Destiny 2’s latest update, called Gambit, brings a new raid and map to the game. The most recent changes have been met with mixed reviews from fans of the original Destiny 2 experience. We break down what has changed in this installment of our weekly blog series that discusses every major change made on each week-to-week basis as it is released until September 7th when all content will be removed for maintenance during Bungie Day 2018
The “Witch Queen Update” is an update that was released on the 4th of December. It has changed a lot in Destiny 2’s Gambit mode, with new characters and weapons.
Bungie’s development team has started gently and carefully updating what’s known as ritual material in Destiny 2. Anything connected to a playlist, such as Strikes, Crucible, and Gambit, falls under this category. The first of these changes, which arrived a few months ago, gave Trials of Osiris a much-needed makeover, making it significantly more rewarding and accessible to all sorts of players. It’s now Gambits’ turn, with the release of The Witch Queen. Let’s take a look at what this redesign and all of the Gambit changes imply for the PvE/PvP game mode, as well as what players can anticipate after the expansion is released.
Explanation of the Gambit
For those unaware, Gambit is Destiny 2’s hybrid PvE and PvP game. You must work together as a team to defeat waves of foes, gather and bank Motes of Light, and defeat a final monster before the opposition team. What is the stumbling block in this process? You and the opposing team may send over more foes and even cross over to the other side to assault and take Motes away from them.
When the Forsaken expansion first came out, this game style was an intriguing new feature that played differently than anything else in the game. Gambit has been mostly unaffected by the addition of a few new maps, a more competitive mode known as Gambit Prime in 2019, and the eventual merger of conventional and Prime into a single-mode in 2020. It’s outrageously imbalanced, devoid of any fresh or fascinating material, and seems like one of Destiny 2’s sadly antiquated features.
Thankfully, the Season 16 and Witch Queen patch seems to be about to fix that. While no new material will be added to the game mode, it will be overhauled to be equally as prolific as the new Trials systems. Check out Principal Designer Alan Blaine’s initial post, then keep reading for a detailed summary of everything to anticipate from Gambit.
Adjustments to the Gambit Ammo Economy
In any PvP-related activity, ammo conservation and collecting are critical. Having Special and Heavy munitions on hand or collecting it at the proper time may shift the course of a battle or even save your life. This has always been the case with Gambit, even in PvE parts, resulting in a frustrating shortage of more ammunition to take on commercials and monsters.
Thankfully, ammunition is receiving a makeover that will provide a slew of new ways to gather Special and Heavy munitions in the future. To begin, when each Front is added, a chest will emerge with modest quantities of both kinds of ammunition that may be accessible by any player. Because these chests still have a timer, you and your team will need to schedule it in to claim it before it vanishes.
Additionally, in addition to the random drops of Heavy Bricks from defeating select Powerful Enemies and Invaders, killing a high-value target now guarantees a Heavy Brick. If you have any finder modifications installed, any of these techniques may provide you with extra ammunition. To keep things fair across teams, this effect cannot be multiplied and only delivers minor bonuses.
Encounters that have been carefully curated
Bungie has been experimenting with several methods for assisting players in becoming comfortable with terrain and confrontations. It’s the only live map in Trials, and it changes every week. When you play the higher difficulty edition of the Dares of Eternity activity, it’s the revolving arrangement of encounters that remains in a solitary sequence. This has often meant a single map or encounter lingering for an absurdly long time in Gambit, which may be annoying and repetitious.
Moving forward, we’ll be seeing a rotating selection of Encounters that have been carefully curated. The way this will work is that there will be a set rotation throughout the course of a Season that will then change with the arrival of the next Season. This will ensure that you can begin mastering what a specific species being active on a given map means for your strategy while looking forward to what changes will come in the near future.
Mote Drops, Respawn, and Revive
Bungie courtesy of HGG / Kody Wirth
One of the annoying aspects about dying in Gambit is the time it takes to get back into the combat. You constantly respawn at the beginning of the map and must hoof it across the whole zone before seeing any action. Furthermore, since respawn durations are so short, almost no one revives their friends.
