Destiny 2

[Eivion]

30 minutes ago, J.T. said:

The Throwing Knife PvP weapon quest looks similar to the Revoker quest from the previous season so once you shouldn't have to solely play Comp for the SR kills or the Medals.  You should be able to get that done in any PvP playlist, including Classic.

Yeah I'm thinking I will get that done there before heading into comp for Luna's Howl again.

[RIPPA]

Re: Thorn (or any special quest at the moment)

Wait till you are much higher up on the power scale

The special version of Savathun’s Song was 660. We were 750 and it was still a bitch with the modifiers (Blackout, Iron and Harsh Elements (which means Triple Singe for enemies)). I can only imagine what the fuck it would be like trying to do it now.

I would honestly wait till you get at least past 850 (also check to make sure the mission didn't get bumped up to 750)

The other reason the Thorn version sucks is you have to kill these special Knights that spawn during the mission and two of them don't spawn until the third phase of the boss fight. So you can't just race through and nuke the boss. You have to make sure you kill the Knights or you don't get credit.

[Eivion]

Yeesh, no wonder I was having trouble getting anyone to join late night the few times I hit up LFG. That sounds like a pain in the ass.

[RIPPA]

JT and I were able to two man until we got to the final boss - then we had to use LFG to find a third

Honestly - the thralls are the bigger problem because of fucking Blackout.

A lot of walkthroughs I read at the time highly recommended using Jotuun (which I didn't have) so keep that in mind too.

[J.T.]

I got in another Shadowkeep story mission and then I tried to explore a bit and see if I was high enough at 825 light to clear a Lost Sector.

Nope.... 

I'll hit up the Campaign a bit more tomorrow afternoon and also get a sense of what the Public Events are like.  I need to start getting familiar with the terrain.  Speaking of which, I am going to assume that either Eris's mysterious Hive rock or the Traveler's space magic just allows her to stand out there in the open on the Moon in what is supposed to be an airless environment.

What is with some Guardians and their disdain for Forward Operating Bases? Sloane has the command center on Titan and Ana has the open air BrayTech facility (I am going to assume that Mars has a survivable climate since it was the first planet in the system visited by the Traveler), but Asher Mir is just standing there like a lunkhead out in the open on Io with one piece of lab equipment, while Eris is on the surface of moon looking creepy and not in a constant cycle of repeatedly dying of exposure to zero atmo and constantly being revived by her Ghost.

As big of an ego as Asher has, I'd have expected him to have a huge lab set up in an abandoned Cabal base similar to how Osiris pretty much repurposed an entire section of the Infinite Forest for his own personal dwelling space.

I hit up the Crucible today to shake of some of the ring rust since I have been playing B3 a lot lately and haven't really matched up against other human players in a while.  I did meh in a Control match that my team won and then was third killer (19 Ks / 3.17 ER) in a Clash match that my team lost. 

I did my best, but everyone in the standings under me were garbage.

Both matches were on Twilight Gap so it was weird trying to reacquaint myself with a map I should know like the back of my hand.  Jade Rabbit was a terror and it will be the horse I ride to Randy's Throwing Knife.  Dudes on the outside of the range of their own weapons had no answer for the inside of my range but be warned, the quest is quite stingy in handing out progress.  

It will require a great deal of scout rifle murder on my part to satisfy the Final Blows criterion.  The only issue with the Jade Rabbit is the intrinsic perk.  You have to remember that you can't go for head shots immediately since the weapon does more precision damage after you chain one or two body shots.  I constantly have to remind myself not to aim at the head when the gunfight starts.

Normally that's a bad idea but I usually win 1v1s with the Rabbit if I am the one that shoots first, so I just have to mind my tracker and stay alert for targets.  Scouts are campers weapons, so remember to use your own motion to lure players to your camping spot then pop them when they come to investigate the red on their radar and always give yourself some space to engage. 

Normally you'd close in for the kill but now you're using a scout, so you should be backing up for the kill and staying out of hand cannon, fusion rifle, and shotgun range. If they're still healthy and on the inside of your range, you're probably going to lose the engagement unless you're really good at swapping weapons.

Fortunately for me, my swap weapon is the Recluse and it is serving me well at OH SHIT~! range even though I was getting domed on the regular by Hand Cannon users (I got two tapped by an Austringer) and Shotgun rushers, so I think I've got a winning load-out for the long haul of this S8 PvP Pinnacle Weapon chase.

