Dev Insights - Renegades Armor Tuning Preview

Hello from the Rewards Team! Today we’re onto the second of our three sandbox preview articles for Renegades, this time focused on Exotic armor changes. We have a selection of Exotics to talk about that we have given a bit of love to match with the upcoming new Artifact in Renegades (which we’ll preview in a later This Week in Destiny article). Let’s get to it!

Hunter Exotics

Graviton Forfeit

Graviton Forfeit was once a workhorse Exotic in Destiny 1 but has struggled to find value in Destiny 2, especially after Void 3.0. With how abundant access to invisibility is nowadays, we’ve shifted this Exotic into a killstreak/invis-streak Exotic that charges up your neutral game as you fade in and out of invisibility.

• Now grants improved grenade, melee, and class ability recharge rates for a moderate duration each time you become invisible.
  • Effect stacks up to three times.
  • Effect time does not deplete while you are invisible.
• At three stacks of the buff, successive triggers additionally grant a portion of Void Overshield.

Omnioculus

Given the success of other more support-centric Exotics, we’re leaning Omnioculus into a more potent support role to allow Hunters to fill in a bit of that more selfless fireteam role.

• Granting the effects of Beyond the Veil to allies now also starts their health and shield regen.
  • This only applies to allies and not to the Hunter themself. Shaxx is watching.

Lucky Raspberry

Lucky Raspberry (and Arcbolt Grenades for that matter) have been out of the limelight for a long while now due to their general slowness and low damage. We’ve done a pass over both Arcbolt Grenade itself and Lucky Raspberry to help with some of their consistency issues as well as bring them into today’s buildcrafting options.

• Arcbolt Grenade Ability
  • Increased projectile lifetime of chain projectile.
  • This helps hit consistency on moving targets that are near the outer edge of the chain range.
  • Now activates 0.1 seconds faster after the initial sensor sweep (from 0.6 seconds to 0.5 seconds).
  • Increased max chain range of the initial chain from seven meters to 10 meters.

• Exotic Armor
  • Now always applies jolt on Arcbolt Grenade hits.
  • Returns Arcbolt energy on any application of the Jolt debuff or triggering the Jolt chains on a target already affected by the debuff.

Orpheus Rig

Alongside some abilities changes coming in Renegades, we’ve also adjusted how Orpheus Rig benefits Shadowshot. Look forward to more on abilities in our upcoming Dev Insights article.

• Increased Super duration from 16 seconds to 20 seconds.

Gemini Jesters

As mentioned in our Renegades Weapon Tuning article, Gemini Jester has been updated to use the new universal disorient verb. To keep the debuff effects versus players as similar as possible, we gave it some adjustments that should help it feel nearly identical to how it was prior, if not slightly more effective. We also gave it a small bump in duration against PvE combatants.

• Increased disorient duration against players from 0.5 seconds to one second.
• In addition to applying disorient, Misdirection also removes opposing players’ HUD for two seconds.
• Increased disorient duration against PvE combatants from two seconds to three seconds.

Titan Exotics

Arbor Warden

Arbor Warden hasn’t managed to find much of a niche since its introduction to the game. We’ve made some changes that will let players more aggressively claim space using the Barri-nades with good planning.

• Picking up three Orbs of Power enhances your next Barri-nade.
• Enhanced Barri-nade spawns a Y pattern of three of your equipped barricade on Barri-nade detonation.
• This does work with Barricade modifications like Drengr’s Lash or Storm’s Keep.

Dunemarchers

Dunemarchers have always been a strong choice in the Crucible but have not had much of a home in PvE. With the introduction of Bolt Charge and Storm’s Keep in recent releases, we wanted to expand access to Bolt Charge to other thematically appropriate sources, and Dunemarchers were a perfect fit.

• Increased maximum chain count from four to seven.
• Each chain hit now grants two Bolt Charge stacks (three with the fragment).
• Glaive melees can now also trigger the chain.

Ursa Furiosa

We’re making some lighter quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes to Ursa Furiosa – in particular, the difficulty of an activity scaled how much each absorbed attack scaled the Super refund (but not the grenade refund) which made that part of the perk feel weaker in easier content.

• Should now properly gain Super energy if damage is blocked while the player has an overshield.
• Super energy stored is no longer scaled based on enemy difficulty.
• Super energy refund meter fill rate is doubled in at-Power activities.
• Super energy refund meter fill rate is buffed by about 13.6% in -40 Power activities.

Second Chance

In activities without Barrier Champions, Second Chance can be a bit lackluster – while a second charge of Shield Throw and applying Weaken is somewhat powerful, Sentinel Titan does not have much access to melee energy generation, so it struggles to get much value out of either effect. We’re giving it a new lease on life with a Shield Throw-centric gameplay loop that doubles down on the “righteous defender” fantasy.

• Added:
  • Spawns Void Breaches on Shield Throw final blows.
  • Grants Shield Throw melee energy on picking up any Void Breach.
• The Sentinel Shield Super’s ranged attack (Shield Throw) now also weakens with this Exotic equipped.
• Fixed a bug where anti-barrier shield throw melee would not bounce to more than two targets.

Armamentarium

While a second grenade charge is somewhat powerful, it’s hard to justify choosing Armamentarium over an Exotic that gives ability energy in today’s sandbox. We're adding another ability to it that is focused on the “armaments and ordnance” fantasy that the Exotic suggests.

