Destiny 2: Heresy Update Goes Live, Full Patch Notes Revealed

At last, Bungie has released its massive Heresy update for Destiny 2. As the final episode planned for Destiny 2: The Final Shape, Act 1 of Heresy begins today and should run for the better part of the next month. Currently, Bungie hasn’t provided too much info on what can be expected in Acts 2 and 3 of Heresy, but the new additions that have come to Destiny 2 today should keep players more than busy.

Downloadable as update version 8.2.0, this Heresy patch for Destiny 2 is one of the biggest that the game has seen in months. Not only does this update begin the Heresy episode, it also adds a ton of new rewards, weapons, and locations from the original Destiny. Beyond this, Bungie has also expectedly made refinements to every other aspect of Destiny 2, which means that nearly of the game’s various activities and many weapons will have been tweaked in some manner.

Related: Destiny 2 Adding Star Wars Cosmetics in New Collab

To see everything that has been done with the release of Destiny 2: Heresy, you can view the full patch notes courtesy of Bungie alongside this episode’s launch trailer below.

Destiny 2: Heresy Update Patch Notes

Activities

Episode Heresy

The final Episode for the year of Destiny 2: The Final Shape has begun.
- Get in there, Guardians.

Crucible

Trials of Osiris

Rewards
- Added new rewards, including an armor set, Ghost Shell, ship, Sparrow, and emblem.
- No longer requires Flawless to earn most rewards.
  - Moved Trials away from a Flawless-based system to a “get seven wins on a card” system that rewards win streaks, with multiple tiers and exclusive aesthetic rewards for higher win streaks.
- Improved the base reward structure of Trials.
  - Pinnacle Challenges now award Trials armor in addition to the Pinnacle gear.
  - Increased the amount of reputation gained on losses by 10x and added a new bonus that is earned by playing in a fireteam with clanmates.
  - Added a new set of base rewards for wins and losses that will be added to the existing Trios completion rewards, but for players in any fireteam configuration.
Passages – To help simplify the process, we have reduced the number of passages available to players from Saint-14 to two, one for each initial experience.
- Lighthouse Passage
  - All you need to do is win seven games on a Lighthouse Passage and you will earn entrance to the Lighthouse, regardless of how many losses are on the card.
  - The Lighthouse Chest rewards are now broken up into two types:
    - Repeatable rewards that you can earn every time you complete a Lighthouse Passage and open the chest.
    - Weekly win streak rewards (from one to seven wins in a row), which can be earned once per week and must be true win streaks; there are no mercies here.
- Trials Passage
  - We want to provide a separate place in Trials that is more like Iron Banner in terms of rewards and matchmaking to get additional players into the ecosystem.
    - Utilizes Weekly Performance-Based Matchmaking if everyone in your fireteam is on a Completed Lighthouse, Flawless, or Trials Passage.
    - Trials of Osiris Passage provides a healthy reputation bonus of 75 – 150 per win, depending on your current rank with Saint-14.

Skill

Changed how skill is tracked and updated for all modes.
- Objectives are now on par with base kills for points.
- Additional points are granted for kills that are in service to the objective.
- Removed multiple “farmable” points like damage dealt, revives, and longest kill streak.

Player Score Stat and Post Game Scoreboards

A new stat called Player Score is displayed on our post-game scoreboards, which is a direct reflection of how many points you earned towards updating your skill rating in a game.
The post-game scoreboards of all modes now show Opponents Defeated and Combat Efficiency.
Added additional stats to the scoreboards of more modes, including Longest Chain (highest multi-kill medal) and Longest Streak.

