Destiny 2 Season 21: Abilities Tuning Breakdown (Winners and Losers)

The Winners and Losers of the Season 21 Abilities Tuning Preview

Bungie announced all of the subclass and ability changes that will be coming with Season 21.

This article will go over and summarize the upcoming changes and how they will impact the meta going forward, and what weapons and subclasses will benefit or be hurt by these changes.

As a reminder, Destiny 2’s Season 21 will officially begin on May 21st!

Bungie’s latest update for Destiny 2, The Final Shape, is here with a new Prismatic Subclass. Elevate your game with the best Prismatic builds for Hunters, Warlocks, and Titans.

TLDR Winners and Losers

These changes are mostly buffs, but there are classes, weapons, etc. that benefited from the changes and some that will be hurt by the changes.

Here are some thoughts on how this will affect the meta of next season.

If you want to dive into the nitty-gritty details that we factored in for this section, check out our breakdowns by class later on in the article.

Winners

• Incandescent and Abilities that apply Scorch
  • Scorch stacks won’t fall off as quickly. Making it easier for enemies scorched from Incandescent weapons such as CALUS Mini-Tool, Ammit, and Acasia’s Dejection easier to ignite in PvE and enemies in PvP will retain scorch stacks for longer, making them unable to recover health for longer. Young Ahamkara’s Spine builds can potentially be even stronger and more annoying in PvP.
• Solar Subclasses, especially Hunters
  • Solar is already in a good spot with Solar Warlock being the best class in the game in PvE and a great class in PvP which benefits from the scorch changes and should be elated from no nerfs. Titans get some small but nice changes.
  • Lastly Hunters look very interesting in PvE with the Gunpowder Gamble buff giving it a reduced cooldown and an extra Fragment, but more notably a sizable 20% damage boost to golden gun for boss damage. Celestial Nighthawk can see a nice boost with this damage buff. Star Eater Scales and Celestial Nighthawk have comparable DPS with Marksman Golden Gun, but Celestial has the benefit of only having to aim one shot. Lastly with the Armor Charge system, the Orbs that a precision hit with Marksman Golden Gun makes, it’ll be a good super to use in the middle of a damage phase to get Armor Charge for bonus damage from Surge mods.
• Void Titan
  • Already in a good spot, especially in zone based PvP game modes, Void Titan gets a nice buff in an extra Fragment with Bastion. Bastion is essentially a must use, and this patch will give them an extra Fragment. This will definitely outweigh the change to Shield Bash.
• Roaming Supers
  • All supers got a 20% damage resistance boost in PvE, and roaming supers will notice this by far the most. Many roaming supers received a damage buff alongside this as well. Solar Titan is already in a solid spot for its survivability, a boost to Burning Maul and Hammer of Sol is a nice bump for an already good class.

Losers

• Voltshot and Two-Tailed Fox
  • Jolt received a nerf which in turns hurts Voltshot and Two-Tailed Fox’s catalyst. Both of these are great meta options, and with Arc most likely being involved with the next seasonal artifact it’s a shame these got nerfed. This very well could be a proactive change to Jolt due to good things to come to Arc in the Season 21 artifact. Ikelos_SMG and Iterative Loop will still be good weapons, but they’ll definitely take a small step back.
• Arc Warlock
  • Arguably one of the worst subclasses across both PvE and PvP, its one good ability in PvP, Lightning Surge, had a bug fixed to prevent excessive damage to other guardians. With this it will be very hard to justify using this subclass in any aspect of the game.

Neutral

• Darkness Subclasses
  • Both Stasis and Strand got some buffs across the board, but in general I don’t think these will boost where they are in the meta. Strand Titan is the best of these and all it received was a slight melee cooldown reduction
• Arc Titan in PvP
  • This class will still be good. The only difference is a slight melee range reduction, and needing to spec into Strength a tad. The class doesn’t need to have mobility and spend some points in strength to get Shoulder Charge back for mobility in 10-12 seconds with mid tier Strength.

