A new Destiny 2 update is dropping on March 16

A new Destiny 2 update is on the way next week and it makes some crucial changes to the Crucible meta and brings in some new Grandmaster-level Strikes!

Below we have everything you need to know about the latest update from Bungie.

Destiny 2 Update Overview

There are two main things going on with the new Destiny 2 update coming next week.

Firstly, there's a refresher for the Grandmaster Nightfalls for "New Lights". This will be the first time that players can earn Adept Weapons through a PvE activity too!

READ MORE: Destiny 2 Xur Location & Inventory - March 12th

Secondly, there are going to be some changes to Stasis Abilities and how they work in the Crucible.

In addition to this, we have a list of some of the issues that are going to be resolved in this new Destiny 2 update.

• Dunemarcher's Linear Actuator Exotic perk will now properly trigger on melee strikes, and chain to combatants, after sprinting for the appropriate length of time.
• The Double Trouble Dreaming City Triumph can now be obtained.
• The Braytech transponder signal on Europa will no longer be removed if the player dies with 2/3 completed.
• Completing the Forfeit Shrine Ascendant Challenge will now grant progress towards the Ascendant Champion and Honed for Speed Triumphs.

Bungie has said "a complete list will be shared when the update goes live", but when is that?

Release Date

This new Destiny 2 update is due to go live on March 16th, 2021, and Bungie has provided a handy timeline of events to keep you informed on what's happening and when.

• Maitenance begins - 09:00 PT / 16:00 GMT
• Players removed & D2 goes offline - 09:45 PT / 16:45 GMT
• Update 3.1.1 available, players can log in - 10:00 PT / 17:00 GMT
• Maitenence expected to end - 11:00 PT / 18:00 GMT

For an hour after this, Clan XP is also being disabled temporarily so Bungie can resolve ongoing issues here.

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Clan XP from all sources will be lost between 11:00 PT / 18:00 GMT and 12:00 PT / 19:00 GMT.

Grandmaster Nightfall Strike

" Are you ready for a challenge?"

Starting on March 16th, 2021, when the new Destiny 2 update drops, the Grandmaster Nightfalls are going to be available.

Bungie offered this recap for players who aren't aware of what this means.

• Strike difficulty is set to 1350 Power.
• The minimum Power required is 1325.
• Contest Mode is enabled, so even if you go higher than 1325, you will be capped.
• Each strike will have a specific set of modifiers to ramp up the difficulty, so make sure to inspect each one to know which Champions you’ll face, and what other challenges await you.
• One Grandmaster Nightfall will be available each week until April 20
• Starting April 20, you’ll have the opportunity to blaze through all available Grandmaster Nightfalls through a direct launch playlist.
• If you miss a week, the final three weeks of the Season are your opportunity to catch up!

Shadow Price, Palindrome, The SWARM are also going to be available to players competing in Grandmaster Nightfalls for the first time with this new Destiny 2 update.

READ MORE: Destiny 2 The Witch Queen Delayed Until 2022

Stasis Tuning

After making a few changes to Stasis in Season 12, Bungie has been thinking about how they can alter the system further ahead of the next major update.

So, there's going to be a few changes to Stasis in the new Destiny 2 update.

" Our goal with these changes is to reduce some of the frustrations when fighting against Stasis subclasses in the Crucible, while maintaining their power in PvE content wherever possible. With that said, some changes required us to adjust the global behavior of some abilities."

Below, we've got a full list of everything that's changing:

Hunter

• Shatterdive
• Removed damage resistance from Shatterdive.
• Added a 4s cooldown between activations of Shatterdive.
• Withering Blade
• Decreased Withering Blade damage against players from 90 to 65 damage. PvE damage is unchanged.
• Decreased Withering Blade slow stacks applied to players from 60 to 40 stacks. PvE slow stacks are unchanged.
• Decreased the target acquisition range of Withering Blade after it impacts a player from 12m to 8m. The range after impacting PvE enemies is unchanged.

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Titan

• Glacial Quake
• Removed AoE freeze against players on the super cast. Will still freeze PvE enemies on the cast.
• Reduced damage resistance while in super from 60% to 50%.
• Increased the energy cost of using Shiver Strike while in Glacial Quake from 3% to 7% Super energy.
• Using the combo of a Shiver Strike into a Heavy slam attack will now cost the full Super energy of both the Shiver Strike and the slam (previously only costed energy for the slam).
• Shiver Strike
• Increased downwards velocity applied to Shiver Striking players when they are slowed to pull them out of the air more strongly.

