Destiny 2’s last big patch before the arrival of 2025’s Edge of Fate expansion in the summer goes live on May 6, bringing a new limited-time event, PvP mode, and substantial sandbox updates.
Rite of the Nine, a Dungeon-themed affair that introduces several reprised weapons, headlines Update 8.2.6, but how they’ll perform across PvE and PvP remains to be seen. A rebalancing of weapon archetypes and Exotics across the board guarantees a big meta shake-up for the remainder of Heresy Act 3.
Chief among the changes are further reductions to the potency of Legacy Frame Pulse Rifles, specifically Redrix’s Estoc. Introduced in Heresy, the Stasis Pulse has dominated all levels of competitive play and has been nerfed a handful of times already. This latest round of tweaks aims to curb its prevalence in mid-level play.
Hunter’s On the Prowl Void Aspect and Radiant Dance Machines Exotic also take a hit. Both have dominated Crucible since their introduction, especially when the latter was paired with The Last Word Exotic Hand Cannon.
Check out what we know about the patch notes so far below.
Update 8.2.6 patch notes
Abilities
Crucible Only
Prismatic Supers
- Reduced Prismatic-specific Super cooldown penalty from 10% to 5%.
Scatter Grenade
- Reduced scatter grenade damage vs. players by 15%.
Hunter (On the Prowl)
- Reduced PvP prey-finding range from 45m to 25m.
- Reduced PvP hunt time from infinite to 15 seconds.
Warlock (Lightning Surge)
- Clamped the variability of Lightning Surge damage against players.
- Slightly increased the minimum damage dealt and reduced the maximum damage dealt.
The biggest change here is undoubtedly nerfs to On the Prowl, bringing down the power of Void Hunters. With Prismatic’s Super cooldown penalty being reverted, it’s likely Hunters will go back to the Light and Dark subclass for PvP.
Global
Hunter
Withering Blade (Stasis and Prismatic melee)
- Increased tracking strength by 20%.
- Increased damage by 10%.
All Throwing Knife melees
- Fixed an issue where throwing knives were not tracking correctly. They should now track more consistently.
- Lightweight Knife (Solar melee)
- Increased tracking shape size by 10%.
- Increased tracking strength by 20%.
- Fan of Knives (Solar and Prismatic melee)
- Increase tracking shape size by 15%.
On the Prowl (Void Aspect)
- Reduced prey-finding cooldown from 0.5s to 0.1s.
- Ability energy is now granted instantly instead of over time.
Warlock
Lightning Surge (Arc Aspect)
- Slightly increased the follow-up-melee suppression time after Lightning Surge to match Shoulder Charge and other similar abilities.
Mostly adjustments to maintain continuity between classes.
Weapon Updates
Pulse Rifles
Legacy Frame
- The Legacy Frame Origin Trait now reduces ADS Damage Falloff Scalar by 0.1.
- This reduces Battler and Estoc’s ADS Damage Falloff Scalars from 1.7 to 1.6, matching High Impact Pulses.
- Increased BxR Battler’s Airborne Effectiveness stat – 10 to 21.
Rapid-Fire
- Increased base damage from 14.5 to 15.
- Increased precision damage from 27.6 to 27.8.
Hand Cannons
Heavy Burst
Increased ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.5x to 1.6x.
Adaptive – Judgment
- Magazine size increased from 9 to 11.
- Reload increased from 40 to 45.
- Handling increased from 42 to 55.
Auto Rifles
High Impact
- Increased base damage by 4%.
- Body shot goes from 23 to 24.
- Critical hit goes from 41.4 to 43.2.
Precision
- Increased base damage 3%, reduced the precision damage scalar slightly to offset this.
- Body shot goes from 19.4 to 20.
- Critical hit goes from 33.95 to 34.
Submachine Guns
Adaptive Submachine Guns
- Increased ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.4x to 1.5x.
Shotguns
Heavy Burst Slug
Further nerfs to Legacy Frame Pulse Rifles should see the archetype’s prevalence scale back further. High Impact Auto Rifles, historically one of the weakest PvP archetypes, get some much-needed buffs, as do Heavy Burst and Adaptive Hand Cannons. The return of a mid-range meta looks likely, based on these changes.
