The Monte Carlo Catalyst Players Wanted Is Finally Coming to Destiny 2 in Season 22

Destiny 2’s Season 22 is on the horizon and to keep us updated on what to expect next season Bungie released a new Dev Insight blog post detailing the weapon changes that are coming next season, confirming that the Monte Carlo is getting the Catalyst fans always wanted.

The post didn’t necessarily describe what the Catalyst exactly adds to the weapon, but this video below sure does show it. Needless to say, that blade attached to the weapon is no longer an aesthetic.

Bungie says its one of the most “mechanically the most complex catalyst we have ever done”.

The Monte Carlo isn’t the only exotic weapon getting tuned next season as 11 more are getting some fine-tuning. The most notable ones are the Two-Tailed Fox’s catalyst now fires three consecutive rocket shots, the infamous Le Monarque and Cloudstrike getting nerfed for PvP, and improvements to Touch of Malice such as the final round no longer killing the user. So, dust off these weapons from your vault to play around with the changes soon.

Monte Carlo - We finally did it. It was mechanically the most complex catalyst we have ever done, requiring a host of custom animation work and a lot of things we have never done on a weapon before, but we hope you enjoy it!

Quicksilver Storm – Players have been reporting that it felt like the ammo was not being loaded into Quicksilver Storm at the correct time. We investigated and discovered a misalignment with the animation and the ammo loading that has been corrected.

• Fixed an issue where ammo was loading into Quicksilver Storm slightly too late in the reload animation.

• Dead Man's Tale

  • Fixed the displayed impact stat. This is cosmetic only. Damage per bullet is unchanged.

• Two-Tailed Fox - Reworked the catalyst perk, Third Tail. The performance of this weapon was just a little bit off, so we have changed it to fire the third rocket following the second rocket instead of at the same time, which helps it lean harder into the Three Tails fantasy.

  • Two-Tailed Fox now fires a three-shot burst with the catalyst, instead of firing three rockets in a two-shot burst.

• Verglas Curve - We have fixed an issue where, if Whisper of Fissures gets the kill, it does not count for Hail Barrage stacks. We've also buffed the weapons performance in PvP when using Hail Barrage. 

  • Whisper of Fissures detonations now generate Hail Barrage stacks if the Stasis crystal was created by this weapon.

  • Shiver Quiver now activates when slowing enemies.

  • We increased the slow stacks from 40 to 60 when hitting players directly with Hail Barrage arrows. This allows for a freeze if two Hail Barrage arrows hit the same player.

• Le Monarque - Lemon has long been a thorn in the side of many high-end PvP players The massive chunk damage hit hard, and the long damage-over-time (DoT) duration kept you out of the fight for what felt like an eternity. We have decided to address both facets of this problem at the same time by shifting Lemon to use the same damage profile as a lightweight Bow. It now deals 85 damage on impact to the body and 136 to the head against players. We have also reduced the DoT duration from 3 seconds down to 1.75 seconds, which makes it feel significantly less painful to be hit by this weapon. The DoT deals the same total damage as before against players, divided into 6 ticks instead of 8, but we have increased the DoT damage in PvE by 50%. In PvE, this should result in a slight DPS increase, with the reduced impact damage being offset by the faster draw time and the increased DoT.

  • Reduced draw time from 684ms to 612ms.

  • Reduced body shot damage from 100 to 85.

  • Increased critical hit multiplier from 1.5x to 1.6x (crit damage against players goes from 150 to 136).

  • Changed the poison DoT effect.

    • Reduced poison DoT duration from 3 seconds to 1.75 seconds.

    • Moved from 8 damage ticks to 6, but poison deals the same total damage to players.

    • Poison damage increased in PvE by 50%.

• Vex Mythoclast - Vex Mythoclast has been very, very strong in PvP for some time, having secretly benefitted from a number of buffs to Auto Rifles that have increased its usability. With Auto Rifles getting another bump to range in Season 22, we felt that Vex had been pushed up a notch too far in our playtests. We reduced the RPM from 390 to 360 to match other Auto Rifles in its subfamily. At the same time, we wanted to make sure this was not a DPS decrease in PvE, so we have increased its damage to compensate.

