Bungie recently released a new trailer for Destiny 2’s Lightfall, showcasing the various abilities of each Strand sub-class. On Bungie.net, it talked about how the element evolved from “Damage Type 5” to its current form.
As it turns out, Lightfall’s aesthetic had a major influence on Strand. There were other “front-runner [concepts] for a while,” designer Kevin Yanes said that it “aligned really well to the fantasy of the product: the 80s action hero.” It didn’t come together immediately, but through continuous dialogue among the team.
“We had lots of conversations around where [the Strand concept known as] ‘weaves’ came from and trying to reinforce the physical language for how it manifests and how it looks, to make it feel like it was from the same [Darkness] family as Stasis,” said Yanes.
The developer also outlined the various keywords and debuffs that Strand uses. When creating an object with Strand, the process is Weaving. Dealing damage to enemies affected by Strand causes Unravel, which sends out threads to damage nearby foes. Slaying a Strand-affected enemy completes the Unravel and creates a Tangle. The Tangle is essentially a mass of Strand and explodes to deal area of effect damage. Like Warmind Cells, Tangles can be picked up and thrown.
Players also have Suspend and Sever. Suspend, as the name indicates, will suspend an enemy off the ground briefly and render them helpless in PvE. PvP players are also lifted but can move and shoot their weapons. Sever reduces the damage output of an enemy.
Finally, there’s the buff, Woven Mail, which reduces incoming damage to the Guardian. It works in PvP but only for body damage – head damage and melee damage remain the same.
Destiny 2: Lightfall releases on February 28th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Stay tuned for more details, and check out our feature here.