• How does flinch resistance work?
  • • Flinch resistance directly scales the angle your aim moves by when you take damage, so if you have 60% flinch resistance and you would normally be flinched 10 degrees, you would now be flinched 4 degrees.
• The flinch calculations show 1 unflinching Hand Cannon mod and 2 unflinching Pulse Rifle mods both total a 0.7x flinch multiplier. Was this a typo?
  • • Yes, this was a typo. Sorry about that, we fixed it!
• What is a scalar?
  • • When we say “scalar” we mean a multiplier, e.g., a 0.65x scalar on flinch will multiply flinch by 0.65.
• What are the scalars for some common flinch resistance sources?
  • • No Distractions: 0.65x
    • Suros Synergy: 0.8x
    • 1x Unflinching Armor Mod: 0.75x
    • 2x Unflinching Armor Mod: 0.7x (i.e., this value is used instead of multiplying two unflinching mod values together)
    • Rally Barricade: 0.5x
    • 10 Resilience: 0.9x
    • 100 Stability on an Auto Rifle: 0.75x
    • 100 Stability on a Sniper Rifle: 0.9x
• Given the importance of stability for flinch resistance, do you plan to adjust the stability stats for any weapons?
  • • We may adjust stability on specific weapons if we see clear outliers in the future.

• Can an airborne effectiveness penalty take you below 0 in the stat?
  • • No, airborne effectiveness stat cannot go below 0 or above 100 (the same is true of all weapon and character stats).
    • The tiers in the mega-TWAB were just general examples of performance within ranges. Every point in a weapon stat will count (although a single point won’t typically be perceptible).
    • In most cases there is a linear progression from 0 to 100 stat (an exception being accuracy penalty angle on Primary weapons, which is linear from 0 to 60 but is flat 0 from 60 to 100).
• How does airborne effectiveness interact with accuracy perks?
  • • Technically, accuracy perks (like Opening Shot) apply to your airborne accuracy cone as before, but because accuracy while airborne is generally better than it was before, you’ll feel the benefits a little less.
• Can you clarify precision aim assist?
  • • When grounded and aiming down sights, the full aim assist cone angle is used to determine whether a shot is a crit or a body shot.
    • When airborne (or hip-firing), by default you only get a crit if you’re aimed exactly at the head.
    • While airborne, the airborne effectiveness stat grants you some forgiveness for this, in the form of the precision aim cone.
    • We have a graphic to help illustrate all of this:
    • 
    • Key:
      • • 1. Grounded, crit: your aim assist cone overlaps the head, but you’re not aimed right at it, you get a crit.
        • 2. Airborne, 0 stat, body shot: your aim assist cone overlaps the head, but the center of your reticle is not on the head, you get a body shot.
        • 3. Airborne, 60 stat, body shot: your aim assist cone overlaps the head, your precision aim cone does not overlap the head, you get a body shot.
        • 4. Airborne, 60 stat, crit: your aim assist cone overlaps the head, your precision aim cone overlaps the head, you get a crit.
        • Aim-Assist Cone (Blue Circle)
        • Center-Point (White Dot)
        • Precision-Aim Cone (Red circle)
• Can you give more details on how aim assist is affected while airborne?
  • • The term “aim assist” has two parts:
      • • Auto-aim, AKA bullet bending/bullet magnetism angle: if a target falls inside this cone, your projectile will aim at the target (before the effects of the accuracy cone).
          • • This applies equally to mouse and keyboard and controller.
        • Reticle friction and adhesion: friction slows down your aim when a target is within this cone, and adhesion can pull your aim to stay on the target if they move while you’re aiming.
          • • This is only turned on for controller.
    • In the live game, both angles are halved while airborne.
    • In Season 17, these cones are still halved as before, and have an additional penalty angle that’s subtracted from this, depending on the airborne effectiveness stat. Here are some numbers:
      • • 0 stat:
          • • Auto-aim: angle penalty is roughly half of the cone angle.
            • Friction/adhesion: angle penalty is roughly a quarter of the cone angle. In internal playtests we found that controller players were more affected by this penalty and halved it.
        • 100 stat (both cones): angle penalty is 0. I.e., at 100 the auto-aim and friction cones for most weapons will be the same as they are in the live game.