There will now be a random collection of spawn spots strewn around the several Fronts, making it even simpler to return before the skirmish finishes. The revive time from other players has been reduced by two seconds, while auto-respawn has been delayed by two seconds to promote more direct collaboration. This should encourage players to keep closer together, reducing the annoyance of someone respawning in the midst of a friendly revive attempt.
Finally, you don’t have to be concerned about losing all of your Motes. Previously, if you died, you would lose everything, but now you would lose half of your Motes. If you make it back in time, you may pick them up from comrades, foes, and yourself, making deaths seem significantly less pointless. Keep in mind that all of these tweaks apply to Invaders as well, but with somewhat different characteristics and advantages.
The Bank, Blockers, and Draining
Gambit’s main focus is the bank, which is located in the heart of the city. You’ll battle Taken opponents here, deposit Motes, and guard your collection. All of this is being tweaked to make Blockers a little more tough and fair, as well as making Mote drain a little less severe.
Bungie courtesy of HGG / Kody Wirth
For starters, the health of the 10 Mote Phalanxe Blocker has improved somewhat. On the other side, the 15 Mote Knight Clocker is getting a Stasis attack. All of these changes are made to make each Blocker seem equally tough and beneficial as a Blocker, rather than one kind being the go-to due to a broken health system or AOE kickback.
At the moment, activating several blocks causes the opponent bank to be emptied. This would continue even after interacting with the Blocker, implying that unless you and your teammates band together or squander some valuable Heavy ammunition, you may easily lose a quarter of your bank in one shot. The drain will now be delayed as long as a Guardian is near the bank and dealing with the Blockers.
The Blockers, on the other hand, will now be more dangerous during The Beginning of Time period. If many Blockers are summoned, the Mote drain will now continue to be active even throughout this phase, rather than being merely more foes on screen to get in your way. This means you’ll have to concentrate on destroying these foes as they appear in order to prevent the opposing team from disrupting your efforts and allowing you to return to The Beginning of Time.
The Beginning of Time
Fighting The Beginning of Time successfully has always been about getting to it fastest and then strategically taking out Envoys to stack damage buffs. While this focus isn’t really changing, the mechanics around it are to make teamwork and enemy management much more of a focus. For starters, the Slayer stack bonus from defeating Envoys is getting a slight adjustment. It’s intended to make it that much more difficult to wipe a Primeval out in one or two rounds while leaving damage dealt in any subsequent rounds relatively unchanged.
Bungie courtesy of HGG / Kody Wirth
Speaking of Envoys, they now spawn out in the Fronts. They also have reduced health, are no longer affected by Slayer stacks, and use varied elemental shields. You’ll have to defeat them both in order to drop the invulnerability shield on The Beginning of Time. This is intended to encourage movement and communication as you and your Fireteam will now have to track them down in order to keep damaging The Beginning of Time. Luckily, they shouldn’t be overly difficult to find and will feature a decreasing health pool (30% of the damage done to The Beginning of Time) with each subsequent spawn.
Lastly, The Beginning of Time Servitor boss will be removed since its shielding mechanics worked against this new system.
Invaders from Outer Space
So, how do you feel about Invaders? When used appropriately, this is Gambit’s sole genuine PvP mechanism, and it’s meant to assist alter the game’s momentum. However, until recently, it has mostly served to add to the snowball effect of top-tier teams burying their opponents.
To help with this, and reinstate the strategy behind timing your Invasions, one of the Invasion triggers has been removed. Now, you’ll only get two triggers at 40 and 80 Mote thresholds, while The Beginning of Time phase will remain as is. You also can’t bank Invasions anymore, meaning that you’ll need to use that first one before hitting 80 Motes or lose it entirely.