Warlock Changes

Void

• Increased Fragment slots from 1 to 2 for Chaos Accelerant
• Chaos Accelerant will have the following changes:
  • Scatter Grenade
    • Increased tracking abilities ↑
    • Changes to prevent the projectiles (submunitions) from detonating too early by increasing submunition arm time and preventing the floor from detonating submunitions ↑
  • Magnetic Grenade
    • Increased charged hold time from 3.2 to 4.5 seconds ↓
• Nova Warp +15% PvE damage ↑
• Nova Bomb +20% PvE damage ↑

Arc

• Stormtrance
  • +25% PvE damage ↑
  • Damage ramp up occurs over a 3 second period rather than a 5 second period ↑
  • Landfall and Seekers will Jolt targets ↑
• Chaos Reach
  • +25% PvE damage ↑
  • Sustained damage will create a lightning strike that will Jolt the target ↑
  • PvP damage resistance increased from 40% to 50% ↑
  • Max strafe speed increased from 3.5 to 4.5 m/s ↑
  • Camera angle is adjusted to prevent body blocking the view of targets ♻
• Ball Lightning (Melee Ability)
  • PvE damage +30% ↑
  • Changed to have the first and second blasts both hit the target when amplified ↑
• Lightning Surge will have a PvP bug fixed in which it is one hit killing guardians, and the ability will now deal more consistent damage as a result ♻

Solar

Adjusted camera to prevent projectiles from blocking view of targets ♻

Strand

• Arcane Needle (Melee Ability)
  • Cooldown is reduced, and reduction is scaled based on charges available. With 0 charges cooldown reduced by 15% and with 2 charges reduced by 30% ↑
  • Increased initial and terminal velocity (Initial 30-40 m/s, Terminal 60-70 m/s) ↑
  • Tracking strengthened improved by 10% ↑

Stasis

• Frostpulse will increase melee lunge distance by 2 meters for 1.2 seconds ↑
• Winter’s Wrath +10% PvE damage ↑

Titan Changes

Void

• Increased Fragment slots from 1 to 2 for the Bastion Aspect ↑
• Sentinel Shield +20% PvE damage ↑
• Shield Bash
  • Uses 15% of its cooldown when used for movement ↓
  • Base cooldown reduced to 91 seconds ↑

Arc

• Increased Fragment slots from 1 to 2 for the Juggernaut Aspect
• Fists of Havoc
  • Light attack cost reduced from 8.5% to 6% ↑
  • Heavy attack cost reduced from 18% to 12% ↑
  • Heavy attack PvE damage +33% ↑
  • Heavy attack will blind targets near the center of the slam ↑
• Knockout
  • Melee attack lunge range reduced from 6.5m to 5.5m ↓
  • Uncharged melee PvE damage bonus increased from 60% to 100% ↑
• Seismic Strike
  • Uses 15% of its cooldown when used for movement ↓
  • Base cooldown reduced to 91 seconds ↑

Solar

• Hammer of Sol +10% PvE damage ↑
• Burning Maul
  • PvE damage +10% ↑
  • Will create a Sunspot on cast when Sol Invictus is equipped ↑
  • Heavy attack cyclone will apply scorch ↑
• Throwing Hammer will have improved initial flight trajectory based on aim assist ↑
• Hammer Strike
  • Uses 15% of its cooldown when used for movement ↓
  • Base cooldown reduced to 91 seconds ↑
• Sol Invictus sunspot damage increased from 17 to 22 in PvP ↑

Strand

• Frenzied Blade (Melee Ability)
  • Cooldown is reduced, and reduction is scaled based on charges available. With 0 charges cooldown reduced by 15% and with 2 charges reduced by 30% ↑

Stasis

• Howl of the Storm (Aspect) freezing area will be 31% wider ↑
• Shiver Strike (Melee) will have 16% increased velocity and have 18% less influence from gravity ↑
• Glacial Quake
  • Increased Shiver Strike thrust velocity by 10% when used during super ↑
  • +20% light attack damage ↑

Hunter Changes

Void

• Increased Fragment slots from 1 to 2 for the Trapper’s Ambush Aspect ↑
• Spectral Blades
  • +35% PvE damage ↑
  • Heavy attack will weaken on hit, making the target take more damage ↑
  • Bug fix of poor hit detection with right-handed light attacks ↑
• Snare Bomb weaken duration increased from 4 to 8 seconds ↑

Arc

• Arc Staff +20% PvE damage ↑
• Gathering Storm (All changes are in PvP)
  • Direct impact damage in PvP increased from 200 to 300 ↑
  • Delayed lightning strike damage to players increased from 300 to 500 ↑
  • Lingering lightning tick damage to players increased from 40 to 60 ↑
  • Will deal increased damage to Well of Radiance and Ward of Dawn ↑

