In the realm of Destiny 2, we don’t expect you to notice much of a change in your day-to-day adventures as a Guardian. We aren’t going to make Destiny 2 platform exclusive. We’re committed to a Destiny that you can play on your platform of choice, and that has the same great game experience regardless of what device you are using. We’re going to continue developing amazing new worlds for multiple platforms, and we’re more than excited about what potential this unlocks for us. If you haven’t read the FAQ in our update from the dev team, please do so!
So, with that said, what else is going on? Well, it’s February for starters. We’re less than three weeks away from the launch of The Witch Queen. Did you see that we hit one million pre-orders? Did you hear that, Savathûn? One million Guardians would like a word…
Thank you to the more than ONE MILLION Destiny players who have pre-ordered Destiny 2: The Witch Queen.
With your incredible support, it’s on track to be the most pre-ordered expansion in Destiny 2 history.
We also had a kickass gear trailer go live on Tuesday. Have you seen it yet? Well, even if you have, we’re going to embed the video right here for you to go through the carnage frame by frame, hunting for new info.
You may have noticed there was a quick little glimpse into weapon crafting at the top of that video. Well, let’s take a moment to walk through it. No, not just the video, but crafting as a feature. After, we’ll follow the TWAB tradition of digging into the nitty-gritty of sandbox balance patch notes in a quick preview. (Just kidding, this TWAB is already over 6,000 words. Nothing about it is quick.)
Let’s dig in.
Welcome to the Enclave
Savathûn is building an army of Hive. These aren’t just ordinary Hive, mind you. They’ve become the Lucent Brood. How could this happen? What will the Vanguard do as we begin to question the line between Light and Dark? As you begin to unravel the mystery and battle the Witch Queen’s brood, you’ll discover the Enclave. This will be your destination for weapon crafting.
Crafting a Legendary weapon from scratch isn’t a simple matter. Finding Patterns (think weapon blueprints), collecting materials, and building your weapon is the starting point. After crafting your tool of destruction, you’ll begin to unlock its full potential through combat.
Beginning your Quest (to Craft)
Early in The Witch Queen campaign, you’ll be given an introductory quest that runs you through the ins and outs of crafting. In the first and second missions of The Witch Queen, free to all players, Guardians will uncover the Deepsight ability and be introduced to the Enclave.
This is where you’ll begin to shape your first Glaive, a brand new weapon archetype being introduced in The Witch Queen. All of the necessary materials will be provided for your first crafted weapon, but you’ll also be given a short tutorial on how to find those materials for future crafting. A subset of weapons and archetypes will be craftable from the start, but more will be added in the future.
In order to shape your future tools of destruction, you’ll need to do a little bit of research first. Patterns are your first requirement. Some will be acquired through quest completions, while others can be earned by completing various gameplay objectives. Once you’ve earned your desired Pattern, it can be crafted at any time with the required materials. Now, it’s all about the mixings.
After reaching the enclave and crafting your first Glaive, randomly rolled weapons throughout the game have a chance to drop with a new ability: Deepsight Resonance. This will be used as you begin to target specific traits to craft. As an example, if you find a Deepsight Resonance Legendary Auto Rifle with the Rampage perk, you can complete an objective and extract the essence of the perk to then craft a weapon with Rampage or another perk that increases damage.
Pictured: A Guardian holding Deepsight Resonance weaponry, noted by red weapon borders.
Pictured: A Deepsight Resonance Weapon with no progress, essence ready to be attuned through combat.
Pictured: A Deepsight Resonance Weapon with full progress, essence ready to be extracted.
Like current weapons, not every weapon Pattern will be compatible with every trait, but you’ll have a good list of traits to mix and match as you customize a given weapon to your desired specifications. It doesn’t stop there, though. Through the Enclave, you’ll also be able to kick things up a notch and enhance your traits to strengthen their flavor.
Leveling Your Weapon & Enhanced Traits
Once a weapon is crafted, Guardians may begin to increase its level by using it in activities and by defeating enemies. This is where the bulk of your crafting playtime will be. The more you use your weapon, the faster you’ll unlock its full potential.
Enhanced stats and traits can be unlocked when reaching higher levels, granting slight bonuses to your weapons capabilities. Our goal through this system is to give players a reason to invest in their weapons, far beyond what Masterworking could offer in the past. Each weapon can now act as a longtail pursuit as you look to make your freshly crafted weapon the best it can be.
