Greetings, Guardians, Season of Dawn has come! Lets /wave to Season of Undying with its Vex Offensive and welcome our newcomer. Season of Dawn is the Second season of Shadowkeep expansion that brings so many new things to the game. So let’s get started and get straight to the point.
What Undying Season content is removed from the game?
Items, activities, mods and else:
Triumphs:
Farewell, Undying season, it was an honor, but now it is time to explore new things in the Season of Dawn!
Season of Dawn overview
It is happening, we are going back to the Mercury and now we will finally be able to use our sparrows there! But what we’ve come here for? Doing Vex Offensive during season of Undying and trying to have some god rolls from Ikora’s quests we have activated something we never wanted to. Osiris calls us and says, that by our actions new timelines have been created by the Vex at the Mercury. And now it is up to us to shut them down. But there is one more reason to do so. Years ago Osiris was trying to help one of the greatest hero of Destiny 2 to cheat death. His name is Saint-14 and he is the greatest Titan in history! Unfortunately, Osiris failed him and Saint-14 has found his death in Vex’s parallel worlds. Now we’ve got an opportunity to rescue him and get him back in our timeline. How exactly? We don’t know yet, so let’s just play Destiny 2 and watch the story together! But there are a lot of things we know for sure…
TL;DR
- New-season pass rewards
- Artifact with new mods
- The Sundial Activity instead of the Vex Attack at Moon. Season weapons and armor are here too
- Powerfull cap is 960 and Pinnacle cap is 970
- PvP new maps and modes
- Solar subclasses buffs, other subclasses changes
Season pass rewards
As it was during season of Undying every player will have the season pass. But there is a difference between the paid season pass and a free one. If you’ve bought deluxe version of Shadowkeep DLC then you already have everything you need. If not and you really want to have all season pass rewards you should buy season pass for 1000 Silver in-game.
Straight to the point, and to the coolest rewards of new 100 levels from season pass.
New Exotic Weapon – Symmetry Scout Rifle and an ornament at level 100. Season pass owners will have it from the level 1, free users will claim it only at level 35. If you’ve watched the trailer you might already know how it looks like and what it is capable of. It has a charge-up mechanic that allows doing some dirty tricks with body shots in PvP.
There also will be 2 kinds of legendary weapons – rocket launcher at level 30 and some sort of scout rifle at level 45. There are also ornaments at a high level for both of them – 88 and 95 only for season pass owners.
Armor. Of course, there will be a lot of new armor for each class. We can say for sure, that you can get it from season pass and also it will randomly drop from new 6 people activity – The Sundial, like it was with Vex offensive and Vex-style armor from the season pass.
There are also ornaments in the Season of Dawn style starting at level 64. Just take a look at these epic sets! (Only for season pass owners)
During your way to level 100 you will get lots of other resources, exotic and bright engrams, finisher animation and other cosmetic stuff.
New weapons
Exotics
We’ve already mentioned Symmetry Scout Rifle, but there are more weapons. Looking at the Bungie’s Calendar of the new Season of Dawn, we can say for sure that there will be 2 more exotic weapons.
These are: the Devil’s ruin an exotic Sidearm, and the Bastion, an exotic Fusion Rifle. Seems like there will be exotic quests just as it was for Xenophage and Leviathan’s breath during the previous season.
Symmetry Scout Rifle
It is an energy weapon with Arc Damage. Perks of this weapon allow you to switch between 2 modes of shooting. The first perk is Revolution. The weapon fires full auto. Hold Reload to swap to Arc Seeker mode. Arc Seekers track toward enemies. The second is the Dynamic Charge. Precision hits build up Dynamic Charge. Swapping to Arc Seeker mode increases damage and partially reloads the magazine based on the number of charges. In one slot you can have 2 weapons! Classic scout with an auto mode + self-directed arc machine. With this weapon, you can actually Double-Tap any Guardian at Crucible.
Bastion Fusion Rifle
What do we know about it? It is an exotic Fusion Rifle for the KINETIC SLOT, but still, it uses special ammo! This is the first surprise it has. Perks. Saint’s Fists: Charge to fire 3 spreads of Kinetic Slugs. The second and the most interesting is Breakthrough: A portion of this weapon’s damage bypasses elemental shields. It makes this weapon very interesting for any difficult PvE activities.
Devil’s Ruin Sidearm
It is an energy Sidearm with solar damage. At least it looks like a sidearm, but let’s check the perks. Close the gap: Variable trigger. Press and release to fire individual shots. Hold to charge up a high-powered staggering laser. Strong against Unstoppable Champions. Does it remind you of anything? It is clearly a Fusion Rifle! And The Second perk is Pyrogenesis. Fully charging the laser refills the magazine from reserves.
Now let’s take a look at the ritual weapons of Season 9.
