Destiny 2 Update 2.6.1 Nerfs Striker, Dawnblade Supers

Bungie has done a decent job adding new content to Destiny 2. Following the release of Shadowkeep with the Garden of Salvation raid and Vex Offensive, a new Exotic quest for Leviathan’s Breath is coming soon. Things on the PvP side have been slightly less dynamic with Recluse, One-Eyed Mask, Striker Titans and Dawnblade Warlocks dominating the Crucible.

Some of that is going to change on October 29th though. Bungie revealed in its last weekly post that update 2.6.1 would be making some adjustments to Code of the Juggernaut for Strikers and Attunement of Flame for Dawnblade. The overall cost of Super energy refunded on kills has been lowered and health regeneration will no longer proc for Strikers. Dawnblade also gets increasing diminishing returns for Super kills.

Interestingly, Bungie is also fixing a “bug” which allowed the 1-2 Punch perk on a shotgun to apply to Shoulder Charge. So if you’ve been having fun deleting Strike bosses with Peregrine Greaves and 1-2 Punch, that’s going away soon. Nothing was said about One-Eyed Mask but Bungie said to “expect a change in a future update.” In the meantime, check out some of the more detailed changes below.

Striker – Code of the Juggernaut (Bottom Path)

Trample:

• Tuned the amount of Super energy returned per kill
• Reduced amount returned possible per kill from 15% to 13% (before diminishing returns)
• Reduced the low end of the diminishing returns from 5% to 3.25%
• Changed the kills for the diminishing returns by splitting them out between players and combatants
• Previously it was 15 kills. Now it is 14 combatant kills or 7 player kills (players count for 2X towards diminishing returns)
• Cost of light attack in super increased by 50% from 2% to 3%
• Regeneration on kill no longer procs on super kills

Dawnblade – Attunement of Flame (Bottom Path)

Everlasting Flames:

• Tuned the amount of Super energy returned per kill (handled differently than Striker as this attack in an AoE)
• Increased the low end of the diminishing returns from 0.75% to 0.95%
• Changed the kills for the diminishing returns by splitting them out between players and combatants
• Previously it was 30 kills. Now it is 21 combatant kills or 7 player kills (players count for 3X towards diminishing returns)

Quality of Life and Bug Fixes:

Sentinel – Code of the Protector (Top Path)

Ward of Dawn:

• Armor of Light timer now correlates with the life of the Ward of Dawn
• Particle FX move more rapidly towards the end of the Ward of Dawn’s life

Nightstalker – Way of the Wraith (Middle Path)

Shattering Strike:

• Fixed a bug in which Shattering Strike activation window was reduced to 3 seconds along with Truesight
• Shattering strike last the proper 9 seconds once again

Shoulder Charge

We’ve removed a bug that allowed players to shoot immediately before activating shoulder charge, which allowed players to apply the 1-2 Punch damage buff to shoulder charge. This bug was caused by a quality of life change made for Tempest Strike. Before Shadowkeep, if player’s had the sprint button configured as “hold to sprint”, then they would need to be holding the sprint button while sliding in order to activate Tempest Strike. With the release of Shadowkeep, we added a small window of time where players could activate Tempest Strike after letting go of the sprint button. This change had unexpected effects on other melee abilities, so we have reverted this change until we can find a better fix for Tempest Strike.