Few weapons strike fear into the hearts of Destiny 2 players like the all-timer ensemble of Recluse, The Mountaintop, and Luna’s Howl, which defined an entire (miserable) era of the game’s history. So the news that these three guns, alongside several other nostalgic favorites, are returning as part of the upcoming Into the Light update was met with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Are we going back to those dark days? No, hopefully. Bungie says these weapons are indeed returning, but not completely game-breaking anymore.
“Recluse is back, along with Master of Arms,” Bungie says, quite threateningly, in a dedicated section of its latest blog post which I’m going to call the ‘broken guns corner’. “In its previous state, it was just a little too strong and would eclipse other damage perks, so we’ve brought it down a little. In this form, it’s balanced against perks with a similar use case.”
Master of Arms was a little too strong in the same way that the surface of the sun is a little too sweltering. It completely warped the PvE and PvP meta, so for the return of Recluse, its damage bonus has been reined in to just 15%. Surely that won’t break the game, right?
The Mountaintop’s gotten similar treatment. Its unique micro-missile perk, which makes grenades fire blazing fast and in a straight line rather than the normal weighted arc, is now an intrinsic trait that definitely, totally won’t destroy PvP as we know it.
“We also really didn’t want to return to a Mountaintop PvP meta, so this version can no longer one-hit kill in PvP, but the improved impact damage increases its viability in PvE,” Bungie explains. The Mountaintop should simply be “competitive with other Breech-Loaded Grenade Launchers,” with added usability thanks to its point-and-aim mechanics.
Finally, Luna’s Howl, a long-lost Competitive PvP weapon known for dropping players faster than every other primary weapon, has also taken its medicine. “We wanted to bring back the potential to two-tap Guardians in PvP, but with a little more effort,” Bungie writes. To that end, it takes more precision final blows to trigger its famously overpowered two-tap damage buff, but getting kills with this buff active will extend the buff. This gun has me most nervous, because it still sounds incredibly strong, but we’ll have to see. It’s nice to have these guns back, and in the worst case scenario, we may see a few weeks of chaos before The Final Shape arrives in June, which might actually be kind of fun.
Destiny 2’s new Onslaught mode looks like the Call of Duty Zombies-style horde mode the MMO has always been perfect for, and Bungie thinks it’s impossible to solo.
