Destiny 2 Update 7.3.5 Patch Notes: Get Ready For Major Sandbox Shakeups

Destiny 2 update 7.3.5 is planned to be released on Tuesday, March 5, at the normal weekly reset time. That’s 10 a.m. PT/6 p.m. GMT.

The Destiny 2 update 7.3.5 is intended to breathe fresh life into a game that has struggled in recent months owing to a lack of big content releases, particularly after both The Final Shape and Season 24 were pushed back from February to June.

We’ve already discussed all of the improvements coming to PvP and revisited content like the Prophecy dungeon, as Bungie has gently but steadily disclosed information about the patch over the last few weeks.

Bungie has addressed several issues that the fandom believes require adjusting, both in terms of PvE and PvP content. One of the most intriguing things is that reprised material is likely to return.

As previously stated, the Prophecy dungeon will receive a refreshed treasure pool, making the soon-to-be four-year-old dungeon worth running again for series veterans while also offering beginners another chance to grind for respectable gear.

There’s also a complete weapon overhaul that will influence Crucible and PvE, with a focus on exotics, including significant upgrades to The Manticore, Ex Diris, and the Edge of Action Glaive, which should make them relevant in high-end gameplay.

With that stated, in this guide, we’ll assemble every change confirmed for Destiny 2 patch 7.3.5 by Bungie through the This Week in Destiny blogs. It’s a large one, so let’s get started.

Destiny 2 Update 7.3.5 Patch Notes

Flash-forge and fabricate an Omni Strike blade to finish your enemies. 🔪 pic.twitter.com/htshA9Qs2t

— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) February 26, 2024

Crucible map changes

Already live

• Addressed spawn traps for Altar of Flame, Cauldron, Endless Vale, Midtown, and Meltdown.

Update 7.3.5 on March 5:

• Additional map spawning quality of life pass.
• Addressing spawn traps for Eternity and Fortress.
• Removing all backfield spawns for non-Rift modes: The Citadel, Cathedral of Dusk, Disjunction, and Convergence. This will effectively make these maps play 30-50% smaller than they do currently and reduce the amount of time spent running back to combat after spawning.
• Major tuning of the initial spawning, Heavy ammo crate, and tiebreaker zone locations for all maps.

May update:

Adding three new maps to the Crucible:

• Eventide Labs (Europa)
• Cirrus Plaza (Neomuna)
• Dissonance (Terraformed Pyramid Ship)

Rewards

Already live

• Increased end-of-match rewards, including more Glimmer and higher chances for Enhancement Cores and Crucible Engrams
• Created double rewards boosters for PvP

Competitive

• Added weapon focusing.
• Added a second tier to the Competitive weekly challenge that awards Ascendant Alloys.
• Adding a third tier to the Competitive weekly challenge with a new reward of Artifice Armor. This tier will be unlocked for all players who reach rank Gold III or above each Season. This tier will require match victories instead of completions. Upon completion of the challenge, each victory thereafter will have a chance to drop Artifice Armor, and the drop rates will increase alongside your rank.
• Competitive matches will also have an increased chance to drop Exotic weapon catalysts on victories.

Trials of Osiris

• Added 50% chance to get a Trials weapon on wins. With Update 7.3.5, this will be updated to exclusively drop the weekly weapon reward to better allow for targeted farming of the specific weapon you want.
• Added Flawed card rewards.

Update 7.3.5:

• For Passage of Ferocity, if you have not been Flawless for the week, losses after 3 wins will reset you back to 3 wins instead of Flawing your card.
• With the new Passage of Persistence, losses following a win will remove the win from your card. Consecutive losses do not remove additional wins. Getting to 7 wins grants you a drop of the weekly Adept weapon, regardless of how many losses you have taken.
• This passage works like a trailing backstop. Once you have at least one win recorded on the passage, a loss will remove the most recent win instead of Flawing it. Since consecutive losses will not remove additional wins, winning two games in a row adds a permanent win to the card, and win streaks longer than two add additional permanent wins.
• You can only go Flawless on this passage if you do not have a win removed. Once a win has been removed, you can no longer get Flawless using this passage, but you can still earn a roll of the weekly Adept weapon.
• Adding rewards for match completions by three-person fireteams in Trials. Although you do not need to win to earn these rewards, they are participation-gated, so simply jumping off the map or sitting AFK in spawn will disqualify you from getting them.
• Additional 50% chance to drop the non-Adept Trials weekly weapon reward.
• A 50% chance to get a Trials Engram drop.
• Additional Trials reputation.

