Destiny 2: When is the Season of Dawn release date?

When is the Destiny 2 Season of Dawn release date?

Bungie has confirmed that the Season of Dawn’s official release date is Tuesday, 10th December 2019. It’ll run all way up to 9th March 2020, so that’s a good three months of drip-fed content coming our way.

As per the standard Weekly Reset times, we expect the servers to go offline at 5:00pm GMT or 10:00AM PT/ 13:00PM ET on the day.

What can we expect from the Season of Dawn?

Initial Reveal

Right before it’s big reveal stream, Bungie’s gone ahead and given us a first glimpse into what the Season of Dawn has in store for us.

In many ways, the Season of Dawn looks like a redemption arc for the Curse of Osiris DLC which fell way short of the community’s expectations. Mercury’s getting a complete revamp, Osiris is more heavily involved and we’ll finally be taking part in events which truly mean something.

For a quick overview of what was shown in the season’s initial reveal trailer. For a complete overview, make sure you head on over to the official page.

Osiris has called on us to face a new threat. In the Season of Dawn we must stop a council of Cabal Psion Flayers from manipulating time and undoing our victory against the Red Legion.

In the campaign we’re turning back time to save Saint 14. To prevent the Cabal from manipulating time, we’re going to save the legendary Titan from death. From the trailer, it looks like we’ll be able to gear ourselves up with his armour set too.

The new Seasonal Artifact is the Lantern of Osiris. It works similarly to the previous season’s artifact, in that you’ll level it up, equip special mods and the like. Expect Cabal themed mods and bonuses.

The Sundial is a new 6-player matchmade activity. All we know so far is that we’ll defend it from the Cabal. Let’s just say we expect lots of wave clearing, a big boss fight, and lots of orbs to deposit. Expect an update on this very soon.

Timelost weapons are a new set of powerful weapon you’ll want to chase. We can choose which weapons to earn by completing special weapon frames. Reminiscent of Lost Prophecies from the Curse of Osiris DLC.

Unlock the Exotic Scout Rifle, Symmetry and seasonal armour sets with the Season Pass. Fork out the cash for this season and you’ll earn special rewards as you level up. To have a look at them, head on over to Bungie’s official teaser page.

TWAB Post 2

Bungie’s making some big changes to Solar Subclasses with the Season of Dawn in order to give them greater flexibility for both PvE and PvP content. Often it felt like players would switch to Solar purely for one activity, before switching right back to something else. With this in mind, Bungie’s buffed, tweaked and added plenty of new abilities to give them all some much needed viability.

Here’s a roundup of all the good stuff straight from Bungie’s second blog post:

Solar Subclass Changes

Sunbreaker (Titan)

• Roaring Flame has received a significant buff to its bonus damage, which means it lasts 25% longer, making it easier to build and retain stacks between encounters.
• The base damage of Throwing Hammer has increased. It’s now very lethal in PvP while you have Roaring Flames active. Also, the hammer will be easier to pick up when it’s on the ground so you won’t have to reach as far to grab it anymore.
• Burning Maul now lasts longer, and the height of the heavy-slam explosion has been increased making it a bit easier to catch airborne enemies off guard.

Gunslinger (Hunter)

• 3-shot’s auto-aim distance and reliability when aiming down sights has been increased. For 6-shot, the damage fallout range has been shortened.
• The Explosive Prox Knife can stick to surfaces and detonate when enemies pass nearby.
• Weight Knife (New ability) – High-damage knife throw with a long wind up. Travels at high speeds, bounces once, and does extra damage to the head. Precision shot final blows recharge the melee completely. One-hit precision final blow in PvP.
• Practice Makes Perfect (Quality of life change) – Lasts longer but gives a bit less energy per second. Precision hits grant two stacks.
• Knock ‘em Down (New ability) – Precision final blows increase weapon stability and ADS speed. Timer starts at 10 seconds but any additional final blow/assists can increase it up to 25 seconds. Casting your Super with this buff above 20 seconds consumes the buff and grants extra damage. (Does not stack with Celestial Nighthawk).
• Line ‘em Up (Quality of life change) – Old perks from Crowd Pleaser are now part of this perk. (Golden Gun can cause precision damage and precision shots generate orbs of light).

Dawnblade (Warlock)

• Burst Glide’s speed has been reduced when used in conjunction with Daybreak.
• Icarus Dashes while in Daybreak have increased speed and thrust to recapture the burst glide gameplay for those running the air superiority path.
• There’s a new Celestial Fire melee ability that sends a spiral of three explosive Solar projectiles at enemies.
• Heat Rises has been reworked. Now you can consume a grenade to extend glide time and dramatically reduce in-air accuracy penalties for weapons.
• Winged Sun has been reworked. You can now fire weapons, use Celestial Fire, and throw grenades while gliding. Airborne final blows grant melee energy and extend the duration of Heat Rises.
• Icarus Dash has been reworked. Tap crouch twice to dodge in midair. Dodging in Daybreak accelerates you faster and costs less Super energy while under the effects of Heat Rises.

TWAB Post 1

In its “This Week at Bungie” blog post, Bungie says it’s going to be toning down some weapons and armour pieces the community have found to be a little too strong.

Here’s a look at the changes straight from the official post:

The Recluse

Changed the effects of Master of Arms:

• Removed the precision damage modifier
• Recluse will continue to receive a damage bonus from Master of Arms, but damage will not default to precision values when the perk activates

Many doubted The Recluse when it was first announced, but it has since proved to be resilient to being squashed. Although the precision damage modifier did not actually improve the efficacy of the weapon at its best, it did allow for fairly mindless spraying to be just as good as concentrated aiming. After considering various options on what to do with it, the decision was made to remove that part of the functionality and preserve its activation methods. The alternative was leaving in an effect we believe to be too strong for a Legendary weapon.

One-Eyed Mask

• Changed the effects of Vengeance
• Removed the overshield granted from defeating an opponent that inflicted damage on you

In a previous sandbox update, One-Eyed Mask received some tuning in how Vengeance was applied to Titans. Next Season, this perk will continue to provide health regeneration when defeating an opponent that has inflicted damage upon your Guardian, but it will no longer grant an overshield.

Additionally, the team is addressing some feedback concerning the newly released Xenophage Exotic:

Xenophage

• Increased PvE damage by +50%
• Ammo pulled from PvP crates has been increased to 4/6 from 3/4 from shared and solo Heavy ammo crates, respectively

Xenophage unintentionally shipped a little weak, so it’s getting a bump up in raw damage. Machine Guns have a higher ammunition capacity than other Heavy weapons, trading raw DPS for ease of use. Xenophage slides further towards other Heavy weapons such as Grenade Launchers in that aspect but didn’t get enough power back. This will correct that.

In the next few weeks, we’ll have further sandbox patch note previews, paired with some quality of life changes to things like Escalation Protocol Armor, bug fixes, and more.