At some point I am going to have to ditch my ghillie suit armor because it's not picking up the bonus armor mods I'm looting in the field.  The Took Offence items I have in my Vault are getting them, though.. 

Once I get a full set of Vanguard Armor, I'm going to start rolling with the mod I found in a chest today that heals me after I hit a finisher.  It's a cloak / bond / mark mod.

Ditching my leaf adorned armor will make me sad since I got my first S8 specced Exotic armor item today (a Foetracer) and it looks really sweet with my current gear.  My rugged ranger vibe is starting to grow on me plus I am a big fan of class neutral Exotics.

Speaking of that, I was sorta hoping that I would've gotten the Assassin's Cowl by now since I've run like five or six Nightfall Ordeals trying to pad my Vow Catalyst quest stats, but no dice.  Looks like I will be hitting up Xur for one of his Fated Engrams on Friday.

Edited October 4, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Oh and it looks like Randy's Throwing Knife is a reskinned Niflheim Frost, so I am pretty excited because I loved that rifle very much so the RTK had better be super lethal.

The Exit Strategy SMG reward for the Gambit Pinnacle Weapon quest uses a Veist model SMG skin (nothing special) and I think that the Vanguard LMG reward for the PvE Pinnacle Weapon Quest (can't remember the name off the top of my head) uses the same skin as the new ornament for the Hammerhead.

Edited October 4, 2019 by J.T.

[Eivion]

Good news, it appears you can get the legendary finishers doing special missions like Nightfall the Ordeal. I just got the Belgian Flying Kick after completing my first Ordeal.

4 hours ago, J.T. said:

It will require a great deal of scout rifle murder on my part to satisfy the Final Blows criterion.  The only issue with the Jade Rabbit is the intrinsic perk.  You have to remember that you can't go for head shots immediately since the weapon does more precision damage after you chain one or two body shots.  I constantly have to remind myself not to aim at the head when the gunfight starts.

I did not realize this. I've been doing ok, but I've trained myself to go for headshots with everything so much that I don't think I can adapt.

I actually did well enough in my last Crucible(despite the loss)  from earlier today that I got the catalyst for Ace. I also got the catalyst for Graviton Lance a bit earlier so I have two new exotics to upgrade. Already 65% in on Ace. Interestingly it looks like they no longer have you load the catalyst in for the Year 2 weapons. You master it first then load it in. I actually like this since I don;t have to remind myself to load them in when finding them or taking them from collections.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

Good news, it appears you can get the legendary finishers doing special missions like Nightfall the Ordeal. I just got the Belgian Flying Kick after completing my first Ordeal.

The Belgian Flying Kick is also available as a Season reward.  Everyone who keeps grinding will eventually receive it.

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

.Interestingly it looks like they no longer have you load the catalyst in for the Year 2 weapons. You master it first then load it in. I actually like this since I don;t have to remind myself to load them in when finding them or taking them from collections.

Yeah, I actually hate that because the old way allowed your Exotic weapon to make orbs even if the installed catalyst wasn't complete.

Now, Exotic weapons cannot make orbs until after you complete the catalyst requirements and install it into the mod slot.

Yet another mechanism by which Bungie has reeled in how Supers work.

Edited October 4, 2019 by J.T.

[Eivion]

41 minutes ago, J.T. said:

The Belgian Flying Kick is also available as a Season reward.  Everyone who keeps grinding will eventually receive it.

Yeah, I actually hate that because the old way allowed your Exotic weapon to make orbs even if the installed catalyst wasn't complete.

Now, Exotic weapons cannot make orbs until after you complete the catalyst requirements and install it into the mod slot.

Yet another mechanism by which Bungie has reeled in how Supers work.

I think they still give orbs, it just has to be on multikills.

[J.T.]

10 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I think they still give orbs, it just has to be on multikills.

All Masterwork Legendaries and Exotics with catalysts give orbs on multikills.

I thought I got a multikill yesterday with the Vow and I could've sworn that it didn't produce any orbs.   

That may be the exception to the rule since you have to complete the catalyst for the Vow as a quest. 

It's not in the weapon profile like the one for the Ace.

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by J.T.

[Eivion]

I could be wrong though I'm just pretty sure I got the occasional orb on multikills with Ace. Its still not as nice as what we had before. At the very least the change seems to only affect Year 2 exotics. Year 1 catalysts still seem to load in fine.

[J.T.]

18 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I could be wrong though I'm just pretty sure I got the occasional orb on multikills with Ace.

