Hold onto your loot Destiny guardians, the massive Destiny 2.0 patch is officially on the way.

A huge, game changing patch is kinda useless without an set of epic patch notes, so make sure to read on for those. This 2.0 update kicks off Destiny Year Two and the upcoming The Taken King expansion, so anyone who has been playing the game or expects they will be soon should skim them at the very least.

Stop by the official Bungie news blog for the details as well.

Update 2.0.0 – The one to prepare for Oryx.

This update begins Destiny Year Two. It contains sweeping changes that will impact the way we all play. Prepare for the arrival of The Taken King.

Player Character

• Character Level Cap raised to 34 for all players
  • Your Character Level will be grandfathered into your highest possible Light Level from all gear in your inventory and vault
  • Character Level Cap will be increased to 40 on 9/15 (requires The Taken King)
• Character Level and Light are now separate stats
  • Light is now calculated by the average of the Attack and Defense scores of all your gear
  • Weapons, Ghosts, Class Items, and Artifacts now all contribute to Light
  • Grimoire Score has been moved from the Character Nameplate and now displays in the Character Screen
• Attack Power values on weapons and gear have been renormalized in preparation for the Taken King
  • Year 1 Attack and Defense values caps have been renormalized for Year 2 (previously 365 Attack is now 170 Attack)
  • All Defense values are now on the same scale as Attack
  • Weapon damage numbers and combatants have been scaled against renormalized Attack and Defense values
• Outgoing and Incoming damage has been changed to reflect new Light system
  • Ability Damage is directly computed from your Light Score
  • Player Health is directly computed from your Light Score
  • Weapon Damage is heavily weighted by both your Light score and the Attack value of the weapon

Classes

General

• Intellect, Strength, and Discipline now only change their effect in fixed tiers
• Intellect, Strength, and Discipline stats now display their tier and the exact duration of the effect on the tooltip in the Character Screen
• Orb generation is now capped to a maximum of 8 orbs at once when wearing exotic armor items that increase orb spawning rates
• Increased Recovery stat time at low end by 1 second and Reduced high end reduced timer by 2 seconds. These were re-normalized Recovery stat effects to make a more compelling character stats choice
• Pulse Grenades secondary effect distance are now globally 8 meters (Thermal and Void: 7 -> 8 meters, Arc: 9 -> 8 meters). Detonation distance still unchanged at 7 meters
• Pulse Grenade fuse times have been reduced
• Thermal Pulse (Incendiary Grenade) base detonation and damage have been increased to unify stats with other Pulse Grenades
• Fixed an issue where perks that grant additional super energy for grenade kills did not work correctly in the Crucible

Titan

Defender

• Line attacks (Fist of Havoc Shockwave and Arc Blade Razor?s Edge) can now no longer penetrate Ward of Dawn

Hunter

Gunslinger

• Golden Gun Damage increased (350 -> 360) to ensure it consistently killed opponents in the Crucible

Bladedancer

• Arc Blade can now generate up to 6 Orbs when geared with exotic armor that increase orb spawning rates
• Blink movement ability activation delay increased by 0.07 seconds (0.26 seconds to 0.33 seconds)
• Blink movement ability visuals now changed to better telegraphing direction: clearer activation FX and trail FX
• Blink Strike now does Arc Damage
• Arc Bolt grenades (Thermal and Arc) damage reduced by 25% to 75 damage
• Arc Bolt Range reduced by 11% to 8 meters
• Flux Grenade tracking shape volume has been changed to reduce tracking aggressiveness

Warlock

General

• Armor Bonus perk “Strength of the Ram” (found on exotic helmet, The Ram) has been reduced (5->3)

Sunsinger

• Fixed an issue where Sunsingers who self-resurrected from Fireborn were given a free orb upon respawn
• Fireborn Sunsingers must now successfully kill to spawn orbs

Weapons

Read our detailed review of weapon change philosophies.

