Destiny 2 Season of the Witch (update 7.2.0.1) official patch notes: Class balances, weapon changes, gameplay modifications, and more

The highly anticipated Destiny 2 Season of the Witch is finally here. Apart from the major storyline that the developers revealed during the Showcase a little while back, there are several bug fixes that are set to go live alongside the update 7.2.0.1 today. Considering that this one is a seasonal update, the size is larger than the normal hotfixes seen regularly.

The Destiny 2 Season of the Witch update is important not just regarding the overall quality of life changes but also in terms of lore. Having said that, here's a list of all the changes that are set to go live in the update 7.2.0.1 today.

All major changes in the Destiny 2 Season of the Witch update 7.2.0.1

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During every new season in the game, Bungie introduces a fresh set of changes that revolve around reworked gear stats and gameplay mechanics. These adjustments also include several bug fixes and, in certain cases, new features. Based on what was revealed in the Destiny 2 Season of the Witch official patch notes, here's a quick rundown of everything that's changing with update 7.2.0.1.

Gameplay balances

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A major portion of the gameplay in Destiny 2 revolves around the usage of abilities. These are often governed by different stats and additional external in-game factors. As of the Destiny 2 Season of the Witch update 7.2.0.1, here are all the subclass and ability balances for all three classes in the game.

General Ability changes in Destiny 2 Season of the Witch

Fixed an issue where ability energy wasn't cleared when changing class ability.
Fixed an issue that allowed players to activate sprint melees without sprinting.
Fixed an issue that caused Threadling grenades to spawn double Threadlings when thrown against some surfaces.
Fixed an issue where at specific resilience stat values, players could receive the previous tier's PvE damage resistance value rather than their current tier's.
Fixed an issue where the Wish-Ender bow in combination with abilities like Shadowshot was able to generate significantly more Super energy per shot than intended.

Class based ability changes in Destiny 2 Season of the Witch

Titan

Increased Towering Barricade base cooldown time from 48 seconds to 70 seconds.
Reduced Barricade (all variants) maximum health from 600hp to 500hp and increased damage resistance from PvE combatants to compensate.
Lift (all variants)
Removed soft ceiling for Lift to eliminate instances where players could activate the movement mode but receive no upward movement (e.g., while Speed Booster was active).
Note: Warlock Glide already had no soft ceiling.

Hunter

Double Jump (all variants)
Removed soft ceiling for Double Jump to eliminate instances where players could activate the movement mode but receive no upward movement (e.g., while Speed Booster was active).
Note: Warlock Glide already had no soft ceiling.

Destiny 2 Arc subclasses

Destiny 2 Hunter

Fixed an issue where the Lethal Current aftershock could deactivate Liar's Handshake's Cross-Counter perk.

Destiny 2 Titan

Reduced Knockout’s bonus melee damage vs. players from 50 to 30.
Increased Thundercrash’s base cooldown time from 500 seconds to 556 seconds.
Thunderclap
Now costs energy on attack, rather than during the windup.
Reduced weapon ready speed penalty after attacking by 50%.
Skip Grenade
Reduced base cooldown time from 121 seconds to 105 seconds.

Destiny 2 Solar Subclasses

Destiny 2 Warlock

Fixed an issue where the Scorch applied from Celestial Fire could fail to activate perks requiring melee defeats (e.g., while using Sunbracers).
Fixed an issue where the Heat Rises description did not include the healing burst on grenade consume added in Patch 4.1.0.2.
Fixed an issue where the Icarus Dash description displayed the air move key bind rather than the air dodge key bind.
Fixed an issue where Swarm Grenade submunitions could become stuck in Ward of Dawn geometry, rapidly dealing impact damage to it rather than detonating after reaching its maximum impact count.

Destiny 2 Titan

Fixed an issue where the death screen obituary text for Sunspots was missing.

