Destiny 2 Update 2.2.0 Patch Notes Explored In-Depth

Earlier this week Bungie released the patch notes for Destiny 2 Update 2.2.0. These notes were extensive to say the very least, so we’re going to go through them and write out what exactly is changing in layman’s terms. Hopefully this helps you out.

Tower Updates

The Tower Annex Landing Zone has now been made available to all players. This is the area that those with the Season Pass got when Season of the Forge went live, and drops you closer to The Drifter and Ada-1. I imagine this will be extremely handy fort his coming season, particularly since The Drifter has now relocated to The Annex.

Clan Updates

Daily Clan Bounties have now been removed from circulation entirely in favour of all activities now contributing to Clan Banner XP once again. Raid Challenge Bounties for Last Wish and Scourge of the Past will be available for the foreseeable future.

In addition to Raid Bounties you can now pick up Hawthorne Bounties, (from Hawthorne), which are what Weekly Clan Bounties have been renamed to. There are three categories of Hawthorne Bounty: PVE, PVP, and Raid, each for what you’d think they’re for.

Some old Clan perks have returned alongside brand new ones for the Season of the Drifter. These are:

• Clan Level 2 Perk: Increased rewards from Public Events
• Clan Level 3 Perk: Mod Components will be awarded from the completion of Hawthorne Bounties
• Clan Level 4 Perk: Enhancement Cores will be awarded for completing Clan Vendor Challenges
• Clan Level 5 Perk: When playing with Clanmates the drop rate of Crucible and Strike Catalysts is increased
• Clan Level 6 Perk: An additional Weekly Clan Bounty will be available from Hawthorne

Sandbox Updates

The Sandbox updates are probably the most extensive for the whole patch, so we’re going to break them down a little differently to how they appear in the official article just to help you digest them.

Weapon Updates

Shotguns

The Full-Auto Trigger System on Shotguns now won’t increase the Shotgun pellet spread, and the rate of fire bonus has been brought down from 100% to just 10%. In order to align with this on a per sub-archetype basis base damage for Shotguns has been reduced. The rate of fire values have now been tuned to the following:

• 45 RPM for Aggressive Frame is increased 55 RPM
• 55 RPM for Precision Frame is now increased to 65 RPM
• 80 RPM is unchanged for Lightweight Frame
• 200 RPM for Rapid-Fire Frame has now been reduced to 140 RPM
• 60 RPM has been increased to 80 RPM for The Chaperone
• 80 RPM as been clarified, the tooltip said 84 RPM previously, for Tractor Cannon
• 45 RPM for Legend of Acrius has been increased to 55 RPM

In PVE all Shotguns have now been given a damage bonus. This bonus basically doubles the damage shotguns deal in PVE, although Bungie say legend of Acrius is an exception to this rule. To compensate for this increase in damage the reserve pool of ammo for Shotguns has been reevaluated, which I think just means reduced.

Submachine Guns

Base damage for Submachine Guns has been increased across the board, and Precision Damage has seen a small decrease. Overall you’re getting higher damage with less accuracy.

Machine Guns

The ammo bonus Machine Guns receive from the Machine Gun Reserves perk has now been cut in half. The damage Machine Guns deal to both minibosses and bosses has also been cut by 21%. In summary, your Machine Guns won’t hold as much ammo as you’d like, and they’re not as viable against the larger enemies in PVE anymore.

Trace Rifles

Given that there are a grand total of three Trace Rifles in Destiny 2 right now; Coldheart, Prometheus Lens, and Wavesplitter, I can’t see any changes here being massively impactful. The update increased the damage they all deal in PVE by 30%. This makes Trace Rifles even more of pain in Gambit, Gambit Prime, and the Crucible. I don’t think they needed this but here we are.

Grenade Launchers

The PVE damage for Grenade Launchers has been given a boost of 25%. Unless this makes them more accurate I’d still consider them useless though.

The reserve ammo for nearly every single Grenade Launcher has been given an increase as well. In most cases the increase is by three rounds, but certain perks buff this up a bit to say five rounds with Field Prep for example. Magazine Perks and Mods have been changed so that they now no longer affect your ammo reserves. Right now there is a bug that reduces your Grenade Launcher starting ammo in PVE, but Bungie say this is going to be fixed in a future patch.

