Each season of Destiny 2 promises a sandbox update, making as many necessary balance changes as possible to weapons and abilities for PvP content. Along with the new content for the season, Bungie tends to push out changes both big and small to competitive balance, based on player feedback and surveys. Many weapon types, as well as specific exotics, were changed in the massive balance update, but one of the most important changes came to the game's auto rifles.
Auto rifles in Destiny 2 have been notoriously weak in PvP for a long time. With the most recent sandbox update, auto rifles have been updated and properly brought up to par with stronger weapon types like hand cannons, snipers, pulse rifles, and scout rifles. Without context, the changes made to the auto rifles may seem miniscule or insignificant, but one singular buff has made auto rifles an actually viable option for PvP.
Auto Rifles in Season of the Worthy
Other than a select few exotics like the SUROS Regime and Monte Carlo, auto rifles were the least common weapons Guardians used in competitive PvP modes. A previous balance change gave the Hard Light auto rifle a resurgence in popularity, but that was only one more auto rifle that suddenly became usable in competitive play. Legendary auto rifles were few and far between in Crucible before Season of the Worthy, back when the competitive meta was dominated by hand cannons, snipers, shotguns, and pulse rifles.
In Destiny 2's 2.8.0 massive update for Season of the Worthy, auto rifles took up the least amount of text but may have had the most impactful changes out of all the balance updates. It's nice to see that Bungie didn't forget auto rifle buffs this time around. All frames of auto rifles (Precision Frame, Adaptive Frame, Rapid-Fire Frame) received damage boosts for both default and precision damage, with the only exception being Precision Frames' default damage remaining the same. This means that damage-per-second for all auto rifles has been significantly reduced overall, especially for players with accurate aim optimizing precision damage. (See above image for exact DPS value changes)
Obviously the huge list of balance changes for 2.8.0 includes a lot of important changes to a variety of Destiny 2's aspects, but this could be highly impactful on competitive play specifically, especially with Trials of Osiris coming this weekend. This buff does carry over into PvE content as well, but the use of auto rifles in PvE doesn't carry as much weight as their newfound viability in competitive multiplayer.
Hard Light's Buff Was A Sneak Peak
These changes will likely result in a serious uptick in the use of auto rifles in Crucible, Iron Banner, and now Trials of Osiris. Think of it as Hard Light's boost in popularity last season, but for all auto rifles and cranked up to 11. Auto rifles have always been fantastic all-rounder weapons except for their one major flaw of horrible damage output. Compared to the kings of PvP/Trials of Osiris meta like hand cannons and snipers, auto rifles were much weaker and not worth using.
Hard Light exemplified what auto rifles were capable of after it received a major stability buff last season. With higher stability maintenance (and thus better accuracy) along with the gun's intrinsic properties of ricochet rounds and no damage falloff, the gun became instantly more viable for every Crucible mode. These factors acting together are what made Hard Light instantly more usable in Crucible last season. Now imagine a PvP meta where auto rifles don't need three perks and a catalyst to make them viable in PvP. Auto rifles themselves are going to see their usage skyrocket in competitive meta moving forward since the damage buff will perfectly complement their already fantastic perks.
Auto Rifles In Competitive Play
Now, in comparison to the other weapon types in Destiny 2 PvP, auto rifles certainly aren't going to replace any of the mainstays in PvP at this point. The sandbox update for 2.8.0 did adjust sniper rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, fusion rifles, and even fundamentally overhauled swords as well for Season 10. Other than adaptive snipers receiving a significant precision multiplier nerf, and shotgun's receiving a slight range nerf, not many of the competitive meta weapon types have been significantly changed for Season 10.
Weapons like Spare Rations, Revoker, Mindbender's Ambition, Bygones, etc. are still going to be just as popular in PvP, auto rifles are simply going to join them in popularity instead of "de-throne" them per se. Those weapon types, unless severely altered in another patch, are still incredibly strong by design and will remain staples of competitive play. That being said, with auto rifles now having similar damage-per-second rations to the strongest weapon types, there's likely going to be a lot more of the best legendary and exotic auto rifles coming to PvP.
If players still have any great auto rifles like Hard Light or Monte Carlo chilling in their vaults, now may be the best time to bring them out of retirement.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia and Xbox One.