Dev Insights - Weapons, Artifacts, & Focusing Preview

Before we dig in, we wanted to take a moment to thank you. Seeing your reactions has been really moving to us.

Frankly, we wouldn't be here without you... and the way you continue to show up for this world means more than we can fully put into words.

Every memory and every moment you've shared with us over the years has fueled our future. Every ounce of our June update is for you, and we hope you feel it as you continue to read through our insight articles and upcoming TWIDs, let alone when you're playing the update with us on June 9.

Yeah, it's a bit sappy and sentimental... but that's how we're feeling while reading all of your stories over the last week. We hope to keep building worlds to inspire friendship for years to come and truly couldn't do it without you and your voices.

Again, thank you for being here and for sticking with us.

All right, let's get to the goods. Dev Insight #2 starts now.

Greetings, Guardians. We are here today to share the many balance changes and updates that the Destiny 2 Dev Team has been working on for the Monument of Triumph update, coming June 9. It's a long article, so here's a list of the main topics you'll find in it:

• The new Weapon Tier Upgrading system.
• Tier Upgrading for crafted weapons.
• Buffs to many Exotics, like Anarchy, The Lament, and Vex Mythoclast.
  • Including new Catalysts and improvements for previous ones.
• Balance update to most Legendary weapon types, including:
  • An overall buff to Primary weapon damage in PvE.
  • Targeted buffs to most Special weapons for PvE.
• Many Legendary perk fixes and buffs.
• A preview of the very customizable Artifact 2.0, including:
  • New ways to counter Champions.
  • Saving your choices in loadouts.
• Updates to vendors, weapon focusing, and gear attunement.

Introducing Weapon Tier Upgrading

Hi there, Guardians. This is the Sandbox Team, here to talk about Weapon Tier Upgrading, a new system releasing with Monument of Triumph that will allow players to upgrade their weapons' gear tier for a cost to access additional enhanced perks and even the Gear Tier 5 cosmetics.

We wanted players to still feel as though lower tier drops can have value especially if you spike into the exact roll you want, with a want for higher tier gear to have an easier time getting that perfect roll due to multiperk. All weapons integrated into the Gear Tiering system will be eligible to undergo Tier Upgrading including those that have already dropped and are resting within your vault. In the weapon inspection screen, there will be a new weapon mod socket where you can apply a mod for a cost that will upgrade your weapon to the next applicable Gear Tier.

While this new upgrading path allows a player to unlock all of the enhanced perk benefits of Tier 5 Gear as well as access the unique Tier 5 cosmetics, it can't add perks to the columns of your weapon. Meaning, if you haven't quite found your god roll or you prefer a weapon with additional options in its column, you may still want to chase multiperk drops. To add a bit more value to Gear Tier 3 in lieu of it being mainly about unlocking multiperk today, we've shifted the unlock of Enhanced Mods to this Gear Tier for all weapons.

Below is an example of the mod players will see at Gear Tier 1 that, upon application by the player for a cost, will upgrade their Left and Right Traits to Enhanced Traits.

The final upgrade from Tier 4 to 5 will therefore have unlocked all Enhanced Perks, Enhanced Mods, Enhanced Barrels/mags, the Masterwork Stat Boost (when fully masterworked) and the Combat Flair/Ornament combo:

Exotic Weapon Catalysts

With Monument of Triumph being the final release for Destiny 2, we didn't want to leave any Exotic behind when it came to catalysts. We also handpicked existing legendary perks that thematically tie in to each Exotic weapon's story or strength.

We want to keep most of these a nice surprise for you once the update hits, but here is a sneak preview of a handful of these:

• Chaperone: Triple Tap
• Parasite: Envious Arsenal
• Tarrabah: Ambitious Assassin

Additionally, we also added perks to all of the oldest catalysts that only gave stat boosts to help bring them up into the same tier as more recent weapons. Here are two examples:

• Crimson: To the Pain
• Merciless: Heal Clip

In total we have added:

• 25 catalysts to weapons that did not have one already.
• Nine perks added to existing catalysts that only had weapon stats as a bonus.

We hope these help breathe some life into some new options in your arsenal!

Enhancing Weapon Crafting

With Monument of Triumph's update adding new Armor Set Bonuses to earn in our raid and destination content, we wanted those weapons to feel relevant again but not necessarily ask players to regrind them under Gear Tiering.

We know players have already put forth a lot of effort to unlock patterns throughout the game, so we wanted to treat them with some updates while giving players additional reason to finish up their patterns if they hadn't yet. As we investigated options, we concluded that we could update ALL crafted weapons to the power of gear tiering, but through a slightly different method involving the Crafting Table.

Upon logging in, any legendary crafted weapon that already exists will immediately be eligible for a version of Gear Tier Upgrading and any newly crafted Legendary weapon can be taken on the same upgrading journey.

In the inspection screen of a crafted weapon, navigating to the Weapon Level Boost icon, there will be a new mod that will allow you to also improve the Tier of the Weapon upon reaching specific weapon levels.

