Crucible fans rejoice: Destiny 2 hits Strand and Bows with PvP nerfs in major tuning update

Next month is going to be a big one if you’re a PvP fan in Destiny 2. With Update 7.3.5 on March 5, not only is Bungie overhauling many of the Crucible’s fundamental systems, but it’s also addressing some of the current season’s biggest balance outliers.

In a This Week in Destiny blog released today, Bungie outlined PvP-specific nerfs which will affect the viability of the Threaded Specter Strand Aspect, Threadlings, bows, and even took another swing at Target Lock on SMG’s. These will all be small changes in the grand scheme of the wider Crucible rework unveiled within the same post, but will be music to the ears of the PvP players who have been decrying the current state of these overperforming items.

“Threaded Specter is currently overperforming in high-level PvP activities, particularly Trials of Osiris,” they wrote. In Bungie’s eyes, there were two key issues that drove this overperformance: the Aspect’s uptime and the Threadlings it can generate. The developer is addressing both aspects in the same patch, hitting Threaded Specter with a class ability regeneration penalty and reducing the amount of damage a Threadling can do to players from 40 down to 35.

“We realize these changes are not localized to Threadrunner and will also affect Broodweaver potency in the Crucible,” Bungie pointed out. “To compensate for this, we’re pulling some other buffs forward that we originally planned to ship in The Final Shape to keep the power of their overall kit in roughly the same place.”

The buffs in question tie into one Warlock ability entirely disconnected from the potency of their Threadlings—the Arcane Needle melee ability. The melee is getting a wide breadth of improvements, including significantly improved aim assist and stronger tracking to the projectile. Whether that will make up for the hit to Threadlings is uncertain, but with the nerfs mostly relegated to things which will exclusively affect the PvP environment, Warlocks shouldn’t be feeling the squeeze in PvE as much.

Weapons were just as much of a talking point for PvP as well. “Bows continue to be hard for some players to counter in PvP,” they said. “They’ve always been strong, but we recently made them easier to use by making their fully drawn projectiles hitscan at longer distances, which makes them much more reliable at range.” While Bungie plans to keep this change, the aim assist on bows—especially at long range—is being reduced to make them a bit harder to use.

In a similar vein, Target Lock as a perk has continued to be a problem child in Destiny 2 PvP despite the nerfs it has already received. “Target Lock is a large part of the reason why SMG popularity has remained high despite changes to the weapon archetype,” they said.

The new nerf on March 5 is specific to its functionality on SMGs, with the hope it doesn’t kill the perk entirely, but instead makes it “much less oppressive” in PvP. It’ll now activate later in the magazine of an SMG (at 20 percent instead of 12.5 percent), meaning players can’t as easily swing a gunfight with the damage buff alone.

Target Lock isn’t the only issue on the chopping block. Wish-Ender, the Exotic bow, has also been lined up for a nerf due to its prevalence in PvP. It’s Exotic perk, Queen’s Wrath, is a “big part” of its identity, as Bungie admits, but it’s “far too useful in PvP” in its current form as well. In Update 7.3.5, Bungie is making it so the True Sight the perk grants will deactivate if you leave ADS or if you hold it active for longer than three seconds. You’ll only need to re-draw the bow to reactivate it, but the change at least prevents players from having permanent vision through walls.

All of these changes are coming alongside a major sandbox update which will see everything, from player health and ability cooldowns to the special ammo economy, reworked in the Crucible. It’s some of the first work Destiny 2 players will get to see from the newly formed PvP Strike Team announced at the end of last year. Players will be able to try it out for themselves when Update 7.3.5 launches on March 5.