Game modes

Already live

• Created Sparrow Control
• Added 3v3 Clash to Crucible Labs
• Updated the Countdown Rush ruleset for Competitive

Update 7.3.5:

• 3v3 Clash will be moving to the 3v3 Quickplay rotator, and we’ll be making these updates to the rules:
  • Heavy ammo will no longer be shared.
  • Respawn timer increasing from 5 to 7 seconds.
  • Match timer increasing to 10 minutes, but the score to win remains 40.
• A new 3v3 king of the hill mode, Collision, will enter Crucible Labs.
  • A single, larger zone will rotate between five points around the map on a timer. Capturing and controlling it will earn your team points.
  • This mode will also test an alternative Special ammo crate system.
    • The Special ammo crate system will feature four shareable Special ammo crates that spawn simultaneously at the beginning of the game or round and then on a timer afterwards.
    • Each control zone location (A, B, and C) will have an associated Special ammo crate, and the fourth crate will be in a neutral location.
    • Players who currently have Special ammo will drop Special ammo bricks on death.
• Iron Banner Tribute has undergone multiple changes, including:
  • Simplifying objectives and scoring, including changing the trigger for the Hunt from depositing max crests to a team score threshold.
  • Removing the “wall hacks” on players carrying max crests.
  • Cleaning up the user experience by decreasing the distance at which crest icons can be seen. We’re also reworking how quickly the beacons de-spawn and rotate and significantly decreasing the time it takes to interact to dunk crests.
  • Reducing the number of turrets that spawn with the Hunt beacon from 4 to 3.

Prophecy dungeon reprised loot pool

New Origin Trait – Crossing Over

• These weapons have increased range and handling for the top half of the magazine, while rounds from the bottom half of the magazine deal increased damage.

Weapons

Removed weapons

• A Swift Verdict Sidearm
• The Long Walk Sniper Rifle
• The Last Breath Auto Rifle

Added weapons

These come with new perk pools and, in some cases, new damage types.

Prosecutor Auto Rifle

• Precision Frame
• Arc
• Origin Trait: Crossing Over

Adjudicator Submachine Gun

• Precision Frame
• Kinetic
• Origin Trait: Crossing Over

Relentless Pulse Rifle

• High-impact Frame
• Damage changed from Kinetic to Strand
• Origin Trait: Crossing Over

Updated weapons

New perk pools and new damage types

Judgment Hand Cannon

• Adaptive Frame
• Damage changed from Kinetic to Stasis
• Origin Trait: Crossing Over

Darkest Before Pulse Rifle

• Rapid-Fire Frame
• Damage changed from Arc to Solar
• Origin Trait: Crossing Over

 A Sudden Death Shotgun

• Aggressive Frame
• Damage changed from Arc to Void
• Origin Trait: Crossing Over

Updated Encounter drops

Phalanx Echo

• Relentless Pulse Rifle
• Prosecutor Auto Rifle

The Cube

• A Sudden Death Shotgun
• Adjudicator Submachine Gun

Kell Echo (Awards at Emissary Chest)

• Judgement Hand Cannon
• Darkest Before Pulse Rifle

Sandbox changes

These are the abilities changes coming to the sandbox in general.

