Bungie Changes Seasonal Armor Model in Season of the Splicer

The next Season of Destiny 2, Season of the Splicer, is nearly upon us. It’s that time of the week again, folks. Thursdays are TWAB days for Destiny 2 players, and this one gave us a bit of unexpected news about the next Season of Destiny 2, with regards to the seasonal armor. We’ve got a bit of other information as well, in anticipation of Season of the Splicer in the latest “This Week at Bungie” blog post. With a lot of information to dissect, courtesy of our favorite Destiny Community Manager (sorry, Cozmo), let’s take a look at all the smaller details that we learned about Season of the Splicer in this week’s TWAB. This will have a few spoilers for Season of the Splicer, so if you’re trying to go into next season blind, I would suggest not reading.

Seasonal Rewards

So, there’s a bit of change coming to Destiny 2’s Season Pass in Season of the Splicer, mostly regarding seasonal armor. “Previously, you would earn this armor by leveling your Season Rank and unlocking new pieces on the Seasonal Track. Moving forward, Seasonal Armor will be earned from Seasonal activities. You’ll also be able to guarantee pieces from these sets using Focused Umbral Engrams. Season Rank levels that once featured armor have been updated with packages of Glimmer, Legendary Shards, Upgrade Modules, Exotic Engrams, Enhancement Cores, and Enhancement Prisms. Universal Armor Ornaments will continue to be earned towards the end of the Season Pass.” So, it looks like you won’t be able to immediately pick up the entire Season of the Splicer armor set for each of your Guardians at the very beginning of the Season through the Season Pass. I think that this is a much needed change to the game, as it essentially eliminated any chase for seasonal armor. Especially with Armor Synthesis coming next Season, you’d be able to have this entire set unlocked and able to be applied to any set of armor whatsoever. Many fans of Destiny enjoy the loot chase, and the fact that you can get instant access to the entire armor set at the very beginning of the season is kind of a bummer. This change also gives players an actual reason to participate in seasonal activities again, which is always a bonus.

Seasonal Weapons

Within the Season of the Splicer Season Pass in Destiny 2, there will be three total weapons to earn, including the new Exotic Sidearm (Cryothesia 77k), as well as the new tech/Fallen-themed Shotgun and Heavy Machine Gun. The rest of the new weapons will be available through Umbral Engrams and Override completions. I am absolutely in love with this decision. The Season Pass should absolutely have exclusive weapons, but I think that limiting the number of available weapons in the Season Pass to two and putting the other four new weapons into the loot pool for the seasonal activity and Umbral Engrams is a killer decision. Outside of those, there will be a brand new Fusion Rifle called “Null Composure” that you will be able to earn through a new quest. After you unlock the weapon, you’ll be able to complete Gambit, Crucible, and Vanguard objectives to earn respective ornaments for the weapon. There will also be a new set of weapons available as post-game rewards for Gambit, Crucible, and Vanguard Strikes – four per activity, to be exact.

Nightfall Weapons

Season of the Splicer also marks the return of Nightfall exclusive weapons, but with a round of new Destiny 1 classics like the legendary Omolon Scout Rifle, Hung Jury SR4! Increasing difficulty on these Nightfall Strikes will give you a higher drop chance for these weapons, and Adept versions of each weapon and are only available in the Grandmaster difficulty, though this will give you the best chance at receiving one of these weapons.

Patch Previews

We’ve also got a bit of a patch note preview ahead of the new Season, which includes:

• Abilities, Aspects, and Fragments
  • Colorblind Support
    • Stasis abilities now have colorblind support:
      • Enemy Crystals
      • Enemy Squall
      • Enemy Duskfield
      • Enemy Bleak Watcher
    • Player highlighting in the Crucible now has colorblind support
  • Subclass Tuning
    • Hunters
      • The freeze detonation from Silence & Squall has been reduced from 12m to 8.5m in radius
      • Enemy Squall now has a red ring to define area as it approaches
    • Titans
      • Shiver Strike melee energy is now refunded when Glacial Quake ends
      • Fixed an issue in which players can trigger Whispers of Torment by standing in an opponent’s Barricade
    • Warlocks
      • Shadebinder
        • Bleak Watcher Aspect now grants two fragment slots
      • Chaos Reach
        • Fixed an issue with Chaos Reach Super that was allowing it to penetrate some thin walls or objects enough to damage and kill opponents on the other side
• Nav Mode (the menu that appears when you whip out your Ghost)
  • Separated Bounties from Quests in Nav Mode
  • All Bounties now appear in Nav Mode. They can no longer be tracked as a result
  • Category switching on keyboard and mouse can now be controlled with the scroll wheel
  • Tracked Triumph now appears in its own Nav Mode category
• UI
  • Legends added to the Director Destinations tab
    • This is where you’ll find Vault of Glass in a few weeks
  • Shortcut between HUD quest step notifications and quest details screen added for keyboard and mouse users
  • 6v6 Crucible activities have an updated intro experience
    • Cycle through your teammates to view metrics associated with the activity you’re entering
• H.E.L.M.
  • H.E.L.M. now appears in the Director Destinations tab (moved from Tower map) and has its own map
  • Focused Umbral Engrams and Prismatic Recaster
    • Umbral Engrams now auto-decrypt when Focused via the Prismatic Recaster (yes, thank you, Bungie)
    • The visual states for focusing options on the Prismatic Recaster have been streamlined to reduce visual clutter and confusion
• Glory, Valor, and Infamy
  • Glory, Valor, and Infamy reputations have had their internal systems rebuilt to a unified implementation. In-game, players should expect minimal perceived changes
    • Unified Glory, Valor, and Infamy rank reputation tracking
      • Before Forsaken, Glory and Valor had only Major ranks (Guardian, Brave, etc)
      • After Forsaken, Glory and Valor gained sub-ranks (Brave I, II, III) alongside Infamy. However, all the historical tracking (Lifetime Ranks) and quest usage still used the original Major ranks
      • Now, the sub-ranks are now referred to simply as Ranks, and all usage has been converted to use them where appropriate. (I.e., all lifetime values and quest targets have been multiplied by three.)
    • Glory playlists no longer block Valor win streaks from declining
    • The Valor badge now appears on the Trials launch screen
    • Infamy win streak bonus is now linear (+35 points per win)
    • Glory win streak bonus is now linear (+20 points per win)
      • Note: With the eventual update to Vanguard reputation, players should be ready to spend their Vanguard tokens during Season of the Splicer
• Eververse
  • Eververse Archive Filtering
    • Players can now easily filter the offerings in the Storefront Archive tab
    • Per numerous community requests, we added many Exotic weapon and armor ornaments from previous Seasons to the archive tab
  • Bright Engrams
    • Spawn FX and Shaders are now standalone items in Bright Engrams
      • Bright Engrams can no longer decrypt into duplicates of these items
    • A small amount of Glimmer will be awarded when decrypting Bright Engrams
• General Things….
  • Momentum Control and Team Scorched have returned and will be available as part of the weekly playlist rotation
  • Added repeatable bounties to Shaw Han in the Cosmodrome
  • Fixed an issue causing Vaulted gear to erroneously drop from strike-unique loot lists
  • Added a full suite of Trace Rifle-focused armor mods to the game

On a final note concerning the 2018/2019 Solstice of Heroes Armor Glows, the good people over at Bungie were actually able to rework/rebuild these in order to address the community’s request to support Armor Synthesis. The full patch notes are planned to release around 10 AM PDT (1PM EST) on Tuesday, the same day that Season of the Splicer for Destiny 2 releases.