The Quick Access Sling Mod has been updated so that it can now be applied to any archetype, which means any of you Guardians who managed to get The Mountaintop (stay away from e in the Crucible) can now strap it on there.

In addition to the above the Backup Mag Mod can now also be applied to Militia’s Birthright. Bungie note that this Mod wasn’t intended for use on Breech Loaded Grenade Launchers, and didn’t actually increase the ammo for Militia’s Birthright.

Rocket Launchers

The PVE damage for Rocket Launchers has been increased by between 60% and 65% overall. I’m not sure you’ll notice the increase because they were pretty damn powerful to begin with in my opinion.

The damage for Cluster Bomb has been reduced by 80%, with the reduction being made up for in the increased damage the projectile of the Rocket Launcher will now do.

Linear Fusion Rifles

All Linear Fusion Rifles, with the exception of Sleeper Simulant, have seen an increase in damage of 10%. Aim assist has been reduced across the board, including the bonus received by the Combat Sights scope, and an issue that would grant double the amount of aim assist to Queenbreaker has been patched. Overall Linear Fusion Rifles are even harder to aim, deal a bit more damage, and Queenbreaker is still overpowered.

Weapon Specific Updates

These updates apply to specific weapons, just to make that really clear.

Two-Tailed Fox

The PVE damage for my favourite Rocket Launcher has been increased by 26%. As if Two-Tailed Fox needed this boost being the best Exotic Rocket Launcher in the game.

The Cuddly Throwback ornament for Two-Tailed Fox had an issue that muddied the weapon’s resolution when seen in third person, which has been optimised now.

One Thousand Voices

Similar to Two-Tailed Fox’s update, the PVE damage for One Thousand Voices has been increased by 25%.

Wardcliff Coil

Once again we’re seeing an increase in PVE damage for this weapon, but Wardcliff Coil sees an increase of 115% against bosses, and 160% against weaker enemies.

Black Talon

Projectile damage for Black Talon, which is an incredible weapon by the way, has been increased by 15% in PVE.

Sleeper Simulant

The max ammo reserve for Sleeper Simulant has been decreased. Now the max is 9 instead of 13, but that’s without any perks provided by armour or Masterworks.

Whisper of the Worm

Ammo reserves have also been reduced for Whisper of the Worm. They’re decreased to 9 from 20, again this is without any perks that Masterworks or armour provide.

Tyranny of Heaven

It’s now possible to pick up Tyranny of Heaven, the Exotic Bow, with randomised perks on it.

Trinity Ghoul

There was an issue that would cause the Lightning Rod perk to malfunction, basically not activate, when Guardians made a precision kill. This has now been fixed.

There was also an issue that would cause the Arc effects from Trinity Ghoul’s Split Electron perk to be visibly floating in third person, which has also now been fixed.

The Last Word

An issue that made the Laconic ornament not appear properly on The Last Word in third person has been corrected.

Dreaded Venture

There was an issue with the animation that showed rounds cycling in the magazine of Dreaded Venture, with the Over and Done With ornament attached, has been cleaned up.

General Weapon Updates

These updates apply more generally to weapon classes and types.

The description for Jotun’s Charge Shot perk has been updated to reflect the correct button that must be held to charge the shot up.

Dragonfly Spec wasn’t working correctly under certain latency issues, but that’s now been fixed.

An issue with Izanagi’s Burden that affected its scope, causing effects from abilities and invading in Gambit to hinder it, has been fixed.

An issue that caused the Random Perk Roll warning for certain versions of Crimil’s Dagger and Hero’s Burden not to show in the tooltip has been fixed.

There is now a specific icon for Breech-Load Grenade Launchers in the kill feed and obituary to help differentiate them from Drum Grenade Launchers.

Trench Barrel has now been updated to activate on close range Lightning Ball attacks, causing bipeds to lunge.

Rapid Hit

An issue that caused Rapid Hit to activate twice on Sniper Rifle precision kills has been fixed. I think this bug was pretty helpful to be honest.

