Since the launch of Season of the Worthy in Destiny 2, a few key weapons have emerged as the most popular in PvP. Old standards like Spare Rations and Revoker remained as popular as ever, especially in Trials of Osiris, but thanks to an auto rifle buff a few unexpected entrants joined the list of best Crucible weapons in Destiny 2.
The exotic auto rifle Hard Light is one of those popular Destiny 2 weapons, but it is getting knocked down a peg in an update set to go live tomorrow. After players download Wednesday’s patch, Hard Light will be a little less strong in Crucible, with Bungie saying that some Season 10 changes made the exotic auto rifle a little too good.
Hard Light rose to the top of the PvP pack thanks to a few changes Bungie made to auto rifles in the Season of the Worthy balance update. It became very stable and was not affected by damage falloff, which made the exotic a literal laser beam with colorful bullets bouncing off walls and flying around corners.
Anyone who has played a few games of Trials of Osiris has likely come across a Hard Light user or two, but whether the gun is overpowered was up for debate. Apparently, Bungie feels it is and wants to make a few changes.
First and foremost, Hard Light will now be susceptible to damage falloff, but not as much as the average auto rifle. Its damage falloff will floor at.7x damage, which is slightly better than normal auto rifles (.5x).
Additionally, Hard Light’s ricochet damage will not be double its base damage; it will be knocked down to 1.35x damage. In PvE, however, the bonus will remain the same.
Even though these changes will impact Hard Light in all of Destiny 2, Bungie says that the focus is on decreasing the weapon’s viability on PC. The patch notes also reveal that there was a hidden recoil adjustment made to Hard Light that will soon be removed. Presumably, this is why the weapon feels so stable on PC, but it’s unclear how losing it will impact players on console.
Without a doubt, there will be those who question whether making a balance pass is necessary when cheating is so rampant in Destiny 2 on PC. The studio did address its cheating problem and how it hopes to combat cheaters and hackers in last week’s blog post, but those changes and systems are unlikely to go into effect until next season.
Nevertheless, there will be plenty who are happy to see Hard Light nerfed mid-season rather than going a whole three months untouched. The balance tuning patch will go live Wednesday, April 29 around daily reset.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.