Destiny 2 reverts Hunter dodge nerf, but it might not be the buff you think it is

With how prevalent abilities have become in both PvE and PvP environments in Destiny 2, Bungie is taking a hard look at subclasses and regeneration rates. Last month, Hunters were hit with a hefty nerf to the cooldown of their class ability as a part of that process, heavily hindering their mobility.

The good news for Hunters is that this nerf is already being reverted, as announced in a blog released today that breaks down what to expect from abilities when Lightfall launches on Feb. 28. However, ability regeneration rates for class abilities as a whole are seeing major tweaks that might still prevent Hunter dodge from returning to its former glory.

In Lightfall, the efficacy of a class ability’s stat on its regeneration rate is getting re-scaled. The example Bungie gives is that a tier 10 stat going forward will provide the regeneration rate that a tier 8 stat does in the current patch. This lowers the potential ceiling on cooldown reductions that can be achieved through the right armor stats, but the scaling through all 10 tiers will now be more consistent as opposed to spiking heavily in the lower tiers.

“While this change looks like a lot on paper,” the team admits, “we believe the buildcrafting improvements coming in Lightfall will more than make up for it.”

Those improvements concern some major changes to how mods operate, with it now being possible to equip more combat-style mods with ease thanks to lowered costs and additional mod slots to be utilized. While stats now have less of an impact on your ability cooldowns, the difference can be made up for through the right buildcrafting choices with the more greatly expanded system.

It’s because of these changes that Bungie feels comfortable reverting the nerfs made to the Hunter dodge’s default cooldowns. There are more in-depth details still to come in the patch notes that will launch alongside the expansion, but these changes have come as a sort of preview of what to expect from them.

• The base cooldown of Marksman’s Dodge has been reduced from 34 seconds to 29 seconds.
• The base cooldown of Gambler’s Dodge has been reduced from 46 seconds to 38 seconds.

We won’t know how this change feels in practice until Lightfall drops, and we can test how the default cooldown improvements work in tandem with the reductions to ability cooldown rates provided by stats. For now though, it’s a nice change to see when the original nerf felt unnecessary to many Hunter plays in the community.