It can be intimidating to start making decisions on how to build your weapon so we are also giving you the ability to reshape your crafted weapons in the Enclave if you want to mix up the components of your weapons after you finish crafting them. You can switch up what barrel, mags, or traits you choose so you don’t feel like you got locked down one path forever.
As Guardians begin to embrace this new system, you’ll begin to see new legends rise. Some will prefer Häkke and other foundries. Others may dabble in new weapons from [REDACTED]. We’re excited to see which weapons you embrace.
Mementos
While the majority of your crafting experience will be dedicated to mixing, matching, and enhancing traits, there is also an opportunity for a bit of customization when it comes to appearances and activity-specific trackers. At launch, one weapon memento will become available for players to earn through Gambit, unlocking a Gambit-themed appearance and tracker. Rank up your weapon to max level, head back to the Enclave, and apply your freshly earned memento for some sweet flair.
More of these will come online through Trials of Osiris and Grandmaster Nightfalls. We have more plans for mementos down the line, and are excited to introduce a new endgame rarity cosmetic item for players to chase as they build out their new arsenal of weaponry.
Exotic Crafting
Legendary weapons aren’t the only thing that you’ll be able to craft. The upcoming Osteo Striga Exotic SMG and three class-unique Exotic Glaives can also be crafted through the Enclave, once you find their respective Patterns, of course.
While Legendary weapons can be crafted from the ground up, Exotic crafting is more about fine-tuning something with a defined identity. You may have the opportunity to customize things like barrels or stocks, while preserving the Exotic look and feel. Looking for a longer-range profile for the weapon, or opting to shred through your enemies up close and personal? Through the Enclave, you can do just that.
Alright, folks. We’re at the end of our weapon crafting preview. Will you have questions? Undoubtedly. Launch day of The Witch Queen is just around the corner, and we’re excited to see what weapons you create. Don’t worry, we aren’t done with the TWAB just yet. We still have some exciting news regarding weapons to cover. Let’s talk tuning.
Crafting is going to introduce an entirely new way to invest in a given weapon. When hunting for your new favorites, it’s not just about the looks, but about the feels. Weapons Feature Lead Chris Proctor is on deck to walk through some changes coming to weapons, perks, and archetypes in The Witch Queen. The team has been hard at work over the last few months to bring this to life, and we’ve got a lot to cover.
If you’re new to the Destiny sandbox, or aren’t too deep in the terminology and know-how, this can be a lot to process at first glance. While we know a few of our sandbox-minded community members will break this down through YouTube videos and write-ups, there’s no shame in skimming this. Sandbox is about the feel, and you’ll be getting your hands on these changes when The Witch Queen launches. If you’re brave enough to take on the challenge of reading this in full, take it slow. Grab some water, maybe a little snack too!
Alright. Let’s get to it. Take it away, Proctor.
From Pinnacle to Pursuit Weapons
When pinnacle weapons were introduced, they were tuned and presented as being best-in-class weapons to act as rewards for players dedicated to a particular activity. They excited and motivated players, but they were expensive to build for Legendary weapons, and had some undesirable side-effects, such as PvP pinnacle weapons becoming mandatory in PvE (Recluse, Mountaintop), or becoming incredibly unpleasant to play against or so strong that no other weapons in the class could compete in PvP (Mountaintop, Not Forgotten).
When we moved away from pinnacle weapons we didn’t go into much detail, so we’d like to take a moment to clarify the move, and also introduce the Pursuit weapon for next season.
The intent as of Season 12 is that a Pursuit weapon should be a solid weapon, roughly 70 percent of a “god roll” in its archetype, with perk options that work well in PvP and PvE, and which can be reliably obtained without a huge grind. These should act as good starter weapons for both PvP and PvE, while leaving space for weapons from pinnacle activities like Trials, raids, and Nightfalls to exceed this potential. We generally ship a similar weapon with higher potential in the same Season.
(Note: Salvager’s Salvo basically ignores this guideline (oops) but we really wanted to put Chain Reaction on a Special ammo weapon, and don’t currently see a reason to touch it. Chain Reaction is going to be rare on Special weapons, though.)
Here’s a quick breakdown of how each Pursuit weapon since Season 12 compares to the random-rolled options currently in the game:
Adored is a good Sniper Rifle, but better Sniper Rifles shipped alongside it or since.
