Destiny 2

[J.T.]

If you got the red emblem with the eagle talon, it's the Crucible cosmetic quest.  I finished the entire quest last night and got the emblem.  Not sure if I want to be telegraphing my win / loss percentage for the season but at least it is nearly 70%, so having the emblem on is not a testament to shame.

I'm now having weird PvP run now in large teams where I will do really well in one match and then blow goats in the next.  I don't think I'm playing any differently, so I can't really explain the pattern.  In the matches where I do well, I tend to have a high ER even if I have a low amount of kills and I usually have a fairly high game objective stat like Captures or Crests Secured. 

I'm playing the game mode; I'm just getting two tapped by weapons I don't think I should be getting two tapped by.  There was a guy last night that was nearly mapping me with a fucking Halfdan-D and he'd smoke me in less than one burst of fire.  I know those rifles have good range but the handling is shit, yet he was still  ridiculously accurate with that fucking thing from a long way away. 

His Rangefinder roll on that Halfdan must be extra special and his armor must have all of the artifact rifle mods for him to be that good.

I'm about halfway through LFR headshots for the Komodo and frankly, I'll be happy when it's done so I can go back to a more traditional load-out. 

I'm having middling success with the Arbalest / Recluse as long as my teammates are putting dudes in the dirt and leaving green ammo on the ground.  If my team is timid, or getting their asses beat, then I've only got two or three LFR shots before I'm forced to go zerg with my SMG and I swear my Recluse is very spotty when it comes to TTK.  Sometimes I melt people and others it takes nearly 3/4ths of a clip to bring a guy down.  I'm guessing that people are just fucking stacking Recovery and Resilience mods on their shit by the handfuls.

I finished the shader half of the Vanguard cosmetic quest last night.  I think the Points part is already done, but now I have to reach a one million point score threshold for Nightfalls or Ordeal Nightfalls and I've got a few more enemies to kill.  Naturally, everyone who wants to get 100K in an Ordeal wants to do a 980.  Fuck that shit.  I've already got my Master run in for Ordeals and it lived up to it's name. 

However, if you're going to try to get a Master Ordeal run in this season, you've got two pretty good candidates in Arms Dealer and Tree of Probabilities since they both have Cabal bosses that you can two phase if you have a team that's not fucking around.  I ran Arms Dealer so many times on Hero last night that I finally got the last upgrade for the strike emblem.  The game is still stingy about giving me the reward sparrow, though.

As far as the Gambit cosmetic goes, I just have to get to Heroic infamy so I'll keep doing Civic Duty bounties in the interim between matches.

Speaking of which, I think the Gambit: Rituals triumph is glitched as well as one of the Crucible seasonal triumphs.  I've done every type of Gambit weekly bounty and have seen no progress.  When I checked my Crucible triumphs, I saw that I did not get credit for completing both of the Weekly challenges, so there is definitely some weird shit going on with Weekly Challenge triumphs.

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

I've been using my Oxygen as my anti-Unstoppable rifle this season.

It gets the job done against Unstoppable Champions, but it doesn't seem to have the punch against normal targets I'd like it to have.  I can't seem to consistently get enough headshots with it to proc Meganeura / Dragonfly even with a TA mod on it. 

It feels like it got a stealth Aim Assist nerf somewhere along the way.

I may start doing shit for Ada-1 again and try to get my hands on one of the basic Black Armory model Tango scout rifles.

I had one with Moving Target / Dragonfly back in the day, but shredded it in favor of the Oxygen in a fit of Spring Cleaning before Season 8.  That was dumb.

Oh, and I highly recommend picking the Tenderizer mod from the Lantern.  It gives everyone on your team bonus damage against Unstoppable Champions if you are the one that stuns the Champion with your Unstoppable Shot.  There was one Arms Dealer run where my team practically melted UCs where they stood.  it was pretty sick.

And yep, this season's Vanguard and Crucible vendor armor has Dawn mod slots.  I've shredded my Season 8 vendor armor in favor of getting some new shit it to mod as Shaxx and Zavala feel inclined to give me armor for my tokens.  I hate the look of Vigil and Wing armor, so thank God we're able to toss any old ornament on them in 2.0. 

I'll run Void artifact mods on the Righteous armor and Solar artifact mods on the seasonal Vanguard vendor armor.

I'm keeping the Undying seasonal armor as my PvP shizzle and I'm also keeping my min/max set of Dreambane for Nightmare Hunts..  I'll probably run Solar artifact mods on the Dreambane armor since it feels like every grunt on Nightmare Hunts has a Solar barrier.

And I am dumb and anti-social.  I am just now noticing that we can target other players and press / hold the right thumbstick to bring up the social menu.

Edited December 17, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Now that the Old Fashioned is back, my new goal in life is to get a good roll for it and Trust, put on a set of GP armor so that I have the leather look, and make a video of myself clearing the Empty Tank LS in the Tangles Shore with old school revolvers.

