Destiny 2 to completely rework abilities with the 30th Anniversary event

For years Bungie has been struggling with balancing Destiny 2 to make both PvE and PvP fans happy at the same time. A seemingly impossible task, but nonetheless, the developers keep trying to find a middle ground for the player base.

With the upcoming 30th Anniversary event, the developers have confirmed complete rework of ability subclasses, particularly around cooldowns, using the term "Variable Ability Cooldowns system" for this new direction.

In essence, each ability cooldown will have a more varied downtime, thus, their effects will also be completely changed in alignment with their new cooldown.

"One of our design goals this year was to reduce the amount of ability spam in the Crucible and put the focus back on gunplay. To this end, we’ve made ability cooldown times longer on average than they were before. We don’t want the PvE experience to suffer for the sake of PvP balance though, so we’ve tried to compensate where possible. For example, we’ve increased all grenade damage vs. PvE combatants by 15% or more. This should make grenades feel like bigger power moments than they do in today’s game," game designer Eric Smith wrote during the latest This Week at Bungie.

Of course, some things will remain the same, including how stats like Strength and Discipline will impact ability cooldown times. 

Without going into specific details regarding Supers, Bungie did confirm slight changes are coming to how players can energy for it.

• In PvE, super uptime should be relatively unchanged from the live game, if not slightly higher.  
• Everybody should get at least one Super in a 6v6 match that goes to the score or time limit as long as they engage in regular combat. 
• Supers should be less frequent in 3v3 modes than in the live game, where two Supers per match is a fairly regular occurrence.  
• Primary weapon play should have a noticeable benefit in Super energy regeneration.  
• Different Supers should come online at different times in a given match, and your Super of choice should have an impact on how quickly it regenerates.  

With this in mind, Super have now been stacked into tiers to differentiate their cooldowns. These are:

Tier 5 (Fastest Regeneration) 

• Well of Radiance 

Tier 4 

• Blade Barrage 
• Silence and Squall 

Tier 3 

• Shadowshot 
• Burning Maul 
• Arc Staff 
• Nova Bomb 
• Thundercrash 

Tier 2 

• Golden Gun 
• Chaos Reach 
• Nova Warp 
• Stormtrance 
• Daybreak 
• Sentinel Shield 

Tier 1 (Slowest Regeneration) 

• Spectral Blades 
• Fist of Havoc 
• Hammer of Sol 
• Glacial Quake 
• Winter’s Wrath 

Now, for the list of changes per class, check them out down below.

Destiny 2 30th Anniversary ability changes

There's plenty to dig into, so let's get started.

Hunter

DODGE 

Hunter Dodge 

• No longer breaks projectile tracking. 
• Marksman's Dodge 
  • Tier 10 Mobility cooldown increased from 11s to 14s. 
  • Base cooldown unchanged at 29s. 
• Gambler's Dodge 
  • Tier 10 Mobility cooldown increased from 11s to 18s. 
  • Base cooldown duration from 29s to 38s. 

REVENANT 

Shatterdive 

• Much less lethal vs players due to Stasis crystal changes. 
• Much more lethal vs combatants due to Stasis crystal changes. 
• Increased shatter damage vs frozen PvE combatants by 100%. 

Grim Harvest Aspect 

• Increased fragment slots from 2 to 3 

TOP-TREE ARCSTRIDER 

Combination Blow 

• Reduced base cooldown duration from 96s to 15s. 

BOTTOM-TREE NIGHTSTALKER 

Vanish in Smoke melee 

• Reduced base cooldown from 96s to 75s.

Titan

SHOULDER CHARGES 

All Shoulder Charges 

• No longer one-shot players. 
• Sprint activation time reduced from 1.5s to 1.25s. 
• Increased range from 5.5m to 6.8m. 
• Targeting-cone width increased by ~10%. 
• Increased damage vs PvE combatants by 25%. 

Seismic Strike (Arc Shoulder Charge) 

• Reduced AoE damage from 90 to 40. 
• Now blinds enemies in the area on hit. 
• Increased base cooldown from 82s to 90s. 

Shield Bash (Void Shoulder Charge) 

• Reduced AoE damage from 90 to 40. 
• Increased base cooldown from 82s to 90s. 

Hammer Strike (Solar Shoulder Charge) 

• Reduced direct impact damage from 170 to 120. 
• Increased base cooldown from 82s to 90s. 

BARRICADE 

Towering Barricade 

• Increased base cooldown duration from 37s to 40s. 

Rally Barricade 

• Reduced base cooldown duration from 37s to 32s. 

BEHEMOTH 

Diamond Lance 

• Increased fragment slots from 1 to 3. 
• Now spawns a Diamond Lance upon: 
  • Killing a PvE combatant with a Stasis weapon. 
  • Killing three players with Stasis weapons in a single life. 
  • Killing an enemy with a Stasis ability. 
  • Shattering an enemy. 

Shiver Strike 

• Increased Shiver Strike damage while in Glacial Quake by 50%. 

Whisper of Chains 

• Increased damage resistance vs PvE combatants from 25% to 40%. 

BOTTOM-TREE STRIKER 

Knockout 

• Melee lunge range and melee damage bonus now deactivate after a melee kill. 

Trample 

• Super-energy gain from Fist of Havoc light attack now decays to minimum amount over 3 PvP kills (down from 7). 

Frontal Assault melee 

• Increased base cooldown from 82s to 106s. 

Fist of Havoc  

• Heavy-slam radius reduced from 8m to 6m (bottom-tree only). 

Warlock

UNCHARGED MELEE 

Uncharged Melee 

• Reduced melee range from 5.5m to 4.5m (now matches Hunter and Titan). 
• Reduced suppression time after melee (can now melee back-to-back at the same speed as Hunter and Titan). 

MIDDLE-TREE VOIDWALKER 

Handheld Supernova 

• Reduced damage vs players. 
• Now deals 150 damage max. 
• Increased damage vs Champions and Bosses by 30%. 
• Increased projectile range from 12m to 14m. 
• Now pushes targets away from the Warlock on detonation. 

Nova Warp 

• Increased damage vs Champions and Bosses by 30%. 

SHADEBINDER 

Winter's Wrath 

• Reduced shatter-pulse damage vs enemy Supers. 
• Must now generally freeze and shatter all Supers twice to eliminate.

Penumbral Blast 

• Increased proximity-detonation radius vs PvE combatants by 100%.

Bleak Watcher 

• While Bleak Watcher is equipped, all Stasis grenades charge at Glacier Grenade rate. 

We strongly encourage you to take a look at the entire explanations for all these changes over at TWAB.

• Read more: When is Destiny 2 Beyond Light leaving Xbox Game Pass?

For more on all things Destiny 2, check out our dedicated section.

Featured image courtesy of Bungie.