The Salvager’s Salvo breech Grenade Launcher is a great room-clearing weapon, but doesn’t have the utility of blinding grenades or Auto-Loading Holster, so other Legendary Grenade Launchers (such as Truthteller or Ignition Code) often take its place in the hardest content.
Null Composure is an excellent Fusion Rifle (and even moreso in the Season after it shipped), and brought back the Reservoir Burst perk but PLUG ONE.1 and Glacioclasm can also get Reservoir Burst, and Cartesian Coordinate has better options for DPS.
The Ascendancy Rocket Launcher brought back the Explosive Light perk, but Hothead can also get this and it has other good perk options.
And with that, let’s look at The Reckless Endangerment Pursuit Shotgun. This weapon is coming in Season 16, and introduces the new Steady Hands perk for a massive handling boost after a kill, plus Snapshot. There are several other Shotguns in the release with more sought-after PvP and PvE perks.
Origin Traits
We’ve been talking about the difficulty of making different weapons of the same type feel unique for years at this point, and in The Witch Queen we’re doing something about it.
Every weapon that’s new or returning in The Witch Queen will have an Origin Trait determined by its source in a third trait column, including all new Legendary weapons and all returning Trials, Iron Banner, and Nightfall weapons. Origin Traits will only appear on new drops of a weapon, they won’t be retroactively added to old drops.
These traits vary in effect, but the guideline is that they either have high uptime and medium power effects or low uptime and high power.
There are 14 Origin Traits in total shipping in The Witch Queen and Season 16, and we expect to ship around three new ones each Season after Season 16 (for example, one for Season 17, one for the raid or dungeon, and one for the Seasonal event until we have one for each event).
When we refresh old weapons from a given source (for example, an existing raid or old pool of Seasonal weapons) we may create a new Origin Trait at the same time.
Here are some examples:
Trials of Osiris: Alacrity: Gain increased reload, stability, aim assist, and range when you are the last living member of your fireteam or running solo.
“Solo” includes solo Lost Sectors and Rumble, for example.
Nightfall Strikes: Stunning Recovery: Stunning a Champion partially refills your magazine, triggers health regeneration, and improves recovery for a short duration.
Grants 60 health instantly, and +40 recovery for 3s.
Crucible: One Quiet Moment: Grants increased reload speed when out of combat.
+40 reload stat when out of combat (haven’t dealt or received damage in 4s).
Strikes: Vanguard’s Vindication: Final blows with this weapon grant a small amount of health.
“Small” = 7 health
Any time it makes sense (due to the source activity), a weapon will have multiple Origin Traits selectable, for example:
Nightfall weapons can select between Nightfall and Vanguard traits.
Trials of Osiris weapons can select between Trials and Crucible traits.
The Pursuit weapon can select between the Gambit, Vanguard, and Crucible traits (since it can be acquired from any of these activities).
One other case, see below.
Weapon Foundries
“Guardian, there was something I wanted to tell you. What was it?” Banshee scratches his forehead. “Oh yeah, guns.”
“I was cleaning out that locker back there.” Banshee motions to a dust-caked storage container. “Found a couple things you might be interested in.”
The Exo reaches into a crate next to him and pulls out a glistening Fugue-55 Sniper Rifle. “A stack of shiny, new Suros weapons. Manufactured for the Red War by the looks of ‘em.” He peers down the sights of the rifle. “Been years since I held a new Suros. Good balance, solid craftsmanship, this is damn fine work.”
Banshee stares off wistfully, seeming to forget you’re there. His eyes snap back to you.
“What was I gonna tell you? Ah right, guns.” Banshee uncrates more weapons in mint condition. “These were earmarked for Zavala, Drifter, and Shaxx. Maybe if you’re lucky, they’ll let you play with ‘em.”
“There’s a lot more where that came from.” Banshee gestures to a whole stack of crates, swimming in a cloud of dust.
“Hand Cannons, Pulse Rifles, Omolon, Häkke, Veist: you’re gonna have a ball.”
In Season 16, we’re replacing the old World Loot Pool with 12 new weapons in the style of the Destiny 2 Year-1 foundry weapon sets, three weapons each from the Suros, Omolon, Häkke, and Veist foundries, plus one foundry weapon each for Vanguard, Gambit, and Crucible.
