Earlier this week, Destiny 2‘s Season of the Lost started, bringing with it new missions, storylines, and exotic gear. One particular piece of exotic gear, some fancy new boots for Hunters, quickly became popular (and hated) as they allowed players to basically break the way Destiny 2 plays in PVP. Now, Bungie has nerfed the boots, leaving Hunters who love to dance feeling quite sad.
The exotic boots in question are the Radiant Dance Machines, which first appeared in Destiny, but have now reappeared in Destiny 2 alongside the new season. Originally, in the first game, these exotic boots increased your movement speed while aiming down your sights. In Destiny 2, these Hunter boots now allow you to use your dodge ability multiple times in a row for a short period of time as long as you are close to an enemy. This led to some problems.
As explained by Gamespot’s Phil Hornshaw, these boots could be paired with additional items that add new traits to your dodge ability. The right combos could break the way Destiny 2 plays. One example given is folks using the Dynamo mod for Void-based helmets. This mod gives players super energy whenever they use dodge and can also be stacked. With the right build and a bit of practice, players could easily fill up their super bars in a short amount of time.
As you might expect, this was quickly exploited by Destiny players, leading to complaints that exotic was broken and overpowered. So last night, seemingly in response to this feedback, Bungie temporarily disabled the new boots in PVP and Gambit modes. Like that town in Footloose, Bungie has declared no more dancing! Stop dancing! STOP IT! (You can still use the boots outside these modes.)
Bungie community managers and Destiny 2 players had some fun on Twitter after the ban on dancing Hunters was announced. Though some also questioned why these boots shipped in the game like this. To be clear: Players aren’t using a glitch to get all these dodges and super powerful abilities. They are just using the Radiant Dance Machines as intended, letting them dodge more and making their dodge-related traits more effective in the process. This seems like an issue of Bungie not expecting Destiny players to take advantage of new powerful gear.
But whatever, let’s not worry about that and instead listen to the song “Safety Dance” which is slightly related to this story and which is now stuck in my head.
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“We can dance if you want to, we can leave your friends behind…”
