Destiny – Bungie Patches Power for Pinnacle Rewards
Recently, Bungie released a hotfix for Destiny 2 that addressed one of the community’s largest problems with the game’s progression system.
Powerful drops obtained from pinnacle activities – raids, iron banner, and the new dungeon – now drop at +2 power instead of +1 power. Originally, players who completed these activities would receive +1 item drops, which resulted in players needing to collect an entire set of weapons and armor (7 items) at the +1 threshold to level up. While this does not seem like a significant issue, players have pointed out that certain activities lack items required to progress, mainly the newest raid, Garden of Salvation, lacking any power weapon drops. This is further exacerbated by a lack of bad luck protection, a system that prevents duplicate items in the same slot from dropping. Most players have given up on the power climb this season because of the grindy nature of obtaining 960 power level.
Luckily, this change means that players will only need to obtain 4 non-duplicate items at +2 power to level their overall character up. While this does not fully solve the issue of duplicate items dropping in the same slot, this does make leveling from 950 to 960 a much more forgiving process. It is still unclear if Bungie plans a gear power increase in future seasons as previous expansions have done, or if the power grind will be shifted to gaining experience with your artifact. Regardless of what Bungie plans, this is a much-needed change to Destiny’s endgame grind.
That was not all the patch offered, however. Players stuck on the Izanagi’s Burden questline will be pleased to know that both Forge Keys and the Obsidian Crystal quest steps have been fixed, allowing players to complete the quest and obtain the exotic sniper rifle. This quest has been bugged since the start of Shadowkeep, with the Key Mold being inaccessible for the first few weeks due to a bug, then a patch resulting in the Obsidian Crystal step also becoming bugged. Hopefully this patch will fix the quest for good and not cause future issues.
Telesto fans can rejoice now that the weapon has been reenabled thanks to a perk fix. Previously, Ashes to Assets applied to Telesto’s energy bolts, resulting in players getting their entire super recharged by shooting a few bolts in a tight cluster then throwing a grenade. The weapon was disabled when the exploit was discovered but has since been reenabled. Bungie also added the Pluperfect auto rifle and Temporal Clause machine gun into Vex Offensive as an earnable gun, allowing players a better intentional grind compared to hoping it drops at the end of a Strike, Gambit, or Crucible game.
That wraps up the changes brought with this hotfix. While the amount of changes brought this patch were small, they have a massive impact in the endgame progression of Destiny 2’s current season. Achieving 960 power on items should now be possible without taking the majority of a year to do so. It is about time the Izanagi questline got patched too, as it was infuriating having one of the best exotics in the current sandbox unobtainable due to a chain of bugs that have persisted for over a month. These changes are currently live on Destiny 2, available now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