• Now grants 10% grenade energy on weapon final blow.
• Now reloads the player's equipped weapon when using a grenade ability.

Lion Rampants

Given the current state of mobility in the sandbox, we thought that Lion Rampants’ restriction to only allow hip fire shooting while in lift is no longer necessary. Fly free, fellow Titans.

• Now allows shooting while ADS when in lift.

Peacekeepers

We wanted to equalize the PKs mobility bonus with other Exotics and mods that grant increases to mobility. We also accidentally removed a fan-favorite hidden interaction from this Exotic when we corrected an audio issue during The Edge of Fate, so we have re-added this interaction.

• Increased Mobility bonus from 25 to 30.
• Re-added ability to swap-load SMGs.

Warlock Exotics

Nothing Manacles

Charged and Nothing Manacles enhanced Scatter Grenades have been in an awkward spot for some time due to how much slower they deal damage in comparison to the base grenade. We’ve made some adjustments (alongside those made in 9.1.5) to alleviate some of these inconsistencies. Additionally, Nothing Manacles has gotten a new perk that lets you cascade your Scatter Grenades and grant some deserved value when paired with Chaos Accelerant.

• Reminder of 9.1.5 Adjustments to Charged Scatter Grenades
  • Charged grenade now creates four more seekers.
  • Increased charged seeker damage versus combatants by 25%.
  • Improved charged seeker tracking versus combatants.
  • Increased charged seeker lifetime.
• Charged Scatter Grenade Ability
  • Faster final projectile speed.
• Exotic Armor
  • Now spawns additional Scatter seekers on Scatter Grenade kill.
  • This effect can chain.

Briarbinds

Briarbinds enable a fun and unique playstyle for Void Warlock but, like many kill-oriented Exotics, it struggles to scale into higher difficulty content. We’ve made some adjustments to it to help it build to its maximum benefit quicker and also give a bit more value earlier in its gameplay loop.

• Now needs fewer kills to max out the Briarbinds Void Soul damage bonus.
  • Decreased to four from six.
• Additionally, the Briarbinds Void Soul now does more damage based on the amount of time it has been deployed on target.
  • Up to 30% more damage after 10 seconds.

Stormdancer's Brace

The potency of Stormdancer’s Brace is almost entirely tied to the power of Stormtrance itself. In the same way we have for some of the other Super-specific Exotics, we’ve added a bit of neutral play to Stormdancer’s and also a bit of quality-of-life to its damage bonus to help it scale better in today’s sandbox.

• While Stormtrance is equipped, now grants Bolt charge for arc ability hits when Amplified.
• Stormtrance damage bonus now builds on hits instead of kills, increased max count to compensate.
  • Now needs 30 hits to cap. Top end damage bonus is unchanged.

Winter's Guile

Warlocks have a much harder time scaling into melee-centric builds than both Titans and Hunters. Rather than updating Winter’s Guile to essentially be the newer version of Wormgod Caress but for Warlocks, we decided on a more arcane twist. We ended up with a more Warlock-flavored version of that, incentivizing smart buildcrafting on how you build and spend the new benefits. A bit more effort but a very potent reward if you manage to reach Warlord’s Rage.

• Melee and Finisher final blows grant bonus melee damage.
  • Melees final blows grant one stack, Finishers final blows grant three stacks.
  • Max is 10 stacks for +400% melee damage.
  • Stacks are lost one at a time, lasts 4.5 seconds.
• Once you reach 10 stacks, immediately gain one melee charge and enter Warlord’s Rage when you activate your melee ability.
  • You have 10 seconds to activate the Warlord’s Rage.
• While in Warlord’s Rage:
  • Gain dramatically increased melee regen speed.
  • Gain faster melee speed.
  • Melee damage bonus increases to +500%.
  • Lasts 10 seconds.
  • Lose all stacks once Warlord’s Rage ends.

Mataiodoxia

Warlocks have long asked for a Super-damage-increasing Exotic alongside the likes of Cuirass or Nighthawk. We believe that this is less interesting as an effect for a brand-new Exotic and that we could instead offer this as a new piece of a preexisting one. After all, what is Needlestorm if not a bunch of Supercharged Arcane Needles? (P.S. look for more on Needlestorm in the upcoming Renegades abilities tuning article.)

• Hitting a target with five Needlestorm Super projectiles now will also activate the Stylostixis suspending burst.
  • The burst caused by the Super deals radically increased damage to all targets caught in the radius. This burst should allow Needlestorm to feel like a damage contender with the likes of Cuirass Thundercrash.

Dawn Chorus

This one’s a spoiler for next week’s abilities tuning article: we’re buffing Solar Warlock’s Daybreak Super damage by 20% and letting Daybreak scorch targets by default. Essentially, we’re shifting some of the Dawn Chorus functionality into the base Super. The end result is that Dawn Chorus + Daybreak’s damage is being increased by 5% and the combo will now allow you to cause Ignitions with a single projectile. And with our new Exotic Universal Ornaments feature coming in Renegades, looking like a bug while doing it is now optional!

• Daybreak + Dawn Chorus damage increased by 5%.
• Total scorch stacks increased.

That’s all we have for today! Keep an eye out for our next Dev Insight article where we’ll preview the abilities changes coming in Renegades.