Bungie is Bringing the Thunder in Destiny 2 Arc 3.0 Update

Bungie has been hard at work getting ready for their newest season and their Showcase event set for August 23rd. If that wasn’t enough, they have been diligently sharing that they have big plans in and out of the Destiny universe both before and after their last expansion, The Final Shape. But, before much of that comes one of the biggest and most highly-anticipated updates to their final Light Subclass.

With inspiration from Crank 2: High Voltage, Arc 3.0 is all about speed and impact.

Arc 3.0 Preview // https://t.co/5V6vg5fmeH pic.twitter.com/BQnCPIXKbx

— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) August 17, 2022

The link in the Tweet above will take you directly to Bungie.net’s blog post about what we can all expect from our Guardians when Arc 3.0 arrives. But we took it upon ourselves to provide you with the much-needed abridged version. That said, the original post is much more detailed and definitely still worth the read considering it contains a more in-depth look at Arc 3.0.

“Arc is really just, ‘go fast and hit stuff. We call it the ‘hold W’ subclass. Everything is built around moving forward and enabling aggression and those abilities.”

Arc 3.0 is expected to release this year but Bungie was short on specifics. Either this season (18) or in the next (season 19) but hopefully before Lightfall.

Perhaps the most intriguing bit about the post was that Bungie said that one of their major inspirations for Arc 3.0 was Crank 2: High Voltage, the over-the-top 2009 action flick starring Jason Statham. The plot of the movie involves Statham running around trying to remain electrically charged to stay alive. A curious but certainly interesting comparison that has us more than excited for the Arc updates.

Some of the Bungie staff took to the blog post to express how they compared Arc 3.0 to Crank 2, such as Destiny designer Mike Humbolt who had this to say:

“We had a lot of ideas about, ‘Oh, you get this buff and then—much like Jason Statham’s heart —you need to keep it ticking by staying in the fight. [As the design evolved] we strayed a bit from that just because it’s hard to achieve that in gameplay of Destiny, where you’re deleting 75 monsters in a room and then running through a hallway. But that was the emotional fantasy that we wanted to go for: very much like ‘living on the edge.’”

AMPLIFIED

Bungie goes on to talk about a new buff called Amplified which is a major focal point of Arc 3.0 and with it, Guardians will be able to move faster and be more agile both in movent and weapon handling. Guardians with the Amplified Buff will be able to perform longer slides leading into their attacks or dodges to enhance their movement strategies. Another cool thing about it is that players will not need to equip a Fragment or Aspect in order to be Amplified as Arc classes become amplified after rapidly defeating targets with any Arc damage.

According to Humbolt, players who sprint for a bit while Amplified will gain yet another speed boost and “basically as fast as we can make our sprint animation go” and will also receive a “sizable damage resistance buff”. And, to make this even sweeter, if a player is not Amplified, they will retain their boost in speed as long as they remain sprinting. Then, presumably, if they stop, they would need to become Amplified again to gain it back. No telling just how wild Titan skating will become with Dunemarchers and Mida Multi-Tool Equipped. Humbolt also added the following regarding this “Speed Booster” effect:

“Speed Booster probably took the longest for me to get on board with in that you were already moving faster to begin with. Adding PvE damage resistance to Speed Booster to cement it as a strong gap-closing tool and seeing it being used to move from one cover to the next in playtesting really brought it all together for me. You start sprinting and then you hear this audio swell start to come up and then you’re like a jet engine, rocketing around the arena. It’s awesome.”

There are a lot of specific details about how each of the classes will feel while equipping their Arc Subclasses. All that stuff can be read over on Bungie’s post but here are the bulletpoints of the Aspects that each Subclass will be able to equip:

HUNTER

• Flow State: Defeating a jolted opponent causes you to become amplified. When amplified, the Hunter’s dodge will recharge faster and make you more resistant to damage, and you have quicker reload times.
• Tempest Strike: Allows the Hunter to perform a sliding melee that launches an Arc wave along the ground, dealing significant damage and jolting enemies in its path.
• Lethal Current: After dodging, the Hunter’s melee lunge range is increased and their next melee attack jolts the target and creates a damaging lightning aftershock. When used with the Arc Staff Super, after dodging, the Hunter’s next staff light attack hits twice. In addition, hitting a jolted enemy with a melee attack will blind them.

WARLOCK

• Arc Soul: The Warlock casts a rift to create an Arc Soul that will assist the player in battle. Allies who pass through the rift will also earn an Arc Soul. The rift charges faster when allies are near. While amplified, any Arc Soul you have or gain is supercharged, increasing its rate of fire.
• Lightning Surge: The Warlock activates their melee while sliding to transform into a ball of lightning and teleport forward, calling down a field of lightning bolts at the exit point that jolts targets.
• Electrostatic Mind: Arc ability kills and kills on Arc-debuffed enemies create Ionic Traces. When you collect any Ionic Trace, you become amplified.

TITANS

• Touch of Thunder: Improves Arc grenades in the following ways:
  • Flashbang: Fires an additional blind impulse on its first bounce.
  • Pulse: When the grenade damages an enemy, it creates an Ionic Trace for the Titan. Pulse Grenade damage increases over time as the grenade lingers after impact.
  • Lightning: Grants an additional charge for Lightning grenade, and jolts targets on initial blast.
  • Storm: Creates a roaming thundercloud that moves and tracks enemies (similar to the Stasis Hunter’s Silence & Squall Super), firing lightning bolts at the ground underneath it.
• Juggernaut: While sprinting and with full class ability energy, the Titan gains a frontal shield that blocks incoming damage. When amplified, the shield is stronger. Once the shield is depleted by taking damage, the player’s class energy is depleted.
• Knockout: Melee kills trigger health regeneration and make the Titan amplified. Critically wounding an enemy or breaking their shield increases melee range and damage for a brief period. Titan’s base melee becomes Arc-empowered while Knockout is active.

FRAGMENTS