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Destiny 2 details on Iron Banner, power cap, and exotics getting more exotic

by: Rob -
More On: Destiny 2

Iron Banner is a bit late coming, was set to be on last week, but is available now. It's 6v6 Control. So yeah, more of Destiny 1 is appearing in Destiny 2, and it's a lot of fun actually. Which begs the question which is being asked over and over again with this game: why was it ever removed in the first place? Destiny 2 dedicated itself to a 4v4 PvP mode and nearly every result and side effect of that change has been negative. From a team shooting meta to less engaging matches, the whole mode is a mess. At least for this week the fun is back. 

And perhaps the power fantasy is on it's way back also. Concrete details have been revealed on the buffs to some of the exotic weapons. Most of Destiny 2's exotics have felt pretty ordinary thus far. If anything seeing these changes in action the pendulum may have swung too far into being overpowered, but that's just more of what this game needs right now. Go bonkers, blow stuff up, feel like the space wizard Destiny sets you up to be. If there are side effects that create an unbalanced playing field, especially in PvP, worry about that later. PvP balance is an overrated concern that won't matter anyway if the player base keeps dropping like it has. 

You can see one of the new exotic weapon buffs below in the Graviton Lance video. Graviton Lance was one of the first exotics I ever received in the game and it didn't take long for it to be forever consigned to my vault gathering dust as it offered no reward worthy of taking the single exotic slot I could equip. However send a few shots kick off a chain reaction that just about obliterates a whole mob. I guess nothing is forever, and it's time to reach back into that vault. More videos of some choice exotics are available in the blog post This Week at Bungie.

That post also reveals some changes to the way the power cap works. It details the differences between the soft cap (where everyday activities can easily level up a player to) and the hard cap (the maximum power level that is attained only by the true endgame activities). With the Warmind expansion, the power cap is increasing from 330 to 380. The soft cap will sit at 370, but the big change is the trickle from 370 to 380 will be much slower than before. Bungie aims to make reaching 380 feel like an achievement. I'm not sure if frustratingly trickling the rewards is the right way to go about it though. That seems artificial. Probably would have been abetter idea to just lock the 370-380 rewards behind the toughest activities like Trials and the Raid, but they seem to committed to a game where everybody can get their participation trophy, they just need the patience to grind it out.