Solar

• Increased Fragment slots from 1 to 2 for the Gunpowder Gamble Aspect ↑
• Gunpowder Gamble cooldown reduced from 12 to 6 seconds ↑
• Golden Gun +20% PvE damage ↑
• Proximity Explosive Knife
  • Detonation damage in PvP reduced from 105 to 90 ↓
  • Impact damage in PvP increased from 14 to 20 ↑
• Weighted Throwing Knife
  • Reduced projectile tracking when on mouse and keyboard ↓
• Lightweight Knife
  • Projectile speed increased from 30 m/s to 40 m/s ↑
  • Improved tracking by 20% ↑

Strand

• Threaded Spike (Melee)
  • Increased travel range by 30% ↑
  • +55% increased PvE damage ↑
  • Reduced speed when near the player to make catching it easier ↑
  • Increased energy gain for catching the dart ↑
  • Will pierce Cabal Phalanx shields ↑
  • Grapple melee will be prioritized over catching the projectile if an enemy is in range ♻

Stasis

• Withering Blade
  • Increased projectile tracking by 20% after a bounce in PvP ↑
  • Increased maximum tracking strength by 12.5% ↑

General Subclass Changes

These next few changes will apply to all classes of a certain subclass element. There are also a few changes that will eek over into weapons as well.

• All Super damage resistance increased by 20% in PvE ↑
• Grapple reduced cooldown from 105 to 82 seconds ↑
• Time between Grapple activations reduced from 2.5 seconds to 0.2 seconds ↑
• Thread of Generation reduced grenade energy from damage over time sources and Trace Rifles ↓
• Scorch
  • In PvP stacks begin to fall off after 2.3 seconds (from 1.5) ↑
  • In PvE stacks begin to fall off after 4.5 seconds (from 3) ↑
• Jolt
  • PvE damage -15% ↓
  • Reduced additional damage scalar to major combatants in PvE by 20% ↓
• Speed Booster
  • Bonus jump acceleration scalar reduced from 1.5x to 1.25x ↓
  • Now activates sooner when sprinting after 2.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds ↑
  • Remains active while the player is not sprinting for 2 seconds, up from 1.5 seconds ↑
  • Fixed a bug where if the player was already sprinting and then became amplified, speed booster would not be granted ↑

Closing Thoughts

There are a lot of changes here, so it might seem like there will be a large shake up to the meta. Overall I don’t think they will be enough to overhaul the meta, but more so introduce some new alternatives by bringing some top options slightly down, and a few middle of the pack options up.

Roaming supers will get a nice boost, and will see an uptick in strikes and non-boss encounters, but support and burst supers will still be best for DPS encounters. Getting a better feel for the Jolt changes, especially during boss DPS can potentially be the biggest change here due to the interaction of all players in a fireteam creating excess damage from a Jolted target which is why Two-Tailed Fox or any means of Jolting a boss during DPS is so strong at the moment.

Nonetheless, Jolt will still be a good means of passive damage during raids, and the means in which it is most efficiently applied may change and can potentially be through Gathering Storm or Pulse Grenades. This Jolt change can very well be Bungie trying to get ahead of the power of Arc modifiers in the Season 21 artifact, and if that’s the case that can be a nice shakeup to the weapon meta which has had a lot of void due to Volatile Flow.

The artifact will offer the biggest changes to the meta of the next season, and it may feature Stasis as well. Stasis and Strand got some nice little updates, but on their own they do not appear to be meta defining in any way. In order for Stasis to truly get into the meta it’ll have to be through the artifact. Stasis is on the verge of being very strong, and I don’t believe these changes are enough to bring it into the limelight, but some good artifact mods can definitely do that.

In terms of PvP the only true nerf was to Arc Titan, and Titan’s movement abilities by utilizing part of the cooldown when using melee for movement. Overall Arc Titan will still be a top option, and if anything creeps into its space it will be Void Titan which received a buff through an extra Fragment, opening up more options in a PvP build.

Be sure to be on the lookout for new builds once Season 21 comes around. We’ll feature the best builds of Season 21 based on the changes and the introduction of a whole new, game-changing artifact.