Weapon perks
One Quiet Moment
- Now has two stacks, one that activates after 1s of being out of combat for 50% of the bonus, and the other at 2s.
Alacrity
- Now activates at reduced effectiveness whenever a teammate dies. Reaches maximum effectiveness when two or more teammates are currently dead.
Exotics Weapons Updates
Lord of Wolves
- Reduced hip fire damage in PvE by 30%.
Riskrunner
- Increased zoom from 13 to 14
Truth and Two Tailed Fox
- Increased the amount of ammo picked up from ammo crates in Crucible from 1 to 2.
Alethonym
- Creating a special ammo brick now only costs 50% energy.
- Reworded the Vestigial Alchemy trait description to be a little less confusing.
Finality’s Auger
- Increased the duration that a target is painted to match the duration of the turret.
- The environmental target marker now marks additional targets that enter the zone after its initial creation.
- Now grants an automatic reload from reserves after deploying a turret.
- Reduced the turret’s self-damage by 85%.
- Increased the turret’s damage by 10%.
The Lord of Wolves nerf will eliminate its status as a best-in-slot Exotic for DPS on certain Raid bosses. Queenbreaker will likely return to top spot thanks to its synergy with Heresy’s Particle Reconstruction mod.
Armor Updates
Hunter
Radiant Dance Machines
- Reduced the bonuses granted to Primary weapons when hip firing. Aligned the hip fire bonuses to range and accuracy with the values granted by the Hip Fire Grip perk, instead of the Legacy Frame intrinsic perk.
- Reduced accuracy bonus for standard weapons by 60%.
- Reduced aim assist falloff distance bonus by 60%.
- Further reduced the accuracy bonus for the custom tuned Exotic weapons (including The Last Word) by an additional 25%.
- Reduced the amount of energy refunded for defeats against players when you do not have full class ability energy from 33% to 20% to align it with the upper tier of the Strategist perk.
Titan
Lion Rampant
- Added the accuracy and range hip fire bonuses from RDMs to Lion Rampant for Primary ammo weapons only. These hip fire benefits are always active, not just when airborne.
- The +50 Airborne Effectiveness bonus is now always active, not just when you are hip firing while airborne.
Warlock
Lunafaction Boots
- Added the accuracy and range hip fire bonuses from RDMs to Lunafaction Boots for Primary ammo weapons only. These hip fire benefits are always active, not just when in a rift.
- Decreased the range bonus granted by the Empowering Rift by 50% in PvP only to reduce occurrences of extremely long-range kills with short range weapons like Fusions and Slug Shotguns.
The nerfs to Radiant Dance Machines open up more build variety for Hunters in Crucible.
New Ritual weapons
Iron Banner
Nature Reclaimed
- Solar Lightweight Scout Rifle
- Column 3: Killing Wind, Outlaw, Heal Clip, Lone Wolf, Rapid Hit, Shoot to Loot
- Column 4: Desperate Measures, Kill Clip, Incandescent, Precision Instrument, Box Breathing, Explosive Payload
- Origin Trait: Iron Banner
Trials of Osiris
The Inquisitor
- Arc Precision Slug Shotgun – SUROS Foundry
- Column 3: Envious Assassin, Lone Wolf, Offhand Strike, Loose Change, Perpetual Motion, Slideshot, Threat Detector
- Column 4: Bait and Switch, Closing Time, Cascade Point, Fragile Focus, Jolting Feedback, Opening Shot, Precision Instrument
- Origin Traits: Trials, Crucible, SUROS
Nightfall
Cruel Mercy
- Arc Heavy Burst Pulse Rifle – Omolon Foundry
- Column 3: Dragonfly, Demolitionist, Eddy Current, Fourth Times the Charm, Keep Away, Lone Wolf
- Column 4: Jolting Feedback, Adrenaline Junkie, Headseeker, Frenzy, Kill Clip, Desperado
- Origin Traits: Nightfall, Vanguard, Omolon
Full patch notes for Destiny 2 Update 8.2.6 will be released by Bungie closer to the update’s release on May 6.
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