Bungie has finally released an update for Destiny 2 that nerfs the recently released and overpowered Witherhoard Exotic grenade launcher, among other fixes. The Witherhoard is one of the several new items introduced in the current Season of Arrivals, which was launched several weeks ago on June 9. The Exotic grenade launcher was found to deal an immense amount of damage to enemies, particularly bosses, when multiple players continuously fired it at the same time and target.
As with previous seasons, the current Season of Arrivals is set to release a whole lot of content for Destiny 2 and the Witherhoard Exotic grenade launcher is one of them. These include new PVE activities, new dungeons, new Legendary weapons and armor, new Artifacts, new Exotic weapons, and more. While most of the content coming out in the new season will be available to all players, the Season of Arrivals also features a battle pass that will grant owners access to additional content, whether exclusively or instantly. The Season of Arrivals is the final season of Destiny 2 Year 3 and the last season before the release of the Beyond Light expansion.
Bungie released the latest hotfix and posted the patch notes on their website, detailing the changes made to the Witherhoard and fixes to other issues. According to the patch notes, Bungie has “Fixed an issue where Witherhoard dealt a ridiculous amount of damage to various enemies.” Some speculate that the problem with Witherhoard is rooted in how its Blight effect calculates damage when there are multiple instances of it around. When the shells from a Witherhoard explode, they leave a Blight that deals damage over time and if an enemy affected by the Blight dies, it leaves another Blight pool. So when multiple players use the Witherhoard on the same target, the enemy suddenly receives a ton of damage and basically melts.
Along with fixing the issue with the Witherhoard, this latest hotfix from Bungie also addresses several other problems. An exploit that allowed players to swap out certain pieces of Exotic armor while still keeping their perks has been fixed, among other things. In a follow-up tweet after the release of the hotfix, Bungie also announced that it disabled the final checkpoint in the Prophecy Dungeon’s final room. It says that this is due to a current exploit but didn’t go into detail as to what the exploit is exactly.
While the issue with the Witherhoard made defeating raid bosses much easier and quicker, it’s good that Bungie has finally dealt with the problem. Hopefully, Bungie’s current plan to cycle out older content in Destiny 2 to give its developers more room to work on keeping the game updated will help make sure issues like this are either prevented or fixed quickly.