While level advantages have been abolished since Beyond Light, this is the first time it has been formally revealed. Additionally, Invaders can no longer see how many motes another player is carrying, and while utilizing rocket tracking or engaging with increased magnification, you will lose sight of players.
As mentioned before, Invaders will also be affected by the Mote drop and spawn changes. You will now drop more Motes when killed and won’t spawn at the same location every time you cross over. Lastly, the overall damage dealt to The Beginning of Time after killing an enemy player has been stabilized at 27%. This is far lower than what’s been present up to this point and should make Invading still feel rewarding but not broken.
There are many ways to get rewarded.
The Drifter, like the Vanguard and Crucible, has had its prize tiers overhauled, and now it’s getting a focusing system. This will work similarly to Trials, where you may specialize your Gambit engrams into certain Gambit Armor and Weapons in exchange for 10,000 Glimmer and 50 Legendary Shards. This gear must be unlocked before you can begin concentrating, but it will make it easier for you to go for particular stat rolls and weapons.
You won’t be able to accomplish this straight immediately, unfortunately. Before being put to the focus pool, brand new Gambit weapons will be drop-only for a single Season. Aside from small seasonal tweaks that effect every vendor, most of the reward system will stay largely same.
The only other thing worth noting is that after finishing a battle, a new Gambit memento for weapon building might now appear at random. This is a brand-new cosmetic item that will be released as part of The Witch Queen, and it’s the only one of its sort we’re aware of outside of a hinted End-Game keepsake.
Gambling as a Freelancer
Bungie (photo)
Over the last year, both Trials and Iron Banner have received freelance additions. This pool is designed to make solo matching considerably simpler while also assuring that you won’t be playing against entire fireteams that can communicate easily. The next way to get this therapy is gambling.
Now, when you hover over the Gambit playlist, you’ll see the option to choose Gambling as a Freelancer. Bungie did mention that these Freelance nodes are not intended to be a permanent solution and that they are investigating a way to make this occur automatically without having to split the player population.
Gambit Labs is a company that specializes in gaming.
The last thing worth mentioning about this update is the inclusion of Gambit Labs is a company that specializes in gaming. in the future. This rotating version of Gambit will function just like Trials Labs at first, where the main game mode is replaced by an alternate for a short period of time. While there’s no timeline for when this will happen just yet, we did get teases for what changes to expect:
Bungie (photo)
Swap Invasion
In this lab, you’ll experiment with how the Invasion trigger gets triggered. Instead of you controlling your own portal, it will open when the opposition team reaches 40 or 80 Motes. In order to succeed, you’ll have to pay attention to how rapidly you’re banking and attempt to send over blocks at various moments.
Mote Thief is a character in the game Mote Thief
Rather of invading and attacking, you must now remain elusive and survive as long as possible. The more Motes you drain straight from the opposing bank into your own the longer an Invader is present. To add to the intrigue, the standard to Blocker drain has been deactivated for this match type.
Be a part of the High Ground
Gambit has always been a fascinating experiment that has been mostly forgotten since its first release. However, it seems like it will be given a second opportunity to shine with a targeted overhaul that should make it lot more rewarding and less repetitive.
To assist your Fireteam in preparing to defeat the other team, share this post on your preferred social media channels. Sign up for our email to get frequent updates on Destiny 2. Have fun gaming!
The “destiny 2 witch queen season pass” is a change to the game’s meta. The changes are based on a new weapon, and how it affects the game.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the power cap in witch queen?
A: The power cap in Witch Queen is the point at which the game starts to be too difficult for you to continue. It can vary, but typically its around 4500 meters or 7000 feet.
Is the witch queen free?
A: No, the witch queen is not free.
How big is the witch queen expansion?
A: The witch queen expansion is about the same size as a regular map with no new features.
Related Tags
- destiny 2 witch queen campaign
- destiny 2 witch queen patch notes
- destiny 2 witch queen steam
- destiny 2 witch queen xbox
- destiny 2 witch queen deluxe edition
