Bungie aims to address Destiny 2’s radiant PvP meta in the new patch

Episode Heresy introduced reworks and updates to multiple Exotic armor pieces, and Destiny 2 players quickly discovered a new PvP meta involving Hunters, Radiant Dance Machines, and The Last Word hand cannon.

The combination of those three items alone makes PvP in Destiny 2 a nightmare if you’re looking to have fun and run something off-meta. Bungie’s global community lead, Dylan Gafner (aka dmg04), confirmed on Feb. 9 that a patch is planned for Thursday to address this.

This patch is needed more than ever because Trials of Osiris got a massive rework in Heresy, making the mode more accessible to the wider playerbase regarding matchmaking and rewards. Leaving Crucible in the current state for the first weekend of Trials will make the mode a disaster, to say the least.

Updated Radiant Dance Machines now improve airborne effectiveness and hip fire mobility, range, and accuracy for Primary weapons. Multi-kills with Primary weapons refund dodge energy. Powerful combatants and Guardians count as more than one kill. The hip-fire weapon buff makes it perfect to run with The Last Word hand cannon or the new Lodestar Exotic trace rifle. Getting a player kill fully refunds your class ability, and multiple stacks allow you to spam abilities as long as you land your shots.

There are multiple ways you can go around using these dodges. Pairing RDM with Acrobat’s Dodge allows for an almost constant Radiant buff uptime. However, the most deadly combination right now is the new On the Prowl Aspect with Vanishing Step on a Void subclass. With this setup, you can use your class ability to go invisible on demand and trigger On the Prowl, marking an enemy. Killing marked enemies grants ability energy and creates a cloud of weakening smoke you and your teammates can use to go invisible. Those Aspects, paired with multiple dodge charges from RMD, allow you to be invisible almost all the time.

Needless to say, this build allows for an unhealthy snowball effect and ability spam that shouldn’t exist inside of PvP. The patch to address this is planned for Thursday. Until then, jump into the Crucible at your own risk.