Bungie Is Investing In Destiny 2 Solar Subclasses

Bungie has outlined in the latest This Week At Bungie article how they’re going to be changing Solar subclasses moving forward into Season of Dawn. Let’s take a look at what they’re saying will shift.

Gunslinger – Way of the Sharpshooter

Bungie says that the Gunslinger subclass is almost exclusively used in PVE right now, and almost always with Celestial Nighthawk, that Helmet that combines all your shots into one much more powerful shot. The changes being made to Gunslinger will help differentiate the 3-shot and 6-shot subclasses a bit more.

For 3-shot, the auto-aim distance and reliability when aiming down sights with Golden Gun have been increased, making it more viable for long range. For 6-shot, the damage falloff range has been shortened, making it more viable for short range kills and powerful damage within that range. 6-shot will still be viable at longer ranges, it just might take an added shot to kill that enemy.

Way of the Outlaw is also being augmented with an explosive proximity knife that will stick to surfaces and detonate when enemies move past it, something I’m very much looking forward to using.

A new weighted knife is being added, which deals more damage but has a longer wind up to the throw. The knife travels faster, bounces off of surfaces once, and does improved damage with headshots. A precision shot final blow will completely refill the melee, and the knife is a one hit precision kill in PVP.

Other changes being made include Practice Makes Perfect’s length being extended, and Knock em Down. This new perk increases weapon stability and ADS speed with precision final blows. The timer starts at 10 seconds, but subsequent final blows will increase it up to 25 seconds. If you cast your Super with this buff above 20 seconds then it gets consumed and grants extra damage for you, though it won’t stack with the Celestial Nighthawk.

Finally we have Line em Up, which brings in old perks from Crowd Pleaser, meaning the Golden Gun can cause extra precision damage, and precision hits drop Orbs of Light.

Sunbreaker – Code of the Devastator

Bungie says that this subclass was actually underperforming in PVP, so that’s where they’ve focused their changes.

The Roaring Flame perk has seen a boost to bonus damage, and the buff lasts for 25 percent longer, which will make it easier to build and maintain stacks between encounters. The base damage for the Throwing Hammer melee has been increased, making it more lethal with Roaring Flames active in PVP. The range at which you have to get to the hammer once you’ve thrown it in order to pick it up has also been decreased.

Burning Maul will last longer, which gives Guardians time to think about how to use it, instead of spamming the slam button and hoping for the best. The height of the heavy-slam explosion is also, well higher now too, making it easier to take down those airborne Guardians.

Throwing Hammer’s impact damage has been increased from 100 to 120, and the hammer pickup radius has shifted to 3.5 metres from 2 metres. The animation for hammer throw has also been changed to fit a higher damage hammer, so I guess you look like you’re throwing harder?

The damage bonus for Roaring Flames has been increased from 10 percent to 25 percent per stack in PVP, and the duration boosted to 20 seconds from 15 seconds.

Burning Maul’s duration has been increased to 28.5 seconds from 21.2 seconds. The light attack now only requires 3 percent of energy, instead of 5 percent, and the animation makes it easier to chain light attacks. The heavy attack’s ground slam now detonates when it detects enemies above it, and detonation radius has been increased. However, the energy cost for heavy attacks has also increased, from 6 percent to 8 percent.

Dawnblade – Attunement of Sky

With this subclass, Bungie wanted to give us the fantasy of being a burning angel. As such, they’ve decreased the speed for Burst Glide in Daybreak, which they know is controversial, but it’s a necessary evil to buff up Attunement of Sky.

A new melee, Celestial Fire is incoming. The melee fires a spiral of three explosive Solar projectiles.

Heat Rises has been reworked, consuming grenades to extend glide time, as well as dramatically decreasing the penalty for accuracy n weapons whilst aiming in the air.

Winged Sun has been reworked so you can fire weapons, use Celestial Fire, and throw grenades whilst gliding. Any final blows while airborne will extend the duration of Heat Rises and grant melee energy.

Icarus Dash has been reworked, so tapping crouch twice will dodge in midair. Dodging while in Daybreak will push players farther, and use less Super energy under the effects of Heat Rises. The nature of this rework means that Wings of Sacred Dawn, an Exotic piece of Chest Armour, now has a buff that means it gains 15 percent damage resistance with Tome of Dawn active.

Our Take

It’s great to see Bungie reworking older subclasses to make them useful again in Destiny 2 as it is today. As they point out, these subclasses were built for the game when it was a lot slower, so now they need an upgrade.

It will be interesting to see what Bungie does with the other Solar subclasses, they say that they’ve got more changes than just these on the way in Season of Dawn. Let us know what you think about the changes in the comments.

Image Sources: Bungie