Warlock

• Winter’s Wrath
• Improved tracking of Winter’s Wrath projectiles, now tracking strength decays from its max value over 10s instead of 2.2s.
• Increased the size of the warlock super projectile's proximity detonation radius 1.5m – 1.65m
• The proximity detonation now starts at it’s largest and scales down to 40% over time.
• Penumbral Blast
• Decreased Penumbral Blast damage against players from 80 to 30 damage. PvE damage is unchanged.

READ MORE: How To Get The New Stasis Aspect Quest In Destiny 2

• Iceflare Bolts
• Fixed a bug where Iceflare Bolts would continuously try to switch targets.
• Increased target acquisition range of Iceflare Bolts by 33%.
• Increased turning speed of Iceflare Bolts so they can more effectively hit nearby targets.
• Chaos Reach
• Decreased the amount of Super energy refunded when cancelling Chaos Reach early.

Full Patch Notes

Changes To Strikes

• Fallen S.A.B.E.R.:
• Fixed an issue where the strike Boss would not spawn until all players were alive and present.
• Improved objective waypoint behaviour.
• Fixed some grammatical errors in the player-directive text.
• Fixed a bug where a fireteam member entering the area late could cause the Warsat falling visual effects again.
• Fixed an issue where Zavala's dialogue in the first area could play multiple times.
• Fixed a bug where a fallen energy shield could be seen sticking out of a wall.
• Devil's Lair:
• Sepiks Prime now has a Boss health bar.
• Fixed some floating environment objects.
• Fixed an issue where some monster spawn points looked like accessible doorways to players.
• Fixed an issue where an Overload Captain could spawn with the wrong name.
• Fixed an issue where the Fallen Walker and Fallen Brigs could respawn after they were defeated.
• Fixed an issue where physics was missing from a wall early in the strike, allowing players to get lost out of the environment.

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Armour Changes

• Fixed an issue with the Linear Actuators Exotic perk for the Titan Exotic Dunemarchers, which was not triggering properly. The perk now behaves as expected, triggering on each/subsequent melee strike after an appropriate amount of sprint time.
• Font of Might no longer displays a generic "Damage Boost" string when its benefit is active.
• Fixed a bug where the Mantle of Battle Harmony and Omnioculus Exotics were not displaying their flavour text.
• Omioculus also no longer grants melee energy when making only yourself invisible under some circumstances.
• Cuirass of the Falling Star no longer grants an Overshield when used with Supers other than Thundercrash.

Weapons Changes

• Fixed an issue where flavour text wasn't appearing for several seasonal weapons.
• Added rumble to the end of Dead Man's Tale's reload.
• Adjusted Riskrunner perk VFX that were causing epileptic issues.
• Reduced Arbalest's aim assists, making it harder to hit headshots in Crucible.
• Set the Frenzy and Cranial Spike perks to using the correct buff icons.
• Fixed Ticuu's Divination's missing kill feed icon.
• After a few weeks of development and playtests, we also have a round of Stasis balancing slated for March 23.

General Stasis Tuning Changes

• Duskfield Grenade
• Reduced how strongly Duskfield Grenade pulls players inwards, effectively reducing the pull range from 9.5m to ~6m. PvE pull impulse is unchanged.
• Reduced the slow stacks applied to players by the grenade detonation from 20 to 10 stacks. Detonation slow stacks are unchanged against PvE.
• Reduced the slow stacks applied to players on each tick of the grenade from 10 to 5 stacks. Per-tick slow stacks are unchanged against PvE.
• Adjusted the UI presentation of the “Slowed” status to display Slow stacks as X/100 instead of X/10, to increase readability when adding Slow stack amounts that are fewer than 10.

READ MORE: How To Get The Exotic Cloudstrike In Destiny 2

• Stasis Crystals
• Reduced crystal shatter damage against players from (85 max, 55min) to (55 max, 25 min). PvE damage is unchanged.
• Whisper of Chains
• Reduced Whisper of Chains damage resistance bonus while in Super from 25% to 5%. Damage resistance when not in Super is unchanged. This only affects damage from other Guardians.
• Whisper of Torment
• Fixed a bug where players could continuously proc Whisper of Torment while standing inside an opponent’s Barricade.
• Stasis Fragment Quests
• Significantly reduced objective completion values for all Crucible fragment quests.

For everything included in the expansive "This Week At Bungie" post that included the Destiny 2 patch notes for the new update, click here.

Happy hunting, Guardians!