Auto Rifles

• Base Damage increased across all archetypes
• Damage Falloff now starts closer to the player to emphasize its role as a close range weapon
• Base Stability reduced slightly. Landing consistent precision shots require more weapon control
• Damage done against AI combatants increased by 30%

Pulse Rifles

• All Stable (low recoil) Pulse Rifles (i.e., Hopscotch Pilgrim) now use “Medium” Rate-of-Fire base stats
• “Medium” Pulse Rifle’s Rate-of-Fire has slightly increased, but with base Damage reduced slightly (2.5%)
• PVP: Bursts-to-kill (all precision hits) is 2 or 3, depending on victim?s Armor stat
• Magazine Size increased on all base stats
• Base Stability reduced slightly. Landing consistent precision shots require more weapon control
• Damage done against AI combatants increased by 25%

Scout Rifles

• Base Damage increased slightly for “Medium” to “High” Rate-of-Fire Scout Rifles. Small adjustment, does not change shots-per-kill in PVP against another Guardian with full health
• Magazine Size increased on all base stats
• Accuracy when firing from hip is reduced
• Damage done against AI combatants increased by 5%

Hand Cannons

• Damage Falloff distance has been reduced to be closer to the player to limit long range lethality
• Accuracy while in Aim-Down-Sights reduced slightly, making long range snap-shooting less reliable
• Accuracy when firing from hip is reduced
• Magazine Size reduced on all base stat settings
• Base Optics (zoom) reduced so Aiming Down Sights grants more width (in favor for depth)

Shotguns

• Shotgun precision damage scalar grants 10% bonus damage (Was 25%)
• Shot Package perk reduces the cone spread by 20% (was 50%)
• Rangefinder perk adds a 10% base Range increase on zoom (was 20)
• Damage done against AI combatants reduced by 45% ( 2.25-> 1.15)

• Sniper Rifles

• Final Round perk now buffs precision damage, not base damage. This change only affects this perk when combined with Sniper Rifles

Fusion Rifles

• Fusion Rifles now no longer get more accurate with each projectile fired
• Fusion Rifles that are slow charging, high impact now have a slightly lower base Range value, making it harder to max outrange for these weapons
• Accuracy increased for low range Fusion Rifles; Accuracy reduced for high range Fusion Rifles
• Max Fusion Rifle projectile speed decreased slightly
• Damage done against AI combatants increased by 15%

Sidearms

• Base Reload Speed increased
• Ammo Stats for Sidearms have been reduced to match other Secondaries, but still retain starting bonus ammo

Rocket Launchers

• Blast Radius distance slightly increased
• Grenades and Horseshoes perk proximity detonation distance reduced to 1.3 meter (was 2 meters)

Machine Guns

• Fixed an issue with all Dead Orbit Machine Guns where attached plasteel plate failed to animate properly on reloads
• Damage done against AI combatants increased by 5%

Weapon Perks

General

• Reduced Damage bonuses and penalties granted from weapon barrel upgrades
• Overpenetration perk now only works on bipeds (no longer works on environment materials)
• Mulligan perk chance increased to 20%

Year One Perks

We have revisted all of these Year One stat perks and reduced the amount they buff your weapon stat to re-normalize against Year Two weapon lethality and reinforce specialization so players are making meaningful trade-offs on weapons.

To compensate for the weaker stat perks from launch weapons, we added some new stat perks (introduced in House of Wolves) that provided a significant increase to a stat in exchange for a reduction in other stats. This allows players to be able to spike a stat that reinforces their specialized play style, but at a cost.

• Accelerated Coils: Reduced charge time by 50%
• Accurized Ballistics: Reduced range and damage bonus by 50%
• Aggressive Ballistics: Reduced damage bonus by 50%. Increased stability and range penalties by 100%
• Aggressive Launch: Reduced damage bonus by 50%. Increased stability and projectile speed penalty by 100%
• Confined Launch: Increased projectile speed penalty by 25%. Reduced stability bonus by 33%
• CQB Ballistics: Reduced range bonus by 25%. Reduced stability bonus by 33%
• Enhanced Battery: Reduced magazine bonus by 60%
• Extended Mag: Reduced magazine bonus by 33%
• Field Choke: Reduced damage bonus by 50%. Reduced range bonus by 60%. Reduced stability penalty by 20%
• Field Scout: No longer affects magazine. Reduced inventory bonus by 37%
• Fitted Stock: Reduced stability bonus by 60%
• Flared Magwell: Reduced reload bonus by 80%
• Hammer Forged: Reduced range bonus by 50%
• Hand Loaded: Reduced range bonus by 50%
• Hard Launch: Reduced projectile speed bonus by 50%
• Heavy Payload: Reduced blast radius bonus by 50%
• Javelin: Reduced projectile speed bonus by 50%
• Linear Compensator: Reduced damage bonus by 50%
• Luck in the Chamber: Reduced damage bonus by 3%
• Perfect Balance: Reduced stability bonus by 40%
• Send It: Reduced by range bonus 40%. Inventory and equip penalties added
• Smart Drift Control: Reduced stability bonus by 40%. Reduced range penalty by 33%
• Smart Drift Control (Rocket Launcher): Reduced stability bonus by 40%. Reduced projectile speed penalty by 33%
• Smallbore: Reduced stability and range bonuses by 25%
• Smooth Ballistics: Stability bonus made into penalty. Range penalty is now a bonus.
• Soft Ballistics : Reduced damage penalty by 50%
• Soft Launch: Stability bonus made into penalty. Projectile speed penalty is now a bonus.
• Speed Reload: Reduced reload bonus by 80% *Warhead Verniers: Reduced blast radius bonus by 37%. Reduced projectile speed bonus by 60%. Reduced stability penalty by 20%

