The release of a reworked Solar sub-class in Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunted landed well, for one class.

While Hunters are enjoying the updates Bungie made to the Solar sub-class, Warlocks and Titans have felt almost as if Bungie held back. Speaking anecdotally, as a Warlock main with a support healer build, Solar 3.0 has felt more like we’ve lost abilities than actually gained anything of note. Yes the snap is cool but cool doesn’t fit into a build.

This sentiment was mirrored by Sandbox Discipline lead at Bungie, Kevin Yanes.

“Ember of Benevolence shipped in an inconsistent state that left healers feeling underwhelmed with their kit when it didn’t behave as expected,” explained Yanes in the This Week at Bungie blog.

“Warlocks who wanted to specialize in healing had limited ways to interface with that fantasy, with two of their three Aspects focusing on aerial mobility or Scorching, and losing the flexibility of choosing to use their grenade to heal allies or damage enemies on the fly. Titans, while bombastic and potent, lacked ways to keep their engine running without needing to run Throwing Hammer or burning multiple cooldowns,” adds Yanes.

So next week, as part of Hotfix 4.1.0.2 the following changes will be made.

For Solar Warlock

• Heat Rises – Added behaviour: Consuming your grenade now also releases a burst of Cure x2 around you, healing you and your nearby allies. Consuming a Healing Grenade increases the strength of the burst to Cure x3 and consuming a Touch of Flame Healing Grenade provides Restoration as an additional benefit.
• Icarus Dash – Added behaviour: While airborne, rapidly defeating targets with your Super or any weapon Cures you.
• Celestial Fire – Each Celestial Fire projectile now applies 10 stacks of Scorch. With Ember of Ashes equipped this increases to 15 stacks per projectile.

For Solar Titan

• Burning Maul – Damage in PvE increased by 25 percent
• Roaring Flames – Added behaviour: While Roaring Flames is active, your uncharged melee attack now deals Solar damage and applies 30 Scorch stacks to targets per hit. This is increased to 40 stacks with Ember of Ashes equipped.
• Consecration – Fragment slots increased from 1 to 2, raised the height of the secondary attack’s ground wave by 25 percent to more easily catch players who jump too late

These are good changes and should help to address some of the weaknesses with the Solar sub-class we’ve encountered and heard about within our clan.

Now for the terrifying news.

Barring any major game breaking problems, this could be the last balance patch we see from Bungie for a while. As Yanes points out, a patch of this magnitude takes time and Bungie tries to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

“Since shipping Stasis with Beyond Light, the team has made huge abilities changes Season over Season. Over the last year, we’ve been back-to-back shipping new aspects for Stasis, adding the Variable Ability Cooldown system, and creating the three Subclass 3.0 experiences—it’s been busy. We hope the changes you’ve read today reinforce our commitment to being responsive to feedback and candid in our communication. We’ll be there right alongside you on the Derelict Leviathan snapping, slamming, and flipping our way to victory,” says Yanes.

Players may see a balance patch later this season and likely once Arc 3.0 is released. After that though the team responsible for abilities at Bungie will go quiet for a while.

Oh and one final note, all Solar Fragments are now unlocked. To unlock them for your character simply head to Ikora in the Courtyard at the Tower, purchase the Fragments and then meditate at the device to the right of Ikora. Meditating is how you activate those Fragments for use so don’t forget that step.

It is time. pic.twitter.com/AaBJPzk4E9

— dmg04 (@A_dmg04) June 3, 2022