Pictured: A handful of weapons you’ll find in Legendary Engrams on Feb 22. Not all are pictured, mind you…
Each weapon will come with a Foundry Origin Trait themed around that foundry’s personality:
Suros: Suros Synergy: Reloading grants this weapon bonus handling and reduces incoming flinch for a short time.
+40 handling, 20% flinch resistance for 6s after reloading.
Häkke: Häkke Breach Armaments: This weapon deals increased damage against vehicles, turrets, barricades, and Stasis crystals.
“Turrets” includes Stasis Turrets. +15% to vehicles, +30% to structures and turrets.
Omolon: Omolon Fluid Dynamics: This weapon has increased reload speed and stability for the top half of the magazine.
Stability: max +20, reload: max +30, reduces as the magazine gets lower.
Veist: Veist Stinger: Chance on damage to partially refill this weapon’s magazine.
In addition to the Foundry Origin Trait, each foundry weapon’s perk pools lean into that foundry’s identity – big damage for Häkke, consistency for Suros, abilities tie-ins and weird stuff for Omolon, never-stop-firing for Veist.
Pictured: Upcoming Vanguard Shotgun, Crucible Handcannon, and Gambit Auto Rifle.
Foundry weapons that drop from a source aside from the world pool can switch between the foundry trait and that source’s trait (this doesn’t imply that foundry weapons will be common outside the world pool).
For example, a roll on the new Gambit Häkke High-Impact Auto Rifle (Herod-C) might look like this:
We know we haven’t brought back all of your favorite foundry weapon types, but don’t worry! You can expect to see weapon foundries receive new additions each season for the year following The Witch Queen, with some fun surprises thrown in later in the year.
Global
Alright, this is where some fun begins. The rest of this section will be more of a patch notes preview feel. Lots of bullets. Not a lot of pictures. Still have that snack and water handy? Feel free to take a moment and get a refill.
Kill Trackers were once one reason to Masterwork a weapon, but we now see no reason to gate these behind Masterworking. They’ll be present by default on all weapons that shipped in Forsaken and later (Exotic weapons prior to Forsaken will be updated in a later release).
Yes, this means Masterworking should no longer be seen as mandatory, and we expect the +10 to a weapon stat (or +10 to primary stat, +3 to other stats for Adepts) to only matter to dedicated PvP players.
We have no specific plans for changes to Masterworking at this stage but will revisit it later. (Note that we did discuss gating the Origin Trait behind Masterworking, but ultimately this wouldn’t have achieved the goal of weapon differentiation for non-Masterworked weapons.)
Following in the Armor Team’s footsteps, weapon mods for Legendary weapons are now free and instant to insert.
We believe that many pain points around Special weapons in Crucible are exacerbated by how easy it currently is to acquire Special ammo, and while we’ve touched this in the past, we’re making a further adjustment now:
Players now only drop one Special ammo on death (or equivalent), no matter how much they were carrying (as long they weren’t completely empty).
The maximum you can pick up off a Special brick is one for a Shotgun, Fusion Rifle, or Sniper Rifle, or equivalent for other weapons. Scavenger mods add to this as normal, but we’ll be evaluating their place in Crucible in the future.
Players quickly found another way to execute the quickswap glitch, so we’ve fixed another animation cancel.
Archetypes
The Season 15 Fusion Rifle rework had a lot of moving parts – rapid-fire, precision, and adaptive Fusions came out of this different but all quite strong, but high-impact Fusions are hurting. We’ve definitely seen all Fusion Rifle subfamilies occupy different roles and want to maintain the large differences in charge time to keep these distinct for now. So, we’re nudging damage up to make it easier for these to land kills at range in PvP and we are bumping the PvE damage scalar. That said, we’ll keep an eye on how they’re doing and may adjust charge time down a smidge in a future release.
Increased High-Impact Fusion Rifle damage per bolt from 62 to 64 (this doesn’t seem like a lot, but it allows more rolls to cross bolts-to-kill thresholds).
Increased High-Impact Fusion Rifle PvE damage bonus from 15 percent to 20 percent.
We like that the crowd control capabilities of Breech Grenade Launchers in PvE have taken off, but as it stands there isn’t a meaningful tradeoff for the added utility that blinding or concussion grenades give you, and it’s unreasonable that a way to really annoy other players in PvP can also one-shot them.