Exotic/Legendary Weapons

Hard Light

• Base Stability increased to 80
• Hard Light projectiles now have increased bounce count
• Hard Light projectiles are now not affected by Damage Falloff
• Hard Light projectile FX updated so it is easier to track the projectile ricochets

Suros Regime

• Stability reduced
• Added a Range boost to the Focus Fire node on the Talent Grid

Necrochasm

• Base Stability increased to 60
• Magazine Size increased
• Cursebringer perk will now always trigger on a precision kill
• Cursebringer perk explosion radius increased and deals more damage
• Rangefinder perk has been replaced by Zen Moment

The Last Word

• Range reduced by 10
• Base Stability reduced by 10
• Accuracy while in hip fire is increased
• Precision Damage aim assist while in hip fire is increased
• Fixed an issue where damage bonuses while in hip fire was not applying correctly

Thorn

• Base Damage of Thorn DoT reduced by 1/3 for both PVE and PVP
• Thorn DOT now stacks up to 5x over multiple shots
• This is a net buff, but it is now spread over multiple shots to eliminates the PVP “2-shot walk away.”Thorn DoT damage now correctly reports as poison

Hawkmoon

• Luck in the Chamber and Holding Aces perks now have a stacking limit of 2. Only 2 of the bonus damage perks will ever stack, which should eliminate the Hawkmoon 1-hit PVP kill to an undamaged opponent
• Holding Aces perk now increases magazine by 2 rounds

Icebreaker

• Ammo Recharge time increased to 7 seconds between rounds (was 5 seconds)

Gjallarhorn

• Reduce damage of Wolfpack Rounds by roughly 1/3

Black Hammer

• White Nail perk now fills the magazine from your ammo reserves

No Land Beyond

• Fixed an issue where there were overlap/parallax issues in Sights during aim-down-sights view
• Base Handling increased
• The Master perk has an increased base precision damage bonus scalar (2.6x -> 3x)

Lord of Wolves

• Rally perk now grants +5 Recovery to allies in close proximity

Thunderlord

• Arc detonation chance for Lightning Rounds kill increased to 50%
• Magazine size increased to offset ammo stat changes

Vex Mythoclast

• Projectile Speed increased to compensate for global Fusion Rifle changes
• Stability increased to compensate for global Fusion Rifle changes

Universal Remote

• Base Range increased by +20

Monte Carlo

• Stability increased to compensate for global Auto Rifle Changes
• Fixed an issue where the Method perk did not only trigger when killing players or combatants. Can no longer trigger when “killing” destroyable objects

Bad Juju

• Stability increased to compensate for global Pulse Rifle changes

Red Death

• Stability increased to compensate for global Pulse Rifle changes
• Fixed an issue where Rate of Fire and Impact stats were displayed incorrectly. Stat values were not changed, UI display only

Plan C

• Range increased to compensate for global Fusion Rifle changes
• Stability increased to compensate for global Fusion Rifle changes

Exotic Armor

General

Many pieces of Exotic Armor now recolor when a Shader is applied

Titan

An Insurmountable Skullfort

• Gain a second melee charge for Storm Fist and Sun Strike. (It doesn?t apply to Void melee yet?this is a bug I believe we have fixed in 2.0.1.)

