While you were busy upgrading your obelisks, farming Polarized Fractaline, and breaking through to the fourth phase of the Empyrean Foundation event, Bungie’s dev team was at work discussing the “cutting edge” Destiny 2 sword changes they will implement in the coming season. The developers announced that sword changes are just one of many weapon overhauls they are working on, and in the weeks leading up to the new season, we can expect more news on other weapons and abilities that will receive makeovers of their own. Whether you’re a Crucible-loving PvP player like myself or focus more on the game’s various PvE modes, you will notice changes in your weapons and abilities that will better suit your style of play (assuming all goes as planned).
“Swords are receiving a sort of tableflip when it comes to light attacks, heavy attacks, and guarding,” Bungie reports. “While you’ll still rip and tear through opponents, as you would expect from a Sword, most of what you know needs to be unlearned.”
I must admit, that last statement initially gave me a sharp pang of worry — I was just starting to get pretty good with swords, and now I have to relearn their mechanics? But my worry morphed instantly into excitement as I continued reading and discovered that most of of the aspects of sword-wielding that had previously deterred me from choosing swords over pretty much every other Power weapon were soon to be improved. Here is the list of sword changes we can expect:
- Swords will use their own energy reserves in place of Power ammo, charging naturally on their own. When a sword is equipped, its energy level will be displayed in place of the melee ability slot so players can gauge how powerful their sword attacks will be.
- Guarding will also use sword energy instead of ammo, but at least one ammo must be present for players to use the guard function (though the type of ammo required for this is not mentioned). This modification is designed to make the guard function worth using.
- Light attacks made on the ground will loop in an infinite combo to better protect the more vulnerable sword attacker from shooters, and all swords will be able to cleave, a function that was previously only available on Aggressive Swords.
- Heavy attacks can always be performed but will vary in strength based on the sword’s energy level. Most swords will allow you to perform heavy attacks in the air without consuming sword energy.
- Most sword attacks will be able to penetrate elemental shields for part of the attack to put them on par with shotguns as a close-quarters combat weapon.
Now these are some sword modifications I can get behind. As for how smoothly this will all be employed in each sword, we will just have to wait and see. Damage levels will fluctuate with the varying added attacks, and many of the sword perks have undergone adjustments as well. The Bungie team recommends we experiment with these modifications when they are released to get a better feel for the swords we will use in combat. If all goes as planned on the development end with these Destiny 2 sword changes, I expect we’ll be seeing a massive increase in sword use next season.
