Basara

Arach Jalaal, leader of Dead Orbit and future Faction Rally winner, in his infinite wisdom, has bestowed upon me, his loyal follower, a full set of Dead Orbit weapons and Warlock armour. May his reign be long.

Last weeks was on the Monday but the first reset of Destiny 2 on the 12th had maintenance. To remove the Hunter armour piece that offended 6 people if i remember right. So we are 50/50 for Monday and Tuesday maintenance so far and the game will have only been out a month.

Destiny will be down for maintenance and a patch next Tuesday (3rd) again between 8am and 12pm PDT. Once again the UK and Europe get screwed with maintenance during peak times on a reset day. I appreciate Bungie are an american based company so these scheduled down times are going to be during US working hours, which with an 8 hour timezone difference is the evening for this half of the world. But why do it on reset day? The day that sees the most people playing and you take the game off line? It makes no sense. Friday to Tuesday consists of Xur, Trials and the weekly reset. Why not do maintenance on a Wednesday or Thursday? Grinded a few more Dead Orbit levels today. I thought i was just getting screwed over with repeat weapons until i checked online and each faction only has 4 weapons that you can get from rank up packages. I still only have the Warlock helm so i might try and knock some more out over the weekend to get the rest of the gear but with a cap at 30 levels, and I've probably burnt through 10 already, and only having one piece of armour drop, RNG is not looking favourably on me.

Put a bit of time into the Titan alt tonight. Didn't get much in the way of decent gear, i got another set of the squid looking arms, but the power levels progressed me. I also signed him up to FWC so i can double up on drops over the weekend with Dead Orbit. My Warlock is sitting on 299 and my Titan is 295. Might be time to break the Hunter out of retirement...

The daily challenge was the EDZ yesterday. 15 tokens to complete it and you'r reward is 15 more tokens. Hence why the last pops up as 16. A note to preempt any disappointment from putting in hours of grinding. You can only level a faction 30 times for rewards, after that they only drop shaders. Also, it's all about Dead Orbit! Like me a good scout rifle.

Seems it's been extended by 2 hours. Maybe the update is to add other exotics to my loot pool instead of giving me 4 coldhearts in a row?

At least it's not on reset day this time. I don't remember a huge amount of maintenance in the original Destiny, but then i didn't start playing until a couple of months after release so i may have missed it. I do seem to remember quite a lot of patches and updates when The Taken King came out though. They seem to be doing it at a different time today though. Traditionally the UK gets screwed every time a patch comes out because it's always down in the evening. Usually from around 6pm to 10pm

Did some massive power levelling on my Titan alt today. We knocked out the first 2 story missions on Friday, then every other mission today. Even rushing through it, it takes hours to beat. I cant complain about the length this time. Pro tip: Use the item manager to transfer a Sparrow over to another character and you can use it even before hitting level 20 and unlocking it. We ran through it so fast we had to stop between planets and complete other tasks because we werent killing enough to stay up with the minimum level requirements. Eventually finished the story at level 18 and around 190. It seems once you speak to everyone after the game you automatically jump to level 20. From there, i transferred all my Warlock's best guns to the Titan to give him a massive boost in light and started cashing in the various planetary tokens hoping for some armour drops. By the time i'd done that and completed the Flashpoint my Titan was sitting on a power of 285. What took my Warlock nearly 3 weeks i did in about 9 hours on the Titan. I only planned to have 1 character in Destiny 2 to reduce the play time. But i'm weak. The Hunter is next....

Started playing on my Titan alt tonight... That 1500 hour time sink that was the original Destiny is slowly creeping back isn't it...

If it's like the glitch people were using for the strike needed for the raid quest then there is a cap on how much time you can get, still, a huge help. If you're making a run at prestige there's a few cheeses for the boss that's popped up as well. You'll have to google them for the exact strats but essentially there's a box near the back of the arena you can hide behind and nothing can shoot you, plus when he goes into punch mode in the last 1/3, you can stand on it and he can't reach you. Another one I saw, supposedly when he goes invisible between damage phases he's hanging on the back wall somewhere, if you can find him and shoot him he falls to his death.

You've caught me out! Thinking about it, Earth might be the only planet we actually visit in Destiny 2? Not including crucible maps. 2 moons and a centaur I think. I'd have actually liked to see some more areas but it looks like they will be adding in others in DLC. I think Mercury comes with the first DLC in December. It would be nice if humanity made some progress taking back their worlds. We crippled the Cabal and Hive in the system back in The Taken King. Why haven't we taken back the moon and mars yet?

Titan's a good call, especially for public events this week since it's the Flashpoint planet. A lot more people doing them and having 3 or 4 makes the heroic versions so much easier. The reason I used the European Dead Zone was because of the amount of Lost Sectors. The chests have a hidden cool down so if you farm them too fast they stop dropping loot. We never had that problem in the EDZ since there were so many of them.