If I had to choose between you being incorrect or me being incorrect, I'd totally pick me.

[J.T.]

I had another 19 Kill / 3.17 ER run in the Crucible today and with a 10 Streak to boot.  Widow's Court, mother fuckers!  Finally an old map where I actually remembered how to get around and where to set up.. 

I am beginning to suspect that part of the reason I've done well the past couple of matches in this new season is because some of these assholes have only played D2 and aren't familiar with the old D1 maps. 

I got quite a few kills hard scoping on dudes that were trying to dig in at the Cathedral on the low side of the Widow's Court map.  I'd grab the high ground near the Heavy spawn and just pick guys off with the Jade Rabbit or the Crooked Fang LFR as they were engaging members of my team.  Thank God my Fang LFR has Rangefinder on it. 

I experienced a little damage drop-off at long range, but a headshot was still an OHK from that distance.  Body shots, not so much but I did manage to get enough LFR kills to finish the Fusion Rifle Mastery triumph in the Crucible queue.

Dudes on the enemy team never made the adjustment to push from another direction to avoid my sniper perch and that just screams, "I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH THIS MAP~!"

The improved connection favored Matchmaking seems to be keeping me away from the perils of Eastern European bandwidth so long as I play during US peak time or when there are a lot of local players online.

I also hit the soft cap of 900 LL to complete that other tutorial quest and now the real game starts.  Flashpoints and the other WCs are available to me now and I can see the "real" playmap.  Both Gambit modes still have WCs but there is no WC for The Reckoning anymore and I don't think that Petra has a WC anymore either..  

Nightfall: The Ordeal now has the 100K WC that normal Nightfall Strikes used to have.  OG Nightfall caps at 820 and still has Guided mode since there is no Matchmaking.  The kicker for Ordeal Mode is that you can't control the strike modifiers on your own.  You add modifiers by bumping up the LL difficulty so I am guessing that you can probably discard your Five of Swords since you can't get WC credit for running OG Nightfalls for points.

Even though there is no Reckoning WC anymore, I'm going to hit up the Haul sometime this weekend and begin the rebuild of my Notorious Armor sets from the new 2.0 system.

I completed two Moon PEs while wearing a full set of the Substantive Alloy armor and got nada progress for that triumph where you have to do 10 PEs in "seasonal" armor (Lunar Fashion) so I am assuming that when they say "seasonal" they actually mean the Dreambane armor that you get for doing Eris's quests and other fetchits on the moon,  I wish they would be more specific about that shit.

There is not much to the moon terrain.  It is almost the same map from D1 right down to the ramps near the chasm on the way to the Hellmouth where I nearly kill myself when I try to jump it on my Sparrow.

I am dumb because I just noticed today during exploring that the "patrol markers" on the moon are the trapped souls of the old inhabitants of the moonbase!.  Creepy!

Edited October 5, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Oh, almost forgot!  The Monte Carlo auto-rifle and the catalyst for the Cerberus +1 auto-rifle dropped for me when I ran the next campaign mission on the moon to get my first piece of Dreambane armor and I got the Wavesplitter from Xur's Fated Engram.

As kind as RNG was to me today, it refused to give me an Assassin's Cowl.  I will grind both the Ace and the Cerberus+1 catalyst for the triumphs, but Cerberus+1 will most likely get placed in the Vault to collect dust after that.  It just doesn't jive with my playstyle.  If you want to get kills in PvE or PvP with that weapon, you literally have to be right up in someone's grill.

I like being aggressive at times, but not THAT aggressive.

Next up for me on the Shadowkeep campaign is a confrontation with the Nightmare of Omnighul.... Thinking about that fucking D1 strike still makes my stomach churn.

I knocked out both of Ada-1's Weapon Frames for her WC to test a theory and I was wrong.  The Hammerhead is the only old BA weapon that got an ornament.  The Ringing Nail I crafted had no ornament slot so it got infused into my Eriana's Vow to get it above 900.

Edited October 5, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

After a year or so of hearing rumors about it but never encountering it myself, I finally caught Shaxx's dialogue where he chews out some Crucible rookie over not using Heavy Ammo and I marked the fuck out.

I knew he couldn't have been yelling at me because I had just returned from putting at least four guys in the dirt with my trusty Linear Fusion Rifle and my team won that match.