• Are all scavenger mods disabled in PvP or only Special weapon scavenger mods?
  • • All are disabled.
• With disabling ammo scavenger mods in PvP are you trying to bring back the double Primary meta?
  • • No, we do want running double Primaries to be more viable, and want there to be fewer one-hit kills in PvP, but don’t want to eliminate them entirely.
    • You still spawn with two rounds of Special ammo (or equivalent), and still pick up ammo bricks, but you shouldn’t be able to use a Special weapon like a Primary.
    • One interesting side effect may be an indirect buff to the strategy of running double Primary to starve your opponents of Special ammo drops.
• Are the Special ammo weapon effectiveness and ammo changes enough to reduce their dominance in PvP?
  • • Short-range Primary weapons will have more of a role now—Sidearms and SMGs can better compete with Shotguns, for example.
    • We’ve pushed the current PvP ammo system as far as we can with this change, if this doesn’t move the needle, we’ll look at redesigning PvP ammo economy entirely (which would be a longer-term change).
• With scavenger mods disabled in PvP, there’s little competition for leg mod slots, what’s the plan?
  • • We’re keeping this in mind for future updates (but for now we recommend you run holster mods).

• Will playlist weapons that have a foundry get both the foundry and playlist origin perks?
  • • Yes, new drops of playlist weapons that are from a foundry will get the playlist and the foundry perks.
• What do the changes to Snapshot Sights mean?
• Snapshot Sights works by multiplying the aim down sights (ADS) animation duration by 0.5, which you could frame as making it twice as fast. On Special weapons, it will now scale this duration by 0.75, making it 50% faster instead.
• Note that we framed this as being completely offset by the Sniper Rifle ADS duration changes, but this was incorrect—while Sniper Rifles will be snappier across the board, a Sniper Rifle with Snapshot Sights will be a little slower to aim down sights than before.

• Does the lightweight Pulse Rifle damage buff apply to the BXR-55 Battler Pulse Rifle?
  • • Yes, the lightweight Pulse Rifle buff applies to BXR-55 Battler, and any Exotic weapons that share that rate of fire.
• Is Retraced Path getting the Trace Rifle buff?
  • • Yes
• Are slug Shotguns also getting the pellet Shotgun nerfs?
  • • Slug Shotguns receive the damage falloff and aim assist falloff changes.
    • Slug Shotguns don’t have a spread angle but are treated like Special weapons and have an airborne accuracy penalty.
• Are there any changes to aggressive (AKA spread) Fusion Rifles?
  • • No, they’re not affected by any of the Fusion Rifle tuning.
• Do all SMGs benefit from the damage falloff increase?
  • • Yes
• Do all SMGs with lower than 14 zoom now have 14?
  • • No, only those listed in the TWAB have been raised to 14.
• What happened to the full-auto setting?
  • • We mentioned that this is coming in a Season following The Witch Queen launch. It won’t make it into Season 17 or 18 and is currently targeted for Season 19.
• Are the numbers in the Fusion Rifle section correct? What does this mean for a charge-time Masterwork?
  • • Yes, to clarify a bit, these are how much the damage falloff near distance is reduced compared to current at 0 and 100 range. I.e., yes, the damage falloff for 0 range was reduced more than that for 100 range.
    • Reduced damage falloff near distance.
      • • -2m at 0 range (~2.7m when ADS with a 15-zoom stat).
        • -1.3m at 100 range (~2.275m when ADS with a 15-zoom stat).
    • This is the damage per burst of a charge-time Masterwork on each subfamily (compared to the base):
      • • High Impact: 325 (330 base)
        • Precision: 275 (280 base)
        • Adaptive: 265 (270 base)
        • Rapid Fire: 240 (245 base)
• Why are there no Sidearm changes?
  • • Sidearms are a niche pick, but when used by players who favor them, they’re extremely strong. We want to see how the reduction in effective range of Shotguns and Fusion Rifles affects their strength before making any changes and may look at them in a future Season.
• That Auto Rifle change is somewhat small, will it do anything?
  • • Combined with the zoom scalar, this change is larger than it sounds, but we plan to look at Primary weapon balance some more in Season 18, Auto Rifles included.
• Why did The Summoner only come back for two Seasons?
  • • We were adding 1 new weapon, 1 reissued weapon, and removing 2 old weapons from the Trials loot pool each Season, but we felt like only one brand-new Trials weapon per Season wasn’t enough.
    • Now that we’re doing 2 new Trials weapons a Season, we’d rather the pool contain mostly the newer weapons.
• Trace Rifles and Machine Guns are both getting buffed—does this suggest future anti-Champion mods?
  • • No comment.

