Source: https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/twid_03_06_2025

Act II Crucible Strike Team Update

We have a few tuning updates and fixes coming in Act II focused on PvP that we wanted to give some details on before they go live next week.

Redrix's Estoc Reward and Focusing Fix

In Act II, we have corrected an issue that could prevent players from receiving the Redrix's Estoc Competitive Pulse Rifle after completing their placement series. For those players who have already completed their placements and did not receive the fixed roll of Estoc, you can pick up a copy from Lord Shaxx in the Tower Courtyard.

In addition to fixes for the Placement Series Redrix's Estoc reward, we will also be fixing an issue where players were unable to focus previous Competitive Crucible rewards from Shaxx after playing three competitive playlist matches each week.

Redrix's Estoc Tuning

Earlier, we posted about some changes we were going to be making to bring Redrix’s Estoc more in line for our Crucible sandbox. We wanted to dive a little deeper into these changes and explain the reasoning behind them.

• Tuning Sword Logic Damage against players in PvP. This will not affect PvE efficacy. Reduced base damage bonus for kills against players from 20% to 15%. Increased damage bonus for kills against players in super from 35% to 50%.

As mentioned before, we will be adding this perk to more weapons in the future and we need it to be in line with our other damage perk options in the PvP sandbox. For perks in Crucible, we generally cap damage effects that trigger off a single weapon kill with no additional action required at 15%, for example Master of Arms and Golden Tricorn.

We do allow damage perks to surpass the 15% limit when an additional action is required, for example Kill Clip (25%. kill + reload), Harmony (20%, kill with another weapon), Desperate Measures (20%, ability kill), etc., but we want to avoid allowing a single kill to grant the same damage bonus as other perks with harder to activate triggers. To give it a higher upside and align it more closely with the other perks, we will be increasing the damage bonus for the secondary trigger of killing a Guardian in their Super from 35% to 50%.

• Walking back some of the buff that Lightweight Pulse Rifles received in Destiny 2 Update 8.1.5.3.
  • Body shot damage against players reduced from 20.4 to 19.7.
  • Critical hit damage against players reduced from 31.8 to 31.5.
  • Note: This is still a damage increase over their values pre-8.1.5.3, but it does shift some of the forgiveness and optimal kill thresholds downward.

Some people have questioned why we are nerfing all Lightweight Pulse Rifles (and the adjacent BxR) when it appears that Redrix alone is the issue. Redrix may be the most common weapon in Crucible, but its popularity disguises the fact that Lightweight Pulses are quite strong across the board.

When we look at the top 30 most effective Primary ammo weapons in Crucible over the last few weeks, Lightweight Pulses account for six of them, which is double the representation of the second highest weapon sub-family. Outside of Estoc, Outbreak Perfected, Stay Frosty, Chattering Bone, BxR Battler, and even Bad Juju are all making their presence known, and nerfing Estoc alone would simply shift usage to these other options and not address the core issue. Though they do not kill the fastest or the farthest, and while still widely used are less effective in higher skill matches, their increased forgiveness at medium range is stepping on the roles of Rapid-Fire Pulse Rifles and Auto Rifles and leading them to dominate the middle of the skill curve.

• Reducing the handling stat on Redrix's Estoc from 79 to 74.

Redrix itself has high stats, as would be expected of the Competitive weapon reward, but the handling is too far above its closest competitor in the BxR, making it too easy to max out almost all the important stats when combined with the ability to slot stocks. As such, we’ve reduced the stat slightly to provide more of a trade off if you choose not to devote a barrel or stock slot towards Handling.

Solo vs. Fireteam Loss Forgiveness

As a reminder, when Act II goes live with Update 8.2.5, so does our newest mechanic for the Trials of Osiris and Competitive playlists. If you need a refresher on how things will change, let's look at this excerpt from the Heresy Crucible Update:

Starting in Heresy Act II we will allow duos to match trios right off the bat in both Trials and Competitive. This will continue to allow duos to play with our 3v3 playlists without making it feel like an advantage that they can avoid trios. We have not enabled this in the past because, for the solo player that gets brought into the match to fill out the duo’s team, it always feels like a bad experience to see a trio on the other side. We also understand that filling out duos games with solo players often makes it feel like a lottery to see who gets the better team.

To help with this friction, we will be setting it up so that any solo player that gets matched against a larger fireteam in either Trials or Competitive will be granted loss forgiveness for the match, on the condition that they do not quit, go AFK, or intentionally throw the game. Doing any of these actions will still result in a loss, and potentially a matchmaking restriction depending on the severity and number of occurrences. Winning the match will still count as normal.

We believe this change will have the effect of encouraging more people to play as full fireteams, while also improving the experience of solo players who get matched with fireteams in these modes.

On the Prowl and Smoke Crucible Tuning

We have heard the feedback that Void Hunter smoke effects, in combination with the new On the Prowl aspect, can feel oppressive, so we have some changes set up for Act II:

• Smoke debuff
  • No longer reduces player move speed or jump height.
  • No longer reduces player weapon handling.
  • No longer suppresses player movement abilities.
• On the Prowl
  • Hunted players no longer have pink glow in first-person perspective.
  • Reduced the glow intensity on hunted players in third person.

We will keep an eye on Void Hunter after these changes go live and can tune further as needed.

Get That New Trials Sniper Rifle

We know many of you have been waiting for this moment! Keen Thistle, the new Trials of Osiris Sniper Rifle, will be the featured weapon this weekend. It's a Solar Aggressive Sniper Rifle with some amazing perk combos both for PvE and PvP, so it's very much worth grabbing. As always, the Adept version of the weapon is a bit more interesting, so it's worth grabbing the Lighthouse Passage and trying for a good streak!

We changed how Trials of Osiris works quite a bit when we launched Heresy, so if you want to get a good understanding of what's going on, or if you need a refresher, please read our latest PvP-focused article.