The latest Destiny patch to focus on balancing weapons and abilties has hit the live servers. In it comes sweeping changes to almost all of the game's weapons with the most notable being the damage reduction of autorifles, which are now 2.5% less effective, and the buff to pulse rifles (base damage increase of 9.7%).

Other key notes of the patch are the inclusion of the weekly heroic strike into the matchmaking system. Nightfall strikes will still require a premade group, so don't go abandoning your friends just yet!

Full patch Notes:

Weapons

General

• Fixed an issue in which armor with perks that increase ammunition carrying capacity resulted in ammunition loss upon respawn
• Decreased over-penetration value for weapons with armor piercing perks
• Fixed an issue where items from the PS3/360 Destiny demo were using old power values. They have been adjusted to regular levels
• Song of Ir Yut weapon tooltip now advertises the correct magazine size
• Shoot to Loot: Two-second cooldown added to perk to prevent extra ammunition gains while ammunition bricks despawn
• Dark Breaker perk will now correctly damage Hive Shriekers
• Snap Discharge will now increase attack speed as per the description
• Thunderer perk now has priority on the 4th Horseman tooltip
• Full Auto: Fixed issues in which the weapon perk stopped working while the trigger was being held down

Auto Rifles

• Reduced base damage of Auto Rifles by 2.5%
• Reduced effective range values

Pulse Rifles

• Increased base damage of Pulse Rifles by 9.7%

Hand Cannons

• Slightly reduced effective range
• Slightly reduced initial accuracy

Fusion Rifles

• Widened blast pattern on a Fusion Rifle burst cone
• Reduced starting ammunition in PVP

Shotguns

• Increased damage against all non-Guardian combatants by 2x (100% increase)
• Reduced high-end range values
• Damage falloff starts sooner
• Reduced starting ammunition in PVP

Activities

Strikes

• Weekly Heroic Strike now is a matchmade activity
• Strikes will be less likely to repeat in Matchmaking rotations for full Fireteams

PVP

General

• Players will now unlock all playlists (Control, Clash, Rumble, Skirmish) simultaneously when unlocking the Crucible.
• Added a new notification when Crucible modes unlock
• Crucible maps will be less likely to repeat in Matchmaking rotations for full Fireteams
• Guardians no longer drop heavy ammunition when killed in PvP
• Guardians now drop much less special ammunition when killed in PvP
• Completed matches will now award gear with the proper power level
• Fixed a bug where there was no audio playing for the bullet that kills them

Event: Iron Banner

• Iron Banner playlist now contains smaller maps in rotation
• “Focused Aggression” Bounty can now be completed with headshots from Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Hand Cannons

Items

• Fixed an issue in which Xur did not carry exotic engrams in inventory on certain dates
• Crota’s End completion emblem will now be sent to the Postmaster when player inventory is full
• Ammunition consumables will now work if used when player inventory is full
• Fixed issues that prevented qualifying players who had deleted their characters from claiming the Tumbler Sparrow from Tess Everis in Tower

User Interface

• Character inventory screen now displays faction reputation and weekly mark counters
• Players in public spaces will no longer see voice notifications when a player in a matchmade fireteam enter
• Players will now see improved notifications when teammates join and depart Team and Fireteam chat channels

Grimoire

• Combined Arms Grimoire cards will now unlock when completing a Clash or Control game
• House of Wolves card will now unlock upon the start of Ishtar Collective story mission
• Guardian Abilities card will be granted when a player enters orbit
• Siege Dancers card will be granted upon the start of the Dust Palace Strike
• Completing Crota’s End now adds to the Raid Introduction Grimoire card’s Completed statistic
• Ir Yut grimoire card will now unlock appropriately
• Siege of the Warmind card will now unlock appropriately
• Fixed Grimoire scores for the following cards:
  • Omnigul, Will of Crota
  • Ir Yut, the Deathsinger
  • Crota, Son of Oryx
  • The Wakening
  • The Will of Crota
  • Crotas End
  • Ascendant Sword
  • Pantheon
  • Skyshock
  • The Cauldron
  • Might of Crota
  • Ghost Fragment: Rasputin
  • Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 2
  • Ghost Fragment: Hive 4

Technical

• DLC and Patch systems have been improved
• Xbox One upsell from trial version to full version no longer makes you leave the game
• Improved networking resilience to packet reordering
• Networking improvements for certain routers

Edit

• Bug was introduced in 1.1.1 patch that caused the Vex Mythoclast to spawn with less ammo in the magazine and reserves in PvP
  • This weapon was affected by overall Fusion Rifle changes because it is treated as a secondary weapon
  • We intend to correct this issue in a future release