After the last major patch Bungie rolled out for Destiny which changed a lot of weapons, how they handled, and how much damage they did, players were more than a bit upset at the Vex Mythoclast nerf. This is after all the gun that players are rewarded with for beating Atheon, the Raid boss, on the Hard difficulty. Now granted, there are many players who obtained the gun by exploiting Atheon by pushing him off the ledge, but that still doesn't excuse it for those that legitimately beat him and got that reward.
The Vex Mythoclast, as most Destiny players know, was an extremely overpowered primary fusion rifle that dominated in PvP, and allowed players to perform some spectacular feats in PvE. It was nerfed so hard that it essentially became a regular scout rifle, with the fusion descriptor only in the gun's description. To many players that I've asked that owned the gun, it became quite useless. Well the good news for Mythoclast owners is that it will be getting some of its power back.
How we are moving forward:
- We are adjusting the base damage on Mythoclast. We are going to find a value that works for both PVP and PVE.
- In addition, we intend to raise Mythoclast's attack value above and beyond the other exotics. Attack value dictates how much damage players deal to combatants and Mythoclast attack value being raised will make it more effective in PVE.
Timeline for these changes:
- They’ll be going in soon.
- We have a more substantive update in certification right now, which slows down our ability to make changes to the Live game.
Bungie is also fixing the exploit for Atheon, meaning players won't be able to push him off the side anymore.
- We've added "baby bumpers" to areas where players could knock Atheon out of the environment.
- Knocking a boss off a ledge is a bug. We will seek to address bugs like these as quickly as possible.
So that was the good news, now for the bad. After running the Raid a few times, I got used to a certain team mechanic, especially when getting to the latter part of the Raid where teleporting is a key element.
Essentially, players would form teams of Relic holder and two Oracle dispatchers, while the other three would stay behind and take out any exploding Supplicants that Atheon would summon. This team dynamic helped quell the chaos that normally ensued during the boss fight, and allowed players to hone their strategy until they got it just right. The way the teleporting worked is that it would always transport the furthest three players to the Relic.
Bungie is changing up teleporting, so instead of taking the furthest three players, it will always take three random players.
The encounter goal for Atheon is to act as a climax and the culmination of learning for a given Raid group. Part of that is making sure that each player in your group can perform every job as required. A change will take effect next week which fixes a bug with Atheon's target selection. When using its Timestream ability, Atheon will select 3 players at random, instead of choosing the three players furthest from it.
Just…. wow. I'm willing to bet that Bungie has never played a single MMO in their lives. This change is just so backwards, and it serves to only artificially raise the difficulty level, and frustrate players even more.