How far are you into the story? You should be around, or at, level 20 by the time you finish it. You also need to beat the story before you can play the raid anyway. So get that checked off first. It took me about a week to hit 270, although we out in an unhealthy amount of time over the first 2 days. The raids recommended power is 260-280. I'd probably not step foot in there at less than 270 though. Once you finish the story it's pretty easy to hit 265-270. Rare and legendary items will drop up to 265 with legendaries having a chance to be 270 if they come with a +5 mod. You can get these from literally any activity. Strikes, crucible and public events and lost sectors on each of the planets. Depends what you enjoy. If you're just looking to power level though public events and lost sectors in the EDZ is the most efficient way of doing it. Just fast travel around the planet to the lost sectors (the small little cave looking things on the map) and do those while waiting for public events to start. Each chest from an activity will drop a token and a piece of gear. And a very small chance for an exotic. Dismantle all the old rare gear you no longer need once you've out levelled it. And any legendaries you don't want to keep. This will give you gunsmith material. Once you're around 260 go to the vendor on whichever planet you've been levelling up on and trade in all those tokens you've got. For every 20 you get a legendary item and a small chance of an exotic dropping. Same with the gunsmith material, head to the Gunsmith and cash those in for legendaries as well. This should hopefully get you close to 270. Unless RNG really hates you. To keep progressing you'll want to do activities that drop 'powerful rewards'. These look like legendaries but are called Luminous Engrams. Basically it's legendary gear above the normal 270 soft cap. They come from Milestones and reset weekly. Shaxx Call to Arms, Caydes patrol quest unlocks Flashpoint and the weekly Nightfall all drop these. And lastly, each planet has a quest. 3 of them award exotics which will drop much higher than your regular loot. The one I finished the other day gave me a 300 gun when I was mid 280s. Take your pick, you can do them early for a quick boost but I'd recommend leaving them until you hit the soft cap around 270 to get over that hurdle and start progressing again.

Yeah, they Nightfall was not fun. It took us 25mins with 2 to spare and the boss room was hell. I expected Attrition to be like Exposure but with a health regain mechanic. It felt like I was taking normal damage though. 3 or 4 shots and you're down. And just to sweeten the deal it's the first Nightfall where I didn't get an exotic or anything that I needed. I'm currently sitting on 292 but a lot of the gear I'm using at the moment isn't modded. I think I should hit 295 if I mod them. Which I should since the luminous engram drops are based on your max power. I never really experienced any sort of soft cap at 270 or 280 like people were saying. Progress obviously slows down but it's still steady. There are limited places now that drop powerful gear for me but they are all on weekly resets so I'm still moving forward. Plus with rares and legendaries scaling with your light at, I think, 7 light behind even if you're got a piece of gear holding you back it's possible to make progress with normal gameplay and not just the weekly events. I've put less time in Destiny 2 than the last few Destiny expansions yet I still think I'm making faster progress without much grinding.

So, a night of progress. We two manned a Destiny 2 Nightfall finally and it gave me boots! Finally legendary boots! In typical Destiny style, the Luminous Engram reward for the Nightfall was a slightly better pair of boots... We tried the raid! We failed at the raid. We only had 5 people and we went in blind. Figured out the first section fairly quickly and got that done, Got a nice 289 engram and some raid tokens for my troubles. We eventually worked out the second area but holy shit is it hard! It feels doable when we get a 6th but we just didn't have the fire power to kill everything and the mechanics are such that it's possible to do the encounter with 5 (maybe 4?) but it's incredibly hard. We tried Trials! We had mixed results in Trials. So it's 4v4 except there were only 3 of us playing at this point, we had one guy AFK. We still managed to win the first game and lost the second 6-5 so i can't really complain at that. Not really a fan of it being objective based. Ended up with 4 tokens, you need 10 for the first reward so we'll try and knock out a few more games tomorrow to see whats on offer. All in all, i ended the night being 290 if i use my absolute best gear, or mid to high 280s with weapons i actually like.

Powered on through to 281 tonight thanks to finishing some exotic quests and applying some +5 mods to gear i actually want to keep/use. And my goddamn boots are still blue! to be fair, they are 274 blue boots since they scale up with your light but always below your max, but still, give me some shoes Bungie! My feet are cold. I've still got the Nightfall and A Call to Arms to complete too so i might be able to squeak out another level before reset if i'm lucky. The grind is on now.

Looks like Trials of the Nine started tonight to replace Trials of Osiris. Biggest things are light levels are disabled like regular crucible, flawless is now only 7 wins, your loadout is locked for each game and displayed to the enemy before the start of the first match. You can access the new Trials social space after just one win (it's tied to a trophy/achievement). The more games you win the more loot you get. Obviously you get the best rewards for going flawless.

I'm not sure if the sparrow drops at level 20 or when you complete the campaign. I did both at the same time so either could have been the trigger. You can also get them from bright engrams. And yeah, for the next couple of days I'd still forget to use it since going the entire story mode without one. Apparently, with the new clan system you get rewarded a piece of raid gear (and I'd assume trials gear) as long as someone in your clan completes it that week. You don't even need to step foot in the raid for the clan rewards. The game will literally hand you 3 luminous engrams each week as long as other people who you play the game with put in enough work.