Reduced Blinding and Concussion Grenade damage by 25 percent.
Rocket Launcher subfamilies have lacked meaningful differences for a while now, and their free tracking Precisions are flat-out better, so we’re pushing them further apart by adjusting damage. We may take a deeper look at Rocket Launchers later.
Damage adjustment by subfamily:
Precision: 0.95x
High Impact: 1.0x
Adaptive: 1.05x
Aggressive: 1.05x
We took a big swing at Sniper Rifle aim assist based on zoom in Beyond Light and having seen this play out are revisiting the tuning on the zoom-based AA scaling. Low-zoom snipers got more of an Aim Assist (AA) reduction than they needed, and high-zoom Snipers are getting some pretty silly headshots right now.
Reduced variance in AA scaling between low (35 zoom) and high-zoom (60 zoom) Sniper Rifles.
Cone angle scalar increased by ~25 percent on low zoom, reduced by ~9 percent on high zoom.
Pulse Rifles take slightly too long to kill red bar enemies in PvE. We’re buffing their damage vs. minors by 10 percent (but if you want Exotic Pulse Rifles to feel better at this – oh boy, keep reading).
Exotic Weapons
Exotic Primary weapons and Trace Rifles aren’t sufficiently stronger than Legendaries for them to be worth bringing into hard PvE content, particularly against minors. Note that this change applies to all Exotics that use Primary ammo, and includes most secondary effects (e.g., perk-triggered explosions).
Increased damage vs minors in PvE by 40 percent.
Chaperone is a terror in PvP, particularly with the nerf to pellet Shotguns and the reduced frequency of grenade and melee abilities, and it outperforms some weapons that ought to be good counters to it, for example Sidearms and Submachine Guns.
Reduced passive range buff from 2m to 0.5m.
Duality is in a similar place to Chaperone, but it’s not quite as rangy. On the other hand, its Exotic trait shipped with the constraint that it would wipe on reload, to make it harder to chain. Having seen it in action for a while now, we don’t think that limitation needs to be there.
Reduced passive range buff in slug mode (i.e., when aiming down sights) from 1.25m to 0.5m (pellet mode is unaffected).
The On Black Wings damage buff no longer clears on reload.
Tarrabah is extremely strong as it is, but it currently demands complete commitment, with no weapon switching. This constraint is a bit harsher than it needs to be, so we’ve loosened it without removing it entirely. Also, while the duration extension when damaging players did actually function in PvP, it was so subtle that players kept reporting that it was bugged, so we bumped them up.
Now reduces perk progress by half instead of clearing it on weapon stow.
Increased Ravenous Beast duration increases for damaging a player slightly.
Ruinous Effigy has been overdue for a look at its Beyond Light nerf (the nerf to damage dealt while guarding), so we’re rolling that back. Note that the other part of that nerf was to the airborne standard melee attack, and this hasn’t been touched.
Increased the damage dealt by guarding with a transmutation sphere by 66 percent (30percent against players).
Note: Transmutation Sphere multikills now count for Orb generation armor mods (previously only kills with the beam would trigger this).
Lumina’s stats just don’t compare with other 140 RPM Adaptive Hand Cannons, and its usage reflects that, so we’re updating these alongside some of the Legendary Hand Cannons that also used to be 150 RPM (see below).
Increased range stat from 44 to 59.
Increased base stability stat from 46 to 56.
Sorry Thorn fans, Thorn is already strong and popular, and a similar buff would turn it into a monster in PvP.
Ager’s Scepter’s initial implementation used Super regeneration scalars, which had very weird effects in activities that also had scalars, so we’ve rebuilt it to turn off regeneration while active and have implemented a slower drain using a different method.
Fixed being able to activate or continue using empowered mode while suppressed or Stasis encased.
Rebuilt the perk — used to modify Super charge rate, now freezes Super recharge and deducts Super directly, fixing several issues with activities that change charge rate and outliers for recharge based on Intellect stat.
Super should now drain more slowly while empowered.
Dead Man’s Tale feels good to use on both mouse and keyboard and controller now, and we don’t want to go back to it feeling unreliable, but it’s far too good at spamming hip-fire shots at long range as it stands.
Reduced the catalyst’s hip-fire rate of fire from 150 RPM to 130 RPM.