On a crafted weapon, Gear Tier will act a bit differently than other weapons as it won't immediately provide the Gear Tier benefits. At Gear Tier 3, players will unlock Enhanced Weapon Mods and at Gear Tier 5 it will unlock cosmetics just like any other weapon in the Gear Tier system – however, for all other tiers it will correspond with the unlocking of Enhanced components at the crafting table.

When you reach Weapon Level 11, you can upgrade to Gear Tier 2 and just like with a fresh Tiered weapon drop, you'll gain access to Enhanced Left and Right Column traits. At Weapon Level 25, you can upgrade to Gear Tier 4 and add Enhanced Components (like barrels or magazines). At Level 30 you'll upgrade to Gear Tier 5 and can add Enhanced Origin Traits. Origins will behave a bit differently than most perks in the crafting table as well – the menu will showcase all available origin traits and the selection of any enhanced perk to insert will reflect in the entire column being enhanced upon selecting reshape.

The same is true vice versa – if you wish to return to base traits, selection of any base trait for the origin column will still allow the other options to be available after reshaping.

Because the sandbox has evolved and changed since some of these destination and raid weapons entered crafting, we've also updated them to have some additional new trait options – two new traits per column. For instance, Supercharged Magazine and Jolting Feedback have been added to Oversoul Edict. Other non-raid/destination crafted weapons won't have new perks, but they are receiving enhanced origin traits for the first time, and we did revisit a few of those underperforming origins including Head Rush, which now activates on a slide and provides a small boost in damage against Hive opponents.

We also haven't forgotten about Raid Adept weapons and they will gain all the same benefits! These weapons will still gain additional traits based on the number of patterns collected from their non-Adept counterparts and are eligible to swap out their components like barrels/mags at the Crafting Relic. They'll also continue to upgrade their traits via the original Enhancement feature. With Monument of Triumph however, these Raid Adepts will gain access to the Tier Upgrade Mod like crafted weapons and can visit the Relic to upgrade to Enhanced components and Enhanced Origins. These weapons will also still retain a bit of an extra stat boost on top of their non-Adept counterparts and their unique Adept shader to add a bit of prestige for those who've gone through the challenge of acquiring them.

Weapon Sandbox Updates

Ammo System Changes

The ammo system has received buffs to underperforming weapons, nerfs to outliers, and several bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements.

General

We have modified the ammo system so that if an enemy is floating above a pit, they will not drop an ammo brick when defeated even if it fills the meter. You will continue to gain ammo meter progress, but your next kill on an enemy that is not above a pit will spawn the owed ammo brick instead.

Special Ammo Weapons

We took a baseline swing at making double Special slightly less viable for add clear. Outside of that role, this change is generally offset by the damage buffs previously given to non-Rocket Pulse Special ammo weapons. So, while it may require one more kill to earn a brick, it may also require less shots overall to kill targets.

• Reduced the amount of meter progress Special ammo weapons gain from defeats against minor enemies by 17% at 100 Ammo Gen stat.

Linear Fusion Rifles

Both Special ammo and Heavy ammo Precision Linear Fusion Rifles felt like they were not getting enough ammo per brick, so we have increased the amount for each.

• Heavy Ammo Precision LFRs
  • Base: Increased from three to five.
  • Enhanced: Increase from four to six.
• Special Ammo Precision LFRs
  • Base: Increased from three to five.
  • Enhanced: Increased from six to ten.

Buried Bloodline

• Corrected an issue where Buried Bloodline was not correctly getting additional ammo from Enhanced ammo bricks.

Choir of One

Choir of One is simply too free in terms of ammo both in isolation and in double Special builds. It's one of the only Special weapons that didn't follow the standard rules for ammo brick values. These changes make this weapon follow those rules.

• Base: Reduced from 45 to 35.
• Enhanced: Reduced from 90 to 70.

Rocket Pulse Rifles

A bug was causing Rocket Pulses to have double the ammo when used with another Special ammo weapon. For example, running two Rocket Pulses at the same time was entirely viable because they both got full ammo brick amounts instead of half. This has the effect of reducing the challenge of end game content and invalidating other special weapons.

• Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing Rocket Pulses to only earn two shots per base brick.
• Fixed an issue where Psi Aeterna was not correctly having its ammo per brick increased by Scavenger mods.
• Fixed an issue where Legendary Rocket Pulses were not correctly having their ammo per brick split when used with a second Special weapon.

Only in the Crucible

Some Crucible-specific changes were needed to reduce Special ammo uptime that was fueled by non-Primary weapon use.

• Reduced the point gains from Special ammo and Heavy ammo kills and assists and Super kills by 33%.
• Reduced Glaive melee gains by 20%.

Adaptive Burst LFRs get too much ammo from Heavy crates for how potent they are compared to other options.

• Reduced Adaptive Burst LFR ammo from crates from five to three.

Rapid-Fire Machineguns felt like they weren't getting enough ammo from crates, so we have increased this value.

