Destiny 2’s The Edge of Fate is About to Kill a Lot of Builds, For Better or Worse

In the June 19 TWID update, Bungie announced a big change to how Ignition damage works in Destiny 2. Currently, in the live game, Ignitions caused by melee abilities scale with melee damage buffs. That ends with the Edge of Fate expansion, which releases on July 15, 2025. After the update, melee-based Ignition and Scorch damage will no longer benefit from damage scaling. This has been a core mechanic for Solar subclasses and Prismatic builds, which rely on stacking Scorch through abilities or weapons to trigger large Area of Effect detonations.

Grenade-based buffs, like those from Sunbracers or Starfire Protocol, will still scale Ignitions. The same applies to Roaring Flames, which remains one of the only class-based effects still boosting Ignition damage. This nerf primarily targets two melees, Consecration Slam and Incinerator Snap, which narrows the subclass sandbox in ways that heavily impact both Prismatic and Solar melee archetypes in Destiny 2.

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Prismatic and Solar Builds Were Hit the Hardest

The clear outlier was Consecration Slam, which had become one of the strongest abilities in the game due to its intrinsic +20% Ignition bonus introduced in The Final Shape. It allowed Prismatic Titans to apply Scorch instantly and detonate Ignitions that wiped out entire waves of enemies. With Destiny 2‘s Edge of Fate update, Consecration will still deal decent base slam damage, but the lack of Ignition scaling won’t finish enemies the way it used to. Prismatic subclasses were built around chaining elemental verbs for meaningful effects. Without strong Ignitions, those chains fall apart. No kill means no effect.

The Ignition scaling nerf also affects some Solar classes that rely on melee Ignition damage. Every Solar Warlock build in the current sandbox relies on Incinerator Snap. It’s the only base melee in the subclass with consistent functionality, good range, and reliable damage. But the strength of Snap came almost entirely from its ability to trigger a large Ignition after applying Scorch. With Ignitions no longer scaling off melee damage buffs, the Snap loses most of its damage. This change also affects Celestial Fire, Hammer Strike, and Knife Trick. These abilities were already underused, but at least they could apply Scorch and trigger Ignitions for extra damage. Now, without the scaling, these abilities will likely feel weaker and may struggle to take down even red-bar enemies in endgame content.

Bungie Previously Targeted Prismatic With Fragment Slot Reductions

Bungie has clearly been working to reduce the overall power ceiling of Prismatic subclasses. In a previous balancing attempt, they planned to limit Prismatic by reducing the Fragment slots for some strong Aspects. For example, Prismatic Titans using Knockout and Consecration were going to be reduced to only one Fragment slot. Destiny 2‘s Prismatic Warlocks would see Feed the Void limited to one slot as well. However, strong pushback from the community forced Bungie to roll back most of those reductions. This restored some flexibility, but the Ignition damage nerf is still left untouched.

Why Is This Nerf Bad for Destiny 2?

By taking away melee Ignition scaling, Bungie has removed the damage Prismatic classes needed to activate healing, ability regeneration, or other effects that rely on kills. And they haven’t offered any alternative mechanics to replace what’s been lost. Moreover, grenade-based Ignitions still scale with buffs. This creates confusion in how abilities are expected to behave and punishes a wide range of builds that were not causing balance issues.

If Bungie’s goal was to tone down Prismatic power, a targeted update to Consecration would’ve been cleaner than a blanket nerf that punishes every melee build across Destiny 2 classes. They could have reduced its +20% Ignition bonus to +5% or +10%. Or they could have just removed Ignition scaling from Consecration. Instead, they removed melee scaling from Ignitions entirely, affecting every melee-based Solar and Prismatic build across all the classes. In its current state, this update represents a step backward for the game’s buildcrafting depth.