Destiny 2’s Most Powerful Exotic Gets Controversial Downgrade

Destiny 2 Exotic Trace Rifle Divinity has been the backbone of many players’ arsenals for endgame content since its introduction. back in the Shadow Keeper extension in 2019. Yesterday, Bungie finally announced a long-awaited nerf to its power, and while many welcome the change, it also reignited a months-long controversy originally sparked by one of the game’s top players.

There are two things that make Divinity a ridiculously useful tool. for Destiny 2most difficult content like raids. First, it weakens enemies by 30%, allowing players to deal a bunch of extra damage for an extended period of time. Second, it expands the target area for critical hits, making it easy for an entire team to land bigger shots, even if their aim isn’t precise. As a result, Divinity is the go-to Exotic for most activities, and even players who haven’t yet obtained the rare weapon have likely benefited from having someone else on the team use it.

So it’s no surprise that Bungie decided Divinity was overdue for an encore. “We’ve been looking at Divinity for a while now and have been testing a variety of changes in Season 19 over the past few months, landing on reducing Divinity’s debuff from 30% to 15%,” Destiny 2the weapons team wrote in a blog post yesterday, previewing a bunch of upcoming balance changes. Here’s the developer’s expanded reasoning behind the decision:

We do not believe that Divinity in its current form is really about balance, that is, it is not necessarily too strong in isolation. That said, Divinity is incredibly dominant in late-game PvE because it commodifies precision weapon aiming and has extremely high uptime to debuff. The bigger issue is that Divinity granting 30% debuff sucks air out of the room for all other debuff sources (like Tether and Tractor Cannon), and we don’t want to override Divinity to make them interesting.

TL;DR: Bungie wants players to use Destiny 2the full suite of weapons and abilities. Divinity was crowding out other support abilities and gear that do similar things, so Bungie reduced its effectiveness to bring those other tools back into play, like the Hunter’s Tether and Tractor Cannon Exotic. Like every big decision in Fate 2, however, it causes great outrage among parts of the community.

The controversy dates back to a now infamous Twitter thread from a player named Saltagreppo, whose raid team are three-time first world champions (that is, even among Destiny 2among the best players, he is in a class of his own). “The gun is basically mandatory for most boss encounters and that makes aiming a no-factor, which is very unhealthy for the game for several reasons,” he said. wrote September 8. Saltagreppo went on to say that the weapon closed the skill gap in end-game content, then offered potential solutions such as making players choose between higher damage or easier critical hits. “The point is Div shouldn’t be both the best and easiest option,” he wrote.

The thread didn’t sit well with some players, who felt it focused too much on the unique concerns of a very small percentage of elite players. They are not “bored” by Divinity. In fact, they really like how it makes quick work of some raid bosses that might otherwise cause a frustrating night’s work. A perpetual tension inside Destiny 2 is that some players like to feel super powerful, take advantage of broken builds, and hammer the latest loot feat. Others don’t. Especially those who enjoy participating in raid races and PVP modes like Trials of Osiris. A long-standing suspicion among the old group is that Bungie is spending too much time dealing with Destiny 2top gamers and content creators who play dozens of hours a week.

So as soon as Bungie announced the nerf, which to be clear is a pretty sweetthis seemed like proof for some players that Saltagreppo had ruined the party for everyone. However, the studio clarified that this change was planned long before the debate on Twitter. “The division change was planned before the heated debates started on social media,” Destiny 2community manager tweeted yesterday. “It’s fine to give Bungie your constructive feedback, but don’t pester anyone in the community for having a different opinion.”

On Reddit, players shared excerpts previous podcasts where the devs mentioned that issues with Divinity were already on their radar, though they weren’t ready to announce any specific changes just yet. But that hasn’t stopped some from still trying to blame Saltagreppo for the nerf, or just being a signifier of Destiny 2is 1% in what is probably a quiet class war going on between different parts of the community. Of course, if you have Divinity in the first place, let alone talk about it on a message board, you’re already part of Destiny 2it’s the elite. The weapon remains one of the most involved Exotics to acquire, with multiple quest steps including finding hidden parts in the Garden of Salvation raid itself. And even with this buff coming later this year in Season 19, it will still be worth it. It just won’t be as overpowered as it has been for the past three years.