The Unique Armor Tuning Preview exhibits the Warlock Unique grenade vitality gained being lowered to 2.5% from 20%.
Starfire Protocol is just too robust. It has dominated end-game Warlock builds for the reason that Photo voltaic 3.0 revamp in Season of the Haunted, and Bungie has mentioned, “No extra!” In a preview of the upcoming Unique armor changes for Season 21, Bungie has outlined precisely the way it will drag Starfire Protocol out again and go all Previous Yeller on it.
The Season 21 Unique Armor Tuning Preview, launched on Could 10, 2023, offers quite a lot of perception into the buffs and changes many Unique armor items shall be receiving in Season of the Deep. However proper on the finish, hidden away as virtually a footnote, is an admission that Starfire Protocol goes to get a nerf that may have an identical impact to the one Whisper of the Worm all the time appears to obtain:
Diminished the quantity of vitality gained per occasion of injury from 20% to 2.5%. Empowered weapon kills now grant 20% grenade vitality.
Many end-game builds would focus completely on Starfire Protocol’s skill to rapidly regenerate a Fusion Grenade, which may explode twice when utilizing the Contact of Flame Facet. Couple this with a damage-over-time weapon like Witherhoard and a Demolitionist Rocket Launcher, and Warlocks had the very best single-target injury attainable.
This had the impact of most teams having not less than one Photo voltaic Warlock rocking Starfire Protocol. Generally, you could possibly count on a complete staff to be Warlocks, particularly these going for speedruns.
The large nerf coming with Season of the Deep will seemingly shake this up dramatically. Although nonetheless helpful in impartial conditions, it now means gamers might want to deal roughly eight instances as a lot injury to get pre-nerf outcomes. Bungie notes, “You continue to most likely get an additional grenade or two per injury section.”
What does this imply by way of Warlocks and their builds? There’s a great probability we’ll see Warlocks break off to embrace different Exotics in a bid to seek out one thing that enables them to place out extra injury. It additionally means Warlocks are not sure by Starfire Protocol, risking being booted in the event that they use one thing suboptimal.
People who nonetheless use Starfire Protocol will little question wish to actually focus in on the damage-over-time and the 20 p.c grenade vitality on Empowered weapon kills. If a boss has provides round it, defeating just a few will imply gaining one other grenade, however that is on the threat of not damaging the boss. Moreover, weapons with the next RPM means extra injury ticks, which ought to assist get extra situations of the two.5 p.c grenade vitality. Nonetheless, Starfire Protocol presently has a 0.4 second cooldown on how typically this may lively.
On the finish of the day, Warlocks ought to seemingly take this chance to discover the opposite subclasses and Exotics on supply. Bear in mind how a lot enjoyable you had as a Voidwalker? Or perhaps it’s time you slipped again into the Stormcaller. However when you’re having fun with one other construct, pour one out for Starfire Protocol. Possibly now we’ll lastly get an decoration.
