Destiny 2: Ash & Iron Update to Add PvP Balancing, Gameplay Adjustments, and More

Destiny 2: Ash & Iron free update is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2025; the update focuses on a long list of gameplay adjustments, with the most notable being a weapon hip-fire change. The reticles have been improved, and the deterministic recoil was removed for most weapons. In addition, some PvP changes were added with adjustments to a handful of abilities. 

Here are the full upcoming Destiny 2: Ash & Iron update patch notes, according to the official blog post. The developer comments have been removed to provide more concision: 

Global Changes

Weapon Hip-Fire Reticles

• The positioning of perk active indicators, pips, charge meters, and Tex Mechanica horns now all adapt to size changes in the primary reticle due to FOV, bloom, and auto aim. Due to this, most of these have also moved closer to the primary reticle.
  • Trinity Ghoul’s perk active indicator has unique positioning due to its split arrow behavior.
  • The pips on Vex Mythoclast have been moved to appear underneath the reticle.
  • Barrow-Dyad’s pip positioning is untouched in order to keep them aligned with the charge meter and holo sight.
  • Monte Carlo’s perk active indicator is untouched.
• Pips now have more simplistic visuals in order to lower overall visual complexity. In addition, pips will now disappear completely unless you have at least one pip.
  • Deterministic Chaos’s pips are untouched and maintain their old visuals since their function is unique on this weapon.
• Curved charge meters now have the “max charge” indicator that horizontal charge meters have.
• Delicate Tomb, Jötunn, and Salvation’s Grip now use horizontal charge meters.
• A few weapons in their “perk active” state now use a different reticle that communicates their firing behavior more accurately:
  • Grand Overture
  • Tessellation
  • Devil’s Ruin
  • Cryosthesia 77K
  • Touch of Malice
• Lumina now uses the support hip-fire reticle when aiming at allies while you have Noble Rounds.
• Support Frame Auto Rifles (non-healing mode) now have a brand new hip-fire reticle.
• Legendary Tex Mechanica Sub-Machine Gun (SMG) hip-fire reticles now have horns.
• To maintain a consistent visual and functional language for reticle elements, the pips on Telesto and Traveler’s Chosen have been removed and will be visible only as HUD buffs.
• Visually, Machine Gun and Fusion Rifle hip-fire reticles now appear more consistently similar across all weapons within each archetype, regardless of input method.
  • Vex Mythoclast is exempt from this change due to its unique firing performance.

Deterministic Recoil

Deterministic recoil, the set pattern by which a weapon shifts recoil direction when being fired, is being removed. 

Weapon Archetypes

Heavy Burst Sidearms

• Forgiveness
  • Reduced range stat by 15.

Aggressive Submachine Guns

• Increased ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.4x to 1.5x.

Spreadshot Hand Cannons

• Increased damage versus combatants by 8%.
• Added a 0.1s delay after firing before you can melee to prevent near simultaneous damage events.
• Increased pellet spread angle by 5%.
• Reduced flinch dealt to players by 30%.

Sniper Rifles

• Increased ammo per brick pickup in Crucible from one to two.

Lightweight Shotguns

• Decreased pellet spread angle by 6%.

Crossbows

• Crossbow bolts now have a Heavy ammo radar marker, visible only to the player who owns them.
• Updated weapon tray icon, obituary, and kill feed to reflect the Crossbow’s unique silhouette.

Featured Weapon Expansion

Kinetic Slot Weapons

• Redacted
• **MIDA Multi-Tool
• **Sturm 

Energy Slot Weapons

• Trinity Ghoul
• Buried Bloodline 

Heavy Slot weapons

• REDACTED
• DARCI
• Heartshadow
• Sleeper Simulant
• Tractor Cannon 

MIDA Multi-Tool

• New Trait: MIDA Software Package
  • Getting enough kills with MIDA Multi-Tool now provides various buffs and an incremental PvE damage bonus after reaching certain thresholds:
    • Stage 1: 25% faster Handling and ADS speeds, 5% PvE Damage.
    • Stage 2: 15 Range and Stability, 5% PvE Damage.
    • Stage 3: 15% AA/Magnetism ranges, 5% cone angle, 5% PvE Damage.
    • Stage 4: Shots detonate on impact.
  • Kills with weapons that have the MIDA Synergy intrinsic also grant progress towards these buffs.
    • Primary ammo MIDA Synergy weapons grant progress at a rate on par with MIDA Multi-Tool.
  • On death you regress to the beginning of the previous stage.
  • The “radar while aiming” functionality has been moved to the intrinsic.
• Catalyst
  • Replaced No Distractions with a brand-new catalyst.
  • While an enemy is within close proximity and MIDA Multi-Tool is in hand, you are granted enhanced radar resolution and improved reload speed (20 reload stat, 15% reload scaler).
    • This buff lingers for a few seconds once enemies are no longer within close proximity.
• Misc
  • Very slightly increased the movement speed bonus.

