Destiny 2: how the Crucible will change with Beyond the Light

Il Crucible is the stage of one of the most hectic sides of Destiny 2, what is PvP. Since its inception, the business managed by Lord Shaxx divided the community of the Bungie MMO, between those who preferred PvE activities such as Assaults or even the uniqueness of Gambit's PvEvP, against those who preferred the more classic deathmatches. In fact, we are talking about profoundly different game modes, which provide rules and dynamics in many opposite cases, and this is just one of the examples to make it clear how much Destiny 2 can be enormously varied. With the presentation of the latest expansion, Beyond the Light, our biggest expectations have been on what the changes to the title will be, rather than what the story will be, we do not deny it. The introduction of many new weapons, exotic pieces of equipment and above all with the new subclasses of stasis therefore premise the arrival of many additions to the gameplay. Here, we will focus on analyzing how the Crucible will change with the arrival of all these new features.

Stasis in the sights of the Guardians

Stasis will surely be the protagonist in the upcoming season of Destiny 2, which will begin with the release of Beyond the Light. You don't even need to make an in-depth introduction, all players of the Bungie title know very well the new elemental power that will be added in a few weeks in the Destiny ecosystem, profoundly changing the gameplay. The ability to freeze opponents in many different ways, to create columns of ice and to exploit the alteration of the state of the environment and enemies at will will undoubtedly play a central role in many activities such as Assaults, in Gambit but above all in the Crucible. While we have seen the abilities and effects of the stasis subclass in action on Vex, there are few videos that highlight the results they have on Guardians.

The questions, in fact, mainly concern the effects of these skills on other players, such as duration, the amount of damage they can inflict or even how much it will take to freeze them. As an example, we know that grenades can create status changes that slow down opponents a lot, while some skills they instantly freeze enemies, including the Guardians. Moreover, the Super Sorcerers can unleash a shock wave that destroys players frozen in a thousand fragments, which makes us understand that freezing greatly increases the damage dealt. Another interesting tool is the grenade that creates columns of ice, which can be used to provide shelter from enemy fire, to block opponents in corners or even to create platforms to jump on and have a tactical advantage. It goes without saying that playing in the Crucible with the stasis subclass will require the development of many different strategies, which will be able to adapt not only to environments and situations but also to skills, armor and yes, even rifles.

The best possible weapons and armor in Destiny 2 Beyond the Light

The Guardians will be able (and will, in our opinion) to get their hands on tons of exotic gear coming with Beyond the Light. We therefore quote the Cloak of the Glacial Landslide and Precious Scars to the Titans, respectively, long gloves and an exotic helmet. In all likelihood these will be the armor that will have the greatest impact in the Crucible mainly because it increases the defense of the individual Guardian and his companions. The Precious Scars, for example, offers an additional shield period for players when the wearer is revived. In contrast, the Cloak of the Glacial Landslide replaces the Titan Barricade with a personal shield eliminating the strategic advantage, which is why we much prefer the exotic helmet.

Hunters will become more responsive and focused on hit-and-run gameplay thanks to the new cap and the exotic vises that take the name of Bakris mask e Athrys hug. Thanks to the possibility of making a longer dodge and that makes us invisible we will be able to escape very easily from the aim of the enemy Guardians or sneak around them to hit them from behind. Athrys' Embrace, on the other hand, enhances the Balanced Knife by offering it an additional bounce on any wall. This perk, as you can imagine, can be very useful in some Crucible maps, where there are many narrow passages. In this way we will have more chances to land an apparently very powerful blow, however we do not yet know if the Guardians can be considered as a surface on which to reflect the knife.

The exotic pieces of equipment of the Sorcerers, respectively the helmet Dawn Chorus and gloves Necrotic handles. The former enhances the burning effects of the Rising Dawn, while the latter creates a corruption effect on enemies hit with melee that will continue to do damage over time. These two elements instead make us understand how the Warlock combat system will be heavily focused on enemy status changes. We also think of the grenades that slow down the opponents or the melee ability with which we can shoot a sphere that freezes the enemies, which is called the Twilight Explosion: we can combine many types of attacks and elemental damage to create devastating results. Unlike the Titans and Hunters, though, it's hard to say exactly how much this will affect the Crucible due to many dynamics and stats that we can't yet know exactly. We'll see how Bungie moves, to avoid making PvP overly easy - or difficult - for Warlocks.

Of course, weapons will also play an important role in the Crucible, as we have already told you about in our analysis. However, we were intrigued about the exotics available during the upcoming Destiny 2 expansion because they don't currently anticipate major changes to PvP, quite the opposite. Many of the incoming shotguns have effects that chain against multiple opponents, which is quite difficult to achieve in the Crucible, and as a result they are better suited to Assaults, Gambit, Public Events, and so on. Maybe just the sword Lament could stand out among these, due to its ability to block incoming enemy fire and heal the Guardian who wields it. Once again it is the absence of further information on the subject that leaves us with a thousand questions, one more reason why we are looking forward to updates from Bungie.

Destiny 2 Beyond the Light is still shrouded in mystery

The development team, as you can see, is still keeping many details about Beyond the Light in the dark, despite having actually revealed a lot of information in recent months. To be very complex is the title itself, which continues to evolve with so many contents. The Crucible is definitely an important element of it, and we sincerely hope that the expansion will bring some major news because we players just want to have fun. Lord Shaxx's arena is a Destiny 2 highlight precisely because Guardians can use their surroundings and abilities to overwhelm their opponents or to defend themselves from others.

For this reason, the lack of information, a few weeks after the release, is very discouraging and leaves us not a little perplexed: we remember how Gambit was shown several times in the promotional campaign of Forsaken, because Bungie believed in it a lot. Our fear lies precisely in the scarce innovation that the stasis subclass, new weapons and pieces of equipment could bring to the Crucible. However, we must also take into account that, in fact, all these additions can only benefit the gameplay by giving it variety and diversity Destiny 2 has been boasting about for a long time. We remind readers that Beyond the Light will be released on November 10, 2020, coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, PC and Stadia.