Thank the Traveler, the Lord of Wolves is getting a nerf next season in Destiny 2. The bane of the Crucible since its introduction, this exotic shotgun has been an absolute menace thanks to its long range and high damage. While the weapon has received multiple balance adjustments, Bungie is once again dialing back this exotic in Season 18.
Revealed in today’s TWAB (This Week at Bungie) blog post, the Lord of Wolves is getting its ammo count, damage, and burst size scaled down to make it less oppressive. Before we get into the details, let’s look at the exact changes coming to the Lord of Wolves:
- Reduced the burst size (shots fired per trigger pull) from 10 to 5 shots when Release the Wolves is active.
- Reduced the burst delay (the time between bursts) by 60% when Release the Wolves is active.
- Decreased Lord of Wolves base damage by ~20% (now deals 35 per shot to the body in PvP, 44 with Release the Wolves active).
- Decreased starting ammo in PvP from 15 to 10 (PvE unchanged).
- Increased damage in PvE by 20% to compensate.
Much of the frustration around this weapon was how fast it could kill you when the Release the Wolves perk was active. The 10-shot burst absolutely tore through enemies even if they had an overshield. It was a comical amount of damage you could deal in PVP, allowing skilled players to shutdown opposing Guardians in a second or two. Now that the number of rounds per burst has been reduced, accuracy will be far more important — especially with the reduced burst delay.
I also appreciate that these changes won’t impact the PVE side of the gun too much, as it’s getting a 20% damage boost across the board. While I don’t think this buff is enough to make it a top-tier endgame gun, it will still be quite useful for casual or solo content. For those that don’t remember, back in 2019 Bungie released a joke emblem as a way to remember when the Lord of Wolves was somehow even stronger than it is now. Even though you cannot get the emblem now, it’s a funny way to remember just how many nerfs the Lord of Wolves has received.
Along with this nerf, Dead Man’s Tale’s Cranial Spike perk is also getting rebalanced. Another PVP all-star weapon, starting in Season 18 this perk will no longer buff your damage in PVP activities. Instead, when Cranial Spike is triggered you’ll get increased reload speed, aim assist, and range per stack.
For PVE players, numerous exotic weapons will be receiving anti-Champion perks to make them more useful in the current sandbox and various weapon archetypes such as Scout Rifles are getting a PVE buff. We are only a couple of weeks away from the launch of Season 18, so it will be interesting to see how all these changes impact both the PVP and PVE metas.
