There is little over a month left before Bungie drops the next expansion for Destiny 2, The Witch Queen. In the run up to the launch, Bungie is revealing how certain systems will be changing.
Last week it showcased how Banshee-44 was being adapted (spend your Gunsmith Materials and Weapon Telemetry before 21st February) and now it’s the Vanguard playlist’s turn.
First and foremost, if you have felt the pain of grinding out Vanguard reputation in Season of the Long Lost, the grind is set to improve slightly in The Witch Queen.
Looking at player data over Season 15 (aka Season of the Lost) Bungie found that fewer players were optimising for the Vanguard streak bonus. From our own experience, progression in the Vanguard playlist was painfully slow and as such, the activity streak felt like more of a pain than a help. This is changing.
“We used the data from the Season of the Lost to adjust the model to be more accurate with actual behavior, and then re-tuned everything to bring the average gain more in line with Crucible. For Season 16, expect increased Vanguard reputation on completion, activity streak amounts, Nightfall multipliers, and Nightfall completion quality bonuses. Vanguard reputation gain should be approximately twice as fast for most players, with the ability to optimise even faster by playing higher difficulty Nightfalls and utilising the activity streak more,” the development team wrote.
Trials of Osiris suffers from a similar problem with reputation progression reportedly 30 percent slower than expected. Players will now receive 21 reputation per round win which could mean up to 105 extra reputation per match if you go to five rounds of course. This will speed Trials reputation gain by 50 percent for players who don’t reset their card.
As Bungie has detailed in the past, Battlegrounds which were introduced in Season of the Chosen/Season 13 will enter the Vanguard playlist which will be renamed Vanguard Ops. Battlegrounds will launch from the Director and have no Champions. This, Bungie says, should match the length and difficulty of a Strike. Importantly, bounties, quests, Triumphs and challenges will now refer to Vanguard Ops.
The Battlegrounds will include:
- Behemoth – Nessus
- Oracle – Nessus
- Hailstone – Europa
- Foothold – Cosmodrome
Changes to modifiers
Bungie really wants players to experiment with different builds given the wide array of mods available to players but its end-game content hasn’t reflected that vision.
To change this Nightfalls at the Hero, Legend, Master and Grandmaster will no longer include the strike-specific modifiers that were present.
In addition there will be a new style of burn that will be introduced called Acute. This will increase the amount of damage taken by players by 50 percent when a specific element is used by enemies and will increase the amount of damage dealt by players using a specific element by 25 percent.
“Secondly, we are moving the Seasonal Strike modifiers that we introduced in Season 15 from the Vanguard playlist to Nightfalls. These are unique buffs and boosts that aid you if you lean into the combat themes of the Season – for Season 16, they are themed to Glaive and Void usage. These rotate weekly, and appear on all Hero, Legend, and Master Nightfalls,” wrote the Destiny 2 developers.
Bungie also teased the return of Silicon Neuroma Sniper Rifle which was once a reward from the Pyramidion Strike as well as the return of Duty Bound, an Auto Rifle that was once a reward for the Savathûn’s Song Strike.
Bungie is also making improvements to Legend and Master Lost Sectors in that both difficulties will be present at one location. For more about the developer’s plans for its next expansion read the This Week at Bungie update.
