Destiny 2 Announces Major Change to One Combat Feature in The Edge of Fate Expansion

Bungie reveals another massive change coming to Destiny 2 with the launch of The Edge of Fate expansion to a core combat component. When Bungie originally announced the next phase of Destiny 2 as Codename Frontiers, the studio hinted at a substantial refresh for the game, an aspect that has been becoming clearer over the past month.

Already, Bungie has revealed significant updates to how the core experience of Destiny 2 is changing, not just by moving away from its episodic and seasonal content delivery structure, but with some core mechanics as well. The studio released a full-year roadmap for Destiny 2, confirming two smaller scope expansions, reward passes and two major updates in between and what that entails. Bungie has also been fairly open about major changes coming to Destiny 2 as well, including a recent reveal about melee combat.

destiny 2 exotic gear tuning edge of fate

Destiny 2 Teases Major Exotic Gear Changes in Edge of Fate Expansion

With the launch of The Edge of Fate, Bungie reveals its plans for significant exotic armor balancing and tuning happening in Destiny 2.

In its weekly blog post, Bungie’s Sandbox Team revealed that it is making “one of the most significant systemic overhauls” to Destiny 2 when The Edge of Fate launches. Starting on July 15, melee damage will now be additive, which means damage increases will be added together instead of multiplied. While this results in a lower “ceiling” for melee abilities, it does result in a buff for all status effects that increase damage. In addition, melee damage increasing effects in PvE activities will always stack at full value, if applicable.

Destiny 2 Making Substantial Changes to Melee Combat and Glaives

Alongside this change, Destiny 2‘s armor overhaul can also impact melee damage thanks to the new stat value. The Melee stat in Armor 3.0 increases the damage of these abilities when over 100 points, providing up to a 30% bonus at 200. This bonus is considered an increase to the base damage and is multiplicative with other damage increases, which Bungie says is worth investing in. However, melee damage no longer scales with Scorch and Ignition effects, making them similar to how Jolt works.

One last reveal is how these changes will impact Destiny 2‘s melee weapon known as the Glaive. With The Edge of Fate, Glaives will be considered an unpowered melee ability, which means anything that increases damage, like the new Melee stat, will also power this weapon. Glaives will also be able to trigger effects that are impacted by melee abilities. However, to compensate for the potential damage spikes of this change, Glaives have seen some damage nerfs against PvE enemies, though the weapon does have a much higher potential damage-per-second output than it did originally.