Ability changes

Ensnaring Slam

• Reduced class ability regeneration penalty duration by 50% in PvE activities

Threaded Specter

• Now applies the same class ability regeneration penalty used by Ensnaring Slam when the player creates a Threaded Specter
• Increased Threaded Specter detonation damage by 25% vs. PvE combatants

Threadlings

• Increased aim assist shape size from 0.41m to 0.5m (this makes aim assist more effective against them, making them easier to shoot)
• Reduced base damage vs. enemy players from 40 to 35. Damage with Thread of Evolution equipped reduced vs. enemy players from 45 to 38.5.
• Fixed an issue where groups of Threadlings were not reliably chain detonating when one was destroyed.
• Fixed an issue where Threadlings sometimes did not play their (non-damaging) destruction performance when destroyed by enemy fire, resulting in them appearing to blip out of existence.

Arcane Needle

• Increased aim assist angle (the size of the cone that the aim assist system uses to bend the projectile’s initial direction) by about 50%.
• Increased aim assist falloff distance (the distance at which aim assist begins to decay) from 30 to 45 meters.
• Increased tracking angular velocity (how quickly the projectile can bend towards its target) by about 5%.
• Increased the length of the projectile’s tracking shape (the shape in front of the projectile that it uses to find targets).
• Fixed an issue where uncharged melees while Arcane Needle is equipped resulted in the player appearing to freeze in a melee pose.

Restoration and Radiant 

• Fixed an issue where the maximum duration of Restoration and Radiant buffs was being incorrectly stored, resulting in their buff timers resetting to their initial duration instead of their maximum when the buff was reapplied.
• This also resolves similar issues with shorter Restoration sources like Sunspots with the Sol Invictus Aspect.

Ember of Mercy

• Now extends your current Restoration duration by 2 seconds when a Firesprite is collected. If you don’t already have Restoration active, collecting a Firesprite grants Restoration with a 2-second duration.
• This Restoration extension is increased to 3 seconds while Ember of Solace is equipped.

Ember of Empyrean

• Increased the maximum duration extension from 12 to 15 seconds.
• Reworked the duration extension granted with each Solar defeat.
  • Previously, it always granted a 4-second duration extension, regardless of the type of target defeated.
  • Now the duration extension varies based on the strength of the defeated target. Defeating an Elite or weaker combatant will result in less time added than in the game currently, but defeating Champion or stronger combatants results in a greater extension.

Consecration

• Increased the travel distance of the initial ground follow (a projectile that travels along a surface like Thermite Grenade’s wave or the Coldsnap Grenade seeker) from 18 to 20 meters.
• Increased the height of the slam ground follow detonation by about 1 meter.
• Increased the travel distance of the slam ground follow from 16 to 20 meters.
• Increased the travel speed of the slam ground follow (including the Pyrogale Gauntlets’ enhanced version) from 16 to 24 meters per second.

Weapon changes

Heavy Burst Hand Cannons

• Corrected an issue that was causing Heavy Burst Hand Cannons to have 25% less aim assist than other Hand Cannons when hip firing or airborne on mouse and keyboard.

Bows

• Reduced the auto aim falloff distance start and end by 15%
• i.e. aim assist will be less effective at long range
• Reduced the maximum auto aim cone size by 5%.

Auto Rifles

• Added the missing 12th perk (Target Lock) to Breakneck’s second trait column.

Lightweight Scout Rifles

• Increased base damage by 5%.

Sniper Rifles

• Reduced the auto aim cone size by 10%.

Rocket Launchers 

• Precision: Increased reserve ammo by 2 and reduced damage penalty from -10% to -5%.
• High-Impact: Increased reserve ammo by 2. Now deals more detonation damage and less impact, for roughly the same total damage.

The above changes also affect Deathbringer, Gjallarhorn, and Truth.

Heavy Grenade Launchers 

• Increased reserve ammo by a minimum of 6 rounds, maximum of 10 rounds, depending on the Grenade Launcher.
• Reduced Spike Grenade’s impact damage buff from 50% to 12.5%. With the below changes, this reduces the total Spike Grenades damage buff from about 8% to 3%, making them less mandatory.
• Increased direct hit impact damage by 10%. Combined with the above change, this brings non-Spike Grenade Launchers almost up to the level of Spike Grenade Launchers, and very slightly reduces damage output with a Spike Grenade Launcher.
• Increased detonation damage by 5%. (In PvP, this is offset by a reduction to detonation damage, for no overall change.)

