Destiny 2 manages to stay relevant throughout the years because it constantly gets attention from Bungie in the form of seasonal storylines and content, and balancing patches that shift the way the game is played. Sometimes these are mostly about guns, sometimes a mix between abilities, Exotics, weapons, and even mods. Season 15 will seemingly bring a lot of changes to Destiny 2 in terms of gameplay. Bungie's most recent TWAB highlighted all the planned changes for many of the subclasses in the game, with a trend of apparently trying to buff Light subclasses and melee Supers to make them more impactful.
There is an ongoing debate about Supers and abilities in general in Destiny 2. Some players want more control over gunplay and others are more inclined to see how Supers and abilities can shape the game. Melee Supers, in particular, can feel out of place and even outright clunky because of how the game is currently designed. Several encounters are inherently easier when approaching the enemy from afar, favoring ranged play over close-quarters combat. This translates into melee Supers being often outperformed by ranged supers, like comparing Chaos Reach's extreme range and Fists of Havoc from the Striker Titan or Arc Staff from the Arcstrider Hunter.
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Bungie acknowledges the power gap between these options and wants to make up for it in Season 15, while also keeping an eye on things in the future so that more efficient changes will be rolled out. Still, the changes that Bungie has planned for Season 15 are likely not going to solve most of the issues that melee Supers have at the moment, despite the huge buffs to the Arcstrider in particular. Among other things, sliding has also been nerfed to reduce the impact of a safer way to engage other Guardians in PvP, but this could end up backfiring when it comes to PvE engagement — especially for solo players — when using classes that benefit from close combat.
The main changes for Destiny 2's next Season revolve around damage, damage effectiveness, area of effect, and range for all melee Supers. The Behemoth Stasis class for Titans will probably be seeing more use thanks to the buffs to Cryoclasm, which will now make gameplay much smoother by making shattering crystals and frozen targets easier and more reliable. Plus, the Behemoth also got a nice buff to Shiver Strike in the form of 25% increased movement speed while performing the attack.
Striker Titans also saw buffs to make Fist of Havoc feel better by increasing the slam detonation radius of Fists of Havoc, while also reducing its damage falloff toward the edge of the radius, and reducing the slam's cost by 3% per slam. The cost change might seem minor, but it actually does grant an extra slam if the Super is activated and then used immediately several times in a row. These changes, however, are not going to make Fists of Havoc the preferred choice for Striker Titans simply because the Cuirass of the Falling Star exists, and it elevates the damage of Thundercrash from middle-tree Striker to the levels of Celestial Nighthawk.
What the Striker needs is either a damage Exotic that makes it much more viable, or at least something else to make it a more reliable choice for DPS in PvE, and also a good option in PvP. Most of the time, melee Supers lack the speed to properly engage enemies quickly, and the Super energy ends up being drained while moving to reach the next target. On bosses, and especially so in Raids, it's very common that their mechanics do make melee Supers less reliable because either engaging them in close combat is not feasible, or because staying safe from a distance is much better.
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The same logic applies to the Arcstrider, which is right now considered to be one of the worst subclasses in the game, if not the worst. This could change with Season 15, as Arcstriders are getting notable buffs to make them a better option for all content, including PvE activities. Arc Staff is seeing its duration increased by four seconds, from 16 to 20. Furthermore, the Super's radius for heavy-slam attacks is being increased from 5m to 6m, which makes it slightly better in terms of range, and in PvE the Super's damage will be increased by 33%.
Top-tree and bottom-tree Arcstrider will also see improvements, but what the class truly needs to make it a more reliable choice in all sorts of content is that survivability should increase, or at least some encounters should change significantly. Having PvE bosses punish close-quarters combat makes Arcstrider and Striker inherently bad choices, despite the damage increases and the overall gameplay being improved. The Behemoth doesn't offer great options as well in terms of bosses, considering that it excels at clearing large packs of enemies more than it does single-target damage, and in PvP it could still feel too slow to be effective despite the movement speed buff.
Furthermore, Hunters didn't get changes on the middle-tree Nightstalker subclass apart from nerfs in damage reduction during the Super effect and also while invisible, which was all planned to reduce its impact in PvP. However, the class doesn't really shine in PvE because it's still a melee Super that is not great at single-target damage and doesn't offer anything that other subclasses already do. This reduces the effective impact that Nightstalkers can have on the meta, and leaving untouched the top-tree and bottom-tree options won't even solve the fact that Hunters are often kicked from LFG in high-end content because their debuff role has been taken from them.
Overall, these changes are good and are a clear sign that Bungie acknowledges these issues and wants to improve, but Season 15 has to be just the tip of the iceberg here. The Witch Queen expansion is the perfect time to deploy more effective balance changes, especially considering Season 15 is likely to last much longer than any other Season thus far.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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