• Increased Rapid Fire LMG ammo from crates from a maximum of 45 to a maximum of 62, based on magazine size.
• Other LMGs remain capped at 22.
• Bitter End's ammo from crates has been reduced to fit within this scale.

Exotic Weapon Tuning

With Monument of Triumph we also have a wide assortment of Exotic weapon adjustments for you to enjoy. Have a look at what we changed here:

The Jade Rabbit

The Jade Rabbit has long been a choice pick in PvP on specific builds and specific maps but has seen little play elsewhere. We've made some rather significant adjustments to help its gameplay feel a bit less clunky and give it some more life in PvE activities.

• Increased the magazine size from 10 to 15.
• Removed Zen Moment. Added Shoot to Loot and Firefly as the two traits.
• Fate of All Fools
  • Increased the maximum stacks cap to 15.
  • In addition to chaining precision hits, precision kills can now add a stack.
  • Gaining a stack now refills the magazine and increases stability.
  • Stacks will no longer be completely removed when you reload.
  • Dealing direct body shot damage will still remove one stack.
  • Scales the damage of Firefly when it is active, and dealing splash damage will not remove a stack of the perk.
• Catalyst
  • In addition to adding Stability, special reloading will consume all stacks of Fate of All Fools and grant a singular Micro Missile round which deals bonus damage based on the number of stacks consumed.

Vex Mythoclast

As the sandbox evolved, Vex Mythoclast felt like it lagged behind other raid weapons in terms of strength in PvE content. We wanted to give the Linear Fusion shots something extra to help them feel worth the kill requirements to charge them, and we updated the intrinsic and catalyst to help make acquiring those kills a little easier.

• Timeless Mythoclast (Intrinsic)
  • Now has what is comparably a more potent version of Rewind Rounds while in full auto mode.
• Temporal Unlimiter (Trait)
  • Precision kills with Linear Fusion Rifle shots now trigger an ignition.
  • After leaving Linear Fusion Rifle mode, the magazine is now fully reloaded.
  • The HUD buff and magazine display have been tweaked to show the exact amount of Linear Fusion shots remaining. This is a purely visual change; functionality remains the same.
• Calculated Balance (Catalyst)
  • Sustained damage can now also activate the catalyst, in addition to kills.
  • Added a HUD buff.

Touch of Malice

Despite multiple previous changes, Touch of Malice has not lived up to its Destiny 1 glory days. We've made a few changes baseline and to its catalyst that will help it build into a potent Exotic Primary weapon through skilled play and buildcrafting.

• Increased final round bonus damage by 10%.
• Set it up so the Special Reload can be made faster by buffing reload speed.
• Replaced Rapid Hit in the catalyst with Precision Instrument.
• Gain increased stability and reload speed with each stack of Charged with Blight.

The Last Word

Much like many of our Tex weapons, The Last Word sits on a razor's edge between being extremely potent on a single input type or feeling tough to get value out of. This update will make it feel more viable on MnK (mouse and keyboard) without totally tipping those power scales.

• Increased stability on MnK by 10%.
• Increased aim assist when hip firing on MnK by 10%.

MIDA Multi-Tool

In PvE content we wanted MIDA Multi-Tool to further lean into building up modifications over the course of an activity. While we're happy with how this landed, we wanted to lower how many kills are required to reach that final modification. We also adjusted the catalyst by a small amount to give it more utility in more situations.

• Lowered the PvE combatant kill requirement from ten kills per modification (15 with Macro-Tool) to seven kills per modification (ten with Macro-Tool). This lowers the total kill requirement from 40(60) to 27(40) to acquire all modifications.
• The catalyst's improved radar resolution now remains active for a few seconds when you stow Multi-Tool, instead of immediately deactivating. Multi-Tool still needs to be in your hands for the catalyst to activate.

Heirloom

Heirloom can be a potent option if you opted into its particular flavor of playstyle on its initial release, but it both did not feel worth the effort and did not live up to player's expectations of being a dungeon Exotic weapon. We've made a number of adjustments here to help it flow a bit better as well as hit even harder versus high priority targets.

• Increased charge rate by 20%.
• Increased impact damage of charged shots by 20% in PvE only.
• Reduced extra heat generated by charged shots by 7%.
• Increased damage vs miniboss and champion targets by 20%.
• Increased damage vs boss targets by 10%.
• Added Incandescent perk to catalyst.

Tarrabah

It felt odd for Tarrabah to not reward you at all for defeats, so we have remedied that while also building more tie-ins into the Solar kit to let you get to the Ravenous Beast mode more often.

• Dealing damage to Scorched combatants grants increased Ravenous Beast progress by 33%.
  • Can generate full meter if all the mag hits a scorched enemy.
• Kills grant greatly increased progress.
  • 10% per kill.

Anarchy

Once Finalities Auger was released, Anarchy felt like it no longer had a place as a "point defense, trap system". So, we are amping up its traps capabilities to be more competitive vs Finalities Auger.