Playlist Reorganization and Consolidation

Core Game Modes
- Control – 6v6, Outlier Protection
- Competitive – 3v3, Rank Based
- Rumble – FFA, Open Skill
- Private Matches
Quickplay Rotators – – Available Game Mode for each changes weekly
- Quickplay – 6v6, Open Skill.
  - Clash, Supremacy, Zone Control, Rift, Relic
- Small Team Quickplay – Small teams (2v2, 3v3, 4v4), Open Skill.
  - Doubles – 2v2 Clash
  - Elimination Variants – 3v3 Elimination, Dominion, Countdown, Survival
  - Competitive Respawn Variants – 3v3 Countdown Rush and Showdown, 4v4 Lockdown
- Modified Quickplay – Various team sizes (3v3, 4v4, 6v6), Open Skill. Added new variants of Checkmate and Hardware.
  - Checkmate Variants – 6v6 Control and 4v4 Throwback (Survival, Showdown, Countdown Rush)
  - Hardware Variants – 6v6 Supremacy and 3v3 Hardcore (Elimination, Countdown, Dominion)
  - Other Modifiers – 6v6 Momentum Control, Mayhem Clash, Scorched Clash
Events
- Iron Banner Control – 6v6, Outlier Protection, replaces Control.
- Iron Banner Quickplay Rotator – 6v6, Open Skill, replaces Quickplay.
  - Tribute, Fortress, Eruption
- Trials of Osiris – 3v3, Open Skill / Weekly Performance, replaces Small Team Quickplay.
  - Dominion
- Guardian Games Quickplay – 6v6, Open Skill, replaces Quickplay.
  - Supremacy
- Crucible Labs – Various modes, Open Skill, replaces either Quickplay, Small Team Quickplay, or Modified Quickplay depending on what mode is being tested.

Crucible Specific Ability Tuning

Baseline Crucible ability cooldown penalty increased from 15% to 20%.
- Supers go from 20% to 25%.
Prismatic Only
- Unpowered Knockout melees will no longer spawn Diamond Lances on kills against players.
- Active energy refund on Prismatic decreased by 20% in Crucible.
  - This affects energy refunds from things like Gambler’s Dodge, Shiver Strike, and armor mods, but generally excludes Exotic effects.
- Added a 10% cooldown penalty to Supers so that there is more of a tradeoff to picking these subclasses in modes where Super timing can be vitally important, like Trials or Competitive.

Lobby Balance

We have made some changes to the Paired Player lobby balancer so that it will fall back to the Average Lobby Rank balancer less often when dealing with fireteams.

Map Weighting

6v6 Game Modes:
- Reduced Vostok and Multiplex from average weight to below average weight.
- Increased Burnout from average weight to above average weight.
Competitive:
- Removed Citadel Clash and Multiplex Clash from rotation (these were previously at very low weight).
- Removed Radiant Cliffs Clash from rotation (this was previously at average weight).
- Increased weight of Burnout Clash and Dead Cliffs Clash from above average to high weight to compensate.

Game Mode Rules

Dominion
- Zone now spawns after 40s, instead of 30s.
- Zone takes 20s to capture, up from 15s.
- Neutral Special ammo crate spawns at 30s, instead of 20s.
Showdown
- Revives no longer subtract a point from the opposing team.
Competitive Collision
- New logic will prevent the next zone from spawning too near to the active zone.
- Contesting a zone will now flip it to neutral so neither team gains points, as opposed to the current behavior where the team that owns the zone continues to accrue points while it is in the contested state.
- The new zone will now show up 20 seconds before it opens, instead of 15 seconds, to give teams more time to move to the new area and contest the capture.
Zone Control
- Decrease the frequency of Heavy ammo spawning to align it to regular Crucible modes like control at two minutes per spawn (120 seconds) from previously 60-second intervals.
- Remove Heavy ammo locations to non-neutral areas such as zones A and C locations to make acquiring Heavy ammo more fair.
Iron Banner Tribute
- Kills now contribute points.
- The second hunt now appears dynamically based on the score achieved during the first hunt.
- Dunking crests now grants Super energy.

Competitive

The quit protection timer has been increased to 90 seconds, to make sure that if a player is AFK at the beginning of the match and gets kicked, their teammates will still benefit from the loss forgiveness.
Competitive Point System Rework
- Removed the expected rank system entirely and streamlined the point gains and losses.
  - Wins and losses – Add or remove a base value of 100 points.
  - Performance bonus – Linked to Player Score and Efficiency, rewards between -10 and +10 points.
  - Contribution scalar – This system can grant a bonus of up to +50 to either reduce the points lost on defeat or grant additional points for a win, and will be utilized in two circumstances:
    - First, to help offset occurrences where some players contributed significantly more to the outcome of the game than others.
    - Second, it can also be applied as quitter compensation when a player has left earlier in the match, but the remaining players continue to finish it out.
  - Skill Modifier – Based on the opposing team’s average skill compared to your team’s average skill. Capped at -20 to +20.

