Destiny 2 Eager Edge nerf unintentionally buffs griefing

A Destiny 2 Eager Edge nerf was included in Destiny 2 hotfix 6.2.0.7 that appears to have had further-reaching effects in the FPS game than initially suggested. The change to the sword lunging ability is baffling speedrunners and causing numerous seemingly unintended side effects – including making one of the most annoying methods used to grief other players in the multiplayer game harder than ever to deal with.

Destiny 2 hotfix 6.2.0.7 includes a note saying that developer Bungie has “Fixed an issue where Eager Edge could be used multiple times in a single activation.” For those not in the know, Eager Edge is a sword trait that gives the player increased sword lunge distance allowing However, community testers explaining the changes on the Destiny Reddit have determined that the actual implementation is quite different, and doesn’t actually appear to have resolved the things it was seemingly aimed at.

Instead of preventing multiple swings, Eager Edge now seems to track a hard velocity cap and deactivates the trait immediately if it determines that a guardian is moving too fast. This means that if you pull out an Eager Edge sword while moving faster than the cap will immediately slow, or sometimes outright stop, your lateral momentum. This can be activated by various speedrunning techniques such as ‘wellskating’ – but it can also trigger based on something as simple as falling.

A lot of the resulting issues may not dramatically affect the average player – however perhaps the most curious effect is on sword griefing. If you’ve played even a small amount of Destiny 2 lately, it’s likely you’ve run into this griefing trick – where troublesome teammates use the Eager Edge lunge to send you hurtling off the side of the map into the abyss, preventing you from actually getting anything done. While this change hasn’t prevented that from working, it has stopped the trait being useful to recover from it, because you’re moving too fast after being bumped to use it to get back to safety.

Skarrow9 demonstrates the issue in a short video below:

Players also note that the change hasn’t actually stopped double swiping in Destiny 2 PvP, because hitting an enemy stops your speed, meaning the perk is able to be used again. User awiodja, who initially started the discussion, says the change “feels like it misses the forest for the trees,” making the game feel worse due to the new velocity cap without actually resolving anything – they note that “these changes do not negatively affect any major speedrun skips in the game.”

Bungie senior community manager Dylan ‘dmg04’ Gafner says the change was made as the “Team was finding numerous issues where the perk could be used to skip encounters, break mechanics, and generally cause issues with the game.” He also adds that the team is hoping to be more communicative about upcoming updates, explaining that “with hotfixes coming more quickly as of late, this slipped through” without much prior discussion. With commenters saying that the patch “came out of left field,” players will be hoping for more up-front feedback in the future.

Be sure to check out our best Destiny 2 Warlock builds, best Destiny 2 Hunter builds, and of course best Destiny 2 Titan builds for all three of the classes in Bungie’s shooter following the Destiny 2 Arc 3.0 update. In addition, our King’s Fall raid guide should see you past Oryx with no trouble. We’ve also got more of the best space games on PC for you to enjoy.