Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion is set to wholesale rework many of the title’s legacy features, and two major community pain points from the endgame experience are a part of the major changes that developer Bungie hopes will consolidate and streamline Destiny 2’s systems.
Announced in today’s blog post titled “Buildcrafting Evolved,” Bungie said the game’s Match Game modifier in high-difficulty content is being removed entirely and the Champions present in the likes of Nightfall strikes and raids will be getting more ways to be countered.
Both of these features have been subject to fan frustration for years now, and Bungie seems aware of this as it went in-depth on the improvements coming to both when Lightfall launches next month.
“One thing that has always played a huge part in how you set up your builds is Match Game,” Bungie said. “It’s been pretty much a requirement that you diversify your damage types or end up facing shields that feel hopeless to break. We want to remove this restriction and allow more freedom with how you create your builds to take advantage of new element-specific mods.”
Instead of first adjusting the modifier, Match Game will be removed entirely. In its place, shields in Destiny 2’s PvE content will be adjusted universally. Base shield resistance against non-matching damage types is now being lifted to 50 percent—a similar value to that found in Gambit. While this means that, on the whole, shields will be harder to break without the appropriate damage type, they will never be as hard to break as Match Game made them. Bungie also teased that it will be revealing additional ways to do bonus damage to shields in the new system prior to Lightfall‘s launch.
Match Game wasn’t the only endgame system Bungie came for, though, with Champions also seeing some significant changes. “Another thing that has a huge impact on your build are Champions,” the dev team said, acknowledging the limited anti-Champion mod system players currently depend on. “We want to make how you counter Champions more logical. That should also make it easier to learn how to deal with them in the first place.”
Champions aren’t being removed in the same way Match Game is, but instead, every subclass is now getting passive methods for countering Champions as well.
These new methods for stunning Champions use the keywords that were first introduced with Stasis in Beyond Light and then given to the Light subclasses in the 3.0 rework as part of The Witch Queen. Not every subclass will be capable of countering every type of Champion, but it will allow players more flexibility and options regardless of what they bring into endgame content instead of relying exclusively on Artifact mods.
The new anti-Champion options are as follows:
- Barrier Champions (Solar, Void, and Strand counter): Volatile Rounds now have intrinsic anti-Barrier functionality. If a player is Radiant, all of their attacks can now pierce through a Champion’s barrier. Strand will also have a method to counter Barrier champions, but Bungie is remaining tight-lipped on it.
- Overload Champions (Arc, Stasis, and Void counter): If an Overload Champion is damaged by Jolt, it will now be stunned. Suppressing the Champion or slowing it with Stasis has the same ability to stun it as well.
- Unstoppable Champions (Arc, Solar, Stasis, and Strand counter): Blinding, igniting, or freezing and shattering an Unstoppable Champion will now stun the enemy. Similarly to Barrier Champions, Strand can also counter Unstoppable ones but Bungie hasn’t yet detailed how.
On top of this, dealing with Champions is going to be made a lot easier thanks to the big changes coming to the seasonal Artifact in Lightfall as well. Instead of giving you mods, the Artifact’s bonuses are being translated into perks, which are added to your character’s power passively for the duration of a season. As they are now passive perks that don’t need to be slotted, you will automatically have every anti-Champion mod active without needing them equipped.
You will only be able to have 12 of the Artifact perks active at any one time (as having an entire Artifact permanently unlocked and equipped would be a little overpowered), but the anti-Champion perks will more than likely be a mainstay in the 12 that you choose. Resetting the Artifact is also now getting its cost entirely removed, making it easier to switch up your build choices throughout a season.
All of these changes and more concerning buildcrafting, loadouts, and Elemental Wells are coming to Destiny 2 when Lightfall releases on Feb. 28. Bungie is leaning hard into improving the game’s quality of life for the expansion, and these significant updates to foundational systems seem to do just that.
