Destiny

[J.T.]

IB kicks off tomorrow and runs in synch with SRL.

 

Tried my hand at Trials over the weekend.  Sucked at my first attempt (3-3), but went 8-3 with my second passage coin and got a Wrecking Ball medal and new boots so this may a regular thing for me. 

 

Lost to Light is the Daily Heroic today.  Time to make a run at Black Spindles.

 

Mayhem Clash is also back to my great delight.

[RIPPA]

I was realizing this morning that between

 

Already not playing for a week

The forced week away due to Christmas travelling

Fallout 4

Whatever games I get for Xmas (at a minimum Tomb Raider or Arkham Knight)

No new DLC

 

I might not play this game again (or at least until JT gets a One)

[J.T.]

I was realizing this morning that between

 

Already not playing for a week

The forced week away due to Christmas travelling

Fallout 4

Whatever games I get for Xmas (at a minimum Tomb Raider or Arkham Knight)

No new DLC

 

I might not play this game again (or at least until JT gets a One)

 

Small DARPA contingent keeps me playing otherwise I'd have quit weeks ago after the No New DLC debacle. 

 

Main motivation for my continued play is grimoire cards. 

 

Starting a Warlock to eventually get the Arc Exotic Sword and get achievement / grimoire for becoming a Stormcaller and will eventually get around to building another Titan to get achievement / grimoire for earning Sunbreaker and getting the Solar Exotic Sword.

 

GF wanted to get me an XB1 for Christmas but I balked after we got the county tax bill for $750 in the mail a week ago that is due by the 4th of January.  XBone cash is best spent on that.

[Basara]

IB kicks off tomorrow and runs in synch with SRL.

 

Tried my hand at Trials over the weekend.  Sucked at my first attempt (3-3), but went 8-3 with my second passage coin and got a Wrecking Ball medal and new boots so this may a regular thing for me. 

 

Lost to Light is the Daily Heroic today.  Time to make a run at Black Spindles.

 

Mayhem Clash is also back to my great delight.

 

I thought they said in the weekly update the Banner was from the 29th once SRL finishes? Unless they've changed there minds.

[J.T.]

Nope.  I am going by old info.  No wonder there is a dearth of complaining about the IB this week.

[DMN]

 

I was realizing this morning that between

 

Already not playing for a week

The forced week away due to Christmas travelling

Fallout 4

Whatever games I get for Xmas (at a minimum Tomb Raider or Arkham Knight)

No new DLC

 

I might not play this game again (or at least until JT gets a One)

 

Small DARPA contingent keeps me playing otherwise I'd have quit weeks ago after the No New DLC debacle. 

 

Main motivation for my continued play is grimoire cards. 

 

Starting a Warlock to eventually get the Arc Exotic Sword and get achievement / grimoire for becoming a Stormcaller and will eventually get around to building another Titan to get achievement / grimoire for earning Sunbreaker and getting the Solar Exotic Sword.

 

GF wanted to get me an XB1 for Christmas but I balked after we got the county tax bill for $750 in the mail a week ago that is due by the 4th of January.  XBone cash is best spent on that.

 

 

I've been a player since the beta, albeit with a lengthy vacation in the middle somewhere, but even I'm starting to slip. I don't play a ton of PvP, and I never really hooked up with a crew to do a lot of the endgame stuff, so it's just a lot of running around doing bounties. I mean, I still want to max out every subclass, but it's kinda tedious at this point.

 

Might take another break, run through some of my backlog, play some NCAA14, and save up for a PS4. I dunno.

[J.T.]

Got the last two TTK Dead Ghosts.

 

Prince Uldren is still alive.  Good because I still want to kill that mother fucker myself, especially now that Mara is dead and he is next in line of succession to rule the Reef.

[misanthrope304]

Meltxur says "they" are up for a run as a babyface post SummerSlam JT, after they heal injuries.