Wave Frame Heavy Grenade Launcher

• Increased damage by 20%.
• Increased wave width by 40%.

Caster Swords

• Reduced heavy attack energy cost from 5 to 4.
• Increased heavy attack damage by 16%.

Exotic weapons

Vigilance Wing

• Now has a deterministic recoil pattern.

Vex Mythoclast

• Increased ADS damage falloff scalar from 1.5x to 1.7x.

Wish-Ender

• True Sight will now deactivate if you leave ADS or hold it for longer than 3 seconds. To reactivate, you must fully redraw the Bow.

Edge of Action

• Increased its damage resistance in PvE against all combatants except bosses to 85% and increased its damage resistance against bosses to 15%.

Manticore

• Players must now be airborne for 0.5 seconds and deal damage with the weapon to activate the perk. (This prevents accidental activation while running down stairs or doing small jumps.)
• Special reload to quickly disengage antigravity thrusters. (Swapping weapons will continue to disengage as well.)
• Tarrabah also receives this special reload animation.
• While antigrav thrusters are engaged, combatants will be less accurate when targeting the player, similar to the Always on Time Sparrow.
• With the catalyst, final blows and sustained damage with Manticore while airborne grant a Void overshield and return ammo to the magazine.

Ex Diris

• Increased impact damage against PvE enemies by 50%.
• Detonation damage is unaffected, so the total damage increase works out to be around 20% (varying by target type).
• Increased the maximum rate of fire by 17%.

Perks

Heal Clip

• Now grants Cure x2 to the player while still granting Cure x1 to nearby allies.

Trench Barrel

• Can now be activated by dealing damage with ranged melee attacks.

Barrel Constrictor

• Once activated, it no longer deactivates upon firing a shot, it lasts for 7.5 seconds, and it buffs all shots fired during that time.
• Enhanced Barrel Constrictor lasts for 8.5 seconds.

Loose Change

• Applying a subclass 3.0 debuff now grants +20 aim assist stat and 20% reduced ADS movement speed penalty in addition to the existing +50 reload stat. Applying another debuff now refreshes the duration, too.

Dual Loader

• Removed the reload speed penalty.
• Changed the wording of the perk description to make it clearer that it increases the number of shots reloaded, so we can now apply it to other weapon types without confusion in the future.

Tex Balanced Stock

• Now grants +20 range and a +1.5 degree hip-fire precision cone angle in addition to its other effects, making it easier to land follow-up crits with hipfire.

Häkke Breach Armaments, Deconstruct, and Sundering

• Now work against Void Souls, Strand Clones, Cabal Projection Shields, and Brigs.

Häkke Breach Armaments

• Damage bonus vs. Stasis crystals reduced from 85% to 60% to match other constructs

Sundering

• Can now trigger on shield break in addition to final blows on vehicles and constructs. We added a small reload speed scalar while reducing the charge rate benefit to account for the higher uptime.

Hatchling

• Activation requirements are no longer locked to the archetype in terms of precision or non-precision kills. Instead, the perk will trigger with either a precision kill or 3 non-precision kills.

Target Lock

• Now activates later in the magazine for SMGs (at 20% instead of 12.5%), so the damage buff will swing Primary weapon gunfights less often.

Envious Assassin

• Each activation is now capped at 100% of magazine size instead of 150%, and the maximum overflow is now 3 times the magazine size instead of 4 times.

Bait and Switch

• Reduced damage bonus from 35% to 30%.

One-Two Punch

• Now correctly deactivates after dealing damage with a powered melee.

Deconstruct

• Updated the perk description to correctly state that it pulls ammo from thin air, not reserves.
• Fixed a bug preventing the perk from triggering when shooting an enemy Titan barricade (and similar targets).

You might also be interested in the patch notes for Tekken 8 Version 1.02.01  and Street Fighter 6 Update 1.11 Patch Notes.