Destiny 2 Update 6.3.0 Patch Notes (Season 19)

We pulled quite a few weapons archetype changes from Season 19 into the previously referenced 6.2.5 update, so this section is smaller than it would otherwise have been. That said, we have some substantial changes here, particularly to Shotguns and Glaives, so it’s worth diving into if weapon theory is your thing.

Shotguns were previously able to one-hit kill (OHK) from too far away and needed adjustment. Once that was addressed, the weaknesses of random pellet spread became clear: they’ve become less reliable, even at close ranges. This gave us a solid starting point to do something we have been looking into for a while: Giving each Shotgun subfamily a custom, fixed spread pattern, and a matching custom reticle. Each of these spread patterns is intended to give a subfamily a unique style of gameplay and predictable effectiveness at specific ranges.

SIDEARM

FUSION RIFLE

GLAIVE

HAND CANNON

Blinding Effects 

Weapon Mods 

PERKS

Reworks 

• Now increases damage vs. Ward of Dawn and Well of Radiance sword by 30% (60% with the artifact mod).
• Damage bonus against Stasis crystals has been increased by 15% (both base and with artifact mod).

• Increased bonus Auto Rifle body shot damage 10% to 20%.

• Now remains active down to half ammo.

• Now allows a small amount of movement instead of turning off with any movement.

• Increased allowed time between kills from 5s to 7s.

• Duration increased from 10s to 15s.
• Stacking the effect still resets the timer.

• Tweaks to make this function in PvP as intended.
• Now grants up to 100% bonus damage at max stacks in PvE.

• No longer deactivates on a miss. Now has a 1s timer.

• Rewind Rounds now work as intended when hitting the cage created by Divinity.

• Now triggers on breaking player shields.

• Faster reactivation after a final blow.

Nerfs 

Unstoppable Force’s damage was a little too high for the level of investment, surpassing other damage perks for strength and uptime. We’re keeping the uptime but adjusting the damage:

One-Two Punch is one part of several combos that allow stacking melee damage buffs to get far higher than intended. Here’s what One-Two Punch will look like:

Bug Fixes 

To Excess (Opulent weapon origin trait)

ENHANCED PERKS

We’ve taken a pass over several enhanced perks to bring their functionality more in line with the base perks:

EXOTICS

Reworks 

We identified a handful of weapons that we felt needed a substantial change to really hit the level of “exoticness” that we expect from Destiny 2 Exotics.

The Fundamentals perk (which can be seen on the damage-type switching Exotics: Borealis, Hard Light, and Dead Messenger), while functional, felt like it could do more to grant the modes some identity based on selected damage type, so each damage type now grants different weapon stats (think Elemental Capacitor, if that perk checked the damage type on the weapon instead of the player’s subclass).

Even with the above change to The Fundamentals, we felt like Borealis needed a more substantial change:

Jade Rabbit is a strong Scout Rifle, but its Exotic perk was lackluster, so we’ve redesigned it to be more of a gameplay loop:

Fixed an issue where crits from Dead Man’s Tale were landing inconsistently depending on whether your aim was above or below the target. We’ve also made some small changes to its base damage, which will apply to all 120 RPM Scout Rifles:

We’ve also been looking for a way to help D.A.R.C.I. players. We know many Guardians would like it to move to the Energy slot, but there’s plenty of competition for Sniper Rifles there, even Exotics. With the below change, it’s a more interesting choice in the Heavy slot:

Wish-Ender has always had a hidden damage bonus vs. targets affected by Witherhoard due to its identity as a Taken hunter’s weapon:

The Fourth Horseman has some niche uses, but ultimately suffers from extremely hard-to-control recoil, which we’ve pulled back:

Forerunner is a fun weapon in PvE, but it’s never been a top pick. Changes to the weapon and its grenade should make it a lot more viable:

Merciless is extraordinarily strong when ramped up, but it’s hard to keep it in that state:

Rat King is a lot of fun to use, but the allowed distance from allies feels a little too strict as it stands:

Legend of Acrius has some movement penalties to make it feel weightier. We think that the feel of using the weapon does that sufficiently though, so this is what Acrius users can look forward to:

Bastion’s Season-14 nerf was a little more than it needed, so we’ve halved it:

Quicksilver Storm’s grenade

Coldheart’s Arc 3.0 rework wasn’t generous enough with Ionic Traces, so:

Grand Overture’s loop doesn’t feel rewarding enough in its current form, so we’ve dramatically increased the reward:

Xenophage only deals Area of Effect (AoE) damage currently, which causes issues against some enemies in PvE. We’re not changing the overall weapon much, but we are addressing that pesky PvE issue. Despite benefiting from solid ease of use, we felt that its damage could be a little higher:

When adjusting Divinity, we also looked at some bugs relating to it, including Cloudstrike:

Armor 

Some Exotic armor pieces were part of combinations allowing extremely high damage output from melee attacks in PvE, so we’ve brought a couple of these down versus altering enemy health:

Note on Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk: We have a change coming in 6.3.0.1. Here’s a sneak preview of the changes that we believe will address balance concerns in PvP while maintaining a clear identity in the Void space:

Things players can look forward to in the future: