Destiny 2: Forsaken added a bunch of new subclasses for players to earn, but it seems that some subclasses are outshining the other options in the sandbox. Super abilities like Nova Warp for Warlocks and Blade Barrage for Hunters are so powerful that some players never switch off of them. Thankfully with the upcoming 2.1.4 update, Bungie is trying to bring all the subclasses more in-line with each other, hopefully making the sandbox a little more balanced for both PvE and PvP.
Generally speaking, nine Destiny 2 subclasses will be getting damage increases in the 2.1.4 update: Golden Gun (six-shooter and three-shot), Shadowshot (Moebius Quiver), Arc Staff, Burning Maul, Hammer of Sol (Siegebreaker tree), Fist of Havoc, Sentinel Shield, Nova Bomb (Cataclysm and Vortex), and Daybreak. Two subclasses will be seeing small damage decreases: Blade Barrage and Nova Warp. Those are the noted changes coming in 2.1.4, but there may be even more changes coming as Bungie said they are still working on subclass tuning.
For Hunters, nearly every subclass was tweaked in some way. Blade Barrage received a nerf, but will likely still be strong with the right exotics. Golden Gun is getting a solid buff to both trees that will make it a lot more viable in PvP. Nightstalker fans will likely be very happy with the damage buff that Moebius Quiver is getting, perhaps letting it finally kill in one shot.
Gunslinger
- Golden Gun
- Six-Shooter kills return a bullet
- Practice Makes Perfect Super regen increased
- Blade Barrage
- The damage is now heavily weighted on the delayed explosion instead of the knife impact
- Now deals self-damage if the knives explode too close
- Fixed a bug where the knives would track allies
Nightstalker
- Moebius Quiver
- Entire damage bonus is applied on the first hit instead of stacking and multiplying
- Increased tether radius and lifetime
- Made it easier to fire successive tethers
- Spectral Blades
- Damage resistance in stealth decreased
- Duration of Super while invisible slightly decreased
Arcstrider
- Super damage is now more heavily weighted toward the heavy palm strike attack
- No attack damage was reduced, but much of the added damage for this Super went into the heavy attack
- Lethal Current bonus damage increased
Titans are already a very strong class to begin with, as they offer both great damage and support options when dealing with bosses. Almost every element of the solar Titan trees have been reworked, with other changes coming for the other two elements as well. Striker Titan’s Terminal Velocity perk will be getting a rework to have better damage scaling based on the distance players fall from during the super.
Sunbreaker
- Sunspots
- Doubled the damage of the burn on enemies
- Sun Warrior
- Buff length increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds
- Now increases ALL outgoing damage
- Burning Maul
- Slam radius increased
- Slam fire tornado improved homing
- Sentinel
- Super damage is more heavily weighted on the heavy shield charge attack.
- No attack damage was reduced, but much of the added damage for this Super went into the heavy attack
Striker
- Terminal Velocity
- There are now three tiers of hang time
- Each tier of hang time now causes four damaging shocks instead of three
- The damage for the hang time bonuses has been increased significantly
- Trample
- The light shoulder attack Super cost has been reduced by ~85%
- Trample can now trigger every 0.5 seconds, up from every 1 second
Warlocks are pretty strong in both PvE and PvP at the moment. Many players who are hunting for Luna's Howl or The Mountaintop have certainly seen plenty of Nova Warp Warlocks in the Crucible, but it seems that may be getting ready to change. Dawnblade and the other two Voidwalker trees are getting solid buffs, while Stormcaller is only receiving a slight buff overall.
Voidwalker
- Cataclysm
- Increased detonation radius
- Cluster damage increased
- Improved cluster bomb homing to make it more consistent against single targets
- Cluster bombs no longer detonate one another
- Vortex
- Linger damage increased significantly
- Nova Warp
- Slower movement while charging
- Charging costs more energy and overall duration is reduced
- Damage resistance reduced very slightly
- PvP damage reduction
- Charged detonation will no longer be able to one shot another player in their Super, provided it has damage resistance
- Stormtrance
- Increased number of targets for chain lightning by 1
- Dawnblade
- Super duration increased
Those are all the major changes coming to the subclasses that were revealed in the This Week at Bungie blog post. While there may be more changes to the sandbox coming, players will have to wait a bit longer to see what they are. According to the blog post, Bungie is looking to make Sandbox changes as frequently as possible to shake up the Destiny experience. Hopefully there will be more changes in the future as players experience everything the Annual Pass has to offer.
Destiny 2: Black Armory is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Bungie