Beyond Light’s new stasis powers have turned PVP into chaos

Play through Beyond the lightIn the main story campaign, you can command forces that freeze the mobs of enemies and then smash them into a million crystalline pieces. Stasis, a new elemental subclass derived from darkness, offers a creative and incredibly satisfying new way to play the game. But the things that make it so great when playing against AI controlled enemies can also make it a frustrating mess when playing against other people.

Since stasis is brand new, almost everyone is in Fate 2PVP-based Crucible mode is currently in use, resulting in dozens of cases per game when someone with a grenade or melee ability is hit, frozen, and then mowed while helpless to do anything about it. What can make these moments even more annoying is that not only will you be out of service for a handful of seconds (an eternity in competitive mode): the game also prompts you to actively try to break out of the icy shards that are trapping you in placement This button by holding down the squat button. It lasts forever, is rarely successful, and makes you feel complicit in your own death.

Gif: Kotaku

While hunters and warlocks have close-range projectile skills that can freeze enemies from a distance, Coldsnap grenades, accessible to any class, are the main culprit. Coldsnap grenades release small waves of stasis energy wherever they explode, which seek and freeze anyone nearby. fate had grenades with such homing capabilities in the past, but did little damage. Freezing more or less makes for a one-hit kill. A few hours later, I haven’t survived being frozen, in part because breaking loose will hurt you too, just in case you weren’t salty enough already.

“Stasis imo has to be the anti-fun thing Bungie has ever introduced to PvP,” wrote one gamer on a thread that blew up the game’s subreddit. “[B]before Beyond the light It was a more controlled mess, shit happened everywhere, but it made sense, ”wrote another. “Now that stasis is involved, the average pub lobby is miserable.”

Popular Fate 2 Streamer Sean “Gladd” Gallagher showed how broken some of the new skills can be in a recent set of clips. It shows how far the shockwave pulses reach the warlock’s super range and how easy it is to stop a cold with a well. timed penumbral blast:

It’s unclear what Bungie might do in the future as the powers in PVE are great fun and one of the main attractions of the paid expansion (people who don’t upgrade can’t access stasis). Fate 2 PVP has its own community, but most players only filter every now and then as needed to complete quests, bounties and get the week’s most important engram drops. It would be a shame to refine the game’s most unique addition in years only to fix one of the game’s side activities to the detriment of a long list of others. Another, more targeted option could be to simply ban stasis powers from certain Crucible modes, or to reduce the freezing effect when used against other players.

In the meantime, players can see how messy the game’s competitive Trials of Osiris mode can get when it returns as prizes tomorrow with a brand new set of Adept weapons – some of the most powerful and sought-after weapons in the entire game. At least everyone will adapt to the new meta in real time.