Raids and Dungeons

Salvation’s Edge

Changed the memento acquisition criteria for Salvation’s Edge and Garden of Salvation Raids.
- No-wipe completions are no longer required, only a full clear.
- A full clear has a chance to grant the memento once per week per class in normal difficulties and can drop repeatedly in master mode.
Fixed an issue that prevented combatants from withdrawing when the Witness is defeated.
Adjusted the Witness limb shaders to improve legibility when colorblind modes are enabled.

Vesper’s Host

Fixed an issue where operator panels could be activated by splash damage, reducing the likelihood of accidental activation by player abilities and weapons with area of effect.

Last Wish

Updated Queenswalk buff to be displayed at the top of the HUD as with other critical buffs/debuffs.

Gameplay and Investment

Exotic Armor

Hunter

Dragons Shadow and Spirit of the Dragon
- Updated Wraithmail Metal to show a timer next to the buff.
- Fixed an issue where Wraithmail metal had a lower priority than intended.
Foetracer
- Increased the bonus weapon damage duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.
Gwisin Vest
- Now progresses its Super returns on Super hits as well as kills before becoming invisible.
- Improved the maximum possible Super energy gains per return while also increasing the amount of progress needed for maximum gains.
- Now also emits a cloud of weakening smoke when you exit invisibility while nearby an enemy.
  - Works both in neutral and while in Super.
Radiant Dance Machines
- Improves airborne effectiveness and hip fire mobility, range, and accuracy for Primary ammo weapons.
- Multi-kills with Primary ammo weapons refund dodge energy. When dodge energy is full, multi-kills grant extra charges. Powerful combatants and Guardians count as more than one kill.
Renewal Grasps
- Doubled rate of Frost armor gain while in the enhanced Duskfield grenade.
Sealed Ahamkhara Grasps
- Reworked with a weapon-swapping focus to differentiate it from other Hunter reload Exotics.
- Perk description now reads as follows:
  - Powered melee and finisher final blows grant Nightmare Fuel, increasing handling and airborne effectiveness. While active, freshly drawn weapons deal additional damage and grant Nightmare Fuel on final blows. Gaining Nightmare Fuel reloads all holstered weapons.
Triton Vice
- Reduced the delay before the explosion happens on Glaive projectile kills.
Relativism – Spirit of Galanor
- Reduced the maximum amount of energy refunded for Silkstrike and Golden Gun to 30% (down from 50%).
Relativism – Spirit of the Foetracer
- Spirit of the Foetracer has inherited the changes made to Foetracer.
Relativism – Spirit of the Dragon
- Spirit of the Dragon has inherited the changes made to The Dragon’s Shadow.

Titan

Citan’s Ramparts
- Removed several downsides applied by Assault Barricade to bring it in line with base Towering Barricade behavior. Cumulatively, these changes result in a Towering barricade you can shoot through with no other downsides while Citan’s is equipped (in PVE – see below).
  - Increased barricade health from 400 to 500.
  - No longer increases barricade cooldown.
  - No longer decreases barricade duration.
- Further increased damage dealt to Citan’s barricades by Guardians from 125% to 160%.
  - This results in near-identical effective barricade health in PVP (~2.5% less after these changes).
Eternal Warrior
- Final blows with Fists of Havoc now grant extended Super duration.
An Insurmountable Skullfort
- Now grants energy to Arc melee abilities when hitting targets with melee attacks. Amount granted varies based on the melee used.
  - From most to least energy granted: Powered melees, non-Glaive unpowered melees while Knockout is active, and unpowered melees (including Glaives).
Khepri’s Horn
- Now sends out three waves of flame instead of a single one when you cast your barricade.
  - These waves no longer return towards the barricade – they only travel outwards once.
  - Tracking on the waves has been enhanced.
  - Combatants damaged by these waves are enveloped in a Sunspot. Players are enveloped if they are defeated.
  - Now requires a Solar Super to be equipped to create the flame waves from the barricade.
Ursa Furiosa
- Blocking damage with Unbreakable now returns grenade energy instead of Super energy.
  - Grenade energy is returned at the end of Unbreakable and is scaled based on the amount of damage you blocked with it.
Wormgod’s Caress
- Fixed an issue where the timer would still display in players’ buff tray after switching off the Exotic.
Stoicism – Spirit of the Bear
- Spirit of the Bear has inherited the changes made to Ursa Furiosa.
Stoicism – Spirit of the Horn
- Spirit of the Horn has inherited the changes made to Khepri’s Horn. On Thruster, Sprit of the Horn will now emit four waves in an X-pattern.