Buzzard Ritual Sidearm
Another sidearm? Yep, it is. The coolest thing here, is that you can choose between 2 perks in each slot! Buzzard has the following perks to choose from: Outlaw or Fourth Time’s and The Charm or Osmosis and Swashbuckler. Osmosis is a new perk: Using your grenade ability changes this weapon’s damage type to match your subclass until you stow it. This is epic! With this weapon you can be effective against 2 types of shields in difficult PvE Activities. To get this weapon you should complete Commander Zavala’s quest and progress in 3 challenges: 1500 Final Blows with Sidearm, 50 Airborne final blows and lots of points in strikes.
Komodo-4FR Ritual Linear Fusion rifle
A heavy weapon as a reward from Crucible, huh? As the Buzzard, Komodo will give you a few choices to make about its perks. You can switch between No distractions and Moving target in the first slot, and in the second you will choose between Eye of the Storm and Box Breathing. Time will tell if this weapon has any potential. Acquire quest from the Lord Shaxx and get 125 final blows and 15 Precision final blows using Linear Fusion rifle in Crucible matches. And also you should take Glory rank “Heroic”.
Python Ritual Shotgun
Seems like The Drifter is about to give us a really good PvE Shotgun. Energy weapon, by the way. Perks to choose: the first pair is Overflow and Feeding Frenzy, and the second is Shield Disorient and One-two Punch. What should be done to get this weapon? Play Gambit matches using a shotgun and knowing that you’re about to do 500 final blows, 150 close-range final blows and reach “Mythic I” Infamy rank. There is a mistake in the game, showing the requirement in “Heroic I” Rank.
As you can see both PvP ritual weapons require fewer Glory points to get the reward. What do you think about this? Is it a good direction to move forward, or ritual weapons should require more from players?
There are more legendary weapons to farm from the Sundial like it was with Vex Offensive, but we’ll mention them at The Sundial section.
New Exotic Armor
There are 3 new exotic armor pieces, 1 for each class.
SEVERANCE ENCLOSURE
It is an Exotic Titan Chest that has a cool AoE perk.
Spheromatik Trigger. Defeating a Guardian with a melee attack or a combatant with a finisher unleashes a damaging explosion.
THE BOMBARDIERS
It is an exotic Hunter Leg armor, allows to deal AoE damage with Dodge.
Parting Gift. Dodging leaves behind an explosive that detonates after a short delay, damaging enemies around it.
PROMETHIUM SPUR
And an Exotic Warlock Legs. Very good Exotic for clearing lots of trash.
Embers of Light. While Daybreak is active, defeating combatants or Guardians creates a Healing and Empowering Rift at their location.
Basically, it allows you to have both types of rifts at the same place.
Seasonal Artifact – The Lantern of Osiris
As it was said in the very beginning of Shadowkeep’s first season – our artifact is going to change each season. The Lantern of Osiris is a new artifact that we are about to level during the season of Dawn. It has some perks which are similar to those the old one had, some reworked, and there are some absolutely new perks. But what can we tell by looking at them? NEW WEAPON META!
If you’ve ever done some high PvE activities, like raids, strikes at legend or master level you should know that you need artifact mods on your weapons to deal with some of the most dangerous enemies. During the season of Undying we had perks for Unstoppable, Overload and Barriers. Those mods were only for Auto Rifles, SMGs and Hand Cannons. Forget about them. Now, these perks will be available only for Bows, Scout Rifles, and Pulse Rifles. So Destiny 2 simply forces you to play with new weapons. On one side of the coin, it feels good because playing the same weapons during a long period of time doesn’t feel good. On the other side, it forces you to play with not very popular types of weapons and it can be complicated for some players. Anyway, it is very interesting to see, if we will think about this differently closer to the middle or by the end of the season.