Lorentz Driver and Arbalest remain fairly hard to counter in PvP; one common complaint is how easily they can shoot through flinch. We’ll be keeping an eye on these moving forward and have another change planned if needed.
Increased flinch received.
Forerunner’s ammo economy was fairly conservative when we shipped 30th Anniversary but having seen how it’s used in PvP we believe it would benefit from gaining a little more ammo per Special brick.
Increased ammo picked up from a Special ammo brick from two to three (and from four to five with a scavenger mod).
Legendary Weapons
Several Legendary weapons have out-of-band stats, either to their benefit, detriment, or a bit of both. When infusion caps were still around, this was ok because they’d cycle out eventually. But now the weapons remain viable in all activities indefinitely and the solution is to adjust outliers to be in-band (as mentioned in the Feb 2021 State of the Game).
Hand Cannons: The band for Legendary 140 RPM Hand Cannon Aim Assist ends at 84 (and this extreme should be for a Hand Cannon from a pinnacle activity, like a raid or Trials), but when 150s were converted to 140s, many of their stats were either too low or too high. We’re adjusting the stats of these to be within the standard ranges (up or down), as follows (an overall buff in most cases):
Dire Promise: +4 range, +3 stability, -4 aim assist.
Typically, we don’t adjust base stats on specific weapons at all post-ship, so we don’t intend to do this regularly.
Perks
We want players to be able to choose to build into hip-firing more easily, so we’re adjusting the Hip-fire Grip perk to support this.
Now increases damage falloff start and end distances by 20 percent (except on Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, and Fusion Rifle).
Adagio often felt like it changed a weapon’s subfamily to the next slowest rate of fire — but worse, particularly when comparing damage falloff.
Increased duration from 5s to 7s.
Increased damage bonus (except on Bows and Fusion Rifles) from 25 percent to 30 percent.
Now adds +10 range stat.
Added a timer to the buff text to make it easier to tell when it’s going to expire.
Dual Loader is okay on paper, but in practice that reload speed is pretty painful.
Reduced reload stat penalty from -50 to -35.
Danger Zone felt pretty risky to use in some cases, resulting in a lot of self-damage.
Reduced self-damage scalar for Grenade Launchers, combined with the other scalars, this is ends up reducing self-damage from 1.25x to 0.75x.
Tap the Trigger is the meta-breaking perk on a particular Fusion Rifle. When stacked with other elements of this roll, it makes Fusion Rifles much too stable. So much so that we stopped putting it on Fusion Rifles, and then squidface sold it a few times. With this change we believe it’s still quite a strong perk without being overpowered, so it’s likely to appear on future Fusion Rifles (note: we did try reducing stability from +40 to +20, but in playtests the difference wasn’t perceptible).
On Fusion Rifles only:
Reduced stability bonus from +40 to +10.
Changed max recoil angle scale from 0.5 to 0.875.
Changed error angle scale from 0.9 to 0.975.
Unchanged on all other weapons.
Headseeker didn’t work as intended on Aggressive Burst Pulse Rifles, because the buff’s duration was too short. Sacred Provenance is the only viable Pulse Rifle that benefits from this in Season 16 (although there IS such a Pulse in the Season, it doesn’t roll with Headseeker), but expect to see more in future Seasons.
Extended buff duration from 0.17 to 0.3s
Let’s talk about Eager Edge. It’s a lot of fun to use, but it can be used to do some mind-blowing, environment-breaking things if used in particular ways while airborne. While the tuning below isn’t meant to remove the fun factor, we have a fresh raid (and other fun content) coming with The Witch Queen and want to ensure we retain challenge behind our upcoming rewards. Breaking out of maps can be fun, indeed, but can easily remove the prestige and value of a given item or experience.
Reduced lunge distance benefit while airborne by 25 percent.
Now caps maximum player airborne velocity (to a fairly high value) while active.
Occasionally we’ll shelve perks, because they’re not working for some reason (too strong or too weak). This means we won’t put them on weapons in the future unless we change the perk. In many cases we’d rather put design work into new perks than old ones, but there’s a whole “Perks” section here. Anyway, these perks are shelved (some have been shelved a while):
Bottomless Grief and Celerity (Both were attempts to inject some uniqueness into Trials of Osiris and Nightfall weapons, which we’re now doing with Origin Traits.)
