Destiny 2: Bungie 30th Anniversary Ability Changes Explained

Published by Emma o n September 3, 2025, 10:54 am

Destiny 2 has seen a radical rework of its ability cooldown system since the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack. Abilities now have unique cooldowns, Super energy received an overhaul, and many abilities had their cooldowns tweaked.

Destiny 2: Armor Mods And Armor Charge Explained

Learn how to create custom builds with Lightfall's overhauled armor modding system and Armor Charge mechanic.

Posts

If you haven't played Destiny 2 recently, this can be a shock to come back to. And for veteran players, figuring out exact ability cooldowns can be a pain. This guide covers how ability cooldowns work in Destiny 2, explains what Super tiers and active Super generation methods are, and we cover every single ability cooldown in the game. Use the table of contents above to jump to any section that interests you.

Updated July 28, 2024, by Charles Burgar: Season 24 made some major changes to how Super energy works. Super tiers no longer impact how much energy you receive from dealing damage, which greatly streamlines the system. We've updated this guide to reflect this change and updated all our ability cooldown tables to reflect some of the changes in Final Shape.

What Are Variable Ability Cooldowns?

Destiny 2's abilities each have a unique cooldown that Bungie refers to as the variable ability cooldown system. In essence, Bungie can tweak the cooldowns of each ability in Destiny 2 without impacting the cooldown of similar abilities, something that was impossible before the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack was released.

Each grenade, melee ability, class ability, and Super has a unique cooldown. For example, Duskfield Grenades recharge in 91 seconds while Glacier Grenades take 121 seconds to charge. Both grenades have different cooldowns despite being a part of the same subclass.

While abilities have differing cooldowns, most abilities tend to fall under certain cooldown bands that Bungie refers to as tiers.

Ability And Super Tiers Explained

You might have heard some community members or developers refer to some abilities as a "T3" or "T4" ability, but what does that mean? Simply put, tiers refer to a selection of abilities that all share the same base cooldown.The higher the ability tier, the shorter the cooldown.

For example, the shortest base Super cooldown is 7:15. This cooldown is shared between the Warlock's Well of Radiance Super (Solar) and the Titan's Ward of Dawn Super (Void). T4 Supers have the shortest cooldowns, so Well of Radiance and Ward of Dawn are both considered T4 Supers.

If Bungie decided to nerf their base cooldowns, they'd move them to T3 or T2, sharing the same base cooldown as any Supers in that tier. This system also impacts how much Super energy you get while in combat, but we'll cover that in the next section; it's very complicated.

This terminology is only used outside the game in This Week in Destiny posts, patch notes, and community-made videos, so don't worry about base cooldown tiers if you're a newcomer or returning to the game. Just know that not all abilities have the same cooldown rate.

This tier differentiation between ability cooldowns is not referring to your Discipline, Intellect, or Strength tiers. You can have T10 Discipline for a slow charging grenade or T1 Intellect for the fastest charging Super in the game. Bungie solely uses this terminology to clump base cooldown bands together.

Return to Quick Links

Passive And Active Super Regeneration

If you're a returning Destiny 2 player, Super energy received an overhaul in the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack. Supers have passive and active regeneration sources, regardless of build. Let's break that down:

Passive Regeneration: A Super's base cooldown rate.
- Modified by the Intellect stat.
Active Regeneration: Killing enemies, dealing damage, and taking damage charges your Super faster.
- Modified by weapon perks, armor mods, and how much damage is being dealt/taken.

Every Super in Destiny 2 will passively charge over a lengthy period. This passive rate can be accelerated by increasing the Intellect stat through certain armor pieces, mods, and subclass Fragments.

Active regeneration is much more involved. In essence, the more active you are in combat, the faster you'll get your Super. Killing enemies and actively taking damage will charge your Super much faster, regardless of your Intellect stat or general build.

Active Super Regeneration Explained

All sources of damage from your Guardian will grant a small chunk of Super energy. The amount of energy gained depends on a few factors:

The damage inflicted
The weapon type used to inflict said damage (Primary, Special, Heavy)
The rate at which you damage the target
The enemy damaged

Intellect has no impact on the amount of Super energy gained from damaging enemies or taking damage.

Dealing Damage

The most important factor is your weapon type, both for PvE and PvP. Primary weapons give the most Super energy per damage dealt, with Specials and Heavies granting around half as much.

For example, dealing 41,200 damage with an Auto Rifle will give about 4% of your Super. If you used a Special or Heavy weapon and dealt the same amount of damage, you'd get about 2% Super energy instead.

Overkill damage does not grant additional Super energy.

Super energy scalars are different in PvP, but the concept is the same. In PvP, Specials give about 40% less Super energy than Primaries, as demonstrated in Castle Content's YouTube video on this very topic. Heavy weapons presumably give even less. This is regardless of your Super's cooldown tier.