Warlock

Crown of Tempests
- Adjusted gating to more robustly support Prismatic Warlock by expanding the granted ability regeneration to all elements.
- Description was updated to match:
  - While you have an Arc ability equipped, Arc ability or Jolt final blows increase the recharge rate of your abilities and extend the duration of Stormtrance.
Geomag Stabilizers
- Added a new perk: “Sprinting while near max static charge will top it off.”
  - Starts at six stacks of static charge.
  - Readded effects where the boots spark while running near full max static charge.
- Increased Super energy gained from ionic traces from 2% to 7%.
Mantle of Battle Harmony
- Fixed an issue allowing players to extend Song of Flame.
The Stag
- Fixed an issue preventing The Stag from dropping a healing rift on death.
Secant Filaments
- Now grants class ability energy for each final blow while devour is active.
Skull of Dire Ahamkara
- Now correctly requires Nova Bomb to be equipped to get the bonus Super energy from kills while devour is active.
Speaker’s Sight (and Edge of Intent)
- Healing Turret now only target’s damaged allies.
Stormdancer’s Brace
- Increased the damage benefit per stack of Ascending amplitude from 10% to 20%.
- Now also reduces the cost of Ionic Blink during Super by 50%.
- Reduced the maximum amount of energy refunded from 50% down to 30%.
Verity’s Brow
- Now uses a meter to track Death Throes. This means it decays down through the tiers rather than falling off completely when the duration expires.
  - New durations per tier:
    - T1 – 8s
    - T2 – 7s
    - T3 – 6s
    - T4 – 5s
    - T5 – 4s
  - Bonus grenade recharge per tier:
    - T1 – 0.5% per second
    - T2 – 1% per second
    - T3 – 1.5% per second
    - T4 – 2% per second
    - T5 – 2.5% per second
Solipsism – Spirit of Harmony
- Spirit of the Harmony has inherited the changes made to Mantle of Battle Harmony.
Solipsism – Spirit of the Filaments
- Spirit of the Filaments has inherited the changes made to Secant Filaments.

Exotic Class Item

Spirit of Verity
- Spirit of the Verity has inherited the changes made to Verity’s Brow. Additionally, it now provides bonus grenade recharge rate but provides 50% of the base Verity’s Brow Exotic.

Weapons

Global

Temporal AA – Aiming at a target for a short time will prevent another target moving very quickly across your reticle from dragging your aim off it. Controller only.

Weapon Archetypes & Subfamilies

Aggressive-Frame Fusion Rifles
- Reworked Aggressive-frame Fusion Rifles like Coriolis Effect.
- Now fire three bursts of four pellets in increasingly wide spreads.
- Increased minimum damage when outside of range from 45% to 65%.
- Increased range falloff start by 4m relative to normal Fusions.
- Increased range falloff end by 3m relative to other Fusions.
- +15% damage vs. minor and major combatants.
Fusion Rifles
- Increased damage by 30% vs. minor, major, champion and miniboss targets.
Glaives
- Significantly increased Aim Assist (AA), Magnetism and Damage Falloff Ranges.
- Enabled a small amount of tracking on the projectile by default.
- Increased baseline effects for:
  - Handling speeds, including shield ready speed.
  - Magazine size
  - Projectile speed
  - Reload speed
- Final hit of the melee combo deals double damage.
  - Also deals more flinch to combatants
Heavy Linear Fusion Rifles
- Branched the flinch taken so that they are no longer affected by the flinch nerfs targeted at Special ammo Linear Fusion Rifles in Crucible.
Rocket Sidearms
- Intent is to make them slightly worse at add clear, harder to use at long range against moving targets and not as strong against bosses, but maintain the same total damage against a single target.
  - Reduced PvE detonation scalar from 4 to 2.3.
  - Increased PvE impact scalar from 1 to 2.
  - Reduced AA falloff and maximum distance by 8m.
  - Reduced magnetism falloff and maximum distance by 8m.
  - Reduced damage by 30% vs. boss, vehicle and miniboss targets.
  - Buried Bloodline’s body shot damage is unaffected, critical hit damage is buffed by 8%.
- The range stat was vestigial on the weapon subfamily and made the stat count on the weapon too high, so we’ve removed it, range masterworks and enhanced intrinsics will be replaced with Blast Radius.
- Increased starting ammo and ammo gained from dropped bricks in Crucible.
Support-Frame Auto Rifles
- Range now scales how far away you can heal another Guardian: 28 meters at 0 range, 38 meters at 100 range.
Swords
- Wave-frame Swords now use a significantly wider wave particle effect to match their actual area of effect.
- Adjusted particle effect that plays when a Sword’s ammunition is depleted or restored. This VFX now only plays when the Sword is equipped, and resolved an issue where the effect could play at the character’s feet under certain circumstances.