• Increased armed trap lifetime by 50%, from 10 to 15 seconds.
• Increased trap damage vs combatants by 30%.
• Doubled trap detonation damage vs combatants to better match the per tick damage of a trap.
• Replaced Moving Target with Impromptu Ammunition.

Divinity

After all this time, we felt it was fair to bring Divinity back up at least a little bit so that the dedicated Divinity user in your group didn't feel like they were wielding a sluggish gun AND missing out on some damage.

• Increased damage of Penance by 20%.
• Reduced time to activate Penance from 4 to 3 seconds.
• Reduced shots to activate the cage from 14 to 10.

Winterbite

Winterbite is an extremely solid workhorse Glaive, but it feels overly punishing to shoot the projectile while in CQC.

• Reduced self-damage of the projectile by 66%.

Edge of Action, Concurrence, and Intent

The class Glaives should feel like the apex power for an Exotic version of a Legendary Glaive, so we are upping their charge rates of the Special shots when you are fully engaged in the Glaive loop. Rev up those doom sticks!

• Glaive projectiles now grant doubled progress towards Special shot.

Hierarchy of Needs

We've updated Hierarchy of Needs to make its seekers more interactive and build-friendly, helping them better follow your precision shots through the Guidance Ring, apply scorch for buildcrafting synergy, and feel more reliable at mid-range thanks to improved hip-fire accuracy.

• Seekers now apply +15 (+5 with Ember of Ashes) scorch to hit targets.
• Added hidden tracking for seekers that guides them to targets recently hit by precision damage.
• Added increased hip fire accuracy to the list of benefits provided by the catalyst

Sunshot and Graviton Lance

Both Sunshot and Graviton Lance have been very easy to use while also having a high impact on gameplay for a long time now, and they tend to crowd out many similar options in the sandbox. We've made a few changes to both to make them a bit less able to wipe entire encounters with one kill, while retaining their power on clumped groups.

• Rebalanced the damage of the explosion to deal more damage up close and less damage further away

Outbreak Perfected

There's a ton of love for Outbreak especially with it being a Primary weapon that can hang with our Special and Heavies in endgame. In Monuments of Triumph though, we are buffing our Primaries across the board and because of that, there was a need to reduce the delta between other strong Primaries and Outbreak.

• Reduced damage bonus at maximum Nanite stacks from 4.5x to 4x.

Arbalest

With anti-Champ rolling out across all weapons in the game, Arbalest was struggling more than ever for us during testing. So, we are spot tuning that damage up a fair bit.

• Increased damage versus Champions by 33%.

Wardcliff Coil

Wardcliff Coil will be getting a couple of bug fixes and a sorely needed max ammo increase.

• Fixed a bug where firing Wardcliff Coil would not grant Bolt Charge if the firing player was too far off the ground.
• Mechanized Autoloader now works while the weapon is stowed.
• Increased maximum ammo from five to eight.

The Lament

The game has changed a lot since Lament received its last nerf. To account for that, we are reverting most of that last change to help it keep pace as a potent single target option.

• Reverted the previous nerf to this weapon by ~70%.
• Returned most of the final combo hit damage and self-healing the previous change reduced.

Truth

Truth has long struggled to have any kind of strong identity in Destiny 2. We all have fond memories of wild tracking shots with it from Destiny 1, but the weapon struggles to keep up in today's sandbox. We've made some changes that let it lean into its three in the mag and gives it a splashy secondary effect if you land all your rockets.

• Now returns one ammo to reserves and buffs the next magazine when all rounds in a magazine hit a target.
  • When triggered, the next magazine gains dramatically increased rate of fire, stability, tracking strength and cluster bombs.

Thunderlord

We're making a small adjustment to Thunderlord to put it more in line with other similar boss DPS options.

• Reduced ammo refunded by the lightning strike from seven to five at base.

Whirling Ovation

Whirling needs a little help to stay competitive with weapons that aren't Rocket Pulses. This update should help it feel snappy with an optimized damage rotation with a variety of weapon types.

• Increased the amount of Anticipation gained per point of damage by just over 11%.

Prometheus Lens

Prometheus Lens got its scorch effect in a very different Destiny 2 sandbox, so we are giving it a bit of love to be able to keep up against other similar weapons.

• Increased scorch stacks applied per trigger.
  • Up to 20 (+10 with Ember of Ashes) from 10 (+10 Ember of Ashes).

Centrifuse

Centrifuse's sprint reload effect felt just a touch too slow to use as the main way you reload the weapon, so we're making that a bit easier to rely on and subsequently keep its perk at full potency.

• Increased the amount of magazine refilled per trigger to 10% from 4%.

Slayer's Fang

Slayer's Fang was a potent option when it first released but has since fallen behind some more versatile options. We're giving it a few changes that allow you to be a bit more liberal with its usage as well as bringing back a bit of an effect it used to have prior to its release.

• Increased magazine size by two.
• Increased reserve ammo by ten.
• Now slowly reloads itself while its buff is active.

