Destiny 2: Season of Opulence patch buffs swords, fusion rifles, nerfs fan favorites

Destiny 2’s Season of Opulence patch is here. With the new season, players can jump back into the Leviathan ship to hunt new treasure. Bungie also nerfed a few weapons and armor pieces players have grown accustomed to. To compensate for the nerfs, the studio has buffed swords and fusion rifles.

Here’s everything you need to know about Destiny 2 patch 2.5.0.1

Season of Opulence is here

Season of Opulence is still mostly a mystery. Bungie released a calendar for the events, but left out a few details regarding what they entail. The Menagerie looks to be Season of Opulence’s big new activity, and will let players choose their own loot after completing it.

As for what the Menagerie is, we don’t know yet. It looks to be a wave based mode with a replayability angle. Players will have to venture onto Calus’ ship if they want to find out

The Leviathan’s fourth raid is under ‘Contest’

Bungie is extra committed to the world first race this time around and to keep things interesting it’s releasing Crown of Sorrows with a special set of rules for the first 24 hours. These rules are part of a mode that’s being called Contest which will impose specific Power restrictions on players in the raid. On the first fight of the raid, every player will be limited to 700 Power, regardless of what their actual Power is. This will eventually go up to 720 Power by the final fight of the raid.

The reason behind this imposed Power restriction is to ensure that gear and loot don’t play too big a factor in this world first race. If everyone that’s fighting a boss is limited to one maximum Power level, which is always going to be below the recommended power level of the fight itself, no one is going to have an advantage over the competition.

If this new Power cap doesn’t sound fun to you, don’t worry it isn’t permanent. The Contest mode will only last for the first 24 hours of the raid. Crown of Sorrows will release at 7 pm ET on June 4, the same day Season of Opulence goes live.

Whisper of the Worm, Sleeper Simulant, and Ace of Spades are all getting nerfed

Three of everyone’s favorite guns are getting nerfed in this patch to make room for other weapons in the meta. Whisper of the Worm will keep all of its damage, but its White Nail perk will now only refill the magazine from reserve ammo. Whisper has a limited max capacity of 18 rounds instead of generating unlimited ammo like it used to.

Sleeper Stimulant is getting a nerf to the bounce damage it does against bosses, but as a trade off it should do slightly more damage for non-precision shots.

Finally, Ace of Spades lost its ability to two-tap when used with One-Eyed Mask’s Vengeance perk and the Memento Mori perk now restores six bullets but they’re lost if the Guardian stows Ace.

Each gun will likely still have its place in Destiny 2 even after the nerfs, but they won’t be the all-purpose standouts they were before.

Swords and Fusion Rifles are the new meta

With new patches Bungie is always looking to bring buffs to weapon types that have fallen out of favor. So, it’s no surprise that for Season of Opulence swords and Fusion Rifles both got some major buffs. Swords had their ammo increased across the board as well as some big damage buffs to all swords with Lightweight Frames.

As for Fusion Rifles the buffs are even more straightforward: they all got damage increases. Just how much Bungie buffed the damage depends on the Fusion Rifle in question, but these buffs could be enough to push swords and Fusion Rifles back into everyone’s loadouts.

New Pinnacle Weapons and quest tab

Season of Opulence also comes with three new pinnacle weapons. This season, players can earn a grenade launcher from the Vanguard, a sniper from Crucible, and a bow from Gambit.

Player’s quest logs are also changing. Instead of holding quests and bounties in their inventories, Guardians can go to the map to find their new pursuits tab. Players can also hold more bounties in the pursuit tab on the map than before.

Destiny 2 patch 2.5.0.1 notes

Season of Opulence Begins

Imperial Summons

All players who have completed Forsaken may acquire an Imperial Summons from Benedict 99-40 in the Tower. This quest grants Power Surge gear.

Crown of Sorrow raid begins at 4 p.m. PDT.

• World First Rules may be found here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Help/Article/47218

Sandbox

Weapons

Ace of Spades

• No longer two-taps when paired with One-Eyed Mask’s Vengeance perk if the victim has at least 4 resilience.
• Memento Mori restored to 6 bullets, but bullets are now lost on stow.

Lord of Wolves

• Release the Wolves perk can now be activated on special reload instead of on kill.
• Normal burst damage decreased by 20%.
• Release the Wolves non-precision damage decreased by 23%; precision damage decreased by 34%.

Sleeper Simulant

• Reduced bounce damage against bosses, minibosses, and vehicles by 95%.
• Reduced precision multiplier, but increased base damage by 66%.
• This change results in precision shots dealing approximately the same damage as before, but you are punished less for landing non-precision shots.