Sturm

• Storm and Stress
  • Rapid kills with Together Forever weapons within three seconds of each other now load extra Sturm Overcharge shots.
    • Primary ammo Together Forever weapons load even more Sturm Overcharge shots.
  • Sturm Overcharge shot’s bonus damage has been tuned. Previously this was roughly a 261% damage buff against all combatants and a 78% buff against players. New values are as follows:
    • 260% against bosses
    • 280% against mini-bosses and Champions
    • 300% against minors and majors
    • 75% against players
  • In providing Sturm more opportunities to load overcharge bullets than ever before, we’ve reduced the maximum Sturm Overcharge to 25. The prior cap of 99 was never very realistic and at the new limit, players are encouraged to use them as they have them far more often.
• Accomplice
  • In addition to existing behavior, final blows with Sturm Overcharge shots now also increase the magazine capacity of Together Forever weapons until death, capped at 100% of the base magazine.
• Catalyst
  • In addition to the increased stats, Sturm now has a brand-new catalyst.
    • With the Catalyst, kills with Sturm Overcharge shots grant charges that provide a 50% ready and stow speed scaler for Sturm and Together Forever weapons. One stack is consumed upon readying Sturm or a Together Forever weapon, max six stacks.
• Miscellaneous
  • Lucky Pants now buffs the damage of Sturm Overcharge shots, but at a lower-than-normal efficacy (110% buff at Illegally Modded Holster x10).
  • Increased Sturm’s Ammo Generation stat from 30 to 80.
  • Fixed an issue where Sturm Overcharge shots were not playing the impact VFX that signify increased damage.
  • A lens flare is now visible on opposing players’ Sturm in PvP while they have active Sturm Overcharge shots. So watch out!

Eriana’s Vow

Eriana’s Vow was given a small VFX adjustment to bring it in line with other special weapons in PvP.

• A lens flare will now be visible on opposing players’ Eriana’s Vow in PvP.

Graviton Spike

• Reduced time to gain overcharged shots from 20s to 7s.
• Reduced time to gain Temporal Alignment catalyst buff from infinite to 7s.

Tarrabah

• Increased zoom to 16.
• Reduced the Peacekeepers bonus damage when using Tarrabah with Ravenous Beast active from 100% to 70%.

Hawkmoon

• Lucky Pants now buffs the damage of Paracausal Shot, but at a lower-than-normal efficacy (50% buff at Illegally Modded Holster x10).

New Land Beyond

• New Land Beyond’s perk counter, previously capped at x100, now stacks up to x999 for bragging rights.
  • Increased damage is still capped at x100.

Lord of Wolves

• Decreased Release the Wolves damage versus bosses by 20%.

Grand Overture

• Reduced total reserves from 58 to 48.
• Catalyst
  • Omega Strike micro-missiles no longer require direct hit kills for enemies to explode, enemies killed by its blast radius will now also trigger the explosion.

The Queenbreaker

• Reduced damage vs bosses by 8%.
• Reduced decreased charge rate via Combat Sights by 15%.

Outbreak Perfected, Barrow Dyad, and Hierarchy of Needs

Outbreak Perfected

• Reduced damage-based recharger Super contribution.
• Slightly reduced nanites damage-based recharger Super contribution.

Barrow Dyad

• Slightly reduced damage-based recharger Super contribution of non-seekers.
• Reduced damage-based recharger Super contribution via Taken seekers.

Hierarchy of Needs

• Reduced damage-based recharger Super contribution via guidance ring arrows.

Thunderlord

• Fixed an issue with the Thunderlord catalyst where it was refilling more ammo than intended.

Whirling Ovation

• Increased the rate at which Anticipation builds.
  • A fairly optimized damage rotation utilizing Whirling Ovation should see the Anticipation meter fill time decrease from ~ten seconds to ~eight seconds.
  • Less-optimized damage rotations will see a more significant fill time decrease.

Weapon Perks

Burning Ambition

• Time to activate threshold reduced from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Enhanced time to activate threshold reduced from 2.25 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Magazine-based hits activation threshold reduced from 60% of the magazine to 55% of the magazine.
• Enhanced magazine-based hits activation threshold is unchanged at 55% of the magazine.
• When calculating the lower of the above thresholds, the perk no longer rounds down.
• Enhancing this now reduces the hits to activate by a flat one hit.

Enhanced Perk Improvements

Dragonfly

• Removed +5 Reload Speed.
• Added +10% damage to the explosion.

Cluster Bombs

• Removed +5 Blast Radius.
• Added +10% damage to each cluster bomb.

Reservoir Burst

• Removed +5 Stability.
• Added +10% to enhanced shot damage.

Magnificent Howl

• Removed +5 Reload Speed.
• Added +5% damage to each enhanced shot.