PvE Weapon Damage Changes

Auto Rifles
- +10% vs. minors and majors
Linear Fusion Rifles
- +10% vs. all combatants
Power Grenade Launchers
- -10% vs. bosses
- Rapid Fire GL bonus reserves reduced from +25% to +15%.
Scout Rifles
- +15% vs. minors.
- +30% vs. majors.
SMGs
- +5% vs. minors
Trace Rifles
- +20% vs. minors

Weapon Perks

Ambitious Assassin
- Removed time requirements on the perk to make it more comparable to Envious Assassin, as this perk requires you to use ammo for the weapons this perk is on.
Destabilizing Rounds
- Now grants volatile rounds for 2s if any targets are hit by the volatile burst from the initial final blow.
- Reduced internal cooldown from 4s to 1.5s.
Flash Counter
- Reworked to read: “Taking damage after guarding emits a disorienting blast.”
  - No longer requires a timed input or melee to trigger.
  - Deals damage in a large cone in front of you, disorienting combatants.
Full Court
- Now scales the detonation and burn damage of Area-denial Grenade Launchers.
Grave Robber
- Fixed an issue where players could not activate Grave Robber with Song of Flame melee.
Loose Change
- Doubled duration, from 4.5 to 9s for base, 5s to 10s for enhanced.
Psycohack
- Set it up to use the new shared “Exhaust” verb instead of a custom variant.
Fixed an issue where Indomitability was not functioning as intended when playing a Prismatic subclass.
Fixed an issue where the Sever duration granted by the Slice perk was not being extended by Thread of Continuity.
Fixed an issue where Glaive melee attacks against Stasis Crystals wouldn’t trigger Rimestealer.

