Destiny 2’s forlorn heavy archetypes are getting a buff next month

Destiny 2 gave players two Caster-Frame swords this season, despite them being far from the most-popular pick. This nearly forgotten archetype is getting a buff with Update 7.3.5, though, and other abandoned heavy weapons will also get some firepower in the next major patch.

Destiny 2‘s March 5 update plans to bring up the level of some heavy ammo weapons that are struggling to keep up with the competition: certain rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and Caster-Frame swords, as outlined in an official blog post today.

Not all rocket launchers are created equal, as evidenced by the DPS kings Apex Predator and Cold Comfort. Two of four rocket launcher archetypes have carved their way to the top due to dealing more damage: Agressive and Adaptive archetypes had 10 percent more damage compared to the baseline High-Impact, which deals 10 percent more than the Precision Frames.

With the upcoming update, however, Bungie will give those two lesser-used archetypes some room to shine. Precision Frames will get two extra rounds and their damage will go up by five percent. High-Impact Frames are also getting the same treatment, though their extra damage is going mostly to explosions to help add-clear. Bait and Switch, a significant part of Apex and Comfort’s supremacy, will be nerfed to 30 percent bonus damage across the board, down from 35.

Heavy grenade launchers are also slated for buffs (intentional ones, this time). While these weapons are “fairly strong mathematically, it hasn’t moved the needle,” Bungie said in the blog post. The developer is giving them more ammo on reserves—anything between six and 10 shots—with more damage. Spike Grenades is also catching a nerf, which will make it less mandatory.

Heavy Wave-Frame grenade launchers, on the other hand, are getting a flat buff: They’ll cover an area 40 percent wider and deal 20 percent more damage. It may seem like a drastic buff, but the game’s only heavy Wave-Frame grenade launcher so far (Neomuna’s Dimensional Hypotrochoid) was a niche pick among niche picks.

Caster-Frame swords are also among the lesser-used archetypes getting some love. Season 23 brought two of them alone: Chivalric Fire as a ritual weapon and Dragoncult Sickle from Warlord’s Ruin, which amounts to half of the swords with that archetype in the game (or three-fifths, if you count Sola’s Scar as two for its regular and Adept versions). With Update 7.3.5, Bungie is dropping the cost to four energy (down from five) and giving it 16 percent more damage. Wave-Frames’ gimmick is the ranged attack, though these archetypes are often benched in favor of Vortex Frames or Lament.

The March 5 update also brings a litany of tweaks, including far-reaching changes to the Crucible, a series of nerfs and buffs to weapons, and more. The blog post outlines most of the changes, but players can expect the full patch notes closer to the end of the month.