Destiny 2 Stasis Nerfs are a Godsend
Slowing Down the Ice Crusade
Stasis has solely ruled Destiny’s PvP scene ever since it’s introduction in Beyond Light and ever since then it’s been unanimously hated. From Shatterdive spamming Hunters to the unkillable Titan Behemoth super, Stasis took away all the joy from crucible for what seemed like the entire Destiny community. After months of asking for Stasis nerfs that only affect PvP, Bungie finally delivered and I actually had fun in Iron Banner last week, what a surprise. Turns out slowing down a game mode, that’s meant to be fast paced, with ice abilities, wasn’t the best plan.
It’s been months since I’ve jumped into PvP of any kind after witnessing the craziness of Stasis for a few weeks during the beginning of last season. Getting frozen every four seconds felt terrible, getting pulled from cover with duskfield grenades felt terrible, and getting frozen out of a super felt pretty terrible, everything was really bad. How any of it got past testing blows my mind, but here we are. When I wrote my last Destiny article, it was a day or two after the Stasis patch nerf and I was about to try Iron Banner for the first time in ages, fully ready to quit two or three matches in because of the constant frustration of ice powers. Lo and behold, I played for five hours straight AND played crucible the next day too.
The changes are fantastic. Personally I don’t use Stasis (I couldn’t bring myself to become the enemy) so I don’t know how they feel on the other side of things, but as far as going against Stasis, I feel a lot more capable of actually winning gunfights again. Out of all the matches I played minus being frozen via a super, I might have been frozen a handful of times. Which is a huge plus. Last time I played PvP pre-stasis nerfs of any kind I was getting frozen in the air, mid super, in spawn, back to back, around corners, THROUGH WALLS, it was a nightmare. Less people are using Stasis because of the nerfs to the freezing mechanic and I couldn’t be happier. Let’s break everything down and talk about how I actually had fun in PvP.
Duskfield grenades had their pull distance reduced so now you aren’t sucked right out of cover from a full map away and then frozen instantly. It’s a lot more lenient and you have more than enough time to walk out of one before being frozen. Still a great grenade because of the reduced weapon accuracy players in the grenade get. Hunters can no longer spam shatterdive because of the four second cooldown added between dives, and with the massive damage reduction to shatterdive itself and crystal damage, I’m not sure we’ll be seeing many more shatterdive Hunters now that they can’t one shot kill with it. They’re super is still relatively good in PvP so you’ll still see the occasional shatterdive attempt but it will no longer instantly kill you thank the lord. Hunter’s shurikens were also nerfed, gone are the days where two shurikens flash by your eyes, bounce off two walls around a corner and freeze you. The tracking is a lot less godlike and two shurikens is no longer enough to freeze you.
Titans got hit with the hardest nerf because not only do the duskfield grenade, freezing nerfs, and crystal damage nerfs affect them too, they also had their unbelievable broken super taken down the thirty notches it never should have had from the beginning. While Behemoth Titans can still zoom around the map as they punch the air, now it takes away super energy while they do it, and they no longer have a 60% damage resistance while in super, which was nuts to begin with. Seeing a Behemoth Titan coming at you used to be an unavoidable death with the damage resist they had but now you can, for the most part, headshot snipe them or team shoot them down.
That’s why I enjoyed my five plus hours in Iron Banner during the weekend, all the nerfs must be working because I barely saw Stasis apart from a handful of times and a match where I went up against a whole squad of spawn flipping Behemoth Titans. Might see a bit more Stasis Warlocks out there because they actually got a buff instead, allowing their super to track WAY better than ever before, but they needed it as the last couple nerfs to them were a tad too harsh. So, if you were like me, annoyed and turned off because of Stasis in crucible, I’d say you can probably return now and not hate your decision immediately like before. The frozen hell is over.