Destiny 2 Void Subclasses

Destiny 2 Titan

Fixed an issue where Shield Bash damage was being scaled to 0 against players in an active grapple.
Reduced Voidwall Grenade’s base cooldown time from 152 seconds to 121 seconds.
Fragments
Echo of Instability and Echo of Provision
Fixed an issue where defeating targets with non-Void grenades (e.g., Forerunner's The Rock) would fail to activate the Fragment perk.
Echo of Harvest
Fixed an issue where the cooldown buff tray text did not correctly indicate the name of the Fragment.
Fixed an issue where some players were unable to purchase Void Fragments from Ikora until they had purchased at least two Void Aspects.

Destiny 2 Stasis Subclasses

Destiny 2 Warlock

Increased consistency of Penumbral Blast freezing fast-moving targets (e.g., players Grappling toward the casting Warlock).
Fragments
Whisper of Bonds
Now creates an Orb of Power for you and allies when defeating frozen targets, rather than directly granting Super energy.
Players can no longer perform interactions (revives, Countdown bomb plants, etc.) while frozen.

Destiny 2 Strand Subclasses

Destiny 2 Hunter

Increased Silkstrike damage resistance from 40% to 45%.
Reduced suppression time between Silkstrike super air attacks.
Reduced vertical lift provided by Silkstrike heavy air attack to reduce instances of missing the primary target.
Increased Threaded Specter lifetime from 10 seconds to 12 seconds.
Increased Threaded Specter health vs. PvE combatants.
Threaded Specter now takes longer to detect nearby PvE combatants at the beginning of its lifetime.
PvE combatants now more consistently focus on Threaded Specter instead of the Hunter.
Allied players no longer have reticle magnetism toward Threaded Specter.
Fixed an issue where the Threaded Spike was unable to return to its owner if the owner was Invisible (e.g., from Assassin's Cowl activating).

Destiny 2 Warlock

Destroying a Tangle now creates a delayed suspending detonation.
Increased suspend detonation radius from 6 meters to 7 meters against PvE combatants.
Increased thrown Wanderer Tangle detonation damage to match standard Tangle detonations.

Destiny 2 General Class based fragment changes

Strand

Thread of Generation
Reduced the overall energy gain per damage event against PvE enemies by ~20%.
Rebalanced the energy gain multiplier across Primary weapon archetypes to bring energy gains for dealing damage with precision weapons and fully automatic weapons closer together.
Thread of Mind
Reduced class energy gain based on the tier of the defeated target:
Minor combatants reduced from 15% to 10%.
Major combatants and players reduced from 25% to 15%.
Bosses, Champions and minibosses reduced from 50% to 25%.
Thread of Propagation
Now grants +10 Strength.
Thread of Continuity
No longer grants +10 Strength.
Thread of Wisdom
No longer requires a precision kill to activate.
Thread of Isolation
Reduced the number of precision hits to activate by an average of ~30%; varies by weapon archetype.
Thread of Rebirth
The number of created Threadlings now varies based on the tier of the defeated target:
Minor combatants: 1.
Elite combatants or players: 2.
Boss, Champion, or miniboss combatants: 3.
Reduced base suspend duration vs. non-Champion PvE combatants from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
Thread of Continuity now extends this duration to 7 seconds, down from 12 seconds.
Reduced base suspend duration vs. Champion combatants from 8 seconds to 3 seconds (4 seconds with Thread of Continuity).
Increased snap damage dealt to suspended boss combatants by 67%.
Players can no longer perform interactions (revives, Countdown bomb plants, etc.) while suspended.
Increased Threadling damage vs. PvE combatants by 30%.
Reduced Tangle creation cooldown time from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
Reduced Woven Mail’s damage resistance vs. PvE combatants from 60% to 55%.
PvE combatants affected by Sever now have their outgoing damage reduced by 40%, up from 30%.
Grapple melee now always takes priority during the grapple melee window regardless of melee charge state (whether players have a Threaded Spike or Arcane Needle charge readied), and regardless of whether there is a valid target nearby.

