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Most of the weapon reload perks in Destiny 2, including Outlaw and Rapid Hit, will be nerfed with the arrival of Season 11 in June.
Bungie announced these nerfs in its latest blog post. Season 11 will make big changes to the world loot pool, and with them several sandbox changes centered around reload nerfs.
"We’ve observed that players lean towards picking perks that increase their damage (e.g. Kill Clip) or reduce weapon downtime (e.g. Outlaw)," Bungie says. "The damage perks were adjusted quite a while back, but reload perks still don’t feel like choices. This tuning pass aims to keep them feeling powerful without being so dominant that no other choices seem viable."
These nerfs target two parameters: reload stat buffs and reload duration scaling. Reload perks directly increase the reload stat of guns while active, up to a maximum of 100, but they also separately increase the speed of the reload animation. If a perk had reload scaling of .8, for example, it would be 80% of the usual duration, or 20% faster.
"Note that because most weapons have fairly high reload stats, decreasing a reload stat bonus from +100 to +50 will still max out the reload stat most of the time," Bungie explains, "and so doesn’t slow down the actual reload as much as it seems."
With that being said, here's a breakdown of all the reload nerfs coming in Season 11:
- Outlaw: reload stat buff reduced from 100 to 50, reload scaling nerfed from .8 to .9.
- Feeding Frenzy: now scales based on kills landed before reloading, with two kills putting it on par with outlaw. Max reload stat buff remains 100 at four kills, max possible reload scaling buffed from .83 to .8.
- Rapid Hit: max possible reload stat buff reduced from 100 to 60, max possible reload scaling nerfed from .8 to .925, max possible stability buff reduced from 50 to 25. Stat bonus on first precision hit reduced, bonuses on subsequent shots increased.
- Drop Mag: reload scaling nerfed from .85 to .9 (in line with Outlaw).
- Field Prep and Alloy Mag: unchanged.
The goal with these changes is to make reload perks feel less mandatory, so some other perks are also getting buffed to make them more competitive. Those are:
- Dynamic Sway Reduction: now adds 10 stability in addition to an accuracy boost (Bungie says "this is way more powerful than it sounds").
- Pulse Monitor: now fully reloads your weapon when you hit critical health, and grants 50 handling and 5% faster swap speed.
- Hipfire grip: added aim assist and aim assist falloff, and makes it easier to hit headshots with all guns other than sniper rifles.
- Sneak Bow: now doesn't ping radar when you fire.
Bungie says Season 11 will also introduce new perks exclusive to seasonal weapons, as well as two Iron Banner-exclusive weapon perks which will roll on all weapons in Season 12 and beyond. A few weapon archetypes - slug shotguns, high-impact pulse rifles, and bows - are also getting slight PvE and PvP buffs to help bring them up. Finally, Bungie says it's looking to rebalance sniper rifle zoom, high-impact hand cannons, and 600 RPM auto rifles, but hasn't settled on exact changes.
As Bungie said, the Destiny 2 weapon meta has always been one reload perk paired with one damage perk. Especially after the nerf to damage perks, these reload nerfs feel like Bungie's way of setting the stage for sunsetting weapons in Year 4. This will free up design space for new weapons, but how Bungie uses that design space - and how players respond to grinding out new weapons - remains to be seen.
Massive loot changes are also coming to Destiny 2, including Adept Weapons for Trials, playlist exclusive loot, pinnacle cosmetics, and more.
