Temper, Temper

Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion has been one of the roughest for players in a while. From a lackluster core story, to an overused seasonal model, to a massive content delay, people wondered if Bungie would ever be able to reignite our wonder and desire to keep playing.

Apparently, all we needed to do was either wait for the developers to get desperate or give them enough time to cook, because Bungie’s latest announcement for The Final Shape expansion left my jaw dangling for an entire afternoon.

A hybrid elemental subclass.

An ability-leeching exotic.

A brand new enemy faction.

Players everywhere lost their collective minds at what the future expansion has in store.

That being said, I do need to take a step back and temper my enthusiasm. Bungie is very good at hyping up their releases. There have been cases where we got overly excited without considering the drawbacks, only to suffer when Datto’s worries became manifest. Let’s examine each of these new elements and consider both the expected joys and the potential woes.

Prismatic and Transcendence

Destiny 2’s newest subclass is Prismatic, a hybrid skillset that will allow you to wield multiple elements simultaneously, pulling from grenades, melees, class abilities, and aspects normally locked behind specific subclasses. Once you have filled two new gauges, one for Light and one for Darkness, you can unleash even more combined power by activating Transcendence.

While I myself choose not to use any of the Darkness subclasses for narrative reasons, the build-crafter in me is absolutely ecstatic at these prospects. I can use the Hunter’s Stylish Executioner to turn invisible from any debuff, such as Jolt or Scorch. I can pair the Warlock’s Feed the Void with the new Song of Flame super. I can give the Titan three Consecration slams with Frenzied Blade!

While most abilities and aspects carry over from existing subclasses, Prismatic-specific fragments have also been announced. Some of them have unique properties, such as letting Kinetic weapons fill both Transcendence gauges. Others combine subclass verbs into the same perk, granting benefits when using either a Light or Darkness ability.

These fragments, as well as other abilities, can be found through mission rewards, Prismatic chests, and collectables. The nice part about all of this is , once you’ve unlocked something for one character, it becomes available for all of your characters. Compared to Destiny 2’s original system, where you had to unlock shared fragments three times with hard-to-obtain currency, this is much more accessible.

Temper, temper!
The prospect of mixing and matching subclass abilities is indeed tantalizing, but we have to remember that there are bound to be limits to what we’re allowed to do. Much of this is already within the realm of game-breaking power creep.

In one of their recent blog posts, Bungie shared which abilities would be available for each class, such as starting options and ones you can unlock later. While many popular options were listed, such as Healing grenade, some, like Banner of War, were missing. Hopeful players would say that the rest will come eventually, but I doubt that. As nutty as combining Light and Darkness will be, I believe Bungie will still leave some of the good things in the mono-element subclasses. That way, they can still feel powerful and relevant in the new sandbox. Solar subclasses can still boost the effects of their Restoration buffs, Void Titans and Hunters can still obtain Devour in Void subclasses, and so on.

As mentioned before, Prismatic fragments will unlock across all characters simultaneously. My biggest concern is how often this will happen. The Destiny 2 grind is a very real thing. Some weapons have multiple quest steps involving over one hundred kills before moving on. The same applies to ability acquisition. I would not be surprised if the chances of fragments dropping outside of main missions are slim.

Exotic Class Items

For the first time since Destiny 1, we will be getting exotic-grade class items. Previously, these merely granted a small boost in XP. This would not translate well to the current state of Destiny 2. Instead, these exotic class items will borrow two traits from other pieces of exotic armor. Players have speculated how broken certain exotics would be if combined. Now, these build-crafting fever dreams can come true.

Furthermore, the traits in question can come from any class, regardless of your current character. A Warlock could theoretically obtain an exotic bond that combines Chromatic Fire’s precision damage explosion with Lucky Pants’ hand canon booster. This could possibly bench the need for multiple exotics in our inventories and ruin our Dresstiny fashion forever!

Temper, temper!
A couple of things do need to be addressed before we get too far into potential combinations.

First of all, these leeched perks do not seem to contain all that the original armor provided. For example, Eternal Warrior’s overshield perk may carry over, but not its arc-damage booster. This small feature could help keep beloved exotics from becoming completely irrelevant.

Next, it appears these exotic class items are intended to be paired with Prismatic. In fact, they will only become active when the Prismatic subclass is equipped. If you want to keep your Starfire Protocol perk to aid your Well of Radiance, you’ll need to stick to your Dawnblade subclass and your original Starfire Protocol. These exotic class items will only work with Prismatic, which, in all honesty, is another great way to keep our old builds from becoming obsolete.

Finally, these exotic class items will all be random rolls. You may be hunting for a particular perk combination, but you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes, you’ll get something that doesn’t fit your playstyle and you’ll have to try again. Other times, you’ll roll a pair of perks that you didn’t realize was so good until it arrived.

This brings me to my biggest concern regarding these exotic class items: How bad it the grind? I’ve lost a good number of awesome fireteam members because Bungie placed good gear behind skill walls and long, tedious farming. I still don’t have Buried Bloodline, despite multiple runs through Warlord’s Ruin. Legend and Master Lost Sectors are an absolute pain because new exotics don’t drop unless you’re running it solo. Veteran players will remember the infamous Two Tokens and a Blue from the Curse of Osiris expansion. If the grind for the exotic class items is anything like these, players could get fed up and simply stick with the roll they currently have. Not everyone has the time or patience to hunt for that god roll. Thankfully, my Cracked Titan build (featuring Traveler’s Chosen and Heart of Inmost Light) should still provide plenty of ability regen while I’m farming.

The Dread

Bungie had announced months ago that we would see a new enemy unit called a Subjugator. We figured that it would be like the Tormentor from Lightfall. It takes a lot to create entire new factions, so we accepted a new single unit in its place.

What we didn’t expect was for the Subjugators to bring friends, some of which can’t be harmed unless you go Transcendent.

You have the Grim, which have been nicknamed the “gun bats” for being deadly airborne terrors capable of suppressing your abilities.

There are the Husks, melees unit equipped with tonfa blades (which I have an absolute bias for) that can send out seeker mines on defeat.

Then, we have the Weavers and Attendants. From what we see in the gameplay footage, these two units appear to be reskinned Cabal Psions with Strand and Stasis elements. Even one of the developers in the announcement alluded to them as such.

Some players voiced their disapproval when Bungie blatantly reused content, such as long-removed Lost Sectors repurposed into Seasonal Story levels. However, using assets you already own saves time and money. Even the Taken are just shadow versions of pre-existing enemies with altered behaviors, but this has a narrative justification. The same goes for the Weavers and Attendants. There was a Cabal faction, the Shadow Legion, that allied itself with the Witness. There were a group of Psions that were tied to Nezarec, one of the Witness’s disciples. It would not be surprising if some of them were reshaped into the Witness’s preferences.

Temper, tem—
Actually, no. I don’t really have any criticisms on the new Dread enemies. I’m going to hate fighting them, but I think Bungie did pretty good here.

All in all, I’m excited about The Final Shape. The concerns I shared above still stand, but I look forward to how the Light and Darkness saga will come to a close. Build-crafting is going to be fun, the new enemies will be an excellent challenge; it’s shaping up to be an enjoyable play. I just hope and pray that Bungie does well here.