Destiny 2: Hidden weapon value ensures that you don’t hit anything anymore – Should be optimized now

On July 6, 2022By Garmin Philip

Season 17 has brought a hidden change for players in Destiny 2 that has transformed the way this game is played. Now the guardians are restricted by a hidden weapon value and MeinMMO tells you exactly what it’s all about and why Bungie had to improve it.

Before Season 17 in Destiny 2 you could hop or slide around like a wild space rabbit and still land your aerial and hip shots accurately.

Since May, however, precise killing with this technique has been much more difficult in Bungie’s co-op shooter due to a hidden value in weapons and exotics. In places, the guardians even get no more kills at all. Especially with jumps or hip shots, this weapon value is clearly noticeable.

What is the hidden weapon value? The reason for this is the new “Airborne Effectiveness” (AE) or in German the “effectiveness in the air” on weapons.

Anyone who has liked to cultivate an airy style of play has had to pay attention to this hidden value of their shooting irons and exotics since Season 17, with the exception of swords, and possibly increase it so that they can act and hit precisely from the air.

A successful aerial mission can no longer be achieved simply by equipping a mod such as Icarus Grasp.
Hunters who also like to have the exotic feet “St0mp-EE5” equipped will only reduce the “Airborne Effectiveness” of each of their weapons by -50.

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In order for hits from the air to succeed again, Guardians should pay more attention to the hidden value “effectiveness in the air” with the start of Season 17, as Bungie explained. It calculates the accuracy of your primary weapon projectiles and grants you a small or large correction from 0 to 100 using a more precise aim assist cone in the air.

The accuracy of your primary weapon projectiles is therefore calculated more accurately with a high value. 100 means no penalties for accuracy in the air and the same aim assist.
In return, with a low value you get less and less aim assist in the air.
So, coupled with Destiny 2’s “bloom mechanic,” weapons with low air effectiveness will not win mid-air duels unless you have absolutely perfect aim.

Here’s how the new stat affects your precision aim assist cone in the air.

What is the Bloom Effect? In shooters, the bloom effect is the radius around the shooting direction, which opens or contracts like a flower after actions. So if you’re not aiming, you’ll have a larger crosshair, making hits less accurate. Aiming reduces this effect. So, with a large crosshair bloom radius, bullets may randomly fly in slightly different directions. If there were no bloom effect, every shot would land 100% clearly in the same place.

Air efficiency in Destiny 2 is almost a science

Bungie has repeatedly tried to explain the effect in more detail, among other things in a This Week at Bungie blog article. Above all, this rather special behavior of the aim assist cone in the air was dealt with in detail and said:

You will need to aim accurately to get hits [aus der Luft oder aus der Hüfte] to land if you don’t design your builds to be airborne.

said the developer on the This Week at Bungie Blog

But even experienced, unerring players found it extremely difficult and realized that something didn’t quite fit here and kills in the air were almost impossible.

Where can you see what air efficiency rating a weapon has? Bungie itself does not currently offer an in-game option to view this value. So if you want to know what this looks like on your favorite weapon, you have to use external third-party sources. Whether this will change is not known.

“Effectiveness in the air” didn’t go over well at all

Despite Bungie’s explanations, the hidden property was not well received. Even the many explanations provided by the developer did not help to make this option more understandable for the Guardians in its first form. As the changes went live, it gradually became apparent that “Effectiveness in the Air” just wasn’t working as intended.

So you could find many videos that showed how terrible this value can actually be. Guardians simply couldn’t hit anything from the air anymore, no matter how accurate they were.