As if the cavalcade of recent blog posts showcasing all the changes coming to the Lightfall expansion for Destiny 2 isn’t enough, today’s This Week at Bungie post provided even more details about upcoming content and quality of life changes. While the post wasn’t nearly as exhaustive as the crafting, abilities, or weapons updates, the TWAB does give a few more tidbits to munch on.
The biggest info drop was about the new Seasonal Artifact, the Ascendant Scepter. We learned every mod coming to the game in Season of Defiance, including the various anti-Champion choices, a new set of mods called “Authorized,” which reduces the cost of other mods affecting your abilities, and a host of even more powerful upgrades.
Continuing the anti-Champion thrust of the piece, Bungie went into a bit more detail about what player buffs affect Champions now.
- Barrier Champions: stunned by radiant, volatile rounds and unraveling rounds.
- Overload Champions: stunned by jolt, suppression, and slow.
- Unstoppable Champions: stunned by ignite, blind, shatter, and suspend.
Bungie notes that while the effects work, no matter how they’re triggered, they don’t stack. A Chill Clip weapon that’s normally good against Unstoppable Champions will instead stun Barrier Champions while you’re under the effects of the radiant buffs. Exotics with anti-Champion effects also won’t stack with buff effects, so Ager’s Scepter might stun an Overload Champion by slowing it, but won’t pierce a Barrier shield while you’re radiant.
We also got some clarity on changes coming to the Legend-difficulty Lightfall campaign. The biggest difference is how difficulty scales with multiple players, with enemy health seeing an overall reduction against larger fireteams. The stagger threshold for damage is also reduced, so the already tough enemies won’t be pure bullet sponges.
The one activity we have heard nothing about is Gambit, which hasn’t received any new content in years. It did go through a rework in both Season of the Drifter and at the beginning of Witch Queen, but Bungie has either been tight-lipped on updates or they’ve decided to let their third ritual activity lay fallow.
Players who don’t already own the Witch Queen expansion can also play it for free until February 26, and the Digital Deluxe Edition is also heavily discounted on all platforms.
