Ever since it was first announced as a new hidden stat in April, Airborne Effectiveness has been a controversial addition to the Destiny 2 sandbox in PvP.
Despite its intended impact of making airborne gunplay reward precise aim and buildcrafting, its instead made airborne combat unviable against grounded opponents. A buff announced in June did little to improve the state of affairs, and today’s This Week At Bungie blog revealed that Airborne Effectiveness will be undergoing a major set of changes in the future.
Bungie was vague about what exactly this rebalancing effort will entail but did give some poignant comparisons that could get PvP players excited again. In a section of the blog titled “things players can look forward to in the future,” one bullet point was “a large rebalance of the airborne effectiveness stat, making Primary ammo weapons significantly more accurate while airborne without any investment in the stat.”
The specifics are “still in development,” according to the developers, suggesting that this is a larger change to how Airborne Effectiveness operates that won’t be seen until the Lightfall expansion. But the devs did reveal that the end goal is “Icarus-level accuracy from before season 17” for Primary weapons.
The omission of any changes coming to Airborne Effectiveness for Special and Heavy weapons does leave a shroud over this promised rework since the nerfs to accuracy and aim assist that Airborne Effectiveness has put on these weapons can make even a small jump with a Shotgun at close range a risk not worth taking in duels. But it’s a promising start to rebuilding Destiny 2’s PvP gunplay.
Yet as some players have begun to point out, each buff to the effectiveness of Primary weapons in the air makes the Airborne Effectiveness stat seem more and more irrelevant on the weapon type. “If the real problem is Special weapon airborne usage, can we please just remove AE as a stat on Primary weapons entirely and just give them the same accuracy and aim assist in the air as they have ground?” asked content creator Kujay on Twitter following the reveal.
Back-to-back World’s First winner Saltagreppo seemed similarly uncertain about the effectiveness of the changes, even if it was a positive step forward. He still believes that the limits put on Special weapons with this system are unfounded. “Happy AE is getting increased on all primaries but I wish this was extended to specials too, especially snipers/shotties,” he said.
While it’s hard to judge how this rebalancing will land when its release is still far out and details are scarce, Bungie’s continued efforts to bring airborne gunplay back to parity with how it was before the introduction of Airborne Effectiveness—at least for Primary weapons—is welcome.