Another issue with the timer on Rapid Hit that would cause it to stop extending after it stacked 5 times after the next precision hit has also been fixed.

Swords

An issue that prevented Whirlwind Blade from stacking by 5 times due to certain combinations of perks has been fixed.

An issue where the Masterwork damage was the same for both tiers 7 and 8 for Sword Impact has been fixed.

Finally, an issue on Stryker’s Sure Hand that would cause Sword perks not to function because of certain combinations of Mods, Masterworks, and perks has also been fixed.

Bows

An issue with Le Monarque that meant it didn’t always apply poison damage when fired from longer distances has been fixed. The weapon now also appears on the Energy screen in Collections, which is correct.

The perk description for High Tension String has been updated so that it now correctly shows that it greatly increases accuracy.

The Long Shadow

An issue on The Long Shadow that caused the ATD Raptor Scope to stop highlighting enemies has been fixed.

The fix for this issue actually created a new issue, this time with the ATB Long Range Scope. The issue was that the scope would highlight enemies too, but this issue is going to be fixed in a future update.

Memento Mori

An issue that caused the Ace of Spades perk on Memento Mori not to refresh when using Hunter’s Marksman Dodge has been fixed.

An issue that caused Memento Mori to cancel prematurely when sprinting has been fixed.

These fixes have made it so that reloading Ace of Spaces no longer resets Memento Mori, but it’s still possible to refresh it when reloading after a kill.

Abilities

Titans

The max speed a Titan can achieve by using macros on a PC has been reduced, which has nerfed the used of what is commonly known as Titan Skate.

The amount of Super gained from the use of Code of the Juggernaut has been tuned so that it can’t be used indefinitely. The Super will now grant diminishing returns, 100% -> 30% over the course of 15 kills.

Warlock

An issue when invading in Gambit that caused the Handheld Supernova not to render correctly has been fixed.

Armour

All Year 2 armour will now drop with a random stat package, meaning they’ll all have random rolls when you get them. These are; Heavy, Restorative, and Mobile.

One-Eyed Mask

The duration of Mark has been reduces to 8 seconds from 15.

The Helmet no longer restores health, but will restore it alongside Overshield.

The Helmet’s perks can’t be triggered during a Super anymore.

Khepri’s Horn

The Class Energy gain from Solar Damage has been increased from 10% to 15%, and the cooldown has been reduced to 1 second from 2.

The groundfollow from Solar Blast now causes a second groundfollow towards the Guardian. The damage from groundfollow has been increased from 80 to 100, apart from in PVE where it has been doubled.

Vesper of Radius

Damage has been increased to 100 from 70, and tripled in PVE.

Sealed Ahamkara’s Grasps

The armour now procs from Smoke Bomb damage.

Ursa Furiosa

The armour now no longer counts self-damage when calculating how much Super energy to award back.

Anteaus Wards

An issue where the improved slide was not always being awarded has been fixed.

Fixes for Accessories

Cloth has been fixed so that it correctly interacts with Chopper Sparrows such as Warrior’s Steed and Gray Hornet.

An issue with Burnout Sparrow that meant that the rider’s hands didn’t always appear to grip the handles has been fixed.

A Shader introduced with the Curse of Osiris expansion, previously known as Metallic Sunrise, has been renamed to Mercurian Sunrise. The reason for this is that Forsaken added a Shader with the same original name, and has kept it after this fix.

A number of ships had issues with the lens flare effect on their engines which has now been fixed.

Reward Updates

General Reward Updates

The Power Level cap has been raised to 700.

Powerful Bounties only grant rewards at the Power Level for the expansion and season they are associated with. For example, Powerful Bounties completed for Season of the Forge will only award items at a max Power Level of 650. Any Iron Banner Bounties that Guardians have held onto from this season have been replaced and won’t award Season of the Drifter gear.

There is now a maximum stack size of 5 for Ethereal Keys from the Last Wish raid. Any keys from above that limit have been removed.

An issue that blocked some Guardians from receiving Seeds of Light has been fixed.

An issue that stopped loading gear on Guardians in the Tower if too many Guardians had their Ghosts out has been fixed.

Shaders now only take 1 second to pull from collection.