Xenophage

Once a terror of Gambit and PvE alike, Xenophage definitely has a hard time in today's sandbox. We're giving it a bit more total ammo to help it keep up with similar options and be a bit less strict on its economy.

• Increased reserve ammo by 10.

Praxic Blade

The point of these changes is to allow the Praxic Blade to still act as a primary weapon when paired with an actual primary weapon but to reduce the surplus of Special ammo so that it cannot be paired as easily with another Special weapon.

• Slightly increase the time it takes to get ammo refunded when blocking.
• Strongholds will no longer allow for infinite blocking with Special ammo swords.
  • We've seen feedback that it felt bad to watch from your ghost as a teammate blocked for three minutes straight without reviving you or doing any damage to a given boss - sometimes we need you to go on the attack!
• Reduced ammo refunded by light attacks.

Legendary Sandbox Tuning

Primary ammo weapons have struggled to keep up against combatants, especially in harder activities, so we've implemented some broad changes to help them feel better to use.

• Legendary Primary Ammo Weapons
  • Increased damage versus minor combatants by 30%.
• Exotic Primary Weapons
  • Increased bonus damage versus minor combatants from 30% to 40%.
• Non-Blaster Primary Weapons
  • Increased damage versus major combatants by 15%.
• Blaster Primary Weapons
  • Increased bonus damage versus major combatants from 15% to 20%.

Some Special ammo weapons have dominated the sandbox while others have felt left behind. We are making a targeted buff to all the left behind Special ammo weapons to balance them out and make more archetypes viable to use in PVE.

• Special Ammo Weapons
  • Increased damage versus major combatants by 20% (excludes Sniper Rifles, Rocket Pulses, Rocket Sidearms, Swords, and Choir of One).

On top of the above changes, these specific Primary ammo archetypes got some additional balance tuning.

• Auto Rifles
  • High Impact
    • Moved RPM from 360 to 400.
    • Reduced ADS Damage Falloff scalar from 1.7 to 1.6.
    • Reduced base damage from 24 to 22.
    • This includes Vex Mythoclast and SUROS Regime with Dual Speed Receiver but excludes Cerberus+1 and Sweet Business in its non-spun up state.
  • Adaptive
    • Increased base damage from 15 to 15.5.
    • Increased critical hit damage from 26.25 to 27.1.
• Pulse Rifles
  • Lightweight
    • Reduced base damage from 19.7 to 18.8.
    • Reduced critical hit damage from 31.5 to 30.1.
  • Legacy Frame
    • Since these weapons inherit the damage change from Lightweight Pulse Rifles, we are reverting the nerf to their ADS damage falloff scalar.
    • Increased ADS Damage Falloff Scalar from 1.6 back to 1.7.
  • High Impact
    • Reverted previous nerf to ADS Damage Falloff Scalar, increasing it from 1.6 back to 1.7.
• Scout Rifles
  • Rapid Fire
    • Reduced base damage from 28 to 27.3.
    • Reduced critical hit damage from 54.6 to 53.25.
• Hand Cannons
  • Aggressive
    • Reduced base damage from 49 to 48.7.
    • Reduced critical hit damage from 90.65 to 90.1.
• Bows
  • Increased damage versus minor combatants by an additional 20%.
  • Increased damage versus major combatants by an additional 40%.

Also on top of the above changes, many Special ammo weapon archetypes also got some buffs along with some nerfs to one particular archetype that won't be too surprising to see.

• Rocket Sidearms
  • Increased projectile explosion radius by 33%.
• Fusion Rifles
  • Rapid Fire
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 7%.
  • Adaptive
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 10%.
  • Precision
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 20%.
  • High Impact
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 15%.
• Shotguns
  • Aggressive
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 15%.
    • Improved the base stats of Felwinter's Lie.
  • Lightweight
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 15%.
  • Precision
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 20%.
• Slug Shotguns
  • Rapid Fire
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 10%.
  • Pinpoint
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 5%.
  • Heavy Burst
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 10%.
• Snipers
  • Aggressive
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 15%.
  • Adaptive
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 10%.
• Glaives
  • Rapid Fire
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 10%.
• Trace Rifles
  • Increased damage versus minor combatants by an additional 20%.
  • Increased damage versus major combatants by an additional 20%.
• Exotic Trace Rifles
  • Increased bonus damage versus minor combatants from 30% to 40%.
• Rocket Pulses
  • Reduced Ammo Generation stat of legendary Micro Missile Pulse Rifles by 15.
  • Decreased PvE damage by 10%.
  • Decreased damage vs bosses by 25%.
    • This is on top of the above 10%.
  • Reduced projectile explosion radius by 25%.
  • Reduced Super Generation by 25% for roamers and 33% for standard Supers.

Finally, Heavy ammo weapons got some attention to make them more effective against Bosses and Champions along with some targeted ammo tuning.