Sturm and Drang

• Storm and Stress max overcharge rounds increased to 99.
• “Sturm Overcharge” buff text now displays the number of overcharge rounds.
• Overcharge damage increased by 100% in PvE.
• Fixed an issue where a 10% precision damage bonus remained on Sturm when it had used all its overcharge rounds.

Whisper of the Worm

• White Nail perk now loads the magazine from reserves.
• Increased ammo reserves to max 18 without armor perks.
• Fixed an issue where White Nail would fail to activate under certain network conditions.

Luna’s Howl/Not Forgotten

• RPM changed to 150; damage was adjusted to match other 150 RPM (lightweight) Hand Cannons.
• These weapons still retain the Precision sub-archetype benefits and firing animation.
• Magnificent Howl has been reworked.
• Rapidly landing two precision hits now increases damage and range on your next shot.
• The damage increase affects only non-precision damage, but the bonus range is applied regardless.
• Fixed an issue where Magnificent Howl would be slow to activate under certain network conditions.

Fusion Rifles (Non-Exotic)

Damage increased against PvE combatants:

• High-impact increased by 30%.
• Precision increased by 44%.
• Adaptive increased by 44%.
• Rapid-fire increased by 47%.

Exotic Fusion Rifles

Note: Changes to Exotic Fusion Rifles are due to archetype tweaks and not direct changes; most of these are minor.

Jötunn

• Changes affect PvE damage only.
• Impact damage increased by 10%.
• Detonation damage reduced by 15%.
• DOT damage increased by 10%.
• This results in an overall 5% increase in total damage.

Merciless

• Damage of first bullet at slowest charge time increased by 30%, which decreases as the weapon reaches its fastest charge time. Damage at the fastest charge time is unchanged.

Telesto

• Impact damage increased by 49%.
• Detonation increased by 3%.
• This is an overall damage increase of 4%.

Submachine Guns

• Minor adjustment to idle pose for SMG archetype to help set it apart from the rifle archetypes.
• Updated firing animations to better reflect the shooting experience of an SMG.

Dev Commentary: These changes apply to hipfire only, and do not impact accuracy. The goal of this change was to enhance the feeling of shooting an SMG. We’ve added a random fire pose that will add variation and make the gun feel a little more unstable and lively in your hands. We’ve also added a progressive fire animation that will give your Guardian a feeling of gripping and controlling the more active weapon during sustained fire.

Swords

• Ammo capacity increased to a max of 70.
• Starting ammo increased by 10.

Black Talon

• Ground and aerial projectile ammo cost increased from 3 to 4.

Adaptive Frame

• Ground uppercut ammo cost increased from 3 to 4.

Aggressive Frame

• Now lunge at target with their aerial light attack.
• Light attack consolidated into a single damage event.
• Slam attack consolidated into a single damage event.
• Slam attack ammo cost increased from 3 to 4.

Lightweight Frame

• Tuned damage output.
• Ground light attack increased by 17%.
• Aerial light attack decreased by 21%.
• Ground dash attack increased by 87%.
• Aerial dash attack increased by 78%.
• No ammo aerial light attack decreased by 49%.
• All other no-ammo attacks decreased by 15%.
• Ground dash attack ammo cost increased from 2 to 3.

General

• Fixed an issue where magazine-size indicators didn’t display the proper arrows when changing magazine perks on the Breath of the Dragon and Trackless Waste SMGs.
• Truesight’s “weakened” enemy highlight or glowing will no longer appear to flicker erratically.

Armor

Super-Generating Exotic Armor

• Skull of Dire Ahamkara, Orpheus Rigs, and Phoenix Protocol now grant Super energy back on diminishing returns, making it rarer to get a full Super back.
• Shards of Galanor and Ursa Furiosa had their Super gain caps reduced to be in parity with other Super Exotic changes.
• Adjusted amount of Spectral Blade Super restoration when defeating enemies with Gwisin Vest.
• 1 PvP kill = 11.1% → 8.3%
• 2 PvP kills = 19.1% → 12.5%
• 3 PvP kills = 20.8% → 14.2%
• 4 PvP kills = 21% → 15.8%
• 5 PvP kills = 21% → 16.7%
• 1 Dreg kill = 7% → 11.1%
• 2 Dreg kills = 17.7% → 14.3%
• 3 Dreg kills = 20% → 16.5%
• 4 Dreg kills = 20.9% → 16.9%
• 5 Dreg kills = 21% → 17.1%
• Minor adjustments to the Heavy Ammo Finder perk.