*im full of shit /spoiler

[Basara]

So with the Iron Banner starting today i thought i'd get a bit of practice in on my day off by soloing the Nightfall. Haven't played (aside from SRL) since the last Banner. It's a simple one this week, solar and primary are both on and its the Space Turkey so its a fairly straightforward solo. It didn't take long. It reminded me why i haven't bothered with the Nightfalls for 2 months. 17 strange coins. Even the exotic he dropped was a duplicate.

 

On the plus side apparently the helms will be dropping from rank 2 so if i get lucky i wont even need to grind to rank 5 unless i want the package.

[misanthrope304]

Solar and primary? I may break the VoC out of storage later

[Basara]

Yeah, If you're high enough light i could see Visions or even Gjallarhorn being viable.

 

An hour well spent in the Iron Banner. I had 4 bounties left over from last time and with the 3 from today and going 5-1 i'm already 256 points into rank 2. Along with finishing 1 weekly bounty and almost finishing the other 2 (i just need 2 more wins/7 more games for one and to hit rank 4 for the other)

 

First time I've played Crucible since the last weapons patch. I stuck with the Red Death and it doesn't really feel like it's lost any power. Shotguns, however are useless again. I personally didn't think there was much wrong with them before, if i get close enough to get a shotgun down your throat you should die with one shot. Now it takes 2-3 close range shots to kill someone, my punch is stronger at that range now. They should have kept the power at near point black range and had a harsh drop-off for the further away you are, not just make them feel weak.

[EVA]

I played a little bit earlier and, weirdly, didn't really notice a dropoff in my own shotgun's effectiveness, but several people tried to shotgun me and I shrugged it off and killed them. I guess maybe because I never had the OG Felwinter, I wasn't much of a long-range shotgunner and thus my playstyle hasn't been effected as much as others.

My new least favorite guys are the creep snipers. Just an awful combination of camper and quick-scoper.

[Basara]

It seems while you have to rank up each character to buy the gear at a specific level, the rank that items drop at is account wide. After finishing the 3 daily bounties on my Warlock this morning i switched to the Titan for the first time this IB. I played one game, at rank 0, got absolutely destroyed, and had the helm drop for me at 292.

[J.T.]

Hit the IB yesterday and got to Rank 2 in four matches thanks to leftover bounties and medals and a nice 3 game win streak following a heartbreaking loss.

 

Shotguns, however are useless again. I personally didn't think there was much wrong with them before, if i get close enough to get a shotgun down your throat you should die with one shot. Now it takes 2-3 close range shots to kill someone, my punch is stronger at that range now.

 

Shotguns are not entirely useless and honestly I think they work as designed now.  Close range feast or famine weapons.  I got three or four shotgun kills yesterday in the Banner and they don't seem to have lost any punch at close or point blank range and headshots are still 100% lethal and are almost always a OHK unless I'm shooting at some Light 308+ Titan with a Toughness / Recovery build who has the appropriate armor buff for the damage type of his sub-class.

 

It also helps that my Next Big Thing has Battle Runner on it and my gauntlets have the Shotgun Loader perk, so I don't really see the movement or reload speed debuffs.

 

OTOH, I certainly notice the stow speed debuff since I don't have Single Point Sling.  It takes a second or two to ready my shotgun and that is an eternity when someone is bearing down on you.   I will continue to use my shotgun on smaller maps, but I've gotten more mileage out of Stillpiercer in PvP lately.

[RIPPA]

Yeah - between Fallout 4 and getting Rise of the Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Knight - Destiny is dead to me

 

I got home yesterday and was like "I COULD start IB but I would rather watch Breaking Ground"

[J.T.]

Yeah - between Fallout 4 and getting Rise of the Tomb Raider and Batman: Arkham Knight - Destiny is dead to me

 

I got home yesterday and was like "I COULD start IB but I would rather watch Breaking Ground"

 

I didn't play any Destiny over Christmas holiday and didn't miss it too much.  I spent more time goofing off with Dungeon Siege 3 and tinkering with my new tablet.