The Sturm quest step, Relics of the Golden Age, has been updated to include auto-decrypt Exotic Engrams.

Destination Reward Updates

It’s been changed so that you’ll no longer have a waypoint for the Destination Vendor when you’ve got enough materials for a reward (finally!). This has been changed because these materials are also now used for infusions, making it a pain in the ass if you’d just turned in all your materials to get rid of your waypoint on a planet when you also need to infuse a new weapon.

Crucible Reward Updates

Only the current season’s ranks and accomplishments will now be tracked with Valor and Glory Emblems.

All progression for the Crucible in previous seasons is now tracked as Triumphs, and will be from this season on.

Vendor Reward Updates

Lord Shaxx

Reprise seeded roll weapons have been added that players can earn through their Valor rank. Anyone who has already earned one of the weapons will be able to get them to drop from Engrams with random rolls without the need to progress their Valor rank.

A new Emblem has been added for Guardians to earn in their Triumph collection

A new reprise Shader has been added that Guardians can earn in their Triumph collection. Anyone who has already earned the Emblem won’t be able to earn it again.

A new Crucible Pinnacle Weapon Quest has been added, as well as a similar season-specific Crucible Triumph collection to earn as the one for The Mountaintop in Season of the Forge.

The Drifter

There are new seeded roll weapons for Guardians to earn by increasing their Infamy rank.

A new Emblem for Guardians to earn from the Gambit Triumph collection for the season has been added.

A new Gambit Pinnacle Weapon Quest has been added, and again this has a similar Triumph collection associated with it as The Mountaintop did last season.

Zavala

Reprise seeded weapon rolls have been added for players to earn from the Triumph collection. Any Guardians who have already earned the weapon will be able to get it to drop from Engrams without the need to complete the Triumph.

A new Emblem for Guardians to earn from the Triumph collection has been added.

A new reprise Shader has been added to earn from the Triumph collection is available, but any Guardians who have earned it already can’t earn it again.

A new Vanguard Pinnacle Weapon Quest has been added, with a similar Triumph collection associated with it as there was with The Mountaintop last season.

Xur

Xur can now sell Forsaken Exotic, as we found out this week. At the moment the Fated Engram doesn’t have a chance to drop Forsaken Exotics, but it will do in the future when updated.

Black Armory Updates

You’re now guaranteed to have The Black Armory Papers drop on successful completions of Gofannon Forge and Bergusia Forge.

An issue that caused Black Armory Obsidian Accelerator items not to appear at the Postmaster if your inventory was full has been fixed. Another issue that caused the item not to stack in your inventory has also been fixed, and it should now stack up to 5 times.

An issue that caused the Black Armory Key Mold quest to be bound to an account, meaning only one character could pick it up, has been fixed. An issue in The Dreaming City that caused Glimmering Amethyst not to drop from chests and contribute to the quest has also been fixed.

An issue that caused Spider to give Guardians an empty Lock and Key dialogue if they’d already completed it and obtained Izanagi’s Burden has been fixed.

An issue with The Spiteful Fang not dropping Black Armoury Schematics when dismantled has been fixed.

An issue preventing Master Smith Triumph progression from Black Armoury Rare weapons research frames has been fixed.

An issue with reforged weapons not progressing the Black Armoury Devotee Bounty has been fixed.

Challenges

An issue that prevented Guardians from getting a new Daily Challenge at reset has been fixed.

Character Boosts

An issue preventing boosted characters from receiving their class-specific Swords and Emblems and available to pull from collection has been fixed.

Collections/Triumphs

An issue that prevented Guardians who completed the season 4 Forged in Fire Triumph badge collection, and then unlocking the Forged in Fire Triumph, has been fixed.

An issue that prevented Guardians from reacquiring the Emblem from the Cold Wind Blowin Triumph has been fixed.

An issue preventing The Eternal Run from tracking Shattered Throne completions has been fixed.

An issue with the requirements for the Relic Rumble Triumph Nightfall Challenge has been fixed. The new requirement is ‘Complete Nightfall Strike – The Corrupted – by defeating Sedia using no more than 2 Relics’

An issue with unlocking the Dreaming City Triumph ‘Mint Condition’ that prevented it from unlocking upon completion of the Rift Generator Public Event with the relic never dropping below 100% has been fixed.