  • RPM reduced from 390 to 360 to match other high-impact Auto Rifles.

  • Increased damage against minor combatants (red bars) and major combatants (orange bars) by 25%.

• Tommy's Matchbook - The previous setup wasn't working as expected, so the new behavior gives the same end-result but front-loads more scorch onto the base behavior.

  • Updated Scorch value

    • It was previously 14 + 7 (with the Ember of Ashes fragment equipped). Now it’s 15 + 5.

• Touch of Malice - Touch of Malice is a strong weapon, but the usability of the gun was just too low in any content where it mattered. This was due in large part to how easy it was to unintentionally kill yourself. When we brought back Touch of Malice, we increased the amount of self-damage the final round dealt to the user because there are far more ways to self-heal in Destiny 2 than there were when the gun originally made its appearance in Destiny 1. But we believe we may have gone too far. To make it up to you, the final round now deals 20% additional damage in PvE. Additionally, we have reduced the damage it deals to the user, and it can no longer kill the user. This isn't to say that you can't die when you're at low health, but the weapon itself will not be the thing that kills you. (It will just hold you at 1 HP if you continue to fire it for too long.) We also set up the Touch of Mercy perk to be a lot more useful and easier to activate, and we have fixed the ball of Darkness to correctly deal arc damage, blinding PvE combatants.

  • Increased final round damage in PvE by 20%.

  • Decreased the self-damage from the final round from 10 to 7.

  • Final round damage can no longer kill the user.

  • Increased the health awarded by the Touch of Mercy perk from 30 to 75.

  • Set up Touch of Mercy to work like Unrelenting. (Guardians and major combatants give more points towards activation, and we increased the time allowed between kills.)

  • Ball of Darkness now appropriately deals Arc damage and will blind combatants and stun Unstoppable Champions.

• Malfeasance - Malfeasance does a lot, and we wanted to make sure you knew when you were getting the effects of the catalyst.

  • Fixed an issue where the Vorpal Weapon catalyst wasn't displaying the status buff text.

• Cloudstrike - Cloudstrike has been a very strong weapon flying under the radar for quite some time. Recently it has become more prevalent, but getting killed by the explosion because your semi-nearby teammate chose the wrong lane to peek feels bad. We want to maintain the Exotic fantasy of the weapon and the core strength, but we felt the actual lethal distance itself could come down a bit. Players within the radius will still take damage, so in the hands of a skilled player, the weapon will still be a highly effective tool. But now you'll be much less likely to die if you aren't within a much smaller radius of your teammate when they get killed.

  • Reduced the lethal kill distance of the lightning strike against players.

• Wicked Implement - We took a conservative approach with this Scout Rifle out of the gate. We wanted to avoid creating a lousy experience for those on the receiving end of a long-range Primary weapon with the ability to slow targets in PvP. Now that it's spent some time in the live game, we can give its intrinsic perk more uptime by making it easier to keep active. We also improved its utility by providing more opportunities to generate Stasis shards. With Headstone added to the catalyst and the ability to create tracking shards from destroying Stasis crystals, you can keep your mag full and your powered melee up more easily. Shard generation will continue to have a brief cooldown, as with all other shard sources.

  • The timing window for Creeping Attrition has been increased from 3.5 seconds to 4.5 seconds.

  • You can now also active Tithing Harvest by destroying Stasis crystals.

  • The Wicked Implement Exotic catalyst now also includes the Headstone perk.

This weapon preview post also details perks like Envious Assassin and Bipod being given some love, we also have some weapon-type balancing as the Hand Cannons will feel more viable for PvE activities, so are Swords. They also stated that earning Neomuna weapon pattern will be much easier in Season 22 as players can earn a pattern each week if they complete the weekly pinnacle story mission score challenge.

Season 22 of Destiny 2 will go live on August 22, likely after the big The Final Shape expansion showcase happening on the same day.

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