I wouldn't worry to much about the completion time. Vault of Glass took 14 hours and we do it in 45mins now, Crota's End took 6 for the first complete and it's faster than most strikes are to beat in Destiny 2 now people know what they are doing. I'm sure once people figure out the strategies the time will tumble down. Got some solid levelling in tonight. Finished off the MIDA quest which dropped at 289 and i got something called the Fighting Lion at 290. It's a grenade launcher that goes in your energy weapon slot rather than the power weapon. It's still my damn shoes holding me back. They are still rares, no legendary boots for me! Why is it always shoes with this game! Should be able to get a nice boost tomorrow too, I've still got the clan XP, Call to Arms and Nightfall to go to give me some more Luminous Engrams and i had an exotic drop that i haven't decoded yet too. Plus Xur makes his return. Hopefully i'll hit 280 before the reset.

I've stayed spoiler free for Leviathan so far but I took a look at the worlds first time. About 5 and a half hours. I figured that was a long time but it seems I just have a short memory. Wrath of the Machines only took 2 hours but both Crota's End and Kings Fall took around 6-7 and Vault of Glass took 14! Plus it seems all these twitch and youtubers who put unhealthy amounts of time to break through the soft cap of 270 to get over levelled to beat the raid didn't really get any advantage. I'm guessing that means the raid is mechanic heavy. I didn't realise just how high the level cap was this time. If you take a look at the infusion information it says it goes up to 350! With the highest light activity currently being 260-280 for the raid and 300 for the prestige Nightfall I don't think Bungie actually intend for anyone to hit the cap any time soon. Tonight will be the first time I get on there since Monday. Aside from those first few days where we binge played I've not really put much time in. Fortunately since there was a weekly reset there's a bunch of 'powerful gear' milestones back to beat.

The Star Wars Battlefront Season Pass is now free on PS4, XBox One and PC. I'm guessing they are trying to breath some life into the original before the sequel drops soon.

I think they are really making an effort to make the end game available to everyone. Removing Ghosts and artefacts from being apart of your light level and having rare gear soft cap at 260 means you can enter the raid without any legendary or exotic gear dropping for you. Add in the in game LFG they are adding in a few weeks and literally anyone who plays the game could do the raid. I don't think it's people figuring out how to break the level cap either. Aside from the first 2 days were we put in an unhealthy amount of time playing through the story I think I've only dropped maybe 6 hours in game for the rest of week one. And I can be 276 if I use my best stuff rather than the weapons that work for me. Even then I'm 272. I just got there by doing strikes, public events and the 3 'powerful gear' weekly tasks. If you think back to year one the only way to get top tier gear was the raid. And until you'd completed it, and RNG, had blessed you, you had to raid under levelled. Nightfalls and Iron Banner were a step below that. Now you're guaranteed an end game light level piece of gear just for doing a bunch of public events or playing crucible for a bit each week. It's looking like the prestige level Nightfall and raid are there for those who really want to punish themselves.

Screw it, we got one of our old clan buddies in and smashed through the Nightfall first try. My reward for the Nightfall? Coldheart, the gun we all got for free for pre-ordering. But at least it was at 274 light. Then we knocked out Shaxx crucible quest for even more gear. I'm sitting at 272 now. As always it's boots that are holding me back, everything is legendary or exotic except for my rare shoes. Why do you hate my feet Destiny? I got 250 silver durst straight up from a Bright Engram. You'd have to be crazy to spend money now when you get the currency for free just by playing the game.

I forget the exact quote but at one point Shaxx told me to look into the whites of their eyes, and spit in them. And yeah, Failsafe is the best character in Destiny so far. As for burning the Nightfall boss. We tried the arc super trick. Problem is you can't outright kill him with only 2 supers and it leaves a crap ton of adds to deal with after he teleports. I really think all we need is a couple of decent scout rifles with burns. We were using a hand canon and sub machine gun last night so range was an issue, you had to get up close and personal and the deaths were costing us time.

Got back on there tonight and hit 267. I'm smack in the middle of grind country now. It's either legendaries with a +5 mod, powerful gear from the weekly events or exotics from now on to level up. Fortunately it resets on Tuesday so i should get a nice boost in a couple of days. We've two man flawlessed Crota's End, We two manned Skolas Revenge without a wipe, 3 manned the Warpriest and Vosik and 4 manned Golgroth. We still cant 2 man the Nightfall! The difficulty isn't the issue now, it's the time mechanic. We can get to the boss with about 4 mins left and get him down to about half health before the timer runs out. We just cant do enough damage in the time remaining to finish it. I think it's partly to do with the weapons. I'm still lacking a decent loadout and just using whatever the highest powered gear is. It definitely feels doable. I saw that someone soloed it with an exotic solar scout rifle that does bonus damage to cabal and shoots through shields so that would probably help.