Exotic Weapons

Class Exotic Glaives
- Special shot is no longer tied to Glaive energy.
  - It is now driven off a perk looking for six hits to allow the special reload.
    - Increments off both shots and melee hits.
  - Hunter
    - Also gains Jolting Feedback perk.
  - Titan
    - Also gains Destabilizing Rounds perk.
  - Warlock
    - Added Cure pulse to special shot impact.
    - Also gains Incandescent perk.
Centrifuse
- Increased mag size to 45.
The Colony
- Increased detonation damage by 40%. This puts its damage per shot a little above Legendary Drum Grenade Launchers.
- Increased number of bots spawned by one for all enemy tiers except players:
  - Player: 1
  - Minor: 1->2
  - Elite/Major: 2->3
  - Champion/Miniboss/Boss: 5->6
DARCI
- Added a new perk – Networked Targeting
  - Hits with Personal Assistant active grant you and nearby allies improved overall weapon performance and precision damage with non-Exotic Sniper Rifles.
    - Improves recoil, flinch, target acquisiton, handling and precision fraction.
    - Stacks 5x.
    - DARCI also gets this buff itself.
  - DARCI user also gets +15% damage after granting five stacks to a teammate.
Dead Messenger, Hard Light and Borealis
- The Fundamentals:
  - New effect: Grants a 30% damage buff (10% in PvP) to this weapon when you apply or receive an elemental keyword that matches the currently selected damage type of this weapon.
  - Removed Effect: No longer grants different stats based on selected element.
- Borealis only: Increased Stability by 20 and Aim Assist by 10 to permanently grant it the Void element bonus that it will no longer have access to, since Borealis is a sleeper pick in PvP.
  - This bonus was selected over Arc, since there are more ways to gain Handling.
Delicate Tomb
- Increased the chance to make an Ionic Trace from minor combatants from 4% to 10%.
- Increased the PvE damage bonus on the Tempest Cascade shot from 30% to 100%.
- Removed the timer from Tempest Cascade. Lasts until fired.
The Fourth Horseman
- Reduced the rate of fire slightly.
- Return ammo from reserves to the magazine per kill.
The Legend of Acrius
- Reduced spread by 33%.
- Damage Falloff Distance Start set to 1.75 (down from 2.5).
- Increased range/projectile max distance to 18 (up from 12).
Lord of Wolves
- Increased range, reduced base damage.
- Removed accuracy penalties from standard fire mode.
- Release the Wolves now triggers on hip fire instead of special reload.
  - Fires full auto.
  - Greatly increased damage and rate of fire.
  - Reduced accuracy and range.
- Catalyst
  - Reload Speed and Stability boosts are now built in.
  - When Release the Wolves is active, dealing damage to targets scorches them.
  - When aiming down sights (ADS), defeating targets spreads scorch to nearby combatants.
Lorentz Driver
- Picking up a bounty tag now grants one ammo to the mag.
- Triggering Lagrangian Sight by picking up a bounty tag adds six ammo to the mag, the first time you trigger it.
  - Goes back to adding one per tag on extensions while the buff remains active.
Manticore
- Updated the art for the perk progress bar in the weapon reticle.
The Queenbreaker
- Can now swap between its two scopes using special reload that also alters the weapon’s firing behavior:
  - Marksman Sights fires a single-shot bolt that chains to nearby targets and blinds them on hit.
  - Combat Sights fires a three-round burst that decreases charge time even further on sustained damage.
  - While the scopes can be swapped between at any time, selecting the scope node in the inspection screen lets players choose which scope they want equipped by default when spawning in.
- Increased the search range of the chain projectiles from eight meters to ten meters.
Quicksilver Storm
- Partially rolled back The Final Shape change: reduced shots required to trigger a rocket by 17%.
Telesto
- Harbinger’s Pulse:
  - Now only refills Telesto’s ammo from reserves (instead of Telesto and your Kinetic slot weapon).
  - Now triggers with any Void kill, not just Telesto kills.
  - Kill requirement increased from twoi to three; however, Telesto kills count double (in other words, will trigger off of two Telesto kills, one Telesto kill + one other Void kill, or three other Void kills).
  - Multikill timer increased from two seconds to 4.5 seconds.
- Catalyst
  - New perk: Harbinger Vestiges
  - After three activations of Harbinger’s Pulse, special reload the weapon to cause a rain of Telesto projectiles on your next direct hit.
Wardcliff Coil
- New intrinsic effect: Grants 1 stack of Static Charge to all nearby allies for each two rockets fired (four instances per trigger pull).
Vexcalibur
- Triggering Perpetual Loophole now also fills your Glaive energy.
- Slightly increased overshield trickle-on rate when guarding.
- Vexcalibur’s secret damage bonus when striking with its projectiles against a certain enemy factionhas been increased from 10% to 25% to match Wish-Ender and Malfeasance.
- Vexcalibur now briefly disorients non-boss Vex with its melee attack.
Fixed Collective Obligation not being able to leech suppression from tethered targets.
Suppressed VFX from the Winterbite Exotic during emotes and other performance actions.
Fixed an issue where Choir of One wasn’t applying proper bonus damage to frozen enemies.
Fixed an issue where Tommy’s Matchbook could continue to apply scorch to enemies even if it was not hitting them.

General

Added new weapon mods to their appropriate Collections menu.
Overload effects will now use shared “Exhaust” verb.
Fixed an issue where curated rolls of Guardian Games weapons acquired during Season of Defiance could not swap perks and could not properly gain enhanced perks.
Fixed an issue preventing players from being able to reselect the “Tracking Module” perk on the Hothead (Adept) Rocket Launcher.
Fixed an issue where Heretic’s Favor Rocket Launcher could drop with the Quickdraw perk in both trait columns.

Abilities