Weapon and armor changes in Destiny 2

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As revealed in previous blog posts, Bungie was planning on reworking almost every Exotic in Destiny 2. The following is a list of all the Exotic weapons and armor that are being reworked in the current season:

Destiny 2 Exotic Armor

The functionality of the Foetracer hunter Exotic helmet has been moved to the Knucklehead Radar Exotic helmet.
Foetracer's previous perk has been completely replaced by the following perk: Damaging a powerful combatant or Guardian with an ability grants you a temporary bonus to weapon damage matching your subclass type. Defeating that target with a weapon matching the damage type of your subclass creates an elemental pickup.
The Lucky Raspberry Exotic armor has been reworked and now reads: Increases the chaining capabilities of Arc Bolt Grenade. Damaging enemies with jolt lightning strikes and collecting Ionic Traces grant additional Arc Bolt Grenade energy. Arc Bolt Grenades stun Overload Champions and delay their health regeneration.
Reverted the previous change to the cooldown of Duskfield grenades granted by Renewal Grasps.
Reworked ACD/0 Feedback Fence to make use of the Armor Charge system. New perk: Melee hits grant Armor Charge, and you take reduced melee damage while you have Armor Charge. Taking melee damage causes you to emit a burst of damaging Arc energy that jolts targets, consuming your Armor Charge and dealing more damage based on the number of stacks consumed.
In addition to its existing functionality, Icefall Mantle now has a chance to grant an escalating bonus to Stasis weapon damage on Stasis kills. Activating your class ability grants you the highest tier damage bonus.
The Hallowfire Heart Exotic has had its perk reworked: While standing in a Sunspot, defeating an enemy with Solar damage creates a Sunspot. It greatly improves recharge rate of your abilities while your Super is charged and provides a small benefit to the airborne effectiveness stat of all weapons.
Design note: Hallowfire Heart had too much overlap with Heart of Inmost Light and yet was restricted to one damage type. With this rework, we are looking to lean harder into the Solar subclass by letting you create more frequent Sunspots, while still retaining some elements of its previous functionality.
The tier-4 Arc weapon damage bonus granted by your Fist of Havoc Super ending has had its duration extended to 30 seconds, up from 10.
Path of the Burning Steps now grants the tier-4 Solar weapon damage bonus on Solar grenade kills.
In addition to its existing functionality, Doom Fang Pauldrons now have a chance to grant an escalating bonus to Void weapon damage on Void kills. Void melee kills automatically grant the highest tier damage bonus.
When you use Blink, Astrocyte Verse now causes enemies near you to become volatile. When using the Nova Warp Super, your Dark Blink movement ability does not cost Super energy.
In addition to its existing functionality, Geomag Stabilizers now grants energy for your Chaos Reach super when picking up an Ionic Trace.
In addition to its existing functionality, Wings of Sacred Dawn now reloads your Solar weapons from reserves when you get a kill while suspended in midair.
Winter's Guile now causes enemies encased by the Penumbral Blast melee to automatically shatter.
Arbor Warden's unique class ability should now benefit from all sources of bonus class ability energy correctly.
Fixed an issue that would cause Arbor Warden's class ability to not animate properly when used with Jotunn or Tractor Cannon.
Fixed an issue where Eternal Warrior's Arc Weapon damage bonus wouldn't function unless you had the super Fist of Havoc equipped.
Fixed an issue causing Chromatic Fire's elemental explosions to fail to apply their status effects in certain situations.
Fixed an issue causing Liar's Handshake's bonus melee damage to not function correctly with the Lethal Current Arc Aspect or the Gathering Storm Arc Super.
Fixed an issue where Swarmers would not create Threadlings when a Tangle was thrown after grappling to a different Tangle.
Threadlings spawned via Swarmers now work properly when The Wanderer Aspect is equipped.
Fixed an issue where Peregrine Greaves' HUD status effect didn't have an icon.
The Armor Charge HUD element will now show your actual maximum number of potential Armor Charges, rather than always showing 6 empty boxes.
Fixed an issue causing Swords to not benefit from Ammo Reserves armor mods.
Fixed an issue causing the Hunter’s Golden Gun Super to benefit from Kinetic Surge armor mods.
Fixed an issue where the Season 20 Guardian Games class items were not available as armor ornaments.
Added unkindled versions of both the Candescent and Sunlit universal ornaments for all classes.
For Guardians that unlocked the armor glows for these sets during Solstice, both versions will be available to unlock in the Appearance screen.
Guardians that have not unlocked the glows will not see any changes to these sets in their available ornaments.
The Warlock armor Psionic Speaker Robes, Resolute Champion Robes, and Wraps of the Emperor's Minister have had their visual issues fixed.
Fixed an issue that caused the Hunter chest armor Vest of the Taken King to be invisible when worn in the H.E.L.M.

