I'm going to be honest I was definitely disappointed to not see Touch of Malice getting a rebuilt catalyst in the most recent TWID (01/23/2025), especially with how that article focused on buffing/enhancing quite a lot of "forgotten" exotics (Queenbreaker, Lord of Wolves, DARCI, etc...). I know you can't really expect stuff like that to happen but I just hoped that with this episode's focus on going back to The Dreadnaught that they would do [i]something[/i] for the weapon obtained by exploring The Dreadnaught. As it stands right now the Catalyst for Touch of Malice is Rapid Hit, and as a catalyst it's not a good one for Touch of Malice seeing how the weapon very strongly discourages you from reloading the weapon. You do gain an additional effect of Stability when Rapid Hit is active, but again, seeing how Touch of Malice is already pretty stable weapon there not really much benefit to having it. As it stands right now Rapid Hit really doesn't do anything for Touch of Malice, and it's been like this since the catalyst came out. Vex Mythoclast and Necrochasm both were in similar situations with their catalysts and they got rebuilds relatively quickly. Vex Mythoclast launched in May of 2021 with a lackluster catalyst that got buffed in August of 2021 (Update 3.3.0). Likewise Necrochasm launched with a lackluster catalyst in September of 2023 and that one got buffed in June of 2024 (Update 8.0.0.1). Touch of Malice has been in the game for almost two and a half years without getting a rebuilt catalyst like Vex Mythoclast and Necrochasm have, despite likewise having a similarly lackluster catalyst (It did recieve a pretty substantial buff in Update 7.2.0.1, but those were made to aid the weapons base performance and has no affect/change on the catalyst at all. Unlike Vex and Necrocasm, I don't think Touch of Malice needs a damage perk in addition to it's current functionality, since the weapon already has two ways to increase it's damage, but I do feel like something else (besides another legendary weapon perk) would be much better than a reload perk on a gun that doesn't needed to reload.
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I think that's a perfectly fair expectation, since they implemented the blight I assume they figure that was enough, but I see what your saying about timings, perhaps this is more of an issue with story vs sandbox continuity as well, that they could take the idea to implement the changes alongside content that's representative of the changes, the dreadnaught being back does seem like the perfect location to notice quirks or strange behaviours from all the weapons of sorrow, just as the previous episode was ideal for the house of wolves ones, I assume if we added retroactive patches that filled I'm this missing bridge between sandbox and story there would be more engagement outside of day one dungeons or raids and more interest in customisation/eververse/ pvp, I can see balance and patch timings causing conflicts esp considering the volume of content delivered per update, but with retroactive patching the work could be done before hand or after and so long as the location based continuity is preserved we as players would probably get the benefit without threatening things like crucible or sandbox balance. I believe destiny is already headed for an open world exploration type structure where we spend less time in orbit and more time navigating 3d maps with access to other areas as traditionally seen, I believe this was needed from D1 to streamline/focus playability in a traditional sense, as with most games campaign and narrative tend to shape the player exposure to sandbox but destiny seemed to break that up and compartmentalize it to the point were progression in the story/world made no difference on gear/player. The worst of both worlds, you as an under level could still get into the VOG and suffer by joining a group but you having mastered the game couldn't even notice a change from first loading it up a month later, and would still encounter people with no progression in matchmaking, a sandbox where narrative, location based and progression sensitive events and behaviours are more traditional and solve this with level hard curves and red label enemies that scale, destiny has effective tiers, if you fall two below or above the content it's disproportionately harder or easier, and weapons and armor don't really matter in the story. However with what I'm seeing from your feedback, players would notice a narrative based logic on why certain items work better in certain locations, elemental effects nearly fit into enemy archetype and Bungie shudders at the conformity to old game logic. Arc for fallen, solar for hive and void for cabal etc, this means that weapons of sorrow would have unique interactions not only with hive/darkness enemy types but also their locations. I think it's brilliant I also think it's the future of destiny, but it's also long overdue. I believe we can give bungie the licence to accept that what we are playing is functionally destiny 3 or 4 and the idea they released new games on new engines is silly, the expansions were enough, breaking the 35gb mark was enough. It's time to see the next generation of UI and interactions on top of just the content implemented as if we had been playing D3 and not in anticipation for it Bungie could have been making movies by now if they had stuck to honing the Razor edge of player experience instead of trying to do something grand or with extra flair. The overwhelming consensus seems to be that there is enough content in the lore, there isn't enough playability of it, and that the rolling back of features has crippled the basic play experience, that with the same sub less abilities as in D1 on top of the new ones in D2 we could have simple kept the D1 sandbox as compared to D2, many say it was better, and D2 took away so much that anything we get now we already had before, when all we ever wanted was to break the skyboxes and walk from one place to the other, find a hub of players near a rocket yard, jump in a ship, cutscene to Mars, explore new gravity and enemy types, repeat, to Venus, repeat, unlocking and discovering all the item quirks and interactions, there was and is no need to keep jerking us around. Tldr Malice could have had blights or whatever in D1, no changes made to it are addressing D2 events, a D2 event took place that could have had implications for the whole weapons of sorrow arsenal. The previous episode held ripe ground for the house of wolves arsenal and Queen breaker, Lord of wolves benefit from gaining improvements along its deployment. The players enjoy that episodes or seasons can focus our attention to one area of the sandbox and narrative so therefore we should see changes that reflect that, we want that, and that seems like the traditional way of Bungie leading the narrative for destiny, puzzles, interactions, mysteries and progression that is meaningful. I LIKE THIS FEEDBACK! Tuna out
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In my opinion I think it should be turned to Glaive kinda like Monte Carlo but shoots taken blights
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Catalyst: Rapid hit (Rapid hit gives stability which also gives it flinch resistance which is always a nice thing) and (Inset name of perk here) increased duration of darkness debuff by 3 seconds. Rn the blind and damage buff only last about 3 seconds and because of the slight delay any close range target will only have it for 2 seconds by the time you can shoot again which is a bit of a waste. So increase it to 6.
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One for all could be a good albeit lackluster catalyst