Destiny 2's latest patch supercharge the older Arc subclasses

Today marks the beginning of Arc Week in Destiny 2, which will see improvements made to many of the game's pre-Forsaken Arc subclasses, adds an Arc Singe (a boost to all Arc damage), Arc-based bounties, and a return of the Thunderlord exotic machine gun quest, which can be started by visiting Amanda Holliday in the tower from April 9-23. There's electricity in the air, you might say—and there are patch notes, too. 

Subclass paths from the older versions of Titan Striker, Hunter Arcstrider, and Warlock Stormcaller have all been given significant buffs—the Striker's Code of the Juggernaut perk set now lasts for 16 seconds instead of ten, for instance, and boosts weapon damage by 20 percent in PvP and 25 percent in PvE, while the Chain Lightning melee attack from the Stormcaller's Attunement of Conduction tree will chain five times instead of just one, and can hit each individual target twice.

    

The bottom line is that if you play one of the older Arc classes, you're likely going to be hitting harder—unless you play an Arc class with a real thing for the Wardcliff Coil, that is. Amidst all the buffing is a nerf of the weird and wild rocket launcher, cutting its PvE damage by 25 percent against bosses and vehicles.  Oh, and there's also a minor nerf to bottom tree Dawnblade. Because hey, Bungie gonna Bungie. 

Back to the good stuff: Bungie has dialed back the previous nerf made to middle tree void Warlock, and the 2.2.1 update will also see a change to reward drops in Gambit Prime, The Reckoning, and elsewhere, which we talked about last week. Drop rates are going up, Tier 2 and 3 boss kills in The Reckoning will always have a chance to drop a Gambit Prime weapon, and some Reckoning weapons will turn up as Gambit Prime rewards. 

The patch also makes the usual array of tweaks, changes, and bug fixes, including one that will be of particular importance to people who felt like the game would start to chug after they'd been playing for awhile: "Fixed an issue where performance on PC would slowly degrade over time." The full patch notes are up at bungie.net

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Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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