Destiny 2 season 15 pre-patch notes showoff ability changes

Destiny 2’s upcoming season 15 and next year’s expansion, The Witch Queen, remain a mystery to players ahead of Bungie’s big showcase stream on Aug. 24. And while Bungie is keen on teasing players leading up to the event, the studio revealed some major ability changes on Thursday.

In addition to assistant game director Joe Blackburn’s tweets on upcoming PvP changes, the Bungie team has three major topics of change to discuss before Aug. 24: abilities, weapons, and armor. The first blog is all about ability changes coming later this month.

Bungie started its usual Thursday blog highlighting a new system: separate melee actions. Guardians have two types of melee attacks in Destiny. The first is a standard attack that requires no energy or cooldown. The other is an ability based melee attack like a punch that grants a shield when killing an enemy or a throwing knife. Players can only execute these ability attacks when they have enough melee energy stored up.

But for years players have accidentally used their abilities when they meant to issue a standard melee, or vice-versa. To solve that issue, Guardians can now bind their ability melee and standard melee separately. If players change nothing, the attack will operate as it always has — the game will try and interpret what move you want to do, based on your distance to the target. But starting Aug. 25, controller and keyboard players can use two separate buttons for these attacks to ensure they never accidentally use the wrong attack again.

Bungie then moved onto all the ability changes coming to underutilized subclasses later this month. The studio promised an update on how ability usage will play into PvP in the near future.

Titans will see some of their recent Stasis nerfs reversed — specifically its super slide ability — to make the subclass feel a bit better in PvE combat. The Sunbreaker’s throwing hammer will also last longer and deal more damage to tough enemies. For Strikers, the Fist of Havok super is getting a range buff and it’ll last longer. Finally, Bungie is making it easier for bosses to break Sentinel bubbles.

Titans will also see some big changes to their class ability, the Barricade. All Barricades will now sink into the ground more — for better protection — and deal near-lethal damage to enemies that pass through. Rally Barricades will also improve stability and range while reducing flinch, all in addition to its major reload speed increase.

Bungie is also pulling back some of the Stasis nerfs for Hunters, making it easier to damage bosses with its Silence and Squall Super and increasing the projectile speed for the Withering Blade melee attack. Gunslingers will have a longer window to chain knife kills and the Six-Shooter variant of Golden Gun will get longer range. Arcstaff Hunter will get major damage and duration buffs later this month and Nightstalkers using the melee variant will be easier to kill.

Warlocks are getting another nerf for their Stasis class, making it harder for them to freeze and kill Guardians in their Super. Bungie is changing some of the identity for the high mobility Dawnblade variant, decreasing the Super’s lethality while adding a bit more movement when under the effects of Heat Rises. Bosses will have an easier time killing the Well of Radiance Super and diving Dawnblade players are getting some improvements as well.

Chaos Reach Warlocks will have an easier time landing their Super in PvE, but the ability will be significantly smaller in the Crucible. Arc Soul Stormcallers will also see a buff to their turret friend. Voidwalker’s Nova Warp will see a massive 73% damage increase in PvE and should be far easier to use.

Finally, Bungie revealed that Guardians will have an easier time unlocking Stasis abilities starting in season 15. The studio will remove some of the roadblocks for players just getting their first taste of the new element.

For a complete list of changes, including numeric values for most of these abilities, check out Bungie’s blog or wait for the official patch notes later this month. All of these changes should go live alongside season 15 on Aug. 24.