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Destiny 2

Discuss all things Destiny 2.
Edited by Grizzled-Wolf: 12/6/2025 6:05:56 PM
31

Primary weapons feel terrible in the endgame difficulties.

I find my self using my abilities, special weapons and heavy weapons to get through everything. Last season I finally got the conqueror title and it was all double special weapons for every activity I beat, because primary weapons don’t do enough damage… I know there are complaints out there so maybe I’m beating a dead horse, but I played destiny 1 and primary weapons felt strong, I didn’t feel like I needed to switch to a special weapon to take down a single yellow bar… now days if you see a yellow bar and pull out your primary, you will absolutely get killed before you get them to half health. And now this season has very little weapon variety to take down champions forcing you into a really weird niche of weapons which in my opinion force you to rely on your abilities more than ever. Which I’m not asking for nerfs to abilities or special weapons, in fact I’d like to see the damage perks at-least on primaries do more, so that after you get that first kill in high end content you feel confident in your primary to secure 1-2 more kills before reloading. We need higher TTK especially in add dense environments. Destiny has put so much emphasis on the 1% of players, that the game has become so difficult, that Destiny 2 gate keeps itself. Alienating new players who find the combat, movement, and ability play fun rewarding from just experiencing the combat mechanics which is great and keeps me coming back. But that magic dies immediately when they start trying to play meaningful playlists because they soon realize how far the skill barrier really is. In my opinion and in my experience. Meta weapons and meta perks should not be the end all be all of the end game. Having the meta should make everything easier but not necessarily the only way to win. Let us feel like little Gods of war. And when we do optimize that should be the reward of grinding and playing everyday. Yeah my hard core guys are gonna be pissed but there are like what 100,000 people playing if that and I remember a time when millions would log on because it was just fun to play, something should change and I think bringing primary gun play back as well… being primary would be great for the over all community and encourage new players to explore more of the playlists.

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  • Edited by longevity: 12/9/2025 7:31:27 PM
    sole reason i even equip a primary in pve is because i'll run out of special/heavy ammo without a primary to generate them

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  • This is one of the multiple reasons I quit playing, and why there have been so many complaints of "bullet sponges" in the game. Yes, primary is infinite ammunition but does it really need to do so little damage? If a punch does more than a bullet, why am I bothering to shoot at all? There has to be some middle ground, I understand that Bungie wants us to use all of our weapons during an activity but with how terrible the Artifact anti-champion mods have been in the past, it can feel very restrictive to the builds. Personally, I don't mind if an enemy hits really hard, as long as I also hit them hard. That is the type of difficulty that I prefer, not being killed in 1 hit while I have to hit them 100 times.

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    • The kicker to this is that Bungie doesn't like players using Double Special and keeps trying to reduce access to Special Ammo if you use it, but then they make content where you have to run Double Special if you don't want to take 4 times as long to complete. As is typical of Bungie, they don't know what they want to do with the game beyond making you log in daily for metrics.

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    • Tbh primaries are now only usefull to activate mechanics/press buttons (And not even destroying objects such as taken blights, as those also got too much hp for primaries lmao)

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      • I think a lot of this was massively exacerbated by the change to how power and activities operate inside the Portal w Edge of Fate. Before, specials were definitely better but primaries could still hold their own as red bars were more plentiful. Difficulty wasn’t based solely on power deltas so primaries could shine in encounters with high enemy density but weaker enemies. Now, it’s all damage reductions to increase difficulty. This leads primaries (the low damage, infinite uptime weapons) to suffer. Our abilities and special weapons have been allowed to keep up, but primaries languish

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      • Yeah. I agree. I remember when we could get away with a triple double tap scout rifle in Wrath of the Machine when I ran out of ammo for our other weapons and now all they do is tickle them. I think Bungie needs to have primaries be a good substitute for abilities and heavy/special ammo weapons.

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        • ahh damage attenuation, this one was one of warframe talks this past year which had a good decent change but i see what you want here i do remember when primaries could actually win against yellow bars back in D1 it my not show on my profile but i’ve been there. abilities don’t need to be slapped with a nerf either rampage got a good buff to just drop a stack instead of whole stacks i always feel like it’s every new mode released there is always something up with damage on primaries even kinetic weapons too primaries have too much snowballing to the point you gotta use a special to then swap back to hopefully get something to proc and it’s starting to make me thing bungie needs to start actually start heavy buffing the primaries to actually help in higher difficulty content cause let’s be fair if a season could have a DoT void bow an smg do more boss damage in a 30 sec phase and plenty of other things but not be able to assist in taking out mini yellow bars it’s a little ridiculous that a snowball perk shouldn’t be able to assist someone in pve to help with that or even help in damage with enemies above certain health percentages

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          • Yea and the new mode makes it pretty obvious since over time they start spawning ridiculous numbers of yellow bars not to mention while having the new shield system.

