Destiny 2’s next major update—Season of the Deep—is now less than a month away and Bungie has wasted no time on giving players a preview of what to expect from both its major sandbox shakeups and its overarching narrative.
That barrage of information continued today with the release of an Exotic armor tuning preview blog for season 21, in which Bungie highlighted two dozen Exotics that will be receiving significant changes when the season launches on Tuesday, May 23. This includes both welcome buffs for overlooked Exotics such as Mask of Bakris and Dawn Chorus, but also a significant nerf for Starfire Protocol—the Warlock Exotic that has taken over the PvE meta since the introduction of Solar 3.0.
“Oh, Starfire Protocol,” Bungie said, seemingly well aware of the impact Starfire Protocol has had on everything from Nightfalls to raid boss damage phases. “This Exotic has been strong for a long time, ever since Solar 3.0 dropped and fusion grenades became much more powerful for Warlocks. In making these changes, we didn’t want to completely rob the Exotic of its benefits. But right now, Starfire Protocol is one of the best single-target damage boosting Exotics and it’s sucking all of the air out of the room.”
The nerf it’s set to receive is all about hitting it hard in its core effect, but then transferring some of its current power into a more specific set of requirements. This means the amount of grenade energy the player gains per instance of damage is being dramatically reduced from 20 percent to 2.5 percent. It is still possible for players to gain 20 percent grenade energy while they have Starfire Protocol equipped, but that sizeable energy gain will now require them to get a kill with an empowered weapon, limiting how often they can reap such a reward.
Related: The most useless Destiny 2 items will be gone in season 21
A similarly popular Exotic that is also receiving some major changes is one for Hunters: ST0MP-EE5. It’s a bit less of a cut-and-dry change in comparison to Starfire Protocol, but it’s clear that Bungie wanted to take another stab at balancing this otherwise extremely powerful movement Exotic in PvP.
“We want ST0MP-EE5 to have a strong fantasy, but permanent uptime for potent movement benefits that make targeting Hunters in PvP very difficult on controller ends up making it too automatic of a choice, even with the prior airborne effectiveness changes,” Bungie said. “We’re undoing that change, but tackling the uptime to try and make it so you can use it to ambush or escape from an engagement, but not both.”
Therefore, starting in season 21, while Hunters will no longer have their in-air accuracy hindered while wearing ST0MP-EE5, they will instead only get the benefits to movement speed, slide distance, and jump height while their dodge energy is full. It’s unclear whether this serves as a greater nerf or is a more horizontal change, but the Exotic should at least feel more consistent now across activities.
Other balance changes include a buff to the damage bonus Mask of Bakris provides, the addition of Solar keywords to Khepri’s Horn, and a slight nerf to the range and damage of Dunemarchers’s chain lightning. The focus of the balance pass remains mainly on improving Exotics that have fallen to the wayside, the full details of which can be explored more in-depth in the blog itself.
All of the Exotic changes will be available in Destiny 2 when Season of the Deep launches in just a few weeks time, on Tuesday, May 23.
