Destiny 2 players are reporting stealth nerfs to grenade and melee cooldowns after the Ash & Iron update. Bungie confirms it’s a bug and a fix is on the way.
The Ash & Iron update for Destiny 2 just went live this week, bringing new content for all players for free. It introduced a new three-player matchmade activity called Reclaim, set in the returning Plaguelands location, alongside some big changes to the Portal, and new loot. In two weeks, the Epic version of the Desert Perpetual raid will come out, bringing in even more exclusive rewards for players to unlock.
Yesterday, the studio gave us our first extensive look at the upcoming Star Wars-themed Renegades expansion. And while it’s been getting a lot of praise from the community so far, the same can’t be said for Ash & Iron.
In fact, the reception has been rough. Players are reporting a huge number of bugs, UI problems, weapon issues, and more. Some are even calling it the worst Destiny 2 update Bungie has ever released. And now, it looks like abilities, specifically grenade and melee cooldowns, have been stealth nerfed without any mention in the official patch notes.
Destiny 2 Ash & Iron Stealth Nerfs Grenade and Melee Cooldowns Abilities
The analysis comes from two players on the r/DestinyTheGame subreddit, TylerFortier_Photo and u/engineeeeer7, the latter known for doing deep stat testing and flagging ability-related bugs in the past. In a detailed breakdown, they compared in-game ability regen speeds with the expected stat-based cooldown reductions and found some pretty clear discrepancies.
Their testing shows that at max stat, grenade and melee cooldowns are now longer than they should be. And currently, the grenade and melee regen are even worse than the pre-Edge of Fate. At 100 Grenade stat, for example, a Vortex Grenade (which has a base cooldown of 152 seconds) should recharge in roughly 70 seconds, but after Ash & Iron, it now takes about 89 seconds.
The same slowdown is being observed with melee cooldowns too, while class ability regen appears unchanged.
“The boost to regeneration at 100 melee or grenade stat is wrong,” the post reads. “Last [time] I tested it was 2.17. It is now 1.71. That’s a 22% nerf to ability cooldown. Hilariously, we are worse off currently than before Edge of Fate.
“To find your resulting cool down, you take the base cooldown and divide it by 5-3 cool down Regen factor. Vortex Grenade has a base Regen of 152s. At 100 stat, it should have a cool-down of 70s. It is currently 89s. Class cooldown remains untouched, reaching a cooldown speed factor of 2.0 at 100 stat.”
Bungie Responds to the Stealth Ability Nerfs
Bungie has now responded directly to the Reddit thread via the Destiny 2 Team account, confirming that the changes to ability regen were not intentional, and that a fix is currently in the works.
“Thank you for crunching the numbers,” the reply reads. “We just checked with the team, and they confirmed some cooldown values have been unintentionally altered in the latest update. They are targeting a fix for Update 9.1.0.2.”
At the time of writing, there’s no date for Update 9.1.0.2, so we don’t know when the fix will actually land. We’ll keep an eye out and update when Bungie shares timing.
What are your thoughts on this? Are you enjoying the Ash & Iron update in Destiny 2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
