Season of the Undying Calendar Revealed and Shadowkeep Weapon Balance News

SEASON OF THE UNDYING DATES AND WEAPON BALANCING

This week Bungie announced dates for all the upcoming Season of the Undying content, and provided some new information about what to expect from weapon balancing come Shadowkeep.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

Only two weeks now till October 1st. Once Shadowkeep drops you've got about 4 days to prepare yourself for the Season of the Undying. You can check the calendar image above for all the exact dates, but here are a few observations:

• Dungeon Launch (Tuesday, October 29th) - This content is supposed to be comparable to the Dreaming City's Shattered Throne, a permanent in-game dungeon that can be tackled solo or with a Fireteam. If it is like Shattered Throne, it will be more difficult than a Heroic Strike or Nightfall.
• Momentum Control (Tuesday, October 29th) - This update introduces a new PvP mode: Momentum Control. Does that refer to scoring, player movement, or possibly the control zones moving?
• 1st Raid Challenge (Tuesday, November 5th) - One can only assume these will be similar to the challenges available for Last Wish, Scourge of the Past and Crown of Sorrows - encounter-specific bounties with specific objectives to complete, rewarding raid loot.
• Vex Offensive: Final Assault (Tuesday, November 19th) - The final event of the Season? Is this a special event or just some sort of ramping up of difficulty and rewards as the season wraps up? We'll hopefully know more soon.

SHADOWKEEP WEAPON BALANCING

Last week Bungie took a deep dive into how they're balancing Sub Classes, Abilities and Supers with Shadowkeep. To be honest it was mostly bad news, excepting a couple of redundant supers receiving a much needed buff (here's a recap). This week Bungie are talking weapon tuning.

General Updates

First of all, weapon mods are now treated as reusable unlocks instead of consumables. Whereas before if you fused a mod to a weapon the only way to get that mod back was to dismantle the weapon. From Shadowkeep on, any mods you have in your inventory will be converted into permenant unlocks, a bit like Armor 2.0 mods. This gives players the opportunity to play around with different mods more frequently. However, if the only copy of a mod you have is currently fused in a gun, you will need to reacquire one after Shadowkeep launches to unlock it.

Second, Minor enemies (Rank-and-File) no longer take more precision damage than other enemies. These enemies previously took twice as much damage to their precision hit locations than enemies of higher ranks. You will still deal precision damage, but this is now entirely dependent on the weapon you're using, as it is for higher ranked enemies. Maybe those 'Minor' weapon mods may actually come in handy now?

Weapon Balancing

Every weapon class here except Hand Cannons, Machine Guns and Pulse Rifles is receiving a damage buff against minor and major enemies. Those three weapon classes still enjoy a buff against minor enemies (to offset the reduction in precision damage I'd wager) but I'm guessing Bungie really want to encourage players to give the 'less effective' weapon types another try in PvE. Or for New Light players to never know why no-one used them. Honestly why are Sidearms even still a thing?

• Auto Rifles: Damage buffed 25% - 30% depending on combatant rank
• Bows: Damage buffed 31% to minor enemies, 26% to major enemies
• Hand Cannons: Damage buffed 30% against minor enemies
• Machine Guns: Damage buffed 30% against minor enemies
• Pulse Rifles: Damage buffed 28% against minor enemies
• Scout Rifles: Damage buffed 18% - 36% depending on combatant rank
• Siderarms: Damage buff 16% to minor and major enemies
• Sniper Rifles: Damage buff 47% damage to minor enemies, 20% to all others
• Submachine Guns: Damage buff 22.5% to minor and major enemies

Exotic Weapon Balancing

• Sweet Business - Magazine size up from 100 to 150. PvE damage increased by 15%. You know longer have to be firing when you pick up ammo for it to it be automatically reloaded.
• Graviton Lance - PvE damage increased by 30%
• Sunshot - Increased magazine size to 12
• Vigilance Wing - Increased magazine size to 12

There's a few more Exotics including Crimson, Merciless, Ace of Spades, Lumina and The Colony that are getting adjusted, so make sure to hit the link at the bottom of the blog to find out more.

Weapon Perk Balancing

Even Weapon Perks aren't safe from Bungies rampant tweaking.

• Subsistence - Reduced the impact of this perk on total reserves
• Ricochet Rounds - Removed the hidden bonus to damage falloff
• Swashbuckler - Perk now activates when getting a kill with Ball Lightning
• Grave Robber - Perk now activates when getting a kill with ranged melee abilities (ie: Ball Lightning, Explosive Knife)
• One-Two Punch - Reduced the effectiveness of stacking One-Two Punch and Cross Counter (Liar's Handshake)

The Reckoning

Starting  September 17, all negative modifiers will be removed from Reckoning. This activity will continue to feature a weekly singe, with a daily rotation of Brawler, Grenadier, and Heavyweight.

There's lost more at Bungie.net so head on over there for the full debriefing.

So you at Weekly Reset.

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