Hunter

Spine of Young Ahamkara

• Bonus to Tripmine grenade duration increasedGain a second grenade charge for Tripmine grenade

Warlocks

Heart of Praxic Fire

• Gain bonus Agility when Radiance is active

Activities

World

• Year 1 Activities have been converted into Quest system
  • Year One Questlines do not require ownership of The Taken King
  • You can replay the story for more experience and reputation by looking at the Quest Collections in the Tower
• The Ghost is now voiced by Nolan North
• Fallen Wolf Hunt Patrols will retreat in anticipation of the arrival of Oryx in our solar system
• Fixed an issue where “Medic” and “Blast Shield” PVP medals displayed while playing PVE activities

Strikes

• Players now are required to participate in the boss fights to be eligible for end-of-activity loot.
• Bonus Loot and Reputation can now be earned via Vanguard Streak Bonuses for players who continue to recycle back into the Strike playlist without exiting to Orbit
• Burn (Arc, Void, Solar) Skulls now only increases player damage by 2x (down from 3x). Combatant damage to player is unchanged at 3x.
• Fixed an issue where the incident for completing a strike (i.e., earning the “Strikes Introduction” grimoire card) was not triggering in Strike playlists

Prison of Elders

• Fixed an issue where the ?Servitor Bonds Weakened? buff did not clear when Skolas is pushed into phase 2
• Fixed an issue where the web mine FX extended beyond effect area
• Fixed an issue where the rewards for Skolas?s Revenge does not grant “Hildian Seeker” to players who already have Ceres Galliot
• Glimmer Consumable drop rates reduced drastically from the Arena chest
• Removed the Elder Cipher exotic bounty
  • These exotics now have a chance to drop from the large chest in the Queen?s Arena
  • Players who were on any step of the elder cipher should receive a token to redeem at Variks for their choice of House of Wolves exotic weapon

King’s Fall

King’s Fall Raid will unlock on 09/18/15, 10AM Pacific

Quests

• Quest Screen added to Menu
  • The Quest Screen allows you to view all active Quests
  • Quests may be abandoned, but they are recoverable at Abandoned Quest Archives at the Tower
  • Each Quest has a Details Screen that describes the current and previous quest steps
  • Up to four Quests can now be viewed in the Director and while in Nav Mode
• Year One Activities have been converted into Quest system
• New Questlines have been added for each Year One Subclass
• Reputation panel has been moved from the Inventory screen to the Quest Screen

Bounties

• Bounty slot size increased to 16
• Incomplete Year 1 Bounties are auto-abandoned on 09/08 in preparation for The Taken King launch
• Incomplete Year 1 Exotic Bounties are auto-completed at their respective Vendors
• Bounties are now turned in for completion reward via the Quest Screen
• Bounties can now be tracked via the new Progress UI in NavMode
• Eris Year 1 bounties will be retired. Reputation with Crota’s Bane can continue to be earned via TTK Quests on 09/15

Tower

General

• All Vendor reputation from Year One carry over
• Collections have been added to the Tower
  • Shaders & Emblems Collections can be found near Eva Levante in North Tower
  • Ships & Sparrow Collections can be found near Amanda Holiday in Tower Hanger
  • Exotic Armor & Weapon Blueprint Collections can be found near the Class Mentors
• Vault space has been increased to store up to 72 Weapons, 72 Armors, and 36 General
• The Bounty vendor, Xander-99, has a new stock of daily Bounties
• Map droids have been removed from North Tower, Plaza, and Hangar
• Loot announcements now appear in the Tower, but have a maximum range of 10 meters

Gunsmith

• Starting on 09/09, reputation will be earned with Banshee-44 by using his Field Test Weapons

Speaker

• New Ghosts are on sale with the Speaker
• Year One Emblems have been moved to Eva Levante

Factions

• Faction Emblems are no longer purchasable but will come from faction packages instead
• Former Vanguard emblems are now unlocked at level 10 and 20 of their respective class quest chains

Crota?s Bane

• Eris? bounties have been retired as her ire shifts from Crota to Oryx and his Dreadnaught
• Eris reputation can now be earned weekly by killing bosses in the Crota?s End raid, or through new methods to be discovered in The Taken King?s new destination
• Eris? reputation requirements for each rank have been adjusted to be faster
• Characters will retain any rank they currently have with Eris
• Eris? reputation is no longer capped at Rank 4, and players will receive reward packages for Rank increases
• Players will be able to earn rewards by continuing to level up the Crota?s Bane reputation

Queen?s Wrath

• With the launch of The Taken King, Petra will have new bounties available in the Reef upon completing a new quest
• These bounties will also drop a Treasure Key the first time one is completed each week