Eye of the Storm

• Removed +5 Stability.
• Added +10% effectiveness to all Eye of the Storm benefits.

Flash Counter

• Removed +5 Inventory Size.
• Added +1 second to disorient time.

Chain Reaction

• Removed +20 Inventory Size.
• Added +10% damage to the explosion.

Headstone

• Removed +5 Stability.
• Added new behavior: Precision kills always generate a large Stasis crystal.

Chill Clip

• Removed +5 Stability.
• Added new behavior: Players can create slowing detonations from a lower percentage of the magazine.

Hatchling

• Removed +5 Handling
• Added new behavior: There is a chance to generate two threadlings instead of one.

Weapon Mods

Temporal Blast

• No longer gains progress on splash damage.
• Reduced blast damage impulse by 66%.
  • NOTE: These changes in tandem on average increase shots to ready explosion by 1-2 trigger pulls. They also reduce damage of the blast when caused by Heavy weapons dramatically more than special/primary weapons (e.g ~75% nerf when used with Crossbow or Rocket but only ~23% with a Rocket Pulse).

Featured Armor Expansion

HUNTER

• Young Ahamkara’s Spine
• Fr0st-EE5

TITAN 

• Stronghold 
• Hazardous Propulsion

WARLOCK

• Chromatic Fire
• Contraverse Hold

Titan

• Perfect Guard HUD buff now appears as a bar and stacks no longer drop off ten seconds after blocking damage—they persist until they are spent.

• Blocking larger amounts of incoming fire gains stacks at a slower rate, while blocking lower amounts of incoming fire gains stacks at a faster rate.
• Landing a direct hit on a light or heavy Sword attack consumes 50% of your Perfect Guard charge, Exhausting enemies hit and instantly healing you and nearby allies.
  • Landing a Sword hit while at max Perfect Guard stacks will now fully refill your Sword energy instead of offering infinite guard duration. This enables back-to-back Heavy attacks, or allows immediate ability to block again.
  • Now that it fully heals you and nearby allies, it no longer grants Restoration
• Gradually gain up to +50 Guard Resistance and +50 Guard Endurance based on the number of Perfect Guard stacks instead of the previous +100 Guard Resistance, meaning you’ll be able to buildcraft with your sword perks a bit more to maximize your defensive or offensive prowess.
• Gain 30% DR for 1.5 seconds upon exiting Sword guard, instead of gaining Resist x4 while blocking. This is now a generic source of DR and can stack with other sources of Resist.
• Walking speed while guarding with a Sword is now increased when moving in all directions instead of only forwards.

Hunter

Cyrtarachne’s Facade

• While Woven Mail is active will now also return health on defeating an enemy.

Unintended Patch Note – Relativism

While we intend to revisit the effectiveness of this perk in the long run, we’ll be rolling back the following change to the Woven Mail timer in our next available patch.

• Spirit of the Cyrtarachne
  • Duration of Woven Mail provided reduced from ten seconds to six.
  • This will be reverted in our next available patch. 

Warlock

Chromatic Fire

• Detonation radius on precision kinetic final blow has increased by 36%.
• No longer applies keywords based on equipped Super.
• Non-precision kinetic final blows also produce a detonation.
  • The radius of this detonation is dependent on how many recent elemental final blows the player has achieved.

Contraverse Hold

• Charged grenades will now apply weaken.
• Energy returned has been tuned per grenade type.
  • Vortex grenade gains increased slightly but can no longer activate twice.
  • Axion Bolts, Handheld Supernova, and Scatter grenade gains all received moderate increases.

Abilities Tuning Preview for Ash & Iron

Hunter

Gambler’s Dodge

• Rescaled the amount of melee energy generated by Gambler’s Dodge from 100% at 70 stat points to 100% at 100 stat points.
• Dodging near an enemy now doubles this amount. 
• Reduced the amount of melee energy generated in PvP.
  • Note: The amount of energy generated in PvP has been reduced by only 20% in this patch, but in patch 9.1.0.1, it will be reduced by the full amount of 50%.

Lightweight Throwing Knives

• Reduced damage versus players by 16%.

General

Woven Mail

• Woven Mail application no longer resets duration to original source duration.

Stats

• Stat damage bonuses no longer increase self damage.
• Melee and Grenade stat damage bonuses no longer apply to melee and grenade damage done while in Super. Super stat continues to increase melee and grenade damage in Super.
• Fixed an issue where the Class stat energy benefits were not scaling smoothly between increments of ten.
• Corrected an issue where the upper end of the mobility stat benefits was set too low, resulting in Mobility boosts like the Athletic mods appearing to grant less Mobility than intended

As of the time of writing, Destiny 2 has a “Mostly Positive” rating on Steam with 633,350 reviews and all-time peak of 316,750 concurrent players according to SteamDB.