Latest Destiny 2 TWAB Outlines Massive Subclass & Ability Changes for 30th Anniversary Event & Beyond

This week’s Destiny 2 TWAB is truly the mother of all TWABs (MOATWAB?). There’s a good chance I’ve said that before but this TWAB really is massive.

Bungie has unveiled that they are making some pretty big changes to the way abilities work in Destiny 2 heading into the 30th Anniversary event next month, with the goal of providing some more interesting choices in PvE but, more importantly, reducing the impact that abilities have in battle in PvP AKA Crucible.

Abilities right now are a huge part of PvP. While Bungie wants abilities to augment a player’s style in Destiny 2’s PvP, they still want to keep the action focused on gunplay. Right now… that’s debatable if that actually occurs.

To try and fix this, Bungie is switching to a system that has different cooldowns for each individual ability (see above), such as super and grenades, instead of one universal cooldown for all melee, grenades, supers, etc.

Here’s a taste of what that will look like via TWAB:

Flux Grenade 

• Increased base cooldown from 82 seconds to 182 seconds. 
• Increased attached detonation damage from 150 to 250 (one-shot kill in PvP). 
• Increased damage vs PvE combatants by 15% (on top of base damage increase). 
• Removed projectile tracking. 
• Added a small amount of aim assist. 
• Increased throw speed by 117%. 
• Now sticks to all surfaces. 

Firebolt Grenade 

• Reduced base cooldown from 82 seconds to 64 seconds. 
• Reduced damage per bolt from 90 to 65. 
• Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 15%. 

The Flux Grenade will be turned to be powerful, one-shotting PvP combatants and packing a punch in PvE, but will have a longer cooldown. On the other hand, Firebolt Grenades are weaker but can be used far more often. As before, you can lower the base cooldown by increasing the associated stat such as Discipline above three to a max of ten. However, stats below three will actually increase the cooldown, so keep that in mind.

There’s a ton related to these issues going on in the TWAB and instead of trying to fully explain everything worse than Bungie can do (read the full details here from them), allow me to just run through a the key points quickly in case you don’t feel like reading for 10+ minutes:

• Abilities are getting their own unique cooldowns.
• Roaming supers are getting getting longer cooldowns because of their potential to wipe a whole team and keep on trucking. One off supers will have lower cooldowns.
• Passive super generation is being decreased to take longer to just sit around and get your super back.
• Primary weapon kills will now generate more super while Special and Power wepaons will generate less.
• Supers should now activate at different times during a Crucible match because of these changes rather than everyone getting their super around the same time “super o’clock.”
• Neutral game class traits, mods, and anything (such as Exotics) that extends or increases ability regeneration have been tuned down.
• Stasis crystals no longer freeze in PvP, just slow. PvE still freezes and detonation damage has been increased.
• Bungie stresses many times throughout the TWAB that these changes will be more impactful in PvP. They are not trying to attack PvE and seem generally happy with its current state aside from wanting to give reasons to use lesser-used subclasses.
• Hunter dodge is too strong, especially Gambler’s Dodge. Will have longer cooldown and will no longer break projectile tracking.
• Shatterdive less lethal in PvP and more lethal in PvE as a result of Stasis balance changes.
• Combination Blow cooldown dramatically reduced.
• Titan Shoulder Charges no longer 1 shot in PvP.
• Handheld Supernova no longer 1 shot in PvP. Will have increased range and push players back.
• Diamond Lance, Shiver Strike and Whisper of Chains get big buffs for Titan Behemoth.
• Warlock melee now functions exactly the same as Hunter and Titan.
• Everything will be tweaked again once The Witch Queen rolls out and the Light subclasses start transferring over to the Stasis system.

That’s just a small taste. This TWAB, as I said, is massive and that long list above is just the appetizer (granted the appetizer in this case are mozzarella sticks and taste great).

Destiny 2 is definitely a bit stale heading into the 30th-anniversary event launching on Dec. 7, but it looks like it will serve as a big shake-up prior to the launch of The Witch Queen on Feb. 22, 2022.