Bungie reveals big changes to Destiny 2 weapon perks and an absurd buff to Exotic primaries

pcgamer.com:

This week's This Week at Bungie blog post is a monster—as is usually the case when the studio breaks down the major weapon changes coming with a new Destiny 2 expansion. There's plenty of ground covered, including an in-depth look at the new weapon crafting system, but there's also some major changes to the way guns work in Year 5.

Let's start with an absurd buff: all Exotic primary weapons are getting a 40% damage increase to minor enemies (ie, the ones with the red health bars).

This is going to be a major deal for Grandmaster Nightfalls—currently the hardest content Destiny 2 offers, where red bars hit hard and can take a good few bullets to put down. Exotic primaries will now be meaningfully better at the job than their Legendary counterparts—guns like Huckleberry, Vex Mythoclast and Trinity Ghoul are going to be absurd. Depending on how artefact mods shift the meta next season, this could make for some difficult decisions as to which weapon slot gets your Exotic—especially now, with orb generation moving to the armour slot, there's no penalty for running an Exotic primary that can't yet be masterworked with a catalyst.

Legendary weapons are also getting a major rework, with the introduction of Origin Traits, an extra perk column that's determined by where that weapon came from. «Every weapon that’s new or returning in The Witch Queen will have an Origin Trait determined by its source in a third trait column,» writes Bungie, «including all 42 new Legendary weapons and all returning Trials, Iron Banner, and Nightfall weapons.»

The Trials of Osiris trait, for instance, is Alacrity, which will give a gun +20 reload, +20 stability, +10 aim assist and +10 range when you're the last living member of your fireteam, or if