Destiny 2’s most overpowered SMG gets big changes alongside glaive updates in season 23

Destiny 2’s season 23 won’t begin until late next month, but Bungie has already shown off some intense weapon changes—and fans of Osteo Striga poison builds won’t be too happy.

The powerful and poisonous SMG from The Witch Queen expansion is having its “SMG damage bonus scalar that was affecting poison damage” removed, which will bring it more in line with another exotic, the Warlock’s Necrotic Grip.

“Osteo Striga has been, quite frankly, far too powerful for the ease of use it provides when it comes to add clear in PvE,” Bungie said in a new blog post. “It has more range than most other SMGs, does not require kills, and does not rely heavily on precision aim to activate one of the strongest AoEs we’ve ever had in Destiny.”

So, basically, it was just a really good gun. But that was only half of the problem, according to Bungie.

“In addition, the lingering poison damage has benefited from the damage scalar that SMGs get in PvE content, which was intended to buff SMGs direct impact damage,” Bungie said. “This scalar, which is one of the highest scalars of any weapon type in the game, is pushing the poison damage to such an extreme level that it’s been difficult for any other weapon to compete in the add clear role. While it is likely that this change will not move the needle on Osteo Striga by a substantial amount, it will at least be slightly less of an outlier compared to other add clear weapons.”

Along with Osteo Striga and other guns, glaives are getting sweeping changes. The melee, projectile, and personal shield hybrid weapon is having its projectile speed increased by 30 percent, projectile damage in PvE increased by 25 percent, but projectile damage in PvP decreased.

“We wanted to improve how good it feels to use Glaives as both a melee and projectile weapon,” Bungie said. “We also wanted to increase the uptime of the shield without pushing it too far into the realm of being overpowered.”

As Bungie said, glaive shield energy with now recharge passively. The melee is also changing, with a reduction in the delay after firing before you can melee from 0.75 seconds to 0.2 seconds.

For full details on upcoming weapon changes next season, check out Bungie’s website.