• Heavy Grenade Launchers
  • Increased damage versus Bosses and Champs by 5%.
• Rocket Launchers
  • Increased damage versus Bosses and Champs by 5%.
• Crossbows
  • Increased damage versus Bosses and Champs by 10%.
• Linear Fusion Rifles
  • Increased the damage of all legendary LFRs versus Bosses and Champs by 10%.
  • Precision
    • Increased PvE Damage Scalar by 10%.
    • Increased ammo reserves by ~30% (excluding Sleeper Simulant).
• Machine Guns
  • Increased Bitter End's reserve ammo.
• Swords
  • Decreased cost of Vortex frame heavy attack from six to four ammo to match other Heavy Swords.

Legendary Perk Changes

In addition to the Legendary weapon archetype tuning, we've also made some changes to Legendary weapon perks.

A few older damage perks felt like they were lagging behind, so we've buffed these perks in order to make them more competitive choices compared with more modern perks.

• Focused Fury
  • Damage bonus increased from 20% to 25%.
  • Hits required to activate decreased from 50% of the magazine to 35% of the magazine.
• Full Court
  • Maximum explosive damage bonus increased from 25% to 35%.
• Lasting Impression
  • Explosive damage bonus increased from 25% to 35%.
• Reservoir Burst
  • Damage bonus increased from 25% (27.5% enhanced) to 30% (33% enhanced).
• Gutshot Straight
  • Reduced the aim assist penalty by 20% on the base perk and 25% on the enhanced perk.
  • Fixed an issue where this perk did not work on Bitter End.
• Adagio
  • Reduced the damage bonus on Hand Cannons from 30% to 27%.
  • Increased the damage bonus on Shotguns and Bows from 20% to 30%.

The following perks received some quality-of-life tuning to make them easier to activate on their own or with other build crafting elements.

• Collective Action, Collective Pugilism, Cooling Baubles, Elemental Charge, and Facet of Honor
  • Now all now share the same Tangle activator: destroy a Tangle, either by shooing it or upon impact after throwing it.
  • Previously this activator differed depending on the perk, and would either activate when shooting a Tangle, picking up a Tangle, throwing a Tangle, or a combination of these despite sharing the same terminology in their strings.
  • In addition to this activator, Collective Action and Collective Pugilism also grant additional time to their durations upon throwing a Tangle. This unique behavior is called out in their descriptions.
  • Artifact elemental orbs are now officially considered 'elemental pickups' for the sake of these perks and grant the same benefits as Tangles. As such, we fixed an issue where the artifact Arc orbs would give dark Transcendence energy with Facet of Honor; they now give light Transcendence energy.
• Collective Action
  • Firesprites, Void Breaches: eight seconds
  • Ionic Traces, Stasis Shards: four seconds
  • Tangle Detonation: four seconds
  • Tangle Throw: four seconds
  • Instead of a flat seven seconds, elemental pickup now provides differing amounts of time to the perk duration depending on how easy they are to create. These values match Collective Pugilism.
  • To compensate for the lower duration gained from some elemental pickups, the damage bonus against PVE combatants has increased from 20% to 30%. The damage bonus against players remains at 10%.
  • The enhanced benefit no longer provides more time per pickup but instead increases the damage bonus to 33% against PVE combatants, and 11% against players.
  • Increased max time from 12 to 16 seconds.
• All-Star
  • Damage timer is paused on weapon stow, and resumed on weapon equip.
• Desperado
  • In addition to its current activator of reloading after a precision kill, Desperado can now also activate when reloading after three rapid kills.
• Frenzy
  • Fixed an issue where the Enhanced version of Frenzy was not getting an extended duration when refreshed compared to standard Frenzy.
  • Also fixed an issue where Frenzy being inactive could prevent the Crucible origin perk from activating.
• Jolting Feedback
  • Reduced shots to activate the perk by ~1-2 for Scout Rifles and Hand Cannons.
• Encore
  • Encore's HUD buff now displays a timer.
• Envious Assassin
  • Fixed issue where the perk was not working on some single shot weapons.
• Cascade Point
  • Since we removed the "Ready" HUD buff when the weapon is stowed, we have simplified the activation criteria for dealing precision damage with other weapons.
    • Auto Rifles, Pulse Rifles, SMGs, Trace Rifles, Sidearms, LMGs: six critical hits
    • Hand Cannons, Scout Rifles: four critical hits
    • Bows, LFRs, Glaive projectiles, Shotguns, Sniper Rifles: two critical hits
• Attrition Orbs
  • Now activates in four hits on wave frame Grenade Launchers, down from ten.
  • Now activates in three hits on Rocket Launchers, down from six.
• Contending Cascade
  • The number of rapid final blows needed for max benefits has been reduced from 15 (12 if enhanced) to 12 (10 if enhanced).
  • Stat benefits are now maxed out when the elemental explosions are granted instead of scaling with up to 20 rapid final blows.
• Full Choke
  • Pellet spread is now reduced by 5% instead of 3.25%.
• Shot Package intrinsic
  • Now reduced pellet spread by 2.5% when ADS.

Finally, some origin trait weaknesses were addressed to make them feel more impactful.