Underdog
Shield Disorient
Air Assault (though note that this may get a redesign in a future Season)
The Near Future
In Season 17 we’ll have a set of PvP-focused weapon changes, including:
New ways for players to build for flinch resistance.
Balance tuning for primary weapons (looking at you, Pulse Rifles; Lightweights in particular).
Special weapon tuning (Snapshot feeling mandatory on Sniper Rifles in PvP, other balance changes).
Another PvP Special ammo economy change, if needed.
Adjusting how zoom outliers (both low and high) affect the performance of a subset of weapons (i.e., the Scope column shouldn’t be the most important thing on a weapon). This could take various forms but the intent is to bring both high and low outliers towards the average (to the overall benefit of the weapon archetype).
We’re also adjusting several much-requested Exotics, along with Legendary perks.
Cheers to Proctor and the team for that massive info-dump. We’ll have a full roundup of patch notes on February 22 when The Witch Queen goes live. Stay tuned!
Year of the Tiger
So, we’ve covered what’s coming to Destiny with The Witch Queen and Season 16 (and beyond). What’s going on right now? Well, we have a celebration of the Lunar New Year! Some of you may have already noticed, but Eververse has been filled with some wonderful new items.
These items will be available through next Tuesday reset (February 8, 10:00 AM Pacific), so snag them if they’ve caught your eye! We also have a few items from last year available for Bright Dust if you’d like to join in on the celebration.
Prepare to Launch (A Worm)
This TWAB is long, but this train isn’t stopping yet. Our Destiny Player Support team has some important information for you, so keep on reading!
This is their report.
PRE-LAUNCH DOWNTIME AND PRE-LOAD
To prepare for the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, Destiny 2 will undergo scheduled downtime from 7:00 PM PST (0300 UTC) on February 21 to 9:00 AM PST (1700 UTC) on February 22.
dmg04’s note: As this TWAB is running pretty long, we’ll do the math for you. That’s Fourteen hours of downtime. We hope you can use this time to get some sleep, prep some tasty food, or do whatever your heart desires before diving into The Witch Queen. With the announcement of one million Guardians already having pre-ordered, we’re also expecting a bit of a queue as things open up. Please stay tuned for additional details.
Pre-load for The Witch Queen is planned to become available on all platforms beginning at 9:00 PM PST (0500 UTC) on February 21. Stay tuned for further updates as we get closer to launch.
SHATTERED REALM
With the end of the Season approaching, the Shattered Realm seasonal activity has been updated to a daily rotation from a weekly rotation.
Players who wish to complete Triumphs, Seasonal Challenges, or Seals associated with the Shattered Realm should make sure to do so prior to its removal with the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22.
GM NIGHTFALL CATCHUP NODE CLARIFICATION
This past week the Next Week In Destiny login message incorrectly indicated that the Grandmaster Nightfall catchup node had just become active. The Grandmaster Nightfall catchup node has been live and is currently available for players who completed the Conqueror Seal to be able to gild their Seal.
YEAR 4 CONTENT VAULTING
With the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, certain activities, quests, destinations, and items from Seasons 12-15 and Forsaken will become unavailable to access. For full lists of vaulted and deprecated content please see our guides below.
WEAPON CYCLING
The following weapons will be leaving the Ritual Rewards pools with the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22:
Trials of Osiris
Igneous Hammer
Sola’s Scar
Nightfall
THE SWARM
Shadow Price
Uzume RR4
Hung Jury SR4
Iron Banner
Multimach CCX
Timeworn Spire
Guiding Sight
Steady Hand
Players should make sure to claim all engrams and other rewards before the new season begins. Any rewards not claimed from ritual vendors (Zavala, Shaxx, Drifter, and Saint 14) will be removed at the end of the season.
KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
Weapons do not successfully attach to Phoenix Protocol when stowed.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
RAWR
Sam: Happy Thursday Guardians! The days are flying by but also taking forever on this road up to The Witch Queen, so this week we are staying short and sweet with our MOTW winners! First up we are sharing a precious celebration of the Chinese New Year as well as then Saint acting, well, exactly as we would expect.
Movie of the Week: Happy Chinese New Year 2022 (Tiger)
Movie of the Week: Saint has had enough.
Please don’t forget to tag us on twitter and use the hashtags #MOTW and #Destiny2Art!