With that said, it's important to note that Special and Heavy weapons have far better DPS than Primaries. PvE players can use Machine Guns or Fusion Rifles and receive the same Super returns per second, potentially more, as if they used a Primary.

The conversion rate of damage to Super might be less efficient on Specials and Heavies, yet that's counteracted by their far better DPS values in PvE. For PvP, this system highly rewards players for using their Primary in duels, granting far less energy if you slay out with your Special.

If you'd like a more thorough breakdown of this system for PvP, we recommend watching Castle Content's YouTube video on how Super cooldowns work.

Return to Quick Links

Taking Damage

Fortunately, the correlation between Super energy and damage received is much simpler. The magnitude of damage you receive determines how much Super energy you get. The harder the hit is, the more energy you'll get. Small hits, such as a Thrall's melee attack, give a sliver of Super energy (0.25% or so). Harder-hitting attacks scale to around 0.5% or 1% of your Super.

In the Crucible, you also gain Super energy for taking damage—albeit at a reduced rate. You gain energy equal to 67% of the damage you took from enemy Guardians. For example, if you took 600 damage, you'd gain Super energy equal to dealing 400 Primary damage yourself (about 2.3%).

With that said, overshields completely disable this mechanic. If you have any overshields active, you won't gain any Super energy from taking damage. Should your overshield break from enemy fire, you'll need to wait for your shields to fully recharge before this mechanic works again. This behavior is present in all activities, not just PvP.

Return to Quick Links

Other Ways Of Gaining Super Energy

Dealing and taking damage aren't your only two ways of earning Super energy. There are a few more Super energy sources that are worth mentioning:

Killing enemies
Picking up Orbs of Power
Using certain weapon perks (notably Thresh)

Defeating enemies in Destiny 2—both in PvE and PvP—will grant a chunk of Super energy. PvE values seem to remain consistent from Shadowkeep, although PvP values were adjusted with the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack. The table below showcases rough approximations of how much energy you'll receive from kills and assists.

Kills

Assists

Minor

0.6%

0.3%

Elite

0.96%

0.48%

Mini-Boss

1.8%

0.9%

Boss

1.5%

Enemy Guardian

~2.3%

~1.1%

Beyond kills, you can also earn more Super energy from Orbs of Power, certain weapon perks, and armor mods. Credit to Light.gg for many of the values listed below:

Orbs Of Power

Source

Super Energy

Attrition Orbs

(Perk)

0.8%

Orbs of Power

(Ability Mods)

0.8-1.2%

Orbs of Power

(Siphon Mods)

2.5-4.37%

Orbs of Power

(Super)

7.143%

Perks

Source

Super Energy

Thresh

(Special, PvE)

1.5%

Enhanced Thresh

1.33%

Enhanced Thresh

(Special, PvE)

Armor Mods (On Kill)

Enemy Type

Ashes To Assets

Hands-On

Minor

1.5%

Elite

Mini-Boss

4.9%

Boss

4.9%

Enemy Guardian

2.6%

5.1%

Armor Mod (Dynamo)

Hunter

2.5%

Titan

Warlock

Armor mods can be stacked multiple times to increase their energy returns, albeit with diminishing returns. Exact values can be found in our Armor Mods and Armor Charge guide.

Return to Quick Links

Destiny 2: A Complete Guide To Engram Focusing

Learn how to turn your Engrams into specific weapons and armor with this in-depth guide.

Posts

Ability Mod Energy Scalars

Season 23 has adjusted all mods that impact ability cooldowns with an additional effectiveness scalar. Any armor mod that grants ability energy will provide diminished returns based on your ability's base cooldown.

For example, the Impact Induction mod grants 10% grenade energy at base. If you trigger this mod while using Firebolt Grenades, the fastest charging grenade for Solar, Impact Induction will grant the full 10%. But if you decide to use Solar Grenades, the slowest charging grenade, the mod now grants 5% ability energy.

Discipline, Intellect, and Strength have no impact on this system.

The slower your ability's base cooldown is, the more severe this penalty becomes, up to -50% effectiveness. Armor stats have no bearing on this scalar either; it's a fixed rate like Super scalars. Reddit user u/engineeeeer7 has discovered the exact values for each ability you can view in their post. These values are also shown in our cooldown tables.

This scalar system affects the following mods:

Gloves: Impact Induction, Momentum Transfer, Bolstering Detonation, Focusing Strike, All Kickstart Mods
Boots: Innervation, Invigoration, Insulation, Absolution, Orbs of Restoration
Class Item: Bomber, Outreach, Distribution

Return to Quick Links

All Grenade Cooldowns

Mod effectiveness values are derived from u/engineeeeer7 Reddit post on the topic. Credit to them for the exact values.

Base Cooldowns (Tier 3 Discipline)

Arc

Grenade

Base Cooldown

Mod Effectiveness

Flashbang