Now let’s check all list of perks:
1 Tier
- Anti-barrier Ranger: Grants shield-piercing for bows, pulse rifles, and scout rifles
- Unstoppable Shot: Grants unstoppable shot for scout rifles
- Unstoppable Burst: Grants unstoppable shot for pulse rifles
- Unstoppable Arrows: Grants unstoppable shot for bows
- Overload Rounds: Grants disruption shot for auto rifles and submachine guns
2 Tier
- Enhanced Rifle Loader: Increases rifle-class weapon reload speed
- Enhanced Unflinching Rifle Aim: Reduced flinching from enemy attacks while using rifle- class weapons
- Enhanced Bow Loader: Increases bow nocking speed
- Enhanced Sniper Rifle Loader: Increases reload speed of sniper rifles
- Enhanced Linear Fusion Targeting: Linear fusion rifles gain improved target acquisition, accuracy, and aim-down-sights speed
3 Tier
- Solidus Strike: Using finishers on Cabal enemies grants bonus Glimmer
- Splintered Gladius: Killing Cabal Centurions grants Gunsmith Materials
- Biomonetizer: Killing Hive grants extra Glimmer
- Tithe Collector’s Sigil: Killing Cabal grants extra Glimmer
- Knight Errant: Killing Hive Knights grants destination material
4 Tier
- Breach Resonator: Killing an enemy with shield-piercing weapons or being in a Fireteam with an ally that shuts down a Barrier Champion grants melee and grenade energy
- Molten Overload: Solar grenades disrupt enemies
- Disruptor Strike: Improves disruption effects
- Unstoppable Schwartzchild Condenser: Void melee attacks are unstoppable
- Tenderizer: Staggering Unstoppable Champions boosts weapon damage for allies
5 Tier
- Guardian Angel: Sniper rifles, bows, linear fusion rifles, and scout rifles have a chance to generate healing orbs on precision kills
- Void Battery: Activating Void class abilities grants an overshield, but increases the cooldown
- Heavy Finisher: Finishing an enemy spends half of your Super bar, but generates Heavy ammo
- Solar Plexus: Solar melee abilities gain increased damage, and you gain super energy from finishing an enemy as a Solar subclass
- From the Depths: Grants Void Supers bonus damage if activated at low health
The Sundial
The Sundial is a new repeatable activity. It replaces Vex Offensive and also provides you some seasonal armor and seasonal weapons. But instead of full RNG Ikora Rey gives you contracts, and you can choose which weapons do you need in the end. The pull of them depends on which Obelisk you linked to the Sundial. There are only 2 of them active each week, later, maybe, there will be more, one at Tangled Shore and the second one is on Mars. Tangled shore obelisk gives you a choice between Auto Rifle and Sidearm, Mars obelisk gives you a Grenade Launcher with a special ammo usage or Linear Fusion Rifle for the heavy slot.
For a better understanding of what’s going on at The Sundial activity, how to link obelisks and how to level up them we recommend you to watch this video:
PvP in Season of Dawn
- Rusted lands map is back from the original Destiny
- Elimination mode is now one of the core modes
- 4 maps were removed from major playlists: Emperor’s Respite, Equinox, Firebase Echo, and Vostok
- Trials of Nine or Trials of Osiris won’t return to the game 🙁
Solar subclasses buffs
During the Undying season, lots of people felt that Solar subclasses are way under tuned comparing to the other 2. In addition, the seasonal artifact had perks only for Void and Arc abilities. This season is going to change that. Artifact Lantern of Osiris is concentrated on Solar and Void. Plus it’s been announced that Solar Subclasses changes are coming and other subclasses will be tuned. Let’s get to them directly.
Hunter
Gunslinger Way of the Outlaw (Top Path)
- Explosive Knife
- Changed to Proximity Explosive Knife
- Sticks to surfaces
- Fuse time of 14 seconds
- Adjusted impact damage to 14
- Adjusted Detonation damage to 105
- Six Shooter
- Adjusted damage falloff of this Golden Gun Super variant
- Damage falloff starts at 30 meters when firing from hip and at 40 meters while in ADS
- Explosive Knife
Gunslinger Way of the Sharpshooter (Bottom Path)
- Knife Juggler
- Changed to Weighted Knife
- Damage changed from 120 to 140
- Precision modifier changed from 1.3 to 1.5
- Headshot is a one-hit kill in PvP
- Updated throw animation to be longer to compensate for the one-shot capability
- Knife projectile moves faster and with less drop than previously
- Knife bounces once after impacting the environment
- Practice Makes Perfect
- Super energy granted reduced by 16%
- Increased the buff duration by 50%
- Precision kills now grant 2 stacks
- Crowd Pleaser
- Original perks (precision damage, precision hits with Golden Gun generate Orbs of Light) have been moved to “Line ‘Em Up”
- New Perk: Knock ‘Em Down
- Precision kills increase weapon stability and ADS speed
- Buff duration starts at 10 seconds and each kill or assist adds time, with a cap of 25 second
- Time added is variably weighted on the enemy killed and whether it was a precision kill
- While the buff timer is above 20 seconds your Golden Gun does 30% more damage (determined upon moment of cast and lasts the whole super)
- This burns the buff
- Does not stack with Celestial Nighthawk
- Line ‘Em Up
- Now has a passive bonus to aim assist and range while aiming
- Now has the precision damage and precision hits with Golden Gun generate Orbs of Light perks originally included with “Crowd Pleaser”
- Knife Juggler
Nightstalker Way of the Pathfinder (Bottom Path)
- Vanish in Smoke
- Added a short period (0.8 seconds) after the invisibility is applied where firing weapons or performing other actions will not break the invisibility
- This should help prevent allies from accidentally breaking the invisibility the moment it is granted to them if unexpected.
