With roughly a month left in Destiny 2's current season, the Season of the Undying, Bungie recently announced several significant balance changes coming next season. The notorious One-Eyed Mask Titan Exotic is getting another nerf, as is the ever-absurd Recluse pinnacle submachine gun. It's not all nerfs, though; the new Destiny 2 Xenophage Exotic machine gun is getting a fairly large buff.
Let's start with One-Eyed Mask, and Exotic aimed squarely at PvP. It marks the last target that damaged you - letting you track them through walls for several seconds - and provides a damage buff, health regen, and an overshield when you kill a marked target. The potency of the mask's health regen has been nerfed before, and to take its recovery down another peg, Bungie is now removing the overshield entirely. However, you'll still get health regen, a damage buff, and - most importantly - temporary wall hacks, so I have to wonder if this nerf will have the desired effect.
Recluse is next on the chopping block. This pinnacle submachine gun has dominated the primary meta since its release, even after its unique perk, Master of Arms, was toned down in the Season of the Undying. To give other primary weapons - not to mention every red- and orange-bar enemy in the game - a chance to compete with Recluse, Bungie's nerfing Master of Arms more severely. This perk will no longer provide such a massive boost to body shot damage, forcing Recluse users to hit their headshots if they want to dish out the kind of pain they're used to. This should greatly reduce the weapon's ease of use, which is largely what makes it so popular, without destroying it outright.
"After considering various options on what to do with it, the decision was made to remove that part of the functionality and preserve its activation methods," Bungie says. "The alternative was leaving in an effect we believe to be too strong for a Legendary weapon."
If you're a One-Eyed Mask-wearing, Recluse-using Titan, first of all, stay away from me in Crucible. Second of all, here's some sugar to help the medicine go down: Xenophage, which Bungie admits "unintentionally shipped a little weak," is getting a massive 50% damage boost in PvE, plus an ammo boost in PvP. I don't think this buff will push the gun to a top-tier DPS spot, but it could very well make it the go-to orange- and yellow-bar killer. With a few machine gun mods supporting it, Xenophage could be a contender next season.
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