Bungie has accidentally buffed The Last Word in recent Destiny 2 update

Despair overtook the Destiny 2 community right after Bungie announced the nerf of The Last Word Hand Cannon.

The announcement was made in a TWAB release on June 30. The company decided to reduce the weapon's hip-fire aim angle by 50% alongside damage and aim-assist falloff by 3m.

While the majority of the player base considers this to be a game-changer, it seems to be a different case altogether after the patch. The Destiny 2 weapon is hitting with 73 precision to the head, which was previously 68.

Whether this is intentional or a bug is still unknown, but a weapon that takes .5 seconds to kill can three-tap players in PvP is ridiculous.

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The Last Word damage buff can prove to be a problem in the future of Destiny 2 PvP

As mentioned before, The Last Word was announced to receive a heavy nerf with patch 4.1.5, which states the following:

• Reduced precision aim-angle by 50%.
• Reduced damage and aim-assist falloff by 3m.

The changes mentioned above are supposed to be aimed at PvP only, where damage and aim-assist falloffs are noticeable in both Controller and MnK (Mouse and Keyboard). However, the buff seems very similar to the one for the Precision Hand Cannons.

Precision Hand Cannons or the 180RPM archetypes are supposed to be dealing 40 damage instead of 37 to body shots, and 60 from 57 on the head. The Last Word, on the other hand, got the same kind of buff, where it can deal 73 precision damage to players instead of 68, and 41 from 37 on the body.

Since the falloff has been reduced, players still have to take close-range fights against other Guardians to three-tap them.

The Last Word Exotic Hand Cannon (Image via Destiny 2)

The Hand Cannon can also defeat opposing Guardians with low Resilience, requiring the user to land two shots to the head and one to the body.

This damage can be further amplified using different buffs such as Hunter's Radiant and Titan's Void bubble. Radiant can land 81 damage to the head with no falloff, and Void bubble can increase this number to 91.

The Last Word is already one of the strongest Hand Cannons in Destiny 2 PvP due to its high fire rate. However, this comes at the cost of the weapon's Range, where the only way players have a chance to fight is in medium to close range. The ideal damage falloff of The Last Word is 20m, beyond which players will see a damage reduction.

However, with everything said and done, it is unknown whether this increase in the weapon's damage is intentional or bugged. Hence, players can expect a damage nerf in the future.