Gemini Jester

• Increased duration of disorient and no-radar effects by 0.5 seconds.

Aeon Gauntlets

• Potency of energy given by Aeon Arms increased for all classes.
• Titans now trigger Aeon Arms off of melee kills instead of barricade, and they receive melee energy.
• Visual effects on Aeon Gauntlets altered for all classes to distinguish between a player whose energy is full or not.

Abilities

• Fixed an issue where “Six-Shooter” refunds a bullet when destroying Titan barricades.
• Fixed an issue where “Entropic Pull” melee and “Devour” melee were applying a physics impulse that pushed enemies away.
• Fixed an issue where using Chaos Reach with Geomag Stabilizers could sometimes lead to weapons disappearing.
• Fixed an issue where players could gain full grenade energy when canceling out of a Nova Warp Super.
• Fixed an issue where Combination Blow’s melee damage buff was buffing the Arc Staff Super in PvP environments.
• Note: This was addressed for PvE in a previous update.
• Moving between overlapping Wells of Radiance no longer lead to removing the buff earlier than expected.

Investment

Clans

• Clan XP has been reset for Season 7 start.
• A new weekly bonus bounty has been added for Season 7. This bounty is available at the max clan rank.

Emotes

• The Luxurious Toast emote now allows players to sit for as long as they desire.

Eververse

• The Eververse storefront has been updated.
• For additional information, please see: This Week at Bungie - 5/23/2019
• Cayde’s Exotic Stash items have been added to Eververse’s Bright Dust inventory for weeks 1–4.

Rewards UI/UX

• The Pursuits inventory has been moved to the Director menu.
• Players may now hold up to 63 pursuits at a given time.
• Catalysts are now tracked on the Triumphs page.
• Updated Taken and Fallen armor mods to follow the same naming convention.
• All shader items have had their icons updated.
• Fixed an issue where the action for applying shaders, ornaments, holograms, or using consumables was getting cancelled and not applying on the first attempt.

Note: There are still actions that will cancel the apply function, such as hitting the “Preview” button, exiting Inventory early, letting up on the “Apply” button too early, or completely moving the cursor off of the item being applied.

Vendors

Benedict 99-40

• Relocated to the Annex in the Tower.

The Gunsmith

• Now offers three daily and two weekly weapon-focused bounties, rewarding Enhancement Cores, mod components, and mods.
• Scrapper bounties will no longer drop when dismantling gear.
• Existing scrapper bounties will remain in your inventory until expiration or completion.

Xûr

• Now properly offers random rolls on Exotic armor after refusing to do so in Destiny 2 Update 2.2.1.
• We’ve had a chat with him; if something like this happens again, he’ll be in trouble.

Drifter/Vanguard

• Weekly reward packages from the Allegiance quest have been retired with the conclusion of Season of the Drifter.
• Fixed an issue where some players wouldn’t see updated vendors and bounty lists after the weekly reset occurred.

General

• The Sony-exclusive Hunter armor set “Red Moon Phantom Suit” should no longer appear in Collections for Xbox and PC players.
• Fixed an issue where weapon engrams were incorrectly appearing as Masterworked in the loot stream if a player’s inventory was full when walking over them.
• Fixed an issue where Arbalest could not be acquired by players who do not own the Annual Pass.

Activities

Raids

• Further addressed GUITAR errors that could occur in the Last Wish raid.

Crucible

• Players can no longer win Crucible matches by getting kills after the timer has expired.
• Fixes an issue where a player could hear the audio for a 20-kill streak but not receive the medal if the 20th kill happened after the match ended.
• The Triumph “We Ran Out of Medals” (20-kill streak) will be rewarded if the final kills happen before the match timer ends.

Patrol

• After activating the totem, killing the weekly wanted targets will now correctly complete the activity and bounty.

Heroic Adventures

• Fixed an issue where players would sometimes load into a different Heroic Adventure on Mars than what was being displayed on the Totem.

Tower

• Fixed issues with two Ghost scannables in the Tower
• “The one about the Speaker’s quarters...” was moved to outside his door along the walkway.
• “The one about Banshee-44 and his old location...” was moved and placed on the ground in the corner.

Niobe Labs/Bergusia Forge

• Fixed an issue where players on PC were experiencing crashes traversing Niobe Labs and Bergusia Forge spaces.

Commando/Zero Hour

• Fixed bug where players could freeze the activity timer in Zero Hour mission.
• Fixed bug where the Heroic version of Zero Hour would be available only on the first character to complete the activity on each account.

Misc.

• Fallen mines are no longer impervious to being destroyed while on the ground.