Destiny 2 Season 15 Sandbox changes: Exotic weapon nerfs, Shotgun, Hand Cannon nerfs, and more

While Season 15 is still a few weeks away, Bungie has decided to go ahead with some sandbox changes for Destiny 2 while still in the middle of Season 14, also known as Season of the Splicer. 

With the 6th July weekly reset, players can not only find the Solstice of Heroes event live, as well as Timelost weapons and reissued Moon and Dreaming City gear, but plenty of balance changes that include reworks to how Hand Cannons and Shotguns will work in PvP, alongside nerfs to Exotic guns like Anarchy.

According to the devs, this is what they're aiming for with the new sandbox update for each weapon archetype:

• Sniper Rifles - Engaging at long range, with aiming skill, when not already under fire. 
• Shotguns - Engaging at point blank range, using skill at movement or positioning to get close enough to get a one- or two-hit elimination. 
• Fusion Rifles - Engaging at mid-range, but with careful positioning and pre-charging around cover required for success. 
• Trace Rifles - Strong at close to mid-ranges, at the cost of not being a one-hit elimination, making it possible to be outplayed by skillful Primary users. 
• Grenade Launchers - Useful for weakening an opponent, getting damage around corners with bounces, or getting a one-hit elimination with a direct impact, at the cost of projectile travel time and being in a bad place if you miss your shot with the single-round magazine. 

Destiny 2 Season 15 Sandbox changes

Here are all the early Season 15 sandbox changes that are now live in Destiny 2.

Shotguns

• Increased Aggressive Frame Shotgun cone angle from 4.0 to 4.25 degrees. 
• Reduced Shotgun damage falloff min by 2m. 
• Increased Shotgun damage falloff max by 2m. 
• Note: Slug Shotguns are unaffected by this change.

120RPM Hand Cannons

• Reduced precision damage multiplier from 1.8 to 1.6, preventing a 10% damage bonus from allowing two-tapping in PvP. 
• Reduced aim assist minimum falloff distance by 1-2m depending on the Range stat. 
• Reduced damage minimum falloff distance by 1m (this reduces their damage falloff advantage over other Hand Cannons to 1m (as usual, this is 1m before the zoom scalar). 

Perk Changes

• Drop Mag 
  • Can no longer roll on new drops of weapons, will have functionality changed later. 
  • There's a change coming next Season that requires adjusting this, and some perks with similar functionality - more on that later... 
• Pulse Monitor 
  • Fixed an issue where the Handling bonus was no longer applying. 
• Rewind Rounds 
  • Fixed an issue where the perk would not trigger if the last shot in a magazine missed, or if the player reloaded another weapon before firing the final shot. 
• Reservoir Burst 
  • We've seen the complaints that the detonation on kills doesn't feel that reliable or impactful, so this has been updated with the same consistency and speed fix as Dragonfly. 

Dead Man's Tale

• Removed hip-fire damage falloff scalar (was 1.8x to match zoom). 
• Aim Assist cone angle hip scalar reduced from 1.5 to 1.2. 

Sleeper Stimulant

• Fixed an issue where Sleeper Simulant was benefiting less than other LFRs from the Season of the Splicer LFR precision damage buff. 
• Total buff is now 16.5%, compared to the 15% buff other LFRs received.