[Basara]

Maybe useless is an exaggeration since I've still managed to complete the 25 special kills with the shotgun. But they feel a lot weaker than they used too. Since my Warlocks punch feels just as strong I've just been using it in combination, blasting them point blank with the shotgun then finishing them off with a punch. Or the other way around.

 

I'm having a fairly successful IB so far. I've gone 11-3 and had 2 helms drop in the first 9 games. I've only had one really bad loss, where i got stuck in a 4v6 situation where my team couldn't tie their own shoe laces and the other team was a fireteam of 6 that clearly doesn't see a lot of sunshine. I'm hoping this all means increased drop rates and lots of fresh blood from Christmas purchases but i'm guessing its just early days luck. I've got all 3 weekly bounties all but done on the Warlock ready to jump a rank and a half over the weekend and i'm stockpiling the bounties on my two alts for the rep boost.

[J.T.]

Maybe useless is an exaggeration since I've still managed to complete the 25 special kills with the shotgun. But they feel a lot weaker than they used too.

 

I also completed the 25 kills with my shotty and got a lot of OHKs at point blank range as I should have..  Shottys are not weaker; you just have to be closer and aim for the head.

 

I got a Buckshot Bruiser medal last night in the IB in the alleged post-shotgun nerf, so the rumors of the death of the gauge in PvP are greatly exaggerated and it helps that I have pretty good class / weapon synergy.

 

I run a full AGI Nightstalker (Black Hole, Lockdown) and mop up tethered players after carpet bombing them with Vortex Grenades and Envenomed smoke bombs.  The stock Next Big Thing has Battle Runner that buffs my max sprint speed even further after a kill and One Man Army buffs my Melee and Grenade cooldown after a kill. 

 

Folks are sleeping on that perk synergy for Next Big Thing.  It is great on small maps and IMO it is the new Shot Package / Crowd Control now that movement is debuffed when using shottys.

 

My set-up would be marginally better if I had a Monte Carlo and Plated Ahamkara Grips, but I like my current gear and weapon load-out. 

 

Graviton Forfeit gives me free use of Shadestep for quick evasion and that allows me to keep Keen Scout active (enhanced tracker / sneak are great for pre-shooting) and I like using Zhalo because the accuracy buff helps with headshots and the chain lightning splash damage on nearby players sets up my next kill.

 

Getting a Double Down with Zhalo fills my super meter and grants me bonus ammo straight to the magazine so I don't have to reload.  Now that ARs don't suck anymore, Zhalo is nearly a perfect PvP auto-rifle.

[EVA]

The number of Striker titans running around trying to shoulder charge everything in sight is just hilarious right now. And it's clearly a bunch of newer players who migrated over from the nerfed Sunbreakers because they heard Strikers were the new shit and don't really know how to use them yet.

I see them coming from a mile away and give them an OLE! and put 'em down.

[Basara]

Yeah there's a huge amount more Strikers running around now than there are Hammers. Hammers don't even feel like that big of a threat anymore. While not OPed like the hammers used to be, the Warlocks Stormcaller has replaced it as the 'oh shit, run' super. Unless you've got 3 people team killing it you're as good as dead. Despite that i still prefer the Nova Bomb. Nothing more satisfying than launching one from a safe distance and catching 4 guys napping on a control point.

 

Finished my Warlocks Iron Banner campaign within a record 3 days. Going a respectable 22-11. I'll put that down to the influx of new players since the game dropped in price/Christmas purchases and not an improvement to my skill level. I had 3 items drop for me in that time. Not the level of SRL drops (about 1 in 5) but i'll take a rough 10% chance of a drop per game. Sadly they were all helms, which i already had from last time, so it didn't save me any marks. But its a big improvement over previous drop rates. I already got a Titan helm on the one game i played as that class but i really need another drop or i'll be hitting up the dailies and weeklies for the rest of the week just to get enough marks to buy all the gear.