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          • I agree that primaries are in a weird place. It’s important to recognize that everything feels bad in the lawless frontier after a certain point though lol. But I mostly use exotic primaries because legendaries feel questionable. This season is probably the most I’ve ever used a legendary primary because of the praxic blade.

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          • My primary squirt gun makes them giggle.

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          • I agree. We should not have to push 15 different buttons just to kill one guy, and I’m not talking about the boss. I don’t like fighting games because of all the button combos necessary to play, that is why I choose shooters. They give me the entertainment I’m looking for with engagement, but without having to rely heavily on button combinations to perform certain ability strikes. They’re turning this game into something where a player has to remember to switch to multiple guns, or check your abilities to see if they’re charged, or check the super to see if it’s ready. They’ve moved away from just engaging with the enemy and pulling out those things when necessary, not every other second in order to just pass a section of a level. Now to make matters even more challenging, they have this stupid limited lives, garbage that pretty much punishes the player for not being at the top of their game every second.

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            • Edited by Griever: 12/7/2025 4:56:13 AM
              The problem is less how weak primary weapons are than the fact they still don't know how to do a level system and a difficulty system. Case in point look at all the Renegades activities. It gets to the point that even at 100 weapon stat it takes most if not an entire mag from a burst fire hand cannon to kill a single red bar, so I end up spamming abilities or throwing my sword because it's too time consuming otherwise. They need to stop with activities that grow progressively harder, allow us to overlevel again, or at the very least let us reach the level of the enemy. I don't care what anyone says, the point of a level system is to become stronger, not to gain permission to nerf yourself more for the same amount of rewards or so you can earn the same rewards at a slightly lower difficulty. I don't care that it's "their game and they can change it how they want", if we shouldn't be allowed to benefit from leveling up in the only way that actually matters, they should have no say in how easily we get the best rewards or how frequently. They already strong arm us into playing THEIR WAY every season with the artifact, it's only fair they either make our levels matter again or shower us with only loot we want. If it's fair, it's generally good. If it's good, it should be implemented, especially when the game is still basically on life support plugged into a faulty outlet.

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              • Hand cannons are awful anti-barrier weapons.

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              • They ran out of ideas awhile ago. This glitchy Helldivers horde mode they call a "frontier" is the trashiest use of a Star Wars theme since the Ewok TV show.

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                • That's what happens when they inundate the game with bullet sponges in the name of difficulty. Honestly though, I dont care so long as my abilities get the job done. I don't play destiny for the guns, I play for my space magic. Guns are just and accessory when my ability spam is on a brief cooldown or boss dps

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                • Try the comp smg with Kinetic Tremors. Makes all other legendary primaries feel like pea shooters.

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                • They definitely got nerfed.

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                • lol, yeah. The only decent primary’s are exotics like outbreak or kinetic tremors weapons

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                • They should just go back to allowing players to overlevel if we want to. I’ve always been a solo player and I don’t really enjoy bullet sponge intense gameplay for every single activity. I basically took the last couple years off because I just wasn’t having fun with the tedious daily activities. The new weapons in Renegades is honestly the only reason I decided to come back, and it has been fun (I admit). I’m fine ultimately just playing casual patrols and things like that. Some of the match made hoard mode activities are fun. When I finally left a couple years ago, it was at a time when campaigns involved too many puzzles and jumping and I just didn’t care for the intensity all the time. Yeah, I know, Git Gud, but I just want to be able to play the way I want to play, and I don’t want to have to commit to one franchise that has to be played hours per day every day to keep up.

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                • Would love overpowered primaries again

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                • Agreed, I’m literally running around with double specials and ability spam.

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                • 2
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                  Menhir - 12/10/2025 12:36:22 AM

                  Agree, so far spamming melee build has been my constant through end game. I only use primaries for their perks like 1-2 punch. A few exceptions though, like Outbreak and Wishenders are still very useful in higher difficulty.

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                • Agreed that's why I've been running double special mint+choir of one has been my goto for 6 months now. Now with Renegades it lightsaber+ arc mint lol

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                • I won't read the whole thing, but I agree with the message. Primary weapons are significantly weaker than everything else, and it really shows in harder content. Not even building into weapons can save them sadly. Maybe some day they'll find the sweet spot

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                • Too many abilities, not enough shooting makes D2 a dull game.

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                  • Man I thought I was going crazy with primary weapon damage. I had decent damage and fun while doing the campaign, but in these syndicate bounty/quests, they only build worth anything, is the stronghold/praix jedi blade build and I just guard all the time. I have a few other ideas, but the experience you get from anything is so little, i have only a few mods unlocked. Then there are gambit invaders out of nowhere in stuff I thought was pve quests. I need a freaking wowhead to figure out simple stuff in this game, and its annoying. I like some of this renegades, but other parts are frustrating.

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