Titans have long dominated the PvP meta in Destiny 2, with certain Exotic armor pieces like Antaeus Wards playing a crucial role in their dominance. However, Bungie has announced a major nerf to this Exotic in the mid-season update for season 22. The passive boost to sliding will be removed, and Reflective Vents will now require a full class ability charge to deploy. These changes aim to limit the Exotic’s powerful shielding tool and reduce its overall impact in encounters.
The developer explained that Antaeus Wards provided too much benefit for too little cost and lacked meaningful counterplay options. By tying the damage reflection to class ability, Bungie hopes to reduce the uptime of the effect and prevent it from easily stacking with the Juggernaut Arc aspect. While Titans will still be able to utilize the Exotic at the start of matches, the removal of the improved slide and increased cost of deploying Reflective Vents should reduce the frequency of shielded Titans rushing with shotguns.
Another Exotic receiving a PvP-specific nerf is Young Ahamkara’s Spine, a Hunter Exotic. Its grenade energy generation will now trigger on ability kills instead of ability damage, and the Tripmine Grenade’s bonus health will be reduced. Bungie aims to bring the total bonus grenade energy of Young Ahamkara’s Spine in line with other Solar ability-focused Exotics and make it easier to counter the enhanced Tripmine Grenades in PvP by reducing their bonus durability.
Both of these balance changes will be implemented in Destiny 2’s mid-season update, expected to release later this month. The specific date has not been announced, but the Exotic focusing system at Rahool is scheduled to receive an update on October 17, which may coincide with the larger mid-season rollout.
Source: DOTESPORTS
