Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunted has been an emotional rollercoaster for many players, both because of the seasonal narrative dealing with major characters' traumas and because of the various community-wide discussions that occurred over the first two weeks. For example, therecent Twilight Garrison incidentover Twitter had a few players on edge because a Bungie developer working onDestiny 2’s sandbox said the popularDestinyExotic would never return. The reception of the Solar 3.0 subclasses hasn’t been great, but Bungie acknowledged some issues and fixed them in a recent patch.
These were mainly things related to Solar Titans and Warlocks, with Hunters being left virtually untouched in terms of their new kit. However,Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunteddid launch with new Exotics for all classes, and the one dedicated to Solar Hunters was immediately considered a decent pick that could improve the general Solar 3.0 experience. The problem is that it didn’t really work the way it was supposed to, and Bungie’s recent patch addressed as much - but not the way players wanted.
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Why Destiny 2’s Recent Hunter Exotic Needed a Better Fix
A Reddit user by the name of Unbannableoffense shared a post explaining that the way Bungie handled the issues with Caliban’s Hand, the new Season 17 Exotic for Hunters, is not a fix per-se, but rather a change of the perk’s description to match what it currently does. Unbannableoffense and other players believe that Caliban’s Hand was intended to work the way the old description stated, but rather than fixing the item Bungie decided to go the easy route and instead adjust its description. ThisDestiny 2Exotic was supposed to ignite enemies on any direct hit with Proximity Knives, but instead it now procs on kill.
This is not the first time Bungie fixed the description of an item rather than its behavior in the game, with another example being the Oathkeeper Exotic arms for theHunters. The exotic didn’t correctly make bows faster to charge, so Bungie’s response was to remove this part from the perk. The lack of viable endgame Exotics for Hunters has long been an issue forDestiny 2players, and the fact that Caliban’s Hand was fixed in a way that doesn’t help the item left many players dissatisfied. This solution stings particularly because most of the recent Hunter Exotics have all been either too strong on launch and nerfed soon after, or released in a broken state that made them not impactful at best.
The current state of Caliban’s Hand is particularly bad because the Exotic doesn’t even work with theHunters' Knock ‘Em Down Aspect, which would normally refund full melee energy on a charged final blow while Radiant. Becoming Radiant is easily achievable with either Acrobat’s Dodge or Ember of Torches, but even then, kills with Proximity Knives while Radiant are inconsistently refunding energy because of Proximity Knife dealing additional explosion damage. As such, in its current iteration, Caliban’s Hand is likely going to be one moreDestiny 2Exotic that ends up forgotten for a while, much like recent releases in the form of Radiant Dance Machines or Blight Ranger.
Destiny 2is currently available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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