Destiny 2 Strand Changes Include Reducing Grapple Cooldown

Bungie is planning on introducing changes to Destiny 2’s Strand subclass in Season 21, starting with making adjustments to the grapple’s cooldown.

The developer provided the details in the latest This Week At Bungie blog post, where it explained that it wanted to clarify the change to the Ashes to Assets and Hands On armor mods in the patch notes that were released earlier this week. It was mentioned that when both the Ashes to Assets and Hands On are equipped, only one of the mods will work, but Bungie has explained that these mods can still be used at the same time.

The actual change will be “defeating an enemy specifically with the grapple melee will no longer double dip and count as both a grenade and melee kill.” Bungie explains that this change was made to make the grapple melee consistent with how other abilities in the game interact with these mods.

The developer added that it’s happy with how Strand is currently performing but will be balancing it over time, with the first changes set to be released in Season 21 “as a part of a larger ability-balance pass.” The upcoming changes can be read below:

Destiny 2 Season 21 Strand Changes Preview:

• Grapple
  • Reduced base cooldown from 105s to 82s. 
  • Reduced the minimum time between grapple activations from 2.5s to 0.2s
• Strand Hunter
• Increased damage vs. PVE combatants by ~55%. 
• Increased projectile travel range before beginning to return to the player by 30%. 
• Slightly reduced speed of the dart as it returns to the player to make catching it easier. 
• Increased energy gain for catching the dart based on the number of enemies hit. 
• Now pierces Cabal Phalanx shields. 

Destiny 2’s annual Guardian Games event will return on May 2 and last for three weeks until the end of Season 20 on May 23. The free in-game event will allow players to earn medallions by completing a series of activities in Destiny 2, including a class-based version of the PvP mode Supremacy. Two special weapons will be among the earnable prizes during the competition.