Edited October 5, 2019 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

 

[Eivion]

11 hours ago, J.T. said:

I am beginning to suspect that part of the reason I've done well the past couple of matches in this new season is because some of these assholes have only played D2 and aren't familiar with the old D1 maps. 

I have no familiarity with D1 maps and have been about on par for what I was before Shadowkeep. 

[Eivion]

Finished the Main story campaign for the Moon. For something requiring us to get all of this special armor it really didn't amount to much. The final mission is kind of a breeze, just being a few Nightmare fights you don't even necessarily have to win. Was a nice into to this new (old?) enemy. Will be interesting seeing how this story plays out though I wouldn't be surprised if we get nothing more there for a good while.

Hoping to start the Vex stuff though I haven't really seen anything activate aside from the Raid and Ikora's bounties.

Reached 900 just before doing the last mission so the normal power increasing methods are open to me again with the campaign done.

,

16 hours ago, J.T. said:

As kind as RNG was to me today, it refused to give me an Assassin's Cowl.

The Assassin's Cowl is a reward for completing the campaign. I got one during my final talk to Ikora.

 

[RIPPA]

Jotunn being banned doesn’t help me complete these Fusion rifle bounties any quicker

[Eivion]

I just used Merciless which I also have the catalyst for.

[J.T.]

6 hours ago, Eivion said:

The Assassin's Cowl is a reward for completing the campaign. I got one during my final talk to Ikor

Strange because I know a guy in another clan that got the Wavesplitter for completing the campaign and the Cowl from Xur's engram.

[Eivion]

38 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Strange because I know a guy in another clan that got the Wavesplitter for completing the campaign and the Cowl from Xur's engram.

Must be random a exotic then. That or they are giving XB1 and PC player Wavesplitter since they didn't have access to them before.

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, Eivion said:

Must be random a exotic then. That or they are giving XB1 and PC player Wavesplitter since they didn't have access to them before.

I can believe that.  The Cowl is supposed to be a rarer roll than the Wavespiitter, so I could see him getting the trace rifle for completing the campaign on Thursday and then getting the Cowl from Xur yesterday since the Fated Engram guarantees you an Exotic item that you don't already have.

I ran the Scarlet Keep strike today as a part of my Campaign run.   I really enjoyed listening to the lore as the action wore on and Eris's eagerness to harness Hive magic just reinforced my distrust of her.  I also ran the mission after that which REALLY reinforced my mistrust of Eris, but now I own another piece of Dreambane armor.

I also unlocked access to the Vex Incursion.  I am digging the callback to the Sol Progeny and the enclave of Vex that protected the Black Garden but HOLY SHIT, I'm starting to get a bit overwhelmed by the new mechanics and the amount of content to grind this season. 

I'll probably take a B3 break sometime in the immediate future even though I'll hate getting the feeling that I am lagging behind.

Today was Solar Singe / Iron / Heavyweight in the Strike Playlist, so I hope you broke our your Fixed Odds or Avalanche and put in some work towards your Edgewise quest aka the Vanguard Ritual Machine Gun.

I am halfway done with the MG and Solar kills parts and I think I'm about 75% done with Points Scored.   It took like sseven or eight strikes to get there, though and I was constantly able to get MG and Solar kills with Heavy Ammo dropping from everywhere.  Mileage will vary on Brawler or Grenadier day and the week where the singe is either Arc or Void.

If I am not too tired from graveyard duty, I will try to put in a little more strike work before tomorrow's soft reset around lunch time.

After I get up from my usual morning / early afternoon crash, I'll try to get in some Gambit or some Crucible after I run one or two more Campaign missions.  I gave the Edgewise quest a lot of love and I need to do the same for the Exit Strategy and the Throwing Knife.

The Eriana's Vow catalyst going is fucking slow and that's undoubtedly by design.  I hate it.

Edited October 6, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

And of course I forgot to mention that I found and cleared the K1 Logistics Lost Sector!

only to finish the Scarlet Keep strike, roll back to Eris, and see that she has a bounty for *what else?* clearing the K1 Logistics Lost Sector.

I hate this game sometimes.  Eris Morn can eat a bag of shit.  I know she's secretly in league with Savathun and is trying to get me killed.

And Holy Fuck, Bungie.  You've removed a few sources of Powerful Gear but you've fucking tripled the number of bounty vendors!  Even Ikora is back in the bounty business.

Grindy game is so fucking grindy!

Edited October 6, 2019 by J.T.

[Raziel]

I logged in for the first time in months.

 

I don't know what the hell is going on, so many planets...