Destiny Patch 1.1.1 Introduces Massive Weapon Rebalancing

The latest patch for Destiny is mixing up the weapon balance especially in player vs. player content. Pulse rifles, long considered to be a very unpopular weapon, especially in PvP, is receiving a significant damage bump across all modes. Auto rifles, hand cannons, and fusion rifles on the other hand will see their effectiveness reduced in certain stiuations depending on your range.

It’s a mixed bag for shotgun fans. While shotguns will receive a more significant damage penalty in PvP, in PvE shotguns will actually see their damage doubled. Bungie found that barely anyone used shotguns in PvE content because the damage didn’t outweigh the risk of getting up close and personal to enemies. We’ll see if this change leads to shotguns seeing more action in Destiny’s most difficult strikes and raids.

Also included in this patch is the long awaited matchmaking for weekly heroic strikes. There’s still no matchmaking for nightfall strikes and raids however.

You can check out the full list of weapon changes below and visit Bungie’s blog here to see the patch notes in their enterity. The download for the patch will be available today across all platforms.

1.1.1 : The one about Weapon Rebalance

Destiny Update 1.1.1 brings you a round of weapon balancing, perk fixes (including the heavy ammo fix), and other issues.

Weapons

For a detailed review of weapon changes, head over to Destiny Weapon Tuning.

General

• Fixed an issue in which armor with perks that increase ammunition carrying capacity resulted in ammunition loss upon respawn
• Decreased over-penetration value for weapons with armor piercing perks
• Fixed an issue where items from the PS3/360 Destiny demo were using old power values. They have been adjusted to regular levels
• Song of Ir Yut weapon tooltip now advertises the correct magazine size
• Shoot to Loot: Two-second cooldown added to perk to prevent extra ammunition gains while ammunition bricks despawn
• Dark Breaker perk will now correctly damage Hive Shriekers
• Snap Discharge will now increase attack speed as per the description
• Thunderer perk now has priority on the 4th Horseman tooltip
• Full Auto: Fixed issues in which the weapon perk stopped working while the trigger was being held down

Auto Rifles

• Reduced base damage of Auto Rifles by 2.5%
• Reduced effective range values

Pulse Rifles

• Increased base damage of Pulse Rifles by 9.7%

Hand Cannons

• Slightly reduced effective range
• Slightly reduced initial accuracy

Fusion Rifles

• Widened blast pattern on a Fusion Rifle burst cone
• Reduced starting ammunition in PVP

Shotguns

• Increased damage against all non-Guardian combatants by 2x (100% increase)
• Reduced high-end range values
• Damage falloff starts sooner
• Reduced starting ammunition in PVP