Why is Bungie Increasing Shotgun Sliding Spread in Season 15?

In its recent This Week at Bungie article, the developer revealed what I think is a pretty shocking change being made in Season 15. It’s going to increase the spread of your shotgun pellets by 15% while you’re sliding. That is a change that seems to go against the grain of what every Guardian wants in Destiny 2. Sliding with a shotgun is the most viable way to kill an enemy in the Crucible. It’s spammed throughout every match. Why would you go ahead and make it even more viable after nerfing shotguns in Season 14? It doesn’t make sense.

Sliding Shotguns

Sliding into a Guardian with a shotgun and blasting them has been a great tactic for racking up kills since Destiny 1. Something about the nature of these weapons means that this act is always good for a guaranteed kill. Even if you don’t have decent aim, the spread is good enough that you can wipe a Guardian out if you soften them up a little first.

Whilst Bungie is destabilizing shotguns while you slide a little from Season 15 as well, and adding 1.5X flinch, it’s not going to make a difference. The developer says that this change looks a lot scarier on paper than it is in practice. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it.

This change means that the spray from your shotgun will spread 15% wider from the barrel while sliding. This means that you’ve got a better chance of hitting a Guardian if you slide towards them and fire. Sure, you’ll be hit with a big load of flinch and won’t be able to aim properly, but that doesn’t matter when the pellets will hit any Guardian even vaguely in front of you anyway.

I don’t have a solution to offer here. I think Bungie is going to have to work really hard to break this cycle of shotgun sliding. I’d be sad to see it go because I’m sort of nostalgic about it. However, if the developer wants to break it, this is the wrong way to do it.

I think part of the issue stems from the fact that no matter how much it tests the Crucible, Bungie can’t account for what every Guardian is going to do. There’s no way to see how a system can be abused until it is. This is an uphill battle that Bungie is fighting, and with this change, it’s going to lose a lot of ground.

Let us know what you think in the comments.