Could Poison and Vampirism Be Destiny’s Next Darkness Sub-Classes?

Looking into the Destiny crystal ball

The last major expansion for Destiny bought with it the Darkness, an alternative magic source for our Guardians who are traditionally powered by the Light. While the Light has three sub-classes, Arc, Solar, and Void, the Darkness debuted with one sub-class, Stasis, a freezing based power.

In the interest of balance and potential future gameplay mechanics one could reasonably expect that two new Darkness sub-classes are somewhere on the horizon, and I’d like to take a punt on what I think they might be.

A most toxic trait

An absolute staple game mechanic across all video games is the notion of infecting, or causing toxic, poisonous, or caustic damage to another player. A key element of this trope is that all the damage isn’t done immediately, instead it burns over time in what is commonly referred to a DoT (damage over time).

Damage over time mechanics are already present in the game in several guns. Currently Whitherhoard, Le Monarque, and Thorn do DoT damage, with the latter two actually causing poison damage.

In the upcoming Witch Queen expansion we will be getting Osteo Striga a submachine gun that also does toxic damage as well as Parasite a DoT grenade launcher…that actually launches worms.

Whilst these weapons all come from different backgrounds, there is a common theme amongst the majority. Thorn, Whitherhoard, Osteo Striga, and Parasite have connections to the Darkness, and discounting Whitherhoard, connections to the Hive also.

Toxic damage is also an offensive trait of the Hive, Balwûr and Lokaar two Hive Wizards have historically attacked guardians with poison gas.

With the Hive learning the light next season as we go against the Witch Queen, could we be instead getting Hive based darkness powers based on poison to take the fight to the next level?

Given that he Hive are thematically inspired by Insects would make sense that the Poison class is Hive inspired . This allows them to lean into other Insect-based themes already present in the game such as a swarm of insects like you get from The Colony and Outbreak Perfected — though these two guns send out nanite-swarms not real bugs.

Gameplay mechanics could focus either on trying to apply as many DoTs to as many enemies as possible in hopes of a high kill rate, or in the cases of more powerful enemies and bosses the aim could be to consistently be stacking more DoTs against the enemy until you are doing a considerably amount of damage. Grenades could create toxic clouds, while melee abilities could apply a high damage poison attack. Following other destiny mechanics like Whitherhoard and Firefly enemies who dies to the poison could cause a chance to splash poison onto other enemies continuing the chain reaction.

Sucking the light out of you

Vampire mechanics in video games tend to be about having a reduced or weakened amount of health while nearly all of your outgoing damage heals you. Also referred to as ‘Life Steal’.

When I think about a potential vampirism-based darkness class in Destiny, I think that rather than extracting blood, we would be extracting light.

When we look to precedent inside the game currently we can look to the gun Luna which creates healing orbs upon killing enemies — though not quite life steal I will admit.

We also have examples of where guardians light has been sucked out of them for a nefarious purpose. In the , now decommissioned, Strike on Titan, Savathûn’s Song, the Hive (again) extract the light out of guardians to turn them into void light crystals used to power a almighty summoning ritual.

Not to mention that the Red War started with the Cabal figuring out how to suppress the guardians light systemically.

Given that in the next expansion the game will bring with it enemies that have the light and we will be focused on killing them properly by extinguishing their light I wonder if that will evolve over time, the game will continue to have more light-based enemies and this could be a clever counter class. Not to mention an upcoming aspect of the void class rework contains an element of draining light.

Mechanics could potentially be vastly different to the rest with grenades being something you throw at the enemy to heal you and your fireteam whilst a super could drain the light out of multiple enemies in the vicinity and heal up you and your team.

It could potentially be a support based class focused on clutch healing in difficult encounters whilst still having a decent damage output.

Hello Darkness my old friend…

Unfortunately, Bungie have already ruled out any new Darkness sub-classes in 2022 / Year 5 as their focus is on re-jigging the Light classes. The void class overhaul is coming this month.

However, if Bungie is planning a new Darkness sub-class in 2023, it will already be in the works and we may begin to see story beats throughout the year that would start to lay the ground work — Bungie do like to bury secrets and hints in their game. My personal preference would be the the Light-Vampirism to come first, but I think a toxic / poison darkness sub-class is far more likely.