 

My rank 5 drop was a decent roll on a perfect 320 sniper rifle. The urge to infuse it into my Black Spindle is strong....

 

Hunter's already got enough bounties to hit rank 5 with Sundays boost and the Titan is on the way there. Might put some time into the Hunter today though to drop and get that helm to drop and save myself the much needed 75 marks.

[Basara]

Finished my Ironing this morning in only 3 and a half days to rank up all 3 characters to 5. So much better than it used to be, i'd struggle to get one character to 5 in a week before the introduction of 5 more daily bounties, the weeklies and alt boosts.

 

The Hunter received a disappointing 312 Machine gun. Its the highest light heavy I've got but if i ever go back into the raid you're guaranteed a 320 heavy from Warpriest challenge week. The Titan fared better with a 314 chest, 14 higher than his current gear and enough for him to hit 312. I also scored the Iron Banner shotgun at 299 saving me 90 marks to purchase one. Doesn't have Full Auto like the store brought one but it came with Rangefinder which is a good enough perk by its self not to have me splash out on the Full Auto model.

 

Got incredibly lucky with 3 of Coin drops throughout the IB. 4 boot engrams, 3 chest, 2 heavy, 1 arm and 1 helm.

 

Buddy of mine still has a few games to go so i'll probably play some more games later in hopes of getting a 311+ Ghost that starts dropping once you hit rank 5.

[J.T.]

The number of Striker titans running around trying to shoulder charge everything in sight is just hilarious right now. And it's clearly a bunch of newer players who migrated over from the nerfed Sunbreakers because they heard Strikers were the new shit and don't really know how to use them yet.

I see them coming from a mile away and give them an OLE! and put 'em down.

 

I take pride in my new found proficiency at being able to quickscope dashing Strikers with Stillpiercer.  Also, nothing stops Strikers in their tracks quite llke Smoke Bombs followed up by Vortex Grenades.

 

I have found new PvP life in Sealed Ahamkara Grasps and the Zhalo. 

 

The Chain Lightning synergizes well with my Vortex Grenades and Smoke Bombs and the Refill Super & Ammo on Double Kills compliments the Nightmare Fuel perk which gives me bonus ammo when I do melee damage.... which for my Nightstaker is long range Envenomed Smoke Bombs enhanced by the Lockdown perk.

[EVA]

I will officially be @died if PSN doesn't come back in time for me to cash in my outstanding IB bounties and hit rank 5 on all my characters.

[J.T.]

I will officially be @died if PSN doesn't come back in time for me to cash in my outstanding IB bounties and hit rank 5 on all my characters.

 

The IB was good to me this time around.

 

I got 311 Gauntlets and a 318 ghost shell in my Rank 5 package for my Hunter.  I nearly threw a party.  I passed my 310 ghost shell on to my Warlock.

 

I also got a 304 helmet as a match reward in a Victory where I completed the last of my Weekly bounties (finally have a 6K+ point match under my belt). 

 

I now have more incentive to buy a Dark Zone Revolution cloak from the Speaker when he gets around to selling one again so that I can complete my new Kylo Ren look.

 

I got 5 Wild Hunt medals in 3 matches so now I am 13 of 30 Shadowshot mutikills into my Nightstalker PvP quest. 

 

One day I will decide to sacrifice some of my precious DTR Combat Rating and try to get seven headshots in one PvP match with shitty shitty Imprecation.

[J.T.]

Patch 2.1.0 added four more Dead Ghosts to the moon.

 

 

I have gotten the first 3.  The last one is a bitch.  Getting to those ledges with Double Jump sucks, so I may have to use my Titan or my Warlock.

 

It is even worse when you are trying to get the Ghost and you are on a fireteam with tryhard randoms that murder Phoggoth in seconds with Touch of Malice and Sleeper Stimulant.