• Is Vex Mythoclast a Fusion Rifle when it comes to airborne effectiveness, and what is its stat?
  • • Vex Mythoclast’s airborne effectiveness stat is 19, and it’s treated as an Auto Rifle for translating the stability stat into flinch resistance and how its airborne effectiveness stat is translated.
• So, about Wavesplitter…. hold on a sec, Wavesplitter’s functionality changed late in development, and the TWAB description was not entirely accurate.
  • • Wavesplitter’s variable damage while firing was not removed. This weapon’s damage behaves identically to how it did before this release, i.e., it changes while firing.
    • Changes to Orb max-charge time are still accurate, and it does suppress while in the Orb-derived high-power state.
• Is Riskrunner staying at 13 zoom? What about Osteo Striga?
  • • Yes to Riskrunner. Osteo Striga has a unique setup for damage and aim assist falloff that is less affected by its zoom stat (but no, its zoom isn’t changing).
• Is Lumina included in the damage buff reduction?
  • • Yes, Lumina Noble Rounds and Boots of the Assembler seekers now also grant 15% damage in PvP (down from 20%) but the original value (35%) in PvE.
    • This damage buff is also used by Sun Warrior, which is part of why Loreley Splendor Helm is so strong, but wasn’t mentioned in the mega-TWAB because that issue is being addressed in another way.
• Is Le Monarque affected by Necrotic Grip?
  • • Le Monarque is not a Weapon of Sorrow and is not going to become one. (The only weapons that count as Weapons of Sorrow currently in the game are Thorn, and Osteo Striga.)
• Does Lorentz Driver’s change also apply to Arbalest?
  • • No, but we’ll be looking at both of these again in the future.
• Are Devil’s Ruin and Fighting Lion being monitored for being unique for their own ammo economy while dancing the Primary/Special line?
  • • We expect both of these to be stronger in the Season 17 weapons sandbox, but not so strong that they’ll dominate (we do stand ready to make adjustments if needed though). They’re both acquired tastes whose strengths can’t be exploited by every player.
• How does the Eyes of Tomorrow buff work?
  • • It’s a straight-up 1.3x damage scalar on the current damage values against bosses and Champions.
    • Note that the Adaptive Ordnance perk does not expire, so you can potentially get a bunch of Eyes of Tomorrow kills, pick up more Heavy ammo, and go into a boss fight with that damage buff.
    • Just to clarify how this works a little more, every Legendary weapon type and every Exotic weapon can have its own custom scalar against each tier of enemy (e.g., Minor, Major, Champion, Miniboss, Boss, Vehicle), which we touch occasionally if needed.
    • Damage values vs players are the base numbers in almost all cases. We typically scale the damage up or down in PvE as needed.

That’s it for the frequently asked questions. In case you missed it, Bungie also revealed some of the weapon loot changes coming in the next season, and youu can check it out here.

Source: Bungie