TL;DR:
- Mass Effect collab is out. $20 a skin (yuck). Ship, sparrow, and ghost shell are free.
Sandbox Updates:
- Will try to summarize this quickly since it's a TL;DR. If you want all the details read the article.
Abilities:
- Threaded Spectre uptime reduced because of PvP.
- Nerf for PvP only.
- Damage buff in PvE.
- Threadlings nerf because of PVP.
- Increasing aim assist against them.
- Reducing damage to players.
- Unclear if this carries over to PvE. It specifically says players so I don't think so.
- Arcane Needle buffs.
- Aim assist and tracking improved.
- Buffed to offset nerfs to Threadlings.
- Restoration and Raidiant timer bugs are getting fixed.
- Ember of Mercy and Empryean buffed.
- Consecration (Solar Titan jump slam) buffed to go further and hit airborne targets
- Gunpowder Gamble self damage decreased.
Weapons:
- Fixed M+K aim assist bug on burst Hand Cannons.
- Added Target Lock to Breakneck second column (lol)
- Lightweight scout 5% damage buff
- Reduced Sniper auto aim cone size by 10%
- Precision Rockets get more ammo reserves and damage penalty reduced to 5% from 10%
- High Impact Rockets
- Ammo reserve up by 2
- More blast damage than impact damage for ad clear (okay...)
- Also affects Deathbringer, GHorn, and Truth.
- Heavy GLs
- Ammo reserves increased by 6 to 10 depending on the weapon.
- Reduced Spike Grenades per round damage buff from 50% to 12.5%. Total damage buff goes from 8% to 3%.
- Increased direct hit impact for all Heavy GLs by 10%
- Increased detonation damage by 5%
- Wave Frame Heavy GLs
- Increased Damage by 20%
- Increased wave size by 40%
- Caster Swords
- Reduced heavy attack cost from 5 to 4
- Increased heavy attack damage by 16%
Exotics:
- Vigilance Wing
- Now has deterministic recoil
- Vex Mythoclast
- Increased ADS falloff scaler
- Wish Ender
- True Sight disappears after leaving ADS or being in ADS for more than 3 seconds
- Edge of Action
- Increased bubble resistance to normal combatants to 85% and bosses to 15%
- Manticore
- Must be airborne for .5 sec and deal damage to activate the perk
- New special reload to disengage thrusters
- Tarrabah also receives this special reload animation
- While airborne PvE combatants will have worse targeting on the player. Similar to Always on Time.
- With the catalyst sustained final blows grant void overshield.
- Ex Diris
- Increased impact damage in PvE by 50%
- Increase maximum rate of fire by 17%
Perks:
-
Heal Clip
- Grants Cure x2 to user and Cure x1 to allies.
-
Trench Barrel
- Can activate with ranged melee (spicy)
-
Barrel Constrictor
- Now lasts for 7.5 seconds. Enhanced at 8.5 sec.
-
Loose Change
- Now adds +20 aim assist stat and 20% reduced ADS.
-
Dual Loader
- Removed reload speed penalty
- Will be added to other weapon types in the future.
-
Tex Balanced Stock
- Grants +20 range and 1.5 degree aim assist cone increase in hip fire.
-
Hakke Breach Armaments, Deconstruct, and Sundering
- All now work on Void souls, Strand Clones, Cabal shields, and Brigs
-
Hakke Breach Armaments
- Damage against stasis crystals reduced from 80% to 60%
-
Sundering
- Can now trigger on shield break.
-
Hatchling
- Now triggers on a precision kill or 3 non precisions
-
Target Lock
- Now activates later in the mag for SMGs
-
Envious Assassin
- Mag overflow capped to 100% instead of 150% due to GL changes (RIP my 3 rocket mag)
-
Bait and Switch
- Reduced damage bonus from 35% to 30%
-
One Two Punch
- Now deactivates after powered melee damage
-
Deconstruct
- Pulls from thin air and not reserves.
-
More weapon tuning coming in TFS and Into the Light. Looking specifically at buffing under performing archetypes and not touching the top performers.
PVP Updates:
- Big wall of text about the PVP strike team's vision for Crucible.
- Player skill in general has gone up while ease of use hasn't gone down to compensate.
- Too easy to hit optimal TTK. Precision SMGs and Aggressive HCs called out.
- Hitting optimal TTK isn't representative of skill and is EXPECTED of standard play.
- All of this has lead to the following:
- Ability spam builds with high uptime to counter fast TTK.
- Overabundance of Special Ammo and One Hit Kill (OHK) weapons to counter ability spam.
- Highly lethal primaries (sub 1sec TTK) to counter OHK and ability spam.
Actual PVP Changes:
- Changes listed below will NOT apply to Mayhem, Momentum, and Checkmate.
- Player Health:
- Increased by 30 in base Crucible from 70 to 100. 116-130 Shield depending on Resil value.
- Ability Cooldowns:
- Melee, Grenade, and Class Ability cooldowns increased by 15% IN PVP ONLY.
- Super cooldowns increased by 20% IN PVP ONLY.
- Ability Damage increased to compensate:
- Supers - base damage up by 31%
- Melee - base damage up by 16%
- Arc Flux Grenade - base damage up by 16%
- Weapons:
- All primaries except bows will have their crit damage increased.
- PR, AR, Scouts - up by 14%
- HC - Crit up by 10%. Body down by 5%. Flinch reduced by 12.5% and 10% for explosive payload.
- SMG - Crit up by 12.5%. Body down by 3%.
- Bows - Reduced base damage by 15%.
- Special Ammo Acquisition
- Start every game with 2 kills worth of special ammo
- Special Ammo meter from Checkmate comes to regular crucible. Point values listed in the article.
- Special and Heavy kills do not generate Special ammo.
- Jumping off the map reduces the Special ammo meter.
- Special ammo is not dropped on death and you do not loose what you have on death.
- Special ammo carries over between rounds.
- Swapping to a primary will reset your ammo meter.
- Special Weapon buffs
- Traces - base damage up by 20%
- Glaives - Projectile up by 20%. Melee up by 16%
- Heavy Weapon Changes:
- GLs detonation damage down by 5%
- LMG damage up by 20%
- Exotics
- Fighting Lion - reduced damage in PVP by 20%.
- Devil's Ruin - charge beam damage reduced by 15% in PVP.
- Crimson - flinch dealt reduced by 17.5%.
- Forerunner - damage increased bv 20% in PVP.
- Symmetry - special fire damage increased by 16% in PVP.
Wait but... aren't champions minibosses? Per strike scoring, isn't that all enemies with an inverted triangle icon?
So this means that Major Spec only applies to elites now, the orange bar enemies with a shield icon?
I thought that major was a synonym for miniboss, but I guess I've gotta stop saying that because it doesn't make sense for "Major Spec" to not apply to "majors".
This seems like it makes major spec niche and boss spec almost always the right choice (bonus damage to bosses AND champions, what more could you want).