On ‘Destiny 2’, Divinity, elitism and access control

A few weeks ago, there was a Destiny 2 debate about whether “toxicity” in the community was always centered around the PvP community, and whether it was ever an issue on the PvE side of the game.

Well, welcome to this week.

There’s been an absolute firestorm in the Destiny 2 community over a thread that triples the world’s first raider Saltagreppo made about a possible nerf to Divinity, the Garden of Salvation raid exotic that debuffs enemies and creates a giant crit point to shoot.

The ‘drama’ that ensued was that much of the Destiny community pushed back against Salt’s thoughts, not just the meat of what he was saying, but because of who he was, a raider ‘d ‘elite’ which is disconnected from the average player base. Things got so heated that I even saw Bungie’s social media manager chime in on the speech:

As someone who’s probably the least hardcore raider who can still consider themselves a Destiny content creator, I’ve always found myself on Salt’s side, and wanted to talk about it a bit.

I’ve already gained a reputation for wanting to nerf things more often than not, and my policy on that remains the same. If something is Phone an outlier that not only sets the meta for an entire activity almost 100% of the time, but also Bungie starts having to design encounters around that is a problem. And the common solution of “well, just upgrade everything else to be viable” is neither a plausible nor healthy suggestion for the game, as it leads to intensive power creep.

In Divinity’s case, since the weapon’s introduction in Garden, it’s become an almost essential part of most DPS phases for bosses if you want to do them “effectively” and with as much use, yes, I think it’s something that needs to be watched (and actually Bungie said a long time ago that they were looking at Divinity, so no changes will come as a result of Salt’s comments here, as some suggest).

It’s true that when you nerf one thing, other things will take their place. In this case, probably a Hunter tether to weaken the boss. But then again, it’s been three years since Divinity arrived, and yes, it’s probably time to shake up the DPS phases by making them not feel mandatory in most situations. Or to very at least it’s worth a conversation like the one Salt is having here.

I don’t understand pushback against Salt specifically as a delivery mechanic here (trust me, if I mentioned this first, I’d be considered “too casual” to say which raid DPS mechanics should be nerfed). If anyone is an absolute DPS meta expert, it’s him, and what he says about the return of the skill gap in high-end boss encounters isn’t wrong, and I don’t think it’s “elitism” or “access control” either. Want to burn through bosses fast like the pros? What if I told you that the reason the bosses have accumulated as much health as they have at this point (hello Warpriest) is partly because things like Divinity exist?

I keep seeing arguments that don’t even make sense when said together. Some people say nerfing Divinity would be a disservice to those who worked hard to get their own copy of the mighty raid weapon, an elite prize worthy of its power. But others say nerfing Divinity is an affront to more casual players who can’t aim with perfect precision and so they can aim for that giant critical point and slam a weakened boss for a phase. So which one is it? Is Divinity an elite weapon worth protecting for the few who possess it? Or a tool for the masses to level the DPS raid boss playing field?

Similarly, the argument that players annoyed with Divinity’s ease of use should just “not use it” is nonsense. You can take this literally to any extreme. Oh you kill the boss too fast? Try not to use exotics. Try to use all the blue ones. Try turning down the brightness of your TV completely. It’s not up to players to handicap themselves to deal with balance issues. And in the case of, for example, the first world raid, you literally can not do it if you want to stay competitive.

We have been here before, so many times. The biggest boss DPS debate I can remember was the ridiculous situation we got into with Lunafaction boots and rally barricades meaning boss DPS phases with no reloads every encounter, and that strategy had to be removed. Was it “for elites” and biased against casuals who couldn’t recharge time properly? No, it was just overpowered and it made overall bad encounters.

We can go back even further to Destiny 1 Year 1 Gjallarhorn, which literally rendered every other DPS option in the game absolutely useless with no viable alternatives, so no, it couldn’t stay that way forever. After three years, yes, we are there too with Divinity. Maybe not as Extreme case, but similar, all the same, and worthy of discussion, no dismissal and toxic harassment of someone who would propose such a conversation.

Wait to hear Salt’s thoughts on goodness and resilience too!

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