Bungie plans big PvP nerfs for Titans in Destiny 2 to rein in Crucible dominance

Destiny 2’s PvP environment has been a breeding ground for a plethora of overpowered builds to take root in recent seasons. Whether it’s The Immortal SMG’s debut or the prevalence of Arc Titans, Bungie has had a difficult time keeping the Crucible a place for balanced competition between the Guardians of the Last City.

With The Immortal already having received numerous nerfs, it’s now Titans’ turn on the chopping block. In a preview blog for season 22’s ability changes released today by Bungie, the devs revealed that Titans are set to get hit with three large nerfs in PvP when the season goes live on Aug. 22. That includes hits to their Barricade ability, the Thundercrash Super, and a reduction to the potency of the Arc Aspect Knockout to try and rein in the Crucible’s current kings.

“In PvP specifically, the prevalence of Barricades can slow down the pace of play in a manner that doesn’t have much in the way of meaningful counterplay,” the combat gameplay team at Bungie said. They further explained how they’ve been experimenting with “opt-in ways” to play around Barricades—anti-barrier rounds, origin traits, and the like—but found that such tactical choices just “aren’t really coming into play.”

“We’re making some base-level changes across different Barricade abilities, primarily targeting the strength of Towering Barricade,” Bungie said.

Those changes to Barricade are as follows:

• Towering Barricade
  • Base cooldown increased from 48 seconds to 70 seconds.
• All Barricades
  • Maximum health reduced from 600 to 500.
  • Damage resistance against PvE combatants has been increased to compensate.

But that’s not the only nerf hitting Titans next season. Arc Titan has been a notable outlier, so it’s getting its own suite of specific changes. “It probably won’t surprise you to hear that Striker has been significantly overperforming in high-level PvP activities like Trials of Osiris,” Bungie said. “While we believe that a small portion of this is due to a strong focus on Arc in the Seasonal artifact, we also believe that their base kit has a few elements that are too strong.”

Those elements in question this time around are Thundercrash and Knockout. While Thundercrash was designed as a one-off Super, the team admitted that its usage in PvP comes closer to being a roaming Super thanks to its ability to kill players mid-flight before the final impact. “We’re updating its base cooldown to reflect that,” Bungie said.

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The cooldown increase will hit low player count PvP modes like Trials of Osiris the hardest, and that similarly goes for the nerf to Knockout.

“While we want Striker to live up to its fantasy of being a close-quarters powerhouse, Knockout is currently too forgiving in letting players clean up engagements with melee attacks early in a duel, especially when combined with other melee-enhancing atoms,” Bungie said. “For season 22, we’re reducing its damage bonus against players, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on whether that should remain for future adjustments.”

Here’s the breakdown of the specifics of the nerfs coming to Arc Titans next season:

• Thundercrash
  • Increased base cooldown time from 500 seconds to 556 seconds.
    • This now matches the majority of roaming Super cooldowns.
• Knockout
  • Reduced damage bonus versus players from 50 to 30.

These changes might not entirely dethrone Titans in the Crucible, who still have access to a wide variety of powerful tools outside of the ones targeted here. But this should meaningfully move the needle back toward a more balanced state with Hunters and Warlocks in season 22 when it launches on Tuesday, Aug. 22.