Destiny 2 Episode Revenant: All Weapon Sandbox Changes

When it comes to buffing and nerfing weapons after major updates, Destiny 2 devs definitely put in some work. With the release of Episode: Revenant, we’re seeing quite a few changes to weapons, both old and new, and it might throw you off a bit if you’re not sure what happened. While these changes might be a tad startling if you weren’t expecting them, they aren’t necessarily bad. Let’s take a look at all the weapon sandbox changes happening in Destiny 2 Episode: Revenant.

Weapon Archetypes

Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Submachine Guns, Sidearms, Hand Cannons
- Rebalanced how PvE damage is dealt to slightly prioritize critical hits.
  - Increased critical hit damage by between 5%-7% depending on frame.
  - Decreased body shot damage by between 5%-7% depending on frame.

Pulse Rifles
- Heavy Burst (includes Graviton Lance and Revision Zero’s Heavy Burst)
  - Increased RPM from 300 to 324.
  - Decreased damage in PvE by 18% for Legendary weapons in this subfamily.
    - Graviton Lance and Revision Zero Heavy Burst mode reduced by 8%.

Sniper Rifles
- Reduced flinch against Combatants by 50%.
- Reduced camera roll against players by 10%.
- Increased Damage against:
  - Minors – 60%
  - Majors – 75%
  - Minibosses – 35%
  - Champions – 25%

Glaive
- Corrected an issue where perks that changed the magazine size could sometimes display incorrect preview values.

Shotguns
- Minimum damage after falloff has been increased from 0% to 40% for damage vs AI only.

Rocket-Assisted Sidearms
- Reduced reserve ammo by 25%.

Trace Rifles
- Increased base (spawn and crate) PvP ammo from 25 to 29.

Machine Guns
- High Impact
  - Increased critical hit damage by 4%.

Heavy Ammo Grenade Launchers
- General
  - Decreased damage from the detonation by 5% against combatants.
  - Increased projectile impact damage correspondingly, globally.
  - In PvE, total damage is the same, just split differently between detonation and impact.
  - In PvP, Heavy GLs now deal approximately 7% and 26% more impact damage, depending on the Blast Radius stat.
- Rapid Fires
  - Increased Rapid Fire frame impact and detonation damage by 7%.

PvP Weapon Micro-Tuning

Nerfs
- Adaptive Hand Cannons
  - Base Damage from 44.7 to 44.5, Critical Hit Damage from 80.3 to 80.1
    - Slightly reduces 3-tap range once damage falloff has begun (<1m).
- Adaptive Auto Rifles
  - Critical Hit Damage from 26.5 to 26.25.
    - Reduces forgiveness against high resilience tiers.
- High-Impact Pulse Rifles
  - Critical Hit Damage from 40.1 to 39.6.
    - Lowers the resiliency threshold to force 6C instead of 5C1B to 5.
Buffs
- Adaptive Submachine Guns
  - Base Damage from 10.9 to 11.5.
    - Decreases body shot time-to-kill.
- Precisions Auto Rifles
  - Base Damage from 19 to 19.4, Critical Hit Damage from 33.6 to 33.95.
    - Reduces the nerf they received in Destiny 2: Into the Light by ~50%.
- High-Impact Auto Rifles
  - Base Damage from 22 to 23, Critical Hit Damage from 40.1 to 41.4.
    - Slightly increases forgiveness and range after damage falloff.
- Precision Hand Cannons
  - Base Damage from 40.4 to 45.3, Critical Hit Damage from 70.25 to 70.2.
    - Decreases body shot time-to-kill.
- Heavy Burst Hand Cannons
  - Base Damage from 23.8 to 24, Critical Hit Damage from 49.6 to 52.8.
    - Slightly increases forgiveness and range after damage falloff, allows better interaction with damage boosts.
- Heavy Burst Pulse Rifles
  - Critical Hit Damage from 41.95 to 42.55 (RPM increased to ~320).
    - Decreases optimal time-to-kill from 0.87s to 0.80s.
- Aggressive Scout Rifles
  - Critical Hit Damage from 91.1 to 91.8.
    - Allows better interaction with damage boosts.