- Vanish in Smoke
Titan
Sunbreaker Code of the Fire-Forged (Top Path)
- Vulcan’s Rage
- Made Vulcan’s Rage much angrier
- Increased detonation time minimum from 0 seconds to 0.5 seconds
- Increased cluster spread
- Hammer of Sol
- Impact damage decreased from 70 to 5
- Detonation damage increased from 205 to 270
- NOTE: These changes also affect bottom-tree Sunbreaker
Sunbreaker Code of the Devastator (Middle Path)
- Throwing Hammer
- Increased impact damage from 100 to 120
- Increased hammer pickup radius from 2 meters to 3.5 meters
- Roaring Flames
- Increased damage bonus
- From 20% per stack to 30% per stack in PvE
- From 10% per stack to 25% per stack in PvP
- Increased duration from 15 seconds to 20 seconds
- Increased damage bonus
Sunbreaker Code of the Siegebreaker (Bottom Path)
- Mortar Blast
- Increased explosion radius from 5 meters to 6 meters
- Sol Invictus
- Burning targets you kill also make Sunspots
- Burning targets killed now trigger the heal
- Kills with the Sun Warrior buff active can now make Sunspots
- This is based on weighted enemy killed and a sunspot is created when the threshold of “1” is reached
- Players/Bosses add 1
- Majors add 0.5
- Minors add 0.25
- The 1-second cooldown on creating Sunspots
- Sun Warrior
- Increased ability recharge scalar by 35%
- Touched up the FX and audio for allied Sunspots
Striker Code of the Missile (Middle Path)
- Thundercrash
- Increased base damage from 2700 to 3200
- Increased in-flight damage from 100 to 200
- Slightly increased the amount of time you have in the air after activation
Warlock
Dawnblade Daybreak (All Paths)
- Reduced the speed of Burst Glide activations while in super
Dawnblade Attunement of Sky (Top Path)
- Swift Strike
- Changed to Celestial Fire
- Shoots three spiraling, homing projectiles
- Approximately 35 damage per projectile
- Winged Sun
- Also allows Celestial Fire activations
- No longer gives grenade energy for aerial kills
- Gives more melee energy for aerial kills
- Heat Rises
- Perk redesigned with new gameplay
- Consume grenade to gain Heat Rises buff
- Dramatically reduces in air accuracy penalty
- Changes movement mode
- Reduce Glide upkeep cost by 99%,
- Reduce Glide activation cost by 99%
- Set Glide velocity and agility to a combination of Strafe and Burst glide
- Icarus Dash
- Now has two dodges per 5 seconds
- Dodge now has a slight upward velocity
- Dodge in super is now one long dodge per second
Dawnblade Attunement of Grace (Middle)
- Guiding Flame
- Doubled the range at which the empowering effect is applied from 12 meters to 24 meters
- Divine Protection
- The increased radius that the healing grenade is applied to friendly targets from 1 meter to 3.5 meters
- Benevolent Dawn
- Buff can now be refreshed if additional friendly targets are healed/empowered while you still have the buff
- Removed cooldown (can continuously proc)
- Reduced energy regeneration by 15%
- This was needed as it is much more consistent, procs more often, and for longer
- Well of Radiance
- Standing in the well now grants 20% damage reduction against damage from other players
- Sword object no longer takes precision damage
Dawnblde Attunement of Flame (Bottom Path)
- Phoenix Dive
- Now heals a fixed amount over time
- Healing is interruptible from incoming damage
- While in super, returns super energy depending on how much you healed
- Has diminishing returns the longer the super is active.
Voidwalker Attunement of Fission (Middle Path)
- Handheld Supernova
- Adjusted grenade charge time so that it lines up with the animations and effects. This is to make it feel more consistent to activate.
Common Changes
- Class ability cooldown is now governed by player stats.
- Hunter Dodge cooldown is modified by their Mobility stat
- Titan Barricade cooldown is modified by their Resilience stat
- Warlock Rift cooldown is modified by their Recovery stats.
- Paragon Mods have been deprecated as a result.
Other Patch Notes
Other Notes:
- Anarchy drop rate increased from 5% to 10%
- Exotic engrams won’t give you duplicates until you collect each Exotic gear once (still class specific)
- Power caps will be: 960 as Powerful cap, and 970 as Pinnacle
- Slotting weapon mods now requires 500 glimmer instead of 5000
- Ada-1 won’t duplicate weapon mods
- Banshee-44 will have repeatable bounties
- Weekly bounty for Strike/Crucible/Gambit from Gunsmith will become a single objective. Do whatever you like the most and complete your bounty
- Added Rusted Lands to appropriate playlists
- Added The Dead Cliffs, Legion’s Gulch, Retribution, and Solitude to appropriate playlists
- Removed Emperor’s Respite, Equinox, Firebase Echo, and Vostok from all Crucible playlists
- These maps are still available for play in private matches