Inventory

• Class-specific Armor materials have been deprecated in favor of a unified material
• On Sept 15th, Vanguard Quartermaster Roni-9940 will exchange old materials for new onesFixed a bug where item upgrade UI was triggering when nothing was actually earned
• Armor dismantle now makes a sound when dismantling is complete
• Year Two Weapon Telemetries have now been combined per weapon slot instead of per weapon type

Crucible

Preview Event

• The Taken King maps will be available for all players to preview for free 09/08 until 09/15
• Rift game mode will be available for all players to preview for free 09/08 until 09/15
• Crucible Daily will not be available on 09/08 and will resume on 09/15
• Mayhem Clash game mode will be available for all players to preview for free from 09/11 until 09/15

General

• House of Wolves maps (Widow?s Court, Black Shield, Thieves? Den) are now available to all Destiny players
• Year 1 Platform-exclusive maps (The Timekeeper, Exodus Blue) are now available to all Destiny players
• Added a new Mercy rule that will end blowout games early
• When the Mercy Rule hits, Shaxx will call out the end of the match. We immediately disable join in progress to prevent any additional players from joining the game (if anyone has dropped already) and reset the game clock to 10 seconds. After those 10 seconds, the match will end normally. All players will receive their end of match rewards and return to matchmaking.
• More detail about this system can be found here
• Legendary Loot drop rates have been increased
• PVP post-game scoreboards now use abbreviated names
• Hover over these stat headers to see more detailed information on what each stat tracks
• The PGCR now does not display the “Score” column if the mode does not have individual player scores
• Shaxx will now comment on multi-kills and kill streaks
• “Victory Imminent” voice-over will no longer play when there is less than 30 seconds remaining in Crucible matches

Director

• Salvage and Rift are now core Crucible playlists
• The Taken King maps are now included in the core Crucible playlists

Medals

• Added set of new Crucible medals
• Buckshot Bruiser, Machine Lord, Sharpshooter, and Master Blaster medals can now be earned multiple times in a row (if you’re awesome enough)
• Fixed an issue where “First Place Kill” score bonus (which triggers the “Uprising” medal) was awarded when killing the highest scoring player on the winning team, instead of the highest scoring player in the match

Maps

Widow?s Court

• Added invisible physics to keep players from hiding in the ivy overlooking the courtyard Heavy Ammo

Game Types

Salvage

• Reduced Salvage score limit from 10000 to 7500, as our data showed too many games were ending to the time limit
• Modified the base 3v3 options to have a 7-second min respawn timer

Skirmish

• Modified the base 3v3 options to have a 7-second min respawn timer

Inferno

• Changed special ammo crate timing for Inferno Clash, Inferno Control and Inferno Rumble modes to 2 minutes (small team modes will remain at 3 minutes)
• Removed heavy ammo crates from all Inferno playlists

Rumble

• Placing in the top 3 in Rumble playlists now counts as a win for Quest Step purposes

Control

• Bastion, First Light, and Skyshock have been added to the core Control playlist with Pikes and Interceptors disabled
• “Zone Captured” and “Zone Neutralized” scoring messages in Control will now display the zone being captured, i.e. “Zone A Captured,” “Zone C Neutralized”

Trials of Osiris

• Trials Passage Coins are now discarded by the stack rather than by the item

UI

• Super icons in kill messages are now displayed in yellow
• Added icons to kill messages for precision kills
• Super kill messages now display the name of the Super used
• Voice channel settings in Nav Mode have been moved into the Nav Mode toggle display, which also includes quests & bounties, active modifiers, and PvP Scoreboard

Technical

General

• Cinematics can now be skipped
• Show/Hide Helmet options now also applies to the Character Screen
• Unused update compat packs will be removed automatically on PS3 and 360 (to save HDD space)
• Fixed a crash on PS3 when cycling through too many activities
• Properly report free space required on PS3 when out of disk space
• Enabled support for game content to be loaded from USB devices on Xbox 360
• Improved Xbox One messaging and flow handling for users performing certain party options; the Pineapple error should only occur for actual malfunctions now
• Fixed an Xbox One issue with suspend/resume on certain loading screens
• If there is a valid playlist, use that for rich presence instead of the activity

Networking

• Reduced latency of kill notifications in Crucible
• Improved damage validation systems to reduce the effectiveness of players with extreme lag
• Improved accuracy of network quality meters slightly

There are more changes scheduled to take effect with the official launch of Destiny: The Taken King. Final patch notes will be published at 2AM Pacific on September 15th, 2015.