Is Starfire Protocol Being Nerfed in Destiny 2? – Answered

The newly teased Season of the Deep, or Season 21 (has it been that many already?) of Destiny 2 is less than two weeks away, and Bungie have shared some of the upcoming Exotic Armor changes ahead of its release in a blog post. Warlocks have long been awaiting a Starfire Protocol change, especially since a group running these could absolutely trounce bosses with them. Is it being nerfed? Let’s find out together.

Related: The Best Destiny 2 Exotics for Solar Titans in 2023

Starfire Protocol Changes in Destiny 2 Season of the Deep

For the uninitiated, Starfire Protocol is an Exotic that gives an extra Solar Fusion grenade charge, causes Fusion grenade kills to restore all Class Ability energy (in Warlocks’ case, Healing or Empowering Rift), and Empowered Weapon damage to return 20% grenade charge every half second or so. In other words – insane.

The following changes are being made in Season 21, per Bungie’s latest:

Reduced the amount of energy gained per instance of damage from 20% to 2.5%. Empowered weapon kills now grant 20% grenade energy. 

This means simply damaging enemies with an Empowered weapon by standing in your constantly-regenerating Rift will no longer be as potent. You’ll need to get kills in order to refresh your grenades as quickly. This is likely an attempt to curtail this Exotic’s potency against bosses, but it should still excel in areas where there are fodder enemies to kill.

Some Warlocks are rejoicing at having one less mandatory-pick Exotic to run, but I’m sure there are some broken hearts. The fact of the matter is it’s changes like these that keep Destiny 2, and all games of its kind, feeling fresh. If the same old Exotics were powerful forever we’d all get bored of doing the same things over and over! So embrace these changes, you might even find a new favorite.