• Advanced Reflexes (Dreaming City Origin Trait)
  • New effect: +5% damage bonus while active.
  • Increased bonus handling from +30 to +40.
  • Increased bonus charge rate (Swords) from +20 to +35.
• Gun and Run (Gambit Origin Trait)
  • Reworked Effect: Defeating targets builds stacks of Gun and Run for a short duration. Sprinting for a short time consumes a stack to partially reload this weapon's magazine from reserves; on Bows, this briefly improves draw speed.
• Nanotech Tracers Missiles (Neomuna Destination Origin Trait)
  • Reduced the amount of hits needed for Basso Ostinato to activate Nanotech Tracers Missiles by roughly one.

Artifacts and Anti-Champion

Artifacts 2.0

With Monument of Triumph, we are reworking the Artifact items in multiple ways to better align them with a modern Destiny 2 and setting it up to withstand the test of time. This means streamlining the mod selection process, removing annoyances like the refunding dance, disabling the artifact in Competitive and Trials modes, and… finally… working in loadouts!

What this means is that we have trimmed the bloat on artifacts. Gone are the days of dedicated anti-Champion columns and needing to refund mods to select ones in earlier columns. This process has been simplified into three buckets that functionally perform just like the columns did before, but in a way that uses the visual language of our modern game and works in a more intuitive way. Now, when you want to switch out a mod in "column 4", you can just do that and substitute it out for whatever fits instead of needing to clear out later columns to be allowed to re-spec earlier ones.

On top of this, we have built anti-Champion capabilities directly into your guns, so you no longer must worry about your favorite guns not getting anti-Champion offerings in a season but more on that in a moment.

Alongside all these updates also come six new mods, defragmented and deciphered from the Data Disc and into your hands!

But Wait... There's More!

For eagle-eyed readers, you might have noticed that we keep referring to Artifacts in the plural, and it's for a good reason. Artifacts for the past six years have served to shift around the meta season over season, encouraging you to try new things by giving some borrowed power. This model doesn't really work without seasons, so we are breaking the bank and not just offering one Artifact… But a whopping seven Artifacts pulled from seasons past!

These selections were all made to cover as many fan-favorite weapons, elements, and perks as possible and, we believe, will give you a treasure trove of build crafting opportunities for years to come! They won't be coming back perfectly identical though; in the past six years the Artifact has shifted quite a bit, from the days of Glimmer mods to anti-Champion abilities taking up a large swath of the slots to the seven-row structure and finally to boosts. We took a long look at each artifact and did not only a balance pass to make sure they could live on in perpetuity (looking at you Flashover) but also how we could integrate the best of all versions of the Artifacts to be available in a single build-crafting ecosystem.

We look forward to seeing what y'all build and how you combine these with the incredibly deep pool of new set bonuses and weapons!

Anti-Champion 2.0

With the removal of the first two columns of each Artifact, we needed to find a new home for all our Champion counter effects. Given the nature of this final release, we decided to roll access to these effects into the intrinsic perks of every weapon in the game. Yes, every weapon; even Exotics.

We also made the decision to remove any activation criteria to all these effects; no matter which you are using, simply firing the weapon will apply the associated effect immediately assuming you land your shots.

Here is the list of which intrinsic frames got what effect:

This covers most of the weapons in the game. Here are what the more niche intrinsic frames received:

Exotic weapons each got the effect that most reflected how the Exotic itself behaved; here are a few interesting examples but we'll let you all discover the rest once Monument of Triumph releases:

That's all for us here on the Artifacts, the sandbox is going to be shifting drastically in Monument of Triumph and we look forward to seeing the powerful builds y'all put together using both old and new pieces from our Guardians' storied legacy!

Vendor Updates

With this release, many of your favorite vendors across the Tower are getting an update. Reputation Rank Reward tracks are returning to many of the vendors (Shaxx, Zavala, Saint-14, Xûr, Banshee-44 and even your ol' pal Drifter). We've also expanded their focusing options significantly, as well as some other vendor specific updates that we'll touch on below.

Focus Tiered Gear

Focusing for tiered gear is now available on many vendors across the Tower. This includes newly added gear, as well as gear from across the last several releases (for example, The Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, Renegades). Weapons will be focusable at Tier 3 and Tier 4, depending on the player's Power level.

With the addition of upgradable weapons you can take any rolls you get from focusing and upgrade them to Tier 5, while activities will remain the best and most consistent source of natural Tier 5 weapons. However, because armor is not upgradable, Focusable Armor will go up to Tier 5.