Destiny 2 Exotic Weapons

Fixed an issue where ammo was loading into Quicksilver Storm slightly too late in the reload animation.
Fixed the impact stat on Dead Man's Tale. This is cosmetic only, damage per bullet is unchanged.
Two-Tailed Fox's catalyst perk Third Tail has been reworked. Two-Tailed Fox now fires all 3 shots burst-fire with the catalyst, instead of firing 3 rockets in 2 bursts.
This improves the weapon's consistency and prevents situations where the rockets could collide mid-flight.
Slightly increased the direct impact damage of the catalyst Arc rocket.
Verglas Curve
Whisper of Fissures detonations now generate Hail Barrage stacks if the crystal was created by this weapon.
Shiver Quiver now activates when slowing enemies.
Increased the slow stacks from 40 to 60 when hitting players directly with Hail Barrage arrows. This allows for a freeze if two Hail Barrage arrows hit the same player.
Le Monarque
Reduced draw time from 684 milliseconds to 612 milliseconds.
Reduced body shot damage from 100 to 85.
Increased critical hit multiplier from 1.5x to 1.6x. (Crit damage against players goes from 150 to 136.)
Reduced DoT burn time from 3s to 1.75s (goes from 8 ticks to 6).
Increased DoT burn damage against players from 1.875 to 2.5 per tick. (Burn damage also increased in PvE by 50%.)
Vex Mythoclast
RPM reduced from 390 to 360 to match other high-impact Auto Rifles.
Increased damage against minor combatants (red bars) and major combatants (orange bars) by 25%.
Tommy’s Matchbook Scorch values updated to 15 +5. Was 14 + 7 (with the Ember of Ashes fragment equipped).
Touch of Malice
Increased Final Round damage in PvE by 20%.
Decreased the self-damage from the final round from 10 to 7.
Final round damage can no longer kill the user.
Increased the health awarded by the Touch of Mercy perk from 30 to 75.
Set up Touch of Mercy to work like Unrelenting (Guardians and major combatants give more points towards activation, increased the time allowed between kills).
Ball of Darkness now appropriately deals Arc damage and will blind combatants and stun Unstoppable Champions.
Fixed an issue with Malfeasance where the Vorpal Weapon catalyst wasn't displaying the status buff text.
Reduced the lethal kill distance of Cloudstrike’s lightning strike against players.
Wicked Implement
Timing window for Creeping Attrition has been increased from 3.5 seconds to 4.5 seconds.
Tithing Harvest can now also be activated by destroying Stasis crystals.
Wicked Implement Exotic catalyst now also includes the Headstone perk.
Centrifuse
Fixed an issue where Centrifuse could blind some non-combatant, non-player objects, like doors, resulting in a visual-only debuff indicator.
Fixed an issue where Centrifuse's blind did not respect the direction a player was facing. Players who face away from the blind detonation will now suffer less visual impact than if they were looking directly at it, similar to other sources of blind.

General weapon fixes and adjustments in Destiny 2

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Global

PvE kills with two Special weapons equipped now generate Heavy ammo at the same rate as two Primaries or one Primary and one Special.
Decoupled damage falloff from zoom.
Added a fixed ADS Damage Falloff Scalar to all guns with damage falloff.

Destiny 2 weapon reticles

Replaced the perk active hipfire reticle element. The new one should work better at different field-of-view (FOV) settings.
Added a perk active indicator to Symmetry.
Moved Grand Overture's charge meter further down the screen to reduce instances of overlapping other reticle elements.

