Destiny 2 finally adjusted Stasis, mostly for PVP

Destiny 2 Stasis

Stasis is still a relatively new thing

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When you have a system that’s been a certain way for years, adding something new is always risky. That’s just what happened when Destiny 2 threw the Stasis concept into the mix.

Just as studios have had issues balancing say, new classes in an MMO, Bungie has been toiling away, figuring out what to do with Stasis both on a fundamental PVP and PVE level. Now they may have figured it out.

In the most recent blog post for the game, Bungie notes that this is decidedly the Stasis patch, addressing multiple “pain points” across the board. One of those included the crazy high winrates of the Titan Behemoth, Hunter Revenant, and Warlock Shadebinder in PVP. According to Bungie, all of them were overperforming. While the latter is the least impressive, Bungie says its abilities take an “emotional toll” on players. In response, Penumbral Blast got “reduced tracking and proximity detonation size and tracking vs. players, and reduced freeze radius vs. players when impacting the environment from 2.7m to 1.5m.”

So what’s next? Well, the other subclasses will get tweaks going forward. You can find a full breakdown of the official patch notes below.

General Stasis
Stasis Freeze
  • Reduced duration of all non-Super freezes vs. players to 1.35s.
      • Note: This freeze is too short to break out of, so breaking out is now only possible when frozen by a Super.
  • Reduced Special-weapon, Heavy-weapon, and Light-ability bonus damage vs. frozen players from +50% to +5%.
Stasis Slow 
  • No longer reduces weapon accuracy.
      • Now increases weapon flinch when under fire.
  • No longer suppresses class ability and air moves (e.g., Icarus Dash).
      • Known issue: The Stormcaller’s Ionic Blink is still suppressed when slowed. We plan to address this in a future release. 
  • Reduced movement speed penalty while slowed by ~20%.
Whisper of Hedrons Fragment
  • No longer increases weapon damage after freezing.
  • Now increases weapon stability, weapon aim assist, Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery after freezing.
Whisper of Rime Fragment
  • No longer provides overshield while in Super.
Coldsnap Grenade 
  • Seeker no longer tracks targets after initial target acquisition.
  • Increased arming duration before seeker spawns from 0.3s to 0.8s.
  • Reduced detonation radius vs. players from 3m to 1.5m.
  • Now bounces off walls and detonates on the ground.
 
Titan Behemoth 
Looking at recent gameplay data, the Behemoth generally has the highest win rate of any subclass in most 6v6 game modes and is also among the strongest in 3v3 modes. In Trials of Osiris matches, for example, only top-tree Dawnblade has a higher win rate. We’ve taken these strengths into account when balancing the Behemoth’s abilities. Between Shiver Strike and Cryoclasm, the Behemoth has incredibly high mobility, making targeting the Behemoth frustrating for controller players in particular. We’ve taken steps to make the Behemoth more targetable while moving, which should hopefully alleviate some of this frustration.
Shiver Strike 
  • Reduced flight speed and distance.
  • Reduced knockback vs. players.
  • Removed slow detonation on player impact.
Cryoclasm 
  • Now requires the Titan to sprint for 1.25s before activation when not in Super.
  • Removed cooldown.
Howl of the Storm 
  • Reduced angle of initial freezing/damage cone.
  • Reduced crystal-creation freezing radius.
  • Slowed down sequence of crystal formation to allow victims more opportunity to escape.
  • Now spawns a small crystal on walls if performed into walls.
Glacial Quake 
  • Reduced heavy slam vertical freeze range vs. players.
  • Reduced damage resistance from 50% to 47%.
Hunter Revenant 
The Revenant’s Crucible win rate, kills per minute, and average efficiency is generally within the top six of all subclass trees, but its usage rate is incredibly high. In Trials of Osiris matches, it has the fifth-highest win rate of any subclass tree, but is used by a whopping 36% of Trials players. This high usage means players fall victim to its abilities more often, multiplying the frustration of being slowed by Withering Blade and Winter’s Shroud. We hope that the changes we’ve made to being slowed, paired with the adjustments to the Revenant’s abilities, make this experience better.
Withering Blade
  • Reduced slow duration vs. players from 2.5s to 1.5s.
  • Reduced Whisper of Durance slow-duration extension vs. players from 2s to 0.5s.
  • Reduced damage vs. players from 65 to 45 (after one bounce reduced further to 30).
  • Reduced projectile speed by 10%.
  • Reduced tracking after bouncing off a wall.
Winter’s Shroud 
  • Reduced slow duration vs. players from 2.5s to 1.5s.
  • Reduced Whisper of Durance slow-duration extension vs. players from 2s to 0.5s.
Touch of Winter 
  • Coldsnap seeker no longer has increased movement speed or travel distance.
  • Coldsnap seeker now spawns a small Stasis crystal on detonation.
Warlock Shadebinder
The Shadebinder’s Crucible performance is generally within the top ten of all subclass trees. In Trials of Osiris matches, it had the 9th highest win rate of all subclass trees. (BTW – I’m pulling all this data from the weekend of 5/14/21, but it generally doesn’t deviate much between weekends. VOG launch weekend shook things up a bit though.) While the Shadebinder may not be the most powerful in competitive play, being frozen by its abilities takes a large emotional toll on the victim. We’ve adjusted Penumbral Blast to require more accuracy vs. players in order to turn this ability into more of a skill shot given its powerful effects.
Penumbral Blast 
  • Reduced tracking and proximity detonation size and tracking vs. players.
  • Reduced freeze radius vs. players when impacting the environment from 2.7m to 1.5m.
Iceflare Bolts 
  • Seeker now only chains once when spawned from a player shatter.
Winter’s Wrath 
  • Freezing-projectile tracking strength now ramps down to 0 after 2s of flight.
We hope these changes have a positive impact on your Crucible experience. While the Gameplay team is very busy working on future releases, Crucible and the PvP community are incredibly important to us, and we’ll continue to monitor gameplay data and community feedback regarding Stasis and subclass abilities in general. We’ll continue to update Stasis until its win rates and usage rates are in line with the Light subclasses. Expect more updates in the future.
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Chris Carter
Managing Editor - Chris has been enjoying Destructoid avidly since 2008. He finally decided to take the next step in January of 2009 blogging on the site. Now, he's staff!
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