Because Destiny 2 is a game that's been around for over four years, it has a considerable amount of features and systems that make the experience what it is today. Some of those features or systems are not always reflective of the feedback that players provide, or they don't necessarily match the expectations of the community, but that's because Destiny 2 is an ever-evolving title that has many moving pieces. Ever since their introduction in the Shadowkeep expansion, Champions have always been under scrutiny because of how hard they disrupt the gameplay flow of normal activities.
Among the three types of Champions in Destiny 2, Overload Champions are often considered the worst - if not one of the worst features in the game as a whole. The reasons for this is multifaceted: Overloads are often bugged, they regenerate health constantly even when stunned, they can teleport around or inflict insane damage, they are the hardest to disrupt reliably, and they have the worst anti-Champion mods all around. They can easily cause any run, be it solo content or high-end group activities, to fail or become frustratingly long, and very little has been done with them since the release of Shadowkeep.
Why Destiny 2 Needs to Improve Overload Champions
Overload Champions are always hit-or-miss depending on the anti-Champion mods available every Season because they need to be disrupted consistently, but many weapons cannot do so because of their intrinsic limitations or the activation criteria for mods. A fitting example is that Season of the Risen features a single anti-Overload mod that only applies to SMGs and auto rifles, which are both mid-to-short range weapons that tend to fire quickly compared to other archetypes.
Destiny 2's anti-Overload mods often activate either on the first shot, with bows being the best weapons to disrupt these Champions, or they activate deep into the magazine. This is the case for fast-firing guns like SMGs and auto rifles, which often leads to players not being able to reliably keep Champions stunned because their immunity window and the mod's activation times don't match up. Players are often forced to find alternative solutions for stunning Champions, and particularly so Overload Champions, in endgame content.
There are multiple Exotic weapons in Destiny 2 that have anti-Champion rounds built into them as an alternative to the seasonal rotation of artifact mods, yet only one of them stuns Overload Champions. That weapon is Divinity, which comes from completing a set of tasks and the Garden of Salvation Raid, and thus not many players actually have it. The fact that players have to rely almost exclusively on the handful of anti-Overload mods available every Season shows that these mods in their current state are too limiting - not always a worthy investment, but a mandatory one.
The fact that some Champions, particularly Barrier and Overload Champions, are so disruptive and rely on health regeneration also leads to them becoming high-priority targets. This in-turn leads to the current meta of using either rocket launchers or linear fusion rifles in the Heavy slot, as they offer the best burst DPS or sustained damage across the board, respectively. Destiny 2 is focusing more on allowing players to make their own builds and choose preferred loadouts, and this change of direction further proves that it's time to do something about Overload Champions.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
