Destiny 2 Renegades Confirms Huge Exotic Weapon Buffs

Bungie recently shared a first look at upcoming changes to weapons in Destiny 2, including significant improvements planned for many exotic items. Players are hopeful these adjustments, particularly to the Renegades archetype, will breathe new life into the game.

It’s well known that Destiny 2 isn’t as popular as it used to be, and the number of players has been decreasing. Bungie, the game’s developer, is working to fix issues and improve the experience. They’ve already reversed some recent changes, like removing Unstable Cores, in an effort to simplify the game and listen to player concerns. There’s some optimism, though, as the new Renegades expansion, inspired by Star Wars, is coming out soon.

Destiny 2 players are looking forward to the game’s Star Wars-inspired content, but Bungie is also sharing details about significant gameplay improvements. They’ve started a three-part series called ‘Dev Insights,’ beginning with adjustments to weapons. This includes changes to how ammo works, weapon types, and individual weapon perks. Bungie also announced substantial power boosts for several exotic weapons, some of which haven’t been updated in a long time.

The popular Ace of Spades hand cannon will be even more powerful in PvE activities. The damage boost from its Memento Mori perk is increasing from 18% to 30%, and its Firefly perk will now deal more damage and have a larger explosive radius. Hawkmoon will also be more effective in PvE thanks to an improved damage bonus from its Paracausal Charge perk.

Osteo Striga’s poison ability will now recharge much faster, going from a 4-second cooldown to just 2 seconds. This should make it effective for fighting groups of enemies again. The Touch of Malice weapon is also getting a boost – it will be easier to recover health while using it, offsetting its previous drawback. Several other weapons – Still Hunt, Symmetry, and Revision Zero – are receiving significant improvements, and Tessellation and Black Talon are getting substantial updates.

The unique Wolfsbane axe, originally added with the Ash & Iron update, is getting some improvements for players who use the Renegades subclass. Bungie was pleased with how players reacted to the axe, but it wasn’t quite as strong as they’d hoped. To fix this, regular attacks will now deal 8.5% more damage. The Nano Assault ability will last longer—12 seconds—and deal about 20% more damage, and the Retuned Axe Handles will provide even more damage resistance.

It will be fascinating to see how the upcoming changes work with the new content in Destiny 2: Renegades. Bungie has already shown off the new weapons and exotic gear, and many are clearly inspired by weapons from Star Wars, like Chewbacca’s Boltcaster, Han Solo’s DL-44, and the Amban rifle from The Mandalorian. The new exotic armor also looks like it will introduce fresh gameplay styles, such as the Titan’s Praxic Vestments, which grant an aerial ability reminiscent of the flight suits in Anthem.

Destiny 2 Renegades Exotic Weapon Changes

Ace of Spades

Increased extra PvE damage bonus of Memento Mori from 18% to 30%.
Ace of Spades’ Firefly.
- Increased maximum damage in PvE from 65 to 100.
- Increased minimum damage in PvE from 0 to 20.
- Increased area of effect size from 6m to 7.5m.
- Increased damage falloff start from 30% of area of effect size to 50% (will keep full damage for more distance).

Hawkmoon

Now gets a PvE damage bonus per stack of Paracausal Charge.
- Maxes out at 70% at x8 Paracausal Charge.
- Does not include the final Paracausal Shot.

Osteo Striga

Reduced the cooldown of the poison burst on Osteo Striga final blow from four seconds to two.

Suros Regime

Can now be special reloaded at-will to swap between Spinning up and Dual-Speed Receiver behaviors.
- Added new hip-fire reticle elements that correspond with each firing mode.
Grants bonus Special ammo progress with spun up kills while using Spinning Up.
Grants bonus Heavy ammo progress on Dual-Speed Receiver kills while ADS.

Revision Zero

Hunter’s Trace rounds now create a small damaging shockwave and Exhausts targets on impact.

Touch of Malice

Increased the amount of healing provided by the intrinsic perk.
Reduced the number of kills needed to trigger the healing in PvE, and activating Charged with Blight will now fire the healing impulse.

Collective Obligation

Added a very slow rate of leeching effects off unaffected targets. Gives each effect in order of effectiveness with around a full mag of hits (per debuff).
- Volatile -> Weaken -> Suppression
Also charges the leech mode at the same rate.

Symmetry

Now builds Bolt Charge with > one stack of Dynamic Charge in alt fire mode.
- Grants more stacks at >10x Dynamic Charge.
Now can spend Bolt Charge with >1 stack of Dynamic Charge in alt fire mode.
Increased base reload stat by 20.

Still Hunt

Buffed Still Hunt’s Golden Gun damage while using Celestial Nighthawk by 40%.
Allowed Sniper’s Meditation to buff Still Hunt’s Golden Gun shots.

Witherhoard

Reduced Silent Alarm auto-load time from 3.5 seconds to two.

Duality

Reduced hip fire spread by 6%

The Chaperone

Changed Chaperone to use the Rapid-Fire Slug frame damage and rate of fire profile.

Ruinous Effigy

Catalyst now grants a 30% (15% in PvP) damage buff to the Trace Rifle when killing anything with the Transmutation Orb or damaging a miniboss/boss/Champion with a Transmutation Orb.

Izanagi’s Burden

Special Reload once again scales with reload speed stat.

Tessellation

Property: Undecidable
- Final blows now also grant 2.5% light and dark Transcendence energy, and grant bonus time to Transcendence while active.
- Fixed an issue where Transcendence grenade chunk energy gains were not scaling based on the grenade stat.
Property: Irreducible
- While Transcendence is active, special reload shots now deal 25% more damage when combined with the Transcendence damage buff.
- Special reloading now reloads the mag from reserves, and you can now special reload while you have zero ammo in the mag.
Catalyst
- Increased applied Scorch stacks from 15(+5) to 70(+10), and Slow stacks from 30 to 80.
- Subclass keyword application is now near immediate, though it still does not apply before the primary explosion.
Misc
- Updated the timing of the reload for Tessellation and Jötunn so that ammo is added to the mag slightly sooner, properly lining up with the animation.

Deathbringer

Reduced the spread of the secondary cluster munitions after they are created.

Black Talon

Heavy attack now suppresses on hits. If target is already suppressed, it spreads to nearby targets.
Catalyst:
- On hit gives a 10% damage boost per void debuff on the target for 2s.
Reduced heavy attack cost to three ammo from four.
Added Duelist’s Trance trait.
Increased max reserve ammo.

Deterministic Chaos

New effect: Releasing the trigger after a Vexadecimal projectile pulls 12 rounds into the magazine from reserves.

Worldline Zero

Fixed an issue where Tesseract was only hitting one instance of damage instead of the usual five.
Increased the damage instances via Tesseract from five to seven (~40% damage increase).
- Reduced time between these instances from .66s to .44s.
Fixed an issue where chaining tesseract was inconsistent if the player had the Wordline Zero catalyst equipped.
Reduced the cost of chained tesseract blinks from 20% Sword energy to 10% per.

Wolfsbane

Increased damage of light attack by 8.5% (closer to lament or aggressive Swords).
Increased nano assault duration from 10s to 12s, which makes the tornados feel a little more forgiving.
- Increased Swarm-nado damage by ~20%.
Retuned Axe Handles
- Increased damage resistance on each handle by ~5%.
- Increased damage resistance linger time from 3s to 5s.
Reduced internal cooldown on Subroutine: ~Recursion’s extra nanites from 5s to 2s.
Adjusted damage increased when used on ~A F F L I C T E D targets to ramp slightly quicker.

2025-11-12 18:37