Last week, Bungie claimed that something the community assumed was a bug with one of Destiny 2's exotic weapons is actually an intended effect. I disagree.
And look, I am going to go into a lot of detail about why I disagree, but it is very important that you understand what's happening here. This is not some juicy drama that has an entire community raging, or even an example of a particularly weird bug that is fascinating to learn about regardless of if you play the game it occurred in. This is small fry stuff. A petty grievance. Even in the unlikely instance that Bungie a) sees this, and b) decides I'm right, the only effect is that I will have slightly more fun with one gun for a few months until Destiny 2's current episode ends. The stakes couldn't be lower.
If you're still here, I will now explain what's going on. In the most recent This Week in Destiny update, Bungie made a statement about the exotic scout rifle Wicked Implement:
"We have seen reports that Wicked Implement and Conditional Finality aren’t receiving the Anti-Barrier perk from the artifact. This is by design due to the exotics being Stasis and having the intrinsic 'Slow' perk already, which can be used against Overload champions."
This is wrong, for many reasons—for one Conditional Finality doesn't apply the Slow perk or interact with Overload champions at all. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Buckle up, because this is going to require some unpacking.
Champions are special enemies that appear in endgame activities. There are three flavours—Barrier, Overload and Unstoppable—and each requires a different tool to 'stun', making it easier to kill. Barrier champions, for instance, can create a shield around them that needs breaking with an anti-barrier weapon, lest it quickly regain all its health.
The champion system is relatively controversial among the Destiny 2 playerbase, but overall I'm fine with it. You're told before an activity which champions will appear, and you can use that knowledge to switch up your loadout to deal with that effect. It's a good excuse to swap out your weapons or build. It's not a particularly in-depth system, but by and large it works.
There are three sources of champion counter in the game:
- Keywords: Each champion is weak to keywords from Destiny 2's subclass system. Unstoppable champions, for instance, are weak to Suspend. So any source of suspending—mostly from your abilities—will counter that champion.
- Artifact: Every episode, a new set of seasonal artifact perks are released that counter champions. This season, we have perks like Anti-Barrier Shotgun. When it's equipped, every shotgun will stun Barrier champions.
- Intrinsics: Some Exotic weapons and armour naturally counter a champion, just because Bungie decided that they should. There is no real reason the Le Monarque exotic bow counters Overload champions. It just does.
Because every season the artifact gives anti-champion behaviours to whole classes of weapon, sometimes there's an overlap—and that leads to edge cases and exceptions. For the current episode, Revenant, the artifact contains Unstoppable Pulse Rifle, meaning, when selected, all pulse rifles will counter Unstoppable champions. Except Revision Zero, an exotic pulse rifle, intrinsically counters Barrier champions. In these instances, the intrinsic always wins out. The Unstoppable Pulse Rifle perk simply doesn't apply to Revision Zero. It will always counter Barriers, and only Barriers.
This is what Bungie is claiming for Wicked Implement and Conditional Finality. Wicked Implement is an exotic scout rifle that fires bullets that apply a slow effect. Bungie is claiming that this makes it an intrinsic Overload counter, and so the artifact perk Anti-Barrier Scout doesn't, and shouldn't, apply. Conditional Finality is an exotic shotgun that fires bullets that counter Unstoppable champions through the Shatter and Ignite keywords. Again, Bungie is claiming this makes it an intrinsic counter, and so the Anti-Barrier Shotgun artifact perk doesn't, and shouldn't, apply.
Here's the thing, though: These aren't intrinsic effects. They're keyword counters. It's an entirely different thing.
Overload champions are weak to Slow, so Wicked Implement's bullets naturally—but not intrinsically—can stun them. If the effect was intrinsic, the gun wouldn't be able to stun any other type of champion. But Wicked Implement can also stun Unstoppable champions, because stacks of Slow eventually build into Freeze. And if you shoot a frozen enemy, you'll inflict Shatter, which is a keyword that counters Unstoppable champs. If Wicked Implement's anti-Overload properties were intrinsic, that wouldn't happen. It'd deal with Overloads and Overloads alone.
OK, look, here is what it looks like when you've equipped an intrinsic anti-champion weapon—Devil's Ruin—with no artifact perks selected. That little square icon? It's there all the time, letting you know that the gun intrinsically stuns Unstoppable champs.
Here's what it looks like when I proc Radiant, a keyword that gives you a weapon damage buff and also makes your weapon anti-Barrier.
The weapon doesn't care. You can see my other two weapons now have the triangular Barrier champion symbol to denote their newly gained ability to stun Barrier champs. This gun, though, is intrinsic. It stuns Unstoppable champs and nothing else.
Conversely, here is what it looks like when Wicked Implement is selected. Notice the complete lack of any champion symbols.
And here's what it looks like when I proc Radiant with Wicked Implement.
Hey, look at that. It's anti-Barrier now! That wouldn't happen if the gun had intrinsic Overload properties. Because it doesn't have intrinsic Overload properties. It just fires slowing bullets that happen—for different systemic reasons—to also stun Overload champions.
I could go on. I could talk about Polaris Lance—a scout rifle that can be anti-Unstoppable thanks to its ability to apply the Ignite effect—and how it does benefit from the Anti-Barrier Scout artifact perk. I could talk about the time Bungie fixed weapons with the Chill Clip perk—another type of bullet that slows enemies, thus stunning Overload champions—so that it worked more consistently on top of the Radiant buff. I could note that, last episode, thanks to the Anti Barrier Sniper artifact perk, Chill Clip sniper rifles like Critical Anomaly could counter all three champion types—the exact situation Bungie is seemingly trying to avoid here. But really this is obvious stuff. Intrinsic champion counters are listed in the description of the weapon itself. Wicked Implement's description doesn't mention champions at all. My case, it rests.
Why does any of this matter? I have three things to say to that question:
- It doesn't, I'm being petty. But also I went to the effort of learning Bungie's opaque ruleset around champion counters, and so I at least want it to behave consistently.
- If Bungie relents and lets Wicked Implement benefit from Anti-Barrier Scout, it would have the ability to stun all three champion types. That's fun. I want that. Maybe Bungie thinks it would be too powerful, but I would note that a) this is the bed Bungie has made, and b) Wicked Implement is a precision scout rifle, and thus needs all the help it can get. Surely it can be powerful for one episode.
- Bungie recently admitted that "Destiny is too complex". Just look at how much work I've had to put in here simply to explain the basics of champions and their counters. This is not an intuitive system, and it isn't made better if you start randomly deciding that certain things shouldn't work based solely on vibes.
Mostly, though, it's a Stasis-based episode. Just make the gun fun Bungie. And fix Tractor Cannon while you're at it. Just because you let it shoot the kind of bullets that stun Overload champions, doesn't make it an intrinsic Overload weapon. It—alongside Conditional Finality—should absolutely be allowed to use Anti-Barrier Shotgun as well.
