Destiny 2’s Strand Suspension Ability Is Getting Nerfed In Season 22

It was only a matter of time until the Strand subclass got tweaked in Destiny 2, and Bungie has confirmed that the powerful Suspend ability is getting nerfed in Season 22 when it begins later this month. With the right build, Strand has been an incredibly powerful subclass thanks to the Suspend ability immobilizing enemies in a psychic spider-web for several seconds, but Bungie plans to trim that facet of the ability down.

As detailed in a new blog post, Suspend removes some of the challenge that Bungie sought to reintroduce to Destiny 2 this year, and is seen as a “skeleton key” that solves combat problems against all combatant types according to the studio. This has escalating effects, as Strand’s Suspend ability is so good that few players build into the Sever component that’s also featured in this subclass, and the Stasis subclass has begun to languish as a result of this.

From Season 22, the base Suspend duration against non-Champion PvE combatants will be reduced from eight seconds to five seconds, and the Thread of Continuity fragment can be used to buff Suspend back up to seven seconds. Previously, you could have a 12-second Suspend effect with that fragment, but that’s being changed.

When it comes to Champions, Bungie is aiming to make players prioritize dealing with these powerful foes when they encounter them. A Champion caught in a Suspend web will only be immobilized for three seconds, and with Thread of Continuity, four seconds. Thread of Mind and Thread of Generation are also in the firing line, to furthe emphasize the changes being made to Suspend.

The good news is that snap damage done to Suspended boss enemies is being buffed, up to 67% in total, and Threadlings are about to become a whole lot more powerful. Threadling damage vs. PvE combatants is being increased by 30%, the creation cooldown time for Tangles is dropping from 15 seconds to 12 seconds, PvE combatants affected by Sever now have their outgoing damage reduced by 40%.

A few changes are also coming to The Wanderer Aspect, making that underutilized Strand item more useful. Destroying a Tangle now creates a delayed Suspending detonation, the Suspend detonation radius has been increased slightly in PvE, and thrown Wanderer Tangle detonation damage is being boosted to match standard Tangle detonations.

Plenty of other changes outside of Strand are coming next season as well, including reworks of 14 Exotic armor pieces that have been gathering dust, easier ability unlocks for the Stasis subclass, and sadly, a major disappointment for Gambit fans.