provides less damage resistance. The ability is also slightly less effective as enemies are pulled towards the ground quicker than before.
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Warlock changes
Last but not least, Warlocks have received the most changes of all. Four abilities in particular have been altered in the March 23 patch — but in contrast to Hunters and Titans, not all Warlock changes have a negative impact.
While Penumbral Blast and Chaos Reach have been nerfed, Winter’s Wrath and Iceflare Bolts have actually been improved, with Bungie once again focusing on tuning these abilities differently for PVP and PVE environments.
Bungie’s goal with this latest batch of Stasis changes is to “reduce frustrations when fighting against” it in PVP. In order to achieve a better state of balance, a sweeping set of general changes have also been deployed.
In particular, Duskfield Grenades are now significantly weaker. Their pull range has been scaled back from 9.5m to 6m while slow stacks have also beem heavily reduced.
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Stasis should now be far less impactful in PVP specifically, and players fighting against these subclasses will hopefully find them far less oppressive than their previous iterations.
Eyes of Tomorrow drop rate changes
In addition to the Stasis nerfs in the 3.1.1.1 patch, Bungie also added some unplanned hotfixes related to the Eyes of Tomorrow rocket launcher. As well as fixing an unintended damage nerf, Bungie also upped the item’s drop rate to address a bug with its bad luck protection.
In the studio’s weekly update on March 18, they noted that after digging into player reports of the launcher not dropping during numerous raid completions, they discovered that “bad luck protection was mistakenly being applied on a per-character basis instead of across the entire account.”
To fix this, Bungie combined account raid completions for the Deep Stone Crypt into a single value for all player characters. The developer also confirmed the change is retroactive, and the drop rate has been updated to match each Guardian’s combined completions across all characters.
Destiny 2 update 3.1.1.1: full patch notes
Activities
- Fixed an issue where players could respawn into the void, instantly bringing an end to their feeble attempts to survive this activity at Master difficulty.
- Fixed an issue where “Immune” text appears when players deal damage to the High Celebrant.
- Fixed an issue where players would die instantly if they stood in a particular spot of the Quitter’s Well in Tangled Shore.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Scan and Heroic VIP patrols from appearing on Europa.
- Fixed issue where players could regenerate infinite Super energy from teammates running through hallways.
- Solved an issue where players would incorrectly receive an “online privileges” dialog when trying to launch specific Battlegrounds activities or the Battlegrounds playlist with a fireteam member who hadn’t unlocked the activity.
- Fixed an issue where the Cabal Pyro Flamethrower projectile generated a lot of network usage, leading to strange combatant behaviors within Battlegrounds activities.
UI/UX
- Fixed an issue where the Prismatic Recaster was not displaying all available engram types on a single page.
Gameplay
- Updated Mantle of Battle Harmony to function in PvP.
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- Grants small amount of super energy when defeating Guardians with weapons matching the damage type of your Super.
- Grants small damage bonus when defeating enemies with weapons matching the damage type of your Super while your Super is full, but at a shorter duration than when you defeat combatants in PvE.
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- Fixed an issue that caused Eyes of Tomorrow to do less damage than intended against yellow bar enemies.
- Fixed an issue where Guardians could embrace their darker side and damage their teammates using the Frenzy perk.
- Added Unrelenting as a possible perk for THE SWARM Machine Gun.
- Shatterdive
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- Removed damage resistance from Shatterdive.
- Added a 4s cooldown between activations of Shatterdive.
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- Withering Blade
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- Decreased Withering Blade damage against players from 90 to 65 damage. PvE damage is unchanged.
- Decreased Withering Blade slow stacks applied to players from 60 to 40 stacks. PvE slow stacks are unchanged.
- Decreased the target acquisition range of Withering Blade after it impacts a player from 12m to 8m. Range after impacting PvE enemies is unchanged.
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- Glacial Quake
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- Removed AoE freeze against players on Super cast. Will still freeze PvE enemies on cast.
- Reduced damage resistance while in Super from 60 percent to 50 percent.
- Increased the energy cost of using Shiver Strike while in Glacial Quake from three percent to seven percent Super energy.
- Using the combo of a Shiver Strike into a Heavy slam attack will now cost the full Super energy of both the Shiver Strike and the slam (this previously only cost energy for the slam).
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- Shiver Strike
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- Increased downwards velocity applied to Shiver Striking players when they are slowed to more quickly pull them out of the air.
- Fixed an issue where Shiver Strike (or Thundercrash) could get the player stuck against soft ceilings in Crucible maps.
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- Winter’s Wrath
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- Improved tracking of Winter’s Wrath projectiles, now tracking strength decays from its max value over 10s instead of 2.2s.
- Increased the size of the Warlock Super projectile’s proximity detonation radius 1.5m – 1.65m.
- The proximity detonation now starts at its largest and scales down to 40 percent over time.
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- Penumbral Blast
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- Decreased Penumbral Blast damage against players from 80 to 30 damage. PvE damage is unchanged.
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- Iceflare Bolts
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- Fixed a bug where Iceflare Bolts would continuously try to switch targets.
- Increased target acquisition range of Iceflare Bolts by 33 percent.
- Increased turning speed of Iceflare Bolts so they can more effectively hit nearby targets.
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- Chaos Reach
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- Decreased the amount of Super energy refunded when canceling Chaos Reach early.
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- Duskfield Grenade
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- Reduced how strongly Duskfield Grenade pulls players inwards, effectively reducing the pull range from 9.5m to ~6m. PvE pull impulse is unchanged.
- Reduced the slow stacks applied to players by the grenade detonation from 20 to 10 stacks. Detonation slow stacks are unchanged in PvE.
- Reduced the slow stacks applied to players on each tick of the grenade from ten to five stacks. Per-tick slow stacks are unchanged in PvE.
- Adjusted the UI presentation of the “Slowed” status to display slow stacks as X/100 instead of X/10, to increase readability when adding slow stack amounts that are fewer than ten.
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- Stasis Crystals
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- Reduced crystal shatter damage against players from (85 max, 55min) to (55 max, 25 min). PvE damage is unchanged.
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- Whisper of Chains
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- Reduced Whisper of Chains damage resistance bonus while in Super from 25 percent to five percent. Damage resistance when not in Super is unchanged. This only affects damage from other Guardians.
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Investment
- Significantly reduced objective completion values for all Crucible fragment quests.
- Fixed an issue where players could earn Exotic Cyphers with a full inventory, resulting in the loss of their reward.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the “Trash the Thresher” Triumph from completing even when the conditions were met.
- Reset raid completion time stat trackers for any player who has exactly five minutes time recorded in the stat tracker.
- Fixed an issue that prevented bad luck protection for Eyes of Tomorrow from accumulating properly on accounts where players raided on multiple characters.
- Fixed issues with the Frozen in Time ornament for the Exotic Pulse Rifle No Time To Explain.
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- The ornament will no longer display “Exclusive Item” which prevented players from socketing it.
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- Replaced the “Bound in Memory” Triumph with “All the Scattered Memories” to ensure players who missed a week of playing the Presage activity could earn the seal before the Season ended.