An issue preventing the Exotic Ghost Star Map from tracking chests in the Dreaming City has been fixed.

An issue that meant that Senior Recruiter wasn’t correctly tracking the number of friends referred has been fixed.

An issue with the number of badges in the collection being displayed incorrectly has been fixed.

Activities Updates

Gambit

Any activities The Drifter hosts now have their own sub-page in the Director. Forsaken owners can now access Gambit Private matches, which will drop on the 2nd of April 2019.

Invader Spawn Points have been significantly increased and randomised for every match and map. This has greatly reduced the chance of spawning in the line of sight of an enemy Guardian.

The third round of Gambit matches is now a Primeval rush match. Primevals are summoned immediately, all Super and ability metres are filled at the start of the match, and regeneration rates are increased until the round is over.

The spawn rate of the Ascendant Primeval is now no longer linked to the curse cycle, meaning it has been greatly increased.

Any Guardians who remain in one place for too long now won’t receive Infamy rank or rewards at the end of the match.

Blocker types have changed: Small Blockers are now a Taken Goblin with less health than the previous Phalanx, Medium Blockers are now a Taken Captain with more health than the previous Knight, and Large Blockers are now a Taken Knight with more health than the previous Ogre.

Gambit Matchmaking

Between matches teams are now always broken up. Previously it was the situation that teams would head back to matchmaking together. This is designed to decrease the chance of facing off against the same enemy team over and over again.

Infamy

Gambit Prime matches and Bounties will count towards Infamy rank gain. The Infamy rank gained from Gambit match completions has been increased by 25.

Gambit HUD

The GUD status bars now animate when returning from aiming down sights. Its’ now more obvious when the invader portal is ready both generally, and because of this.

Triumph and Medals

Killing any Guardian now counts towards the Light vs Light Triumph, not just invaders, making it far easier to attain the Dredgen title.

The ‘First to Block’ Triumph is now able to trigger once per round instead of once per match.

The time limit for the ‘Fast Fill’ Triumph has been increased to 7.5 seconds from 5.

General Fixes

An issuer causing the invader not to receive credit for healing the Primeval with post-invasion kills during the Primeval Phase has been fixed.

Issues with the High Value Target diaglogu have been corrected.

An issue causing the ‘Half Banked’ medal to be given after every mote banking from 38 motes banked has been fixed.

An issue causing the ‘Taking Turns’ medal to be awarded when 3 players invade instead of 4 has been fixed.

A graphical error on the waterfall in Legion’s Folly has been fixed.

An issue causing the Drifter to tell players the enemy team had summoned their Primeval back-to-back has been fixed. Another dialogue issue that caused the Drifter to tell Guardians to summon their Primeval after they’d already killed it has been fixed.

An issue with the ‘Block or Key’ Bounty not counting Large Blockers has been fixed.

Guardians who have been banned from Competitive playlists will now also be banned from the Gambit playlist.

Crucible

An issue where healing would take away from a Guardian’s overall damage on the PGCR screen has been fixed.

Last Wish

An issue causing frequent guitar issues has been fixed.

Nightfall

A Power Handicap of 100+ is now required for the Five Swords Challenge Card before a handicap score multiplier can be applied.

Eververse

Bright Engram

The Etched Bright Engram from season 5 has been retired and replaced by the season 6 Notorius Bright Engram.

Prismatic Matrix

This system is now gone, but we wrote about the updated version here.

IU/UX

General

A dialogue box will now popup when opening bundles with a full inventory, notifying Guardians that items will go to the Postmaster

An issue with Masterwork Objective Bars displaying 100% before it’s been achived has been fixed.

An issue causing Legendary Masterworks not to display as Masterworks when inspecting other Guardians has been fixed.

An issue with Masterwork UI on ultra-wide monitors has been fixed.

An issue with the progress bar on Triumphs displaying incorrectly has been fixed. Notifications for Triumphs constantly re-triggering when moving items with the Destiny Companion App has been fixed.

That’s the entire patch notes for the most recent update of Destiny 2. Let us know what you think in the comments!