Destiny 2 Weapon Archetypes

Hand Cannons
Increased reload speed at 0 stat by 15%.
Increased damage against minor combatants (red bars) by 20%.
Increased damage against major combatants (orange bars) by 75%.
Changed Warden's Law to be the first member of a new sub-family, Heavy Burst.
Fires a 2-round burst.
Bows
Reduced minimum reload animation duration from 0.5 seconds to 0.3 seconds. (This means that applying reload speed scalars on top of high reload stat will still have an effect.)
Increased the projectile velocity at full draw so that the projectiles will continue to perform as if they were hit scan at longer distances at higher framerates.
Equalized the full draw projectile velocity with Combat Bows.
Fixed the RPM stat of Aggressive Submachine Guns to correctly show 720 RPM.
Reduced Aggressive Sidearms base damage from 32 to 30.
Increased BxR Battler Pulse Rifle’s zoom back to 20.
Fixed the impact stat on The Comedian Shotgun. This is cosmetic only, damage per pellet is unchanged.
Fixed an issue where the Adept Masterworks and Enhanced Intrinsic perks for Fusion Rifles were decreasing the damage dealt by fusions when they changed the Charge Time stat.
Wave Frame Heavy Grenade Launchers
Reduced the size and damage of the self-damage AOE.
This should make it much safer to fire the projectile closer to your feet.
Swords
Sword guard has been reworked. Energy now recharges after a short delay when used but recharges much faster.
The delay before recharge and recharge rate are both governed by the guard charge rate stat.
This delay ranges between 2.7 seconds and 1.05 seconds, depending on charge rate.
The rate energy returns after the delay has massively increased to compensate, increasing even more at higher charge rate. Even after the delay, Swords now return to full energy from empty faster than before this rework.
Full-power heavy attacks can now be used with any non-zero amount of Sword energy, rather than requiring full sword energy.
Sword guard damage resistance has been massively increased and now provides between 82.5% and 95% damage reduction depending on guard resistance stat.
This damage resistance value is sharply reduced against other players, similar to glaives, providing between 52.5% and 65% damage reduction depending on guard resistance stat.
Sword guard no longer loses energy when taking damage.
As a result of the above, guard efficiency has been removed as a stat.
Sword guard duration increased across every guard type, with those with shortest durations benefiting most.
Sword guard talent nodes have had their stats squished down.
Combined with the above, even though their stats have been reduced, their damage reduction, charge rates, and guard durations have increased across the board.
This allows origin traits and other Sword perks more room to increase these stats and allow performance beyond their previous maximum.
Sword guard talent nodes now visually affect the Charge Rate bar on the inspection screen when hovered or selected, similar to other stat-affecting nodes.
Sword movement speed while blocking increased from a 0.75x multiplier to 0.85x multiplier.
The Lament Exotic Sword has been special-cased so its charge rate and delay are unaffected, but it still benefits from the increased guard damage reduction and duration.

Perks

Reduced Bipod’s damage penalty from 40% to 25% in Destiny 2.
Envious Assassin
There is no longer a time limit after kills within which you have to activate the perk or get another kill.
The perk will now activate even if the magazine is overflowed (will stop activating once you hit maximum magazine size of 2.5x or greater).
Enhanced Envious Assassin now provides fractionally more ammo per kill, instead of a longer window of time after a kill in Destiny 2.
Under-Over
Now provides bonus body shot damage against players with Woven Mail.
Increased the bonus damage against combatant shields.
Deals significantly increased damage to enemies who are enhanced by a Dark Cabal overshield in addition to enemies shielded by Lucent Moths.
Reduced Under Pressure’s maximum accuracy cone scalar from 0.5 to 0.75 in Destiny 2 Season of the Witch.
Shoot to Loot
No longer triggers the reload when shooting a Special brick that could not be picked up while also having an overflowed weapon equipped.
Explosive damage now interacts with Orbs of Power.
Valiant Charge now deactivates after the initial Sword swing.
Ambush no longer deactivates from healing, fall damage, or being shot by allies.
Fixed an issue where the enhanced version of Explosive Light was granting two stacks on the initial orb pickup.
Chill Clip
Reduced the slow stacks from 60 to 40.
Wolfpack Rounds no longer trigger this perk Destiny 2.

