Weapons

Exotics
Exotic Weapons are designed to look, feel, and sound overpowered. At the same time, they are not supposed to break the balance of the game. We hope these weapons challenge the way players think about their loadouts. Exotics will be a constant work in-progress!

General

In preparation for the Dark Below, Exotic Armor and Weapons no longer require Ascendant Materials to upgrade
The final upgrade node of all Exotic Gear will require an Exotic Shard
Exotic Shards can be obtained by one of the following means:
Dismantling unwanted Exotics
Purchased from Xur for 7 Strange Coins
Exotics now start at a higher base Attack value and have a narrowed upgrade range to compensate

Thorn

Projectiles now briefly highlight targets on impact
Mark of the Devourer DoT (damage-over-time) upgrade increased against PvE enemy targets
Reload Speed increased
Magazine Size increased
Ammo inventory size increased
Stability and Weapon Handling increased

Bad Juju

Magazine Size increased to 8 bursts (was 5)
Ammo inventory size increased
String of Curses now also decreases the cooldown of your Super on kill
Adjusted effects to not block first person reticle

Hard Light

Stability increased
Perfect Balance upgrade replaced by Fitted Stock (increases maximum possible weapon Stability)

Suros Regime

Lowered total damage at the end of the mag on SUROS Regime upgrade to be more in line with the Glass Half Full perk on Legendary Auto Rifles

Monte Carlo

Stability increased
Range slightly decreased
Monte Carlo Method upgrade now also has a chance to fully charge melee ability on kill

MIDA Multi-Tool

MIDA rounds now have increased knockback against targets in both PvE and PvP

Hawkmoon

Send It upgrade (which was redundant) replaced by Speed Reload

Red Death

Rate of Fire increased slightly, but Burst Damage reduced to compensate

Plan C

Weapon Handling speed increased
Player Speed increased while Plan C is in hand

Pocket Infinity

Speed Reload upgrade replaced by Extended Clip which allows the option to increase magazine size (5 bursts)

Vex Mythoclast

Attack Power increased to 323 (from 300)
Base Damage increased, fixing bug we introduced in previous patch
Enhanced Battery upgrade by Extended Mag (this change still allows for a significant upgrade to Magazine Size, but less than before)

Invective

Reload Speed increased significantly, auto fires slightly slower

Ice Breaker

Send It upgrade replaced by Lightweight (which was redundant as Icebreaker already had maximum range) 
New effects for enemies killed by Ice Breaker upgrade

Patience and Time

Snapshot upgrade replaced by Custom Optics (provides a lower zoom option)

Super Good Advice

Stability increased

Truth

Magazine Size increased to 3 (was 1)

Activities

Raid

Fixed an issue we introduced in a previous patch, in which Atheon did not correctly send 3 players through the time gates
Fixed an exploit where the Templar could be forced off its platform

Daily Heroic Story

Destination Materials now drop from completing the Daily Heroic

Bounties

Removed the ‘Relic Hunter’ Bounty 
Destination Materials now drop from completing the Daily Patrol Bounty 


Vendors

Reduced Cryptarch reputation gain from Engrams, but reputation reward packages now have an increased chance for Legendary Engrams
Players will now be able to use Vanguard Marks and Crucible Marks to purchase Spinmetal, Relic Iron, Spirit Bloom, and Helium Filaments from the Vanguard and Crucible Quartermasters in the Tower
Xur now sells a new material, Exotic Shards, to upgrade the final node of Exotics for 7 Strange Coins
Faction Class Items (ex: FWC Cloak, Dead Orbit Mark, etc.) are now replaced by Faction Emblems in the rank-up reward packages from Faction Vendors


Technical

Networking fixes, which should reduce the instance of the Bee family of KTOs
Fixed an issue in which using Xbox One party chat induced a slower frame rate

http://www.bungie.net/7_Destiny-Update---12012014/en/News/News?aid=12433

Kerp growing... next week The Dark Below.

Not sure how I feel about the Exotic Shards. I would have just liked them to give rewards of ascendent materials or engrams for doing heroic missions in general. If I do a mission for a bounty on heroic I can just set it to the lowest and easiest since loot drops are scaled to the player and not the enemy I still lack incentive to replay missions.

This also makes it more annoying for no reason. They should have just allowed class vanguards to sell the shards. Glad to see they are still making some meaty updates but with Dragon Age owning my life and not having played GTA yet on any gen I just cant find time to get back and all I needed was one hard raid item for my level 30 (after upgrades were done).

About f**king time, I attempted the Flawless Raider trophy and made it all the way to Atheon's only to get screwed over when only 1 person got pulled through the portal so we succumbed to the oracles, absolutely ridiculous.

They also removed the reward for completing your first daily, public event. You used to get a package from the postmaster upon 3-star completion of your first public event each day. That package had a good chance of being an Ascendent shard or energy, but could also be a mote of light or strange coin.

Now, you only get a mote of light. This happened to me with all three of my guardians today.

So, if you wanna get Ascendant shards/energy to upgrade your Legendary armor/weapons, your must either complete a  daily heroic strike  (AT LEVEL 24!), good luck doing that yourself, or participate in the Vault of Glass raid. Good luck there too.

In conclusion, thanks for destroying the game, Bungie, for those of us who play without the benefit of teammates on a regular basis.

I am still not happy with the vex. Other than that this update is amazing, I love that you can buy materials for 10 marks, and the Thorn is finally back to glory. Can't wait for hive raid :)

Thorn was already OP in PVP... love it.

and the grinding is way lower now you can buy materials.

Too bad they wont allow us to buy Ascendant materials with the marks that we amass. Screw you Bungie.

Yep I just use the unused marks from my 2nd and 3rd characters to buy materails, which is awesome. And I believe Thorn's DOT was reduced from 7 to 3 or 2 in the previous patch. But now it's back to 7 aka back to glory :)

The last time we downed him, we got detained on Venus.

On. Venus.

So I'm level 30 with 40 shards...sweet...

/wrists