Carved In Tone
Hippy: Less than a month to go, you can feel the excitement in the air – and no, that’s not just the four cups of coffee this morning. We’ve got some more art goodness from the community, this time with a wittle adorable wormie to celebrate one of our newest exotics, a cosplay that would make Crow both scared and intrigued, and – another worm, because come on. That’s just cool.
Let’s dive in!
Art of the Week: Sad Woomie
Art of the Week: Venj, Petra Venja
Art of the Week: Witch Queen PvP in a Nutshell:
Well, you’ve made it. Once again, a mega-TWAB has landed, and you’ve read every word of it. Maybe almost every word. I know some of you skip the outros.
Between now and launch, we have a few more little things to cover in TWABs but we aren’t expecting anything as long as this edition. These next few weeks will be your opportunity to rest up before the launch of our next expansion. Get some sleep, eat well, maybe even soak in some sunlight if the weather permits.
Of course, you’re going to maintain a healthy lifestyle after February 22, right? There won’t be any moments where you think I’ll do the dishes later or eh, I guess I can take the trash out next week while leveling up your brand new, freshly crafted weapons.
On a Final, Somber Note…
Before we go, we’d like to take a moment to honor one of our moderators. We received tragic news over the weekend that Seraphim Crypto, one of our German community volunteers, passed away.
Words are incredibly difficult to find here. Seraphim has been among the Destiny community since the start, pitching in to help anyone who needed an assist, or simply sitting back and relaxing among our forums to pass the time. We’d met him in person on his own home turf when visiting Germany for gamescom, and even had him come out to Seattle to help us with a Community Summit. Every exchange was positive, inspiring, and heartfelt. His love for this community was immeasurable. You could tell with every exchange how wonderful, unique, and passionate he was – and how much of an inspiration he could be, not only to us at Bungie, but to players of our worldwide community.
Thank you for everything, Seraphim. You are loved. You are missed. We hope you are able to rest well, and we are sending our love to your family.
The federal government is ordering the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform, but stopped short of ordering people to stay off the app.
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the government’s “wind up” demand Wednesday, saying it is meant to address “risks” related to ByteDance Ltd.’s establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc.
“The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence community and other government partners,” he said in a statement.
The announcement added that the government is not blocking Canadians’ access to the TikTok application or their ability to create content.
However, it urged people to “adopt good cybersecurity practices and assess the possible risks of using social media platforms and applications, including how their information is likely to be protected, managed, used and shared by foreign actors, as well as to be aware of which country’s laws apply.”
Champagne’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking details about what evidence led to the government’s dissolution demand, how long ByteDance has to comply and why the app is not being banned.
A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the shutdown of its Canadian offices will mean the loss of hundreds of well-paying local jobs.
“We will challenge this order in court,” the spokesperson said.
“The TikTok platform will remain available for creators to find an audience, explore new interests and for businesses to thrive.”
The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of TikTok in September 2023, but it was not public knowledge until The Canadian Press reported in March that it was investigating the company.
At the time, it said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity. It declined to provide any further details about what expansion it was reviewing.
A government database showed a notification of new business from TikTok in June 2023. It said Network Sense Ventures Ltd. in Toronto and Vancouver would engage in “marketing, advertising, and content/creator development activities in relation to the use of the TikTok app in Canada.”
Even before the review, ByteDance and TikTok were lightning rod for privacy and safety concerns because Chinese national security laws compel organizations in the country to assist with intelligence gathering.
Such concerns led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill in March designed to ban TikTok unless its China-based owner sells its stake in the business.
Champagne’s office has maintained Canada’s review was not related to the U.S. bill, which has yet to pass.
Canada’s review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate any foreign investment with potential to might harm national security.
While cabinet can make investors sell parts of the business or shares, Champagne has said the act doesn’t allow him to disclose details of the review.
Wednesday’s dissolution order was made in accordance with the act.
The federal government banned TikTok from its mobile devices in February 2023 following the launch of an investigation into the company by federal and provincial privacy commissioners.
— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?
It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.
Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:
Apple
The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.
For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.
You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.
Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.
Google
Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.
When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.
You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.
There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.
Facebook and Instagram
Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.
When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.
The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.
You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.
TikTok
The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.
Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.
X
It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.
Passwords
Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?
Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.
But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.
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Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.
The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.
“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”
San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.
Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”
“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.
The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.
