RIP! Destiny 2's heavy grenade launchers have been disabled due to a massive bug

News
By published

The latest sandbox update led to them doing 2.5x damage, and someone had to think of the poor raid bosses who were about to be atomised.

Anarchy exotic heavy grenade launcher.

(Image credit: Bungie)

It's been a while since Anarchy was the most dangerous kid on the Destiny 2 block, but today the exotic heavy grenade launcher has been disabled, as has its cousins The Prospector and The Colony. In fact, all non-sunset heavy grenade launchers, with a couple of exceptions, have been temporarily taken out of commission, meaning players are now unable to equip them. 

The bug was introduced as part of this week's major update, and according to player testing saw some heavy grenade launchers dealing more than double damage. While Anarchy actually hasn't been a meta terror since it was nerfed in July 2021, that kind of enormous buff would have seen it become dominant as soon as the community caught on. 

YouTube content creator Fallout Plays explains what happened in the video below.

As detailed in the patch notes for Season of Plunder, which rolled out on Tuesday, Bungie listed the following change. 

'Heavy Grenade Launchers: Increased damage vs. majors and above by ~10%, excluding Parasite.'

Sure enough, it's still possible to equip Parasite, which missed out on the buff because it already did quite enough damage thankyouverymuch. You can also use Salvation's Grip, because, well, it's terrible. Although that doesn't explain why The Colony, which has never been a serious boss killer (and I doubt would be even with double damage), has also been placed on the naughty step.

Quite how the intended modest buff became so wildly out of whack is anyone's guess. With the King's Fall raid race due to kick off this Friday at reset, it wouldn't have made sense for Bungie to allow teams to compete with DPS weapons that are completely busted. The developer is able to disable weapons server-side without needing a full patch, specifically to deal with situations like these.

As for King's Fall, I'll be trying my hand at getting a day one finish, and if you're interested in watching the struggle as it happens, Bungie has a page on how to follow along here. In terms of what power weapon to use instead, the big boss Oryx is actually more of a mechanical challenge to beat rather than a pure damage check. For the Warpriest, Golgoroth and Sisters encounters, I would expect linear fusion and sniper rifles to rule the day. 

And, knowing my team, late into the night too. 

TOPICS
Tim Clark
Tim Clark

With over two decades covering videogames, Tim has been there from the beginning. In his case, that meant playing Elite in 'co-op' on a BBC Micro (one player uses the movement keys, the other shoots) until his parents finally caved and bought an Amstrad CPC 6128. These days, when not steering the good ship PC Gamer, Tim spends his time complaining that all Priest mains in Hearthstone are degenerates and raiding in Destiny 2. He's almost certainly doing one of these right now.