Destiny 2 brings long-awaited Prismatic Hunter nerf in September update

Prismatic Hunters have been a problem for Destiny 2 PvP since their release in The Final Shape. Many players feel their constant ability spam is annoying to play against, so Bungie is cooking up a host of nerfs (alongside a few buffs) for early September.

In an Aug. 28 Reddit thread, the Destiny 2 developer revealed a preview of changes coming to Hunters, which are planned for the next update in early September. The Threaded Specter Aspect now increases dodge cooldown, but no longer has a dodge cooldown penalty after creating a clone. A major change to the clone is that it no longer spawns Threadlings when it’s destroyed by attacks, but its duration has also been increased.

Swarm Grenade had its base cooldown increased by 15 percent, and it’s been moved to a slower recharge tier for non-passive grenade-energy gains, meaning you won’t have the grenade up as often.

The last element of the annoying PvP Prismatic Hunter kit is the Smoke Bomb. The ability now only lingers for 3.5 seconds instead of 10, forcing you to be very proactive when using it to catch enemies. The player movement penalty when inside the Smoke Bomb has also been reduced by 25 percent.

But wait—there’s more. Bungie is planning additional changes to Hunters in Episode two. The adjustments include increased Threaded Specter clone detonation damage to combatants by 33 percent, easier-to-shoot Swarm Grenade submunitions, and the ability to chain-detonate Swarm Grenade submunitions.

Although the preview doesn’t mention the Storm’s Edge super, these three abilities combined already make Prismatic Hunter one of the worst subclasses to play against in PvP, according to players. There’s always a clone, a grenade, or smoke lying around somewhere, leaving less room for gunplay.

Bungie highlighted that these changes affect both PvE and PvP and are subject to change if “any issues arise.”