Here's how Gear Focusing will work on Vendors:

General

• Weapons will be focusable at Tier 3 or Tier 4
  • Tier 3 = 300-399 Power
  • Tier 4 = 400+ Power
  • Tiered weapons may be upgraded to Tier 5.
• Armors will be focusable based on Power level.
  • Tier 3 = 300-399 Power
  • Tier 4 = 400-519 Power
  • Tier 5 = 520+

Ada-1

• Updated Ada-1's Shader Inventory
  • Added additional shaders
    • Year 1 Shader Pack Shaders
    • Four unreleased Shaders
      • Alchemy Scorch
      • Bonemeal Loam
      • Brineglow
      • Charred Plumage
  • Increased number of available shaders per week from three to six.
    • Still randomly rotates through available shaders each week.
• Updated Ada-1's legacy armor to no longer be on a rotation, expanded selection to all armors for transmog purposes.
• Updated Threader Bounty Reset
  • No longer resets seasonally, instead players will earn one additional threader bounty, per class, per week.
    • New bounties available each week at weekly reset.
    • Maximum number of available Threader Bounties, per class, is ten.

Drifter

• Gambit Reputation Rank Reward Track has been restored.
• Updated Gambit Focusing
  • Gear additions.
  • Tired focusing will utilize Gambit Engrams.
  • Now includes focusing for all tiered Gambit gear (including new Gambit weapons and armor!).

Banshee-44

• Gunsmith Reputation Rank Reward Track has been restored.
  • Dismantling weapons and armors gives Gunsmith Reputation again.
• Updated Gunsmith Focusing
  • Now includes Shared Pool weapons from previous releases.
    • Includes Tiered gear from the Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, and Renegades.

Hawthorne

• Updated Clan engrams to give Tiered Gear.

Saint-14

• Trials of Osiris Reputation Rank Reward Track has been restored.
• Updated Trials Focusing
  • Now includes focusing for all tiered Trials gear.
    • Gear additions.
    • Includes Tiered gear from the Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, and Renegades.
    • Focusing will utilize Trials Engrams.

Saladin (only available during Iron Banner)

• Updated Iron Banner Focusing
  • Now includes focusing for all tiered Iron Banner gear.
    • Gear additions.
    • Includes Tiered gear from the Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, and Renegades.
    • Focusing will utilize Iron Banner Ciphers, obtained through Iron Banner match completions.
  • Iron Banner will maintain Event Card and will not see its Reputation Rank Reward track restored.

Shaxx

• Crucible Reputation Rank Reward Track has been restored.
• Updated Crucible Focusing
  • Now includes focusing for all tiered Crucible and Competitive Crucible gear.
    • Gear additions.
    • Includes tiered gear from the Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, and Renegades.
    • Tiered focusing will utilize Crucible Engrams.
      • Competitive Crucible gear will require Crucible Ciphers which can be obtained via Competitive Crucible.

Xûr

• Xûr's Reputation Rank Reward Track has been restored.
  • Purchasing items from Xûr grants reputation.
• Xûr's Inventory has been updated.
  • New Catalysts added to Inventory.
  • Tiered armor.

Zavala

• Vanguard Reputation Rank Reward Track has been restored.
• Updated Vanguard Focusing
  • Now includes focusing for all tiered Solo Ops, Fireteam Ops, Arena Ops and Pinnacle Ops gear.
    • Gear additions.
    • Includes Tiered gear from the Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, and Renegades.
    • Tiered Focusing will utilize Vanguard Engrams.
      • Pinnacle Ops and Arena Ops gear will require Vanguard. Ciphers which can be obtained via Pinnacle Ops and Arena Ops activities.
        • Nightfall Ciphers that players may have in their inventory will be automatically updated to Vanguard Ciphers.
• Rewards from Call to Arms are available to pick up from Zavala for those who have earned but not yet received them.
• Updated the rotation for Weekly Vanguard Arms Rewards.

Destination Vendors

• Updated gear to be distributed at Tier 3.

Attune Anywhere

Attunement now lives in your inventory, accessible anywhere, any time. No longer will you have to go to a specific vendor to attune what you want to earn from the activities you are playing. With the huge amount of new and updated weapons in this release, we wanted to make it seamless for you and your fireteam to have greater agency around farming for those god rolls than ever before.

Hanging out in orbit, or waiting for friends during a break between SRL races? Take some time to attune to your favorite weapons across various activity types.

Attunement exists for the following activities:

• Distortions
• World Drops
• Solo Ops
• Fireteam Ops
• Arena Ops
• Pinnacle Ops
• Crucible Ops
• Trials of Osiris
• Iron Banner
• Gambit
• Onslaught
• Sparrow Racing League (SRL)

At any time, players can be attuned to one weapon for each Activity type. For example, players can be attuned to Cry Mutiny in Solo Ops, Nightshade in Fireteam Ops, and Better Devils in Crucible Ops at the same time.

Attuning to a weapon means that you will have significantly higher drop chances for that weapon from activity rewards and will be available for all of the weapons in the active loot pools for each of the included activity types. Attunement is available for all players, with no costs to attune or unattune, with no limits on changing the weapons that you are attuned to. We hope this system helps you find the perfect weapons for your arsenal.

That's our Dev Insights article about weapons, the Artifact and how vendors, attunement, and focusing will work when the Monument of Triumph update drops on June 9. We have more to share later today on our TWID, coming in just two hours. Stay tuned to find out about what's changing in the Crucible, what new rewards you can get in Pantheon, and much more.