Additional weapon fixes

Fixed an issue where the Vexcalibur ornament would be reset during reshaping.
Fixed an issue where the Revision Zero pattern Triumph could not be claimed despite the pattern being unlocked.
Fixed an issue where a level requirement was shown on enhanced intrinsics in the shaping screen (enhanced weapons only).
Fixed a number of issues where damage types were not being properly detected on weapons, preventing Artifact perks related to damage from proccing.
Fixed an issue where Deepsight drop rates could decrease slightly as the number of patterns within a weapon set were unlocked.
Fixed an issue with Swap Mag's tooltip appearance in the shaping screen.
Fixed an issue where tracking weapon projectiles would not track Threaded Specter decoys.
Fixed an issue that allowed Wish_Ender to hit more times than intended when shooting through a Citan's Ramparts barricade.

Destiny 2 Exotic Catalyst fixes and balances

Fighting Lion
Reduced the number of total kills required.
Reduced the number of total bounties required for completion (with event bounties worth a bit more).
Reduced the number of total kills needed with the Sunshot Sun Blast perk detonation.
Reduced the number of kills required with Graviton Lance’s Cosmology perk.
Reduced the number of kills required to bring Skyburner’s Oath more in line with other Primary weapons.
Reduced the number of kills required to bring Legend of Acrius closer to other Heavy weapons.
Rat King
This catalyst will now progress through use by the player, not only from fireteam use.
Additional players in your fireteam using Rat King will provide bonus progression toward your catalyst.
With how we've tuned D.A.R.C.I. to involve jolt, you often run out of targets to headshot. Therefore, we've reduced the number of headshots required to complete the catalyst.
Leviathan's Breath
Reduced the number of kills required.
Updated the string to denote that bonus progression is applied from defeating higher tier enemies.
Reduced the number of kills required to bring Eriana’s Vow more in parity with other Special weapons.
Reduced the number of kills to bring Ruinous Effigy closer to other Special weapons.

Destiny 2 Season of the Witch Crafting Changes

Dead Man's Tale and Dead Messenger can now be crafted. Patterns and upgrades can be obtained from Presage and Vox Obscura, respectively Destiny 2.
Weapon level progression per kill in PvP modes has been increased slightly.
Weapon level progression for activity completions has been increased slightly for the following areas:
Crucible
Trials of Osiris
Dares of Eternity
Wellspring
Gambit
Platinum score completions of Master and Legend Lost Sectors in Destiny 2
Weapon progression rollover behavior has been added. If weapon level progression earned from activity completion exceeds what is required to level up the weapon, the excess will now be applied to the next level.
Resonant and Harmonic Alloys have been removed from weapon crafting costs and will no longer drop from dismantling specific weapons. Players can exchange their existing inventory of these Alloys for Glimmer by visiting Rahool in the Tower.
Crafted and Enhanced Weapons now have a new mod socket visible in the inspection screen for weapon level boosting. Players can use Glimmer and Enhancement Cores to apply a Weapon Level Boost mod to directly level their weapon with escalating costs as the weapon level increases.
The Neomuna weekly pinnacle story mission score challenge will now provide guaranteed pattern progress the first time it is completed each week for any Neomuna crafted weapons you have not unlocked.
The Neomuna vendor engram upgrade will now increase the drop chance of Deepsight Neomuna weapons. This bonus will be automatic if you've already claimed the vendor engram upgrade.
The Destiny 2 Throne World vendor engram upgrade will now increase the drop chance of Deepsight Throne World weapons. This bonus will be automatic if you've already claimed the vendor engram upgrade.

That concludes the list of all major changes coming to Destiny 2 Season of the Witch update 7.2.0.1. These updates should go live in the game when players download the update and load into the new season. That said, during this process, players might come across the cat error code. In case that happens, the previous link is a quick fix for it.