After terrorizing Destiny 2’s PVP sandbox for most of Beyond Light, Bungie has confirmed that Revenant Hunters will be nerfed in the game’s 30th Anniversary update, with a focus on reigning in their Shatterdive ability.
With the launch of Beyond Light, Bungie introduced the first Darkness-based subclass into Destiny 2. While Stasis was seen as a largely successful evolution of Destiny’s subclasses, the game’s fourth element also introduced plenty of controversy — particularly in PVP.
Prior to some massive nerfs, Stasis was absolutely dominant in the Crucible. Even after the changes, Revenant Hunters remained a top pick largely due to their Shatterdive ability, which guarantees a one-hit-kill against almost any opponent — even those wielding their Super.
Now, after near-constant pleading from the Destiny 2 community, Bungie has confirmed their plans to knock the subclass down a notch, and revealed that Shatterdive in particular will receive a substantial nerf alongside the game’s 30th Anniversary Update.
During Season of the Lost, popular Destiny 2 content creator ‘Datto’ took to Twitter and voiced his complaints about Shatterdive after dealing with the ability inside Trials of Osiris.
The latest in a long line of players to call for a Shatterdive nerf, he jokingly commented that he would slip any Bungie devs willing to nerf the ability some extra cash for their troubles, even suggesting they should remove it from the game entirely.
Dear whoever's job it is at Bungie to balance Shatterdive: I'll pay you 1.5x your normal rate to work this weekend to get this shit nerfed. Let me know. 2x rate if you remove it from the game.
— Datto (@DattosDestiny) October 8, 2021
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Datto’s tweet may have been a joke, but Bungie surprised pretty much everyone by confirming that Shatterdive would, in fact, be hit with a nerf. They also revealed that players wouldn’t need to wait much longer for the changes to land in-game.
Kevin Yanes, Destiny 2’s Sandbox Discipline Lead (and a highly respected pillar of the PVP community), responded to Datto’s tweet with the news that the days of Shatterdive’s Crucible dominance were numbered.
In addition to confirming the ability’s upcoming nerf, Yanes also shared that the Stasis tuning pass would land “alongside a slew of other [ability nerfs] focused on shifting the meta more towards gunplay.”
It’s been nerfed and the nerf will debut in the 30th anniversary patch alongside a slew of other abilities focused on shifting the meta more towards gunplay. pic.twitter.com/9zTbMTj5BG
— Kevin Yanes (@_Tocom_) October 8, 2021
Moving Destiny 2’s PVP experience away from abilities and more towards gunplay has been a longstanding goal of Bungie, who previously stated that they plan to nudge the meta in a more gun-centric direction with the launch of 2022’s Witch Queen and beyond.
The 30th Anniversary Update is fast approaching, and players who are unhappy with the current state of Shatterdive won’t have to wait much longer for the highly anticipated nerf. We’ll have a full breakdown of the Destiny 2 ability changes when that patch lands on December 7.