The annual Destiny 2 Guardian Games is here. Two exclusive Guardian Games playlists are available that let you earn additional rewards. Don’t forget to turn in the medallions you’ve collected for your preferred class at the Podium.
Anyway, the recent “This Week at Bungie” gives some clarifications to the massive meta weapon changes that were revealed a couple of TWABs back.
Let’s begin with Airborne Effectiveness. This is a new stat coming in Season 17 and it influences a few aspects of airborne gunplay, such as aim assist cone penalty, accuracy cone penalty for primary weapons, and headshot aim assistance while shooting in mid-air. Investing into this new stat allows you to land more shots, essentially reducing the chance that you’ll miss the target when shooting airborne.
Anyway, the developers made some clarifications about this stat. First, you can never go below zero airborne effectiveness. Second, except for the accuracy penalty angle on primary weapons, there’s a linear progression from zero to 100, so the higher the stat is, the more you feel its effectiveness. Third, accuracy perks like Opening Shot still apply to your airborne accuracy as before. But because accuracy while airborne is generally better than it was, you’ll see less benefit from it.
You can read more about the new airborne effectiveness stat on Destiny 2’s official website.
Weapon Archetypes
How will the different weapon archetypes change in Season 17? Slug shotguns like the Heritage will receive the damage falloff (starts and ends at one meter) and aim-assist falloff (starts and ends at two meters) changes. Moreover, while they don’t have a spread angle, they are treated like other special weapons and have an airborne accuracy penalty as well.
Submachine guns are going to benefit from the increased damage falloff distance of 1.5 meters in the upcoming season. Additionally, certain Legendary SMGs (including one Exotic) will have adjusted zoom values. These are:
- Shayura's Wrath: 17 to 16
- Multimach: With max zoom scope: 17 to 15 (second highest zoom will bring this to 14 instead)
- Stochastic Variable: 13 to 14
- Ikelos (just noting the change from The Witch Queen here): 13 to 14
- Seventh Seraph: 13 to 14
- Every Waking Moment: 13 to 14
- The Huckleberry: 13 to 15
Those who like using sidearms may feel that they’re being left out, but this is actually not the case. The developers are just being cautious here. They’re going to see how the reduction in the effective range of shotguns and fusion rifles affects their strength first before making any changes.
So, what can you say about the new airborne effectiveness stat? Are you unhappy that sidearms are left out of the weapon meta changes in Season 17?
Destiny 2 is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
