Highlights

  • Destiny 2's Season 22 brings back the forgotten Hunter Exotic, Renewal Grasps, after it was nerfed too hard by Bungie, opening up new options for Hunters in the PvE meta.
  • The Renewal Grasps were originally favored for their area denial potential and team support, but the nerfs made them virtually unusable due to increased cooldowns.
  • With the nerf being undone, Hunters can now protect themselves and their team with Duskfield Grenades and pair the Renewal Grasps with other powerful tools like The Navigator Exotic trace rifle, making them virtually immortal in PvE.

Destiny 2's expansions and seasons are a great time to hop into the game and explore new lore bits and additions to the gameplay loop or the Guardians' arsenal, but it can be also the perfect moment to toy with builds old and new. Lightfall helped in this department as much as it lacked in its narrative, as players got access to a lot of new tools thanks to the introduction of Destiny 2's Strand subclass and the new powers it brings. It's likely that The Final Shape will do something similar, but seasons often pack an equal punch with Bungie balancing out items and abilities, and Season 22 is about to see the resurgence of a forgotten Hunter Exotic.

Although changes to Exotic weapons have yet to be discussed in more detail, Destiny 2's Season of the Deep helped in that regard, whereas some armor pieces were left in the dust too long. With 40 Exotic armor pieces for each class, it's only natural that some of them became obsolete over time - or they were never good, to begin with, due to how many options there are. However, some of these Exotics have been changed in the past to varying degrees of success, and luckily, one that was nerfed too hard by Bungie is now making a comeback.

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Destiny 2's Renewal Grasps Exotic Could Become Meta in Season 22

Destiny 2 Renewal Grasps Hunter Gauntlets

Back when they first released, the Hunter's Renewal Grasps in Destiny 2 rapidly became a go-to piece of gear in the game due to their incredible area denial potential as well as team-wide support and survivability, a tool that the class normally lacks. This is instead the Warlock's department in most cases, with some Titan Exotics achieving the same result. Yet, after many issues in PvP especially, Bungie decided to nerf Renewal Grasps, which never recovered and became a forgotten Exotic.

The nerfs first reduced the efficacy of the item in PvP, and then Bungie increased the cooldown for Stasis Duskfield Grenades across the board, including the PvE sandbox. What this did was render the item obsolete due to the length players had to go in order to revert the item back to a state where it was usable, often investing entirely in the build at the cost of every other aspect of gameplay. Destiny 2's Exotics can often be polarizing and build-enabling, and Renewal Grasps were just that before the nerf, but later became borderline unusable due to how big the cooldown increase really was.

Luckily, this week Bungie released a Dev Insights post on its website, detailing all the changes coming to Destiny 2's forgotten Exotics in Season 22. The Hunter's Renewal Grasps are finally seeing Bungie retrace its steps as it undoes the previous nerf, meaning Hunters can now not only protect themselves and their team with Duskfield Grenades, but also enjoy some of the new tools they got in recent releases. For example, several new Stasis weapons were introduced since Renewal Grasps' time in the limelight, and many are now stronger than ever before.

More importantly, players could potentially use Renewal Grasps with The Navigator Exotic trace rifle from Ghosts of the Deep, the newest Dungeon in the game. This Exotic makes the user and their allies gain the Strand Woven Mail buff when the wielder shoots a teammate, thus granting both incredible damage resistance for a few seconds. Paired with Renewal Grasps and a build that allows Destiny 2 players to spam the grenades, Guardians can become virtually immortal in PvE, especially if they use damage mitigation mods and builds that can get up to Tier 10 Resilience. Overall, the Renewal Grasps nerf being reverted is great news for Hunters, and it could open up more options than before in the new PvE meta.

Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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