Obviously, I will be doing it as a Top Tree Gunslinger.

[RIPPA]

I didn't play at all last night (to be fair I had played a bunch during the day)

It's weird -I really want to finish all the season stuff but I am starting to feel the burnout that I usually do close to Holiday break

If I get Hitman 2 as a gift - that will definitely trump my Destiny playing time.

Heck probably any game will since I have three weeks off, I can finish something

[J.T.]

Since my boo and I are persona non grata and I have practically moved out of the house, I'm not taking any time off from work this holiday season.

It's okay since we will have skeleton staffing at the office from this coming Thursday until after the first of the year, so I'll pretty much be able to come and go as I please.  There will probably be a day or two where I just show my face for a half day and then bounce.

I'll be in full grind mode for this season until I finish the Ritual Weapon bounties and get all of the Resonators up to snuff.  I'll probably take my big hiatus from D2 around the end of this season / beginning of the next season since Cyberpunk 2077 still has an alleged release date of April 2020.

Edited December 17, 2019 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

I feel a little bad that since receiving my PS5 last Christmas I have played exactly 1 and 1/2 game on it

The Dawning grind is going to have a lot to say about how much I play

(I also might actually bring my XBOX with me to NY this year)

[J.T.]

30 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

(I also might actually bring my XBOX with me to NY this year)

Don't do that.  if it starts to feel like a chore or an obligation, you'll just burn out faster.

The gang at Azteccross Gaming's YouTube channel has begun referring to the current season as The Season of Arbalest rather than The Season of Dawn.

I may adopt this to my own Lexicon.

I also really want a good Martyr's Retribution roll so that I can join in on the grenade launcher douchebaggery in PvP once I get this fucking Konodo thing done.

And for once, Paul Tassi wrote a D2 article for Forbes that was informative and did not have his usual anti-XB1 bullshit. 

Bungie knows that some of the seasonal triumphs associated with Weekly Challenges are bugged, so they are working on a fix.  No word on whether or not the triumphs will be updated with progress from completed challenges.

Oh, and almost forgot.  Someone at Bungie must've lurked this board and saw me talking shit about survivability during Vex Incursion gameplay and wanted me to take a long sip from a nice hot cup of STFO, because the Sundial stuff is totally fucking lethal at every turn. 

I feel that I am ahead of the curve if I only die twice per encounter. 

Not the entire thing.  PER ENCOUNTER!  It is going to require either maximum effort or major cowardice on my part to stay alive for the Complete Sundial Without Dying triumph.

I have even dudes get killed via decapitation from jumping too high while inside the Sundial itself.  Holy fuck, Bungie.

Edited December 17, 2019 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

The Triumph stuff has been listed in the "Known Issues" for a bit

Quote

Triumphs and Collections
The Season 9: Challenges Triumph does not progress when a weekly challenge is completed. This issue will be resolved in a future update and the requirements will be lowered.
The Season 9: Rituals Triumph does not progress when weekly Gambit bounties or Infamy ranks are earned. This issue will be resolved in a future update and the requirements will be lowered.
The Season 9: Engagement Triumph does not progress when motes are banked. This issue will be resolved in a future update and the requirements will be lowered.
The Playin' the Odds emblem cannot be reacquired from the Collections.
The Forged in Fire Crucible badge cannot be obtained.
Some Triumphs will display a progress bar even though only one objective needs to be completed.

 

[J.T.]

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to micro-analyze the TWAB's like normal.

[Eivion]

3 hours ago, J.T. said:

I'm playing the game mode; I'm just getting two tapped by weapons I don't think I should be getting two tapped by.  There was a guy last night that was nearly mapping me with a fucking Halfdan-D and he'd smoke me in less than one burst of fire.  I know those rifles have good range but the handling is shit, yet he was still  ridiculously accurate with that fucking thing from a long way away. 

His Rangefinder roll on that Halfdan must be extra special and his armor must have all of the artifact rifle mods for him to be that good.

Not sure when, but at some point legendary auto-rifles became decent Crucible weapons this third year. I find it annoying.

3 hours ago, J.T. said:

If you got the red emblem with the eagle talon, it's the Crucible cosmetic quest.  I finished the entire quest last night and got the emblem.  Not sure if I want to be telegraphing my win / loss percentage for the season but at least it is nearly 70%, so having the emblem on is not a testament to shame.

I need to check after the reset, but I may have just finished the entire quest ten minutes ago right before the reset.

4 hours ago, J.T. said:

I finished the shader half of the Vanguard cosmetic quest last night.  I think the Points part is already done, but now I have to reach a one million point score threshold for Nightfalls or Ordeal Nightfalls and I've got a few more enemies to kill.  Naturally, everyone who wants to get 100K in an Ordeal wants to do a 980.  Fuck that shit.  I've already got my Master run in for Ordeals and it lived up to it's name. 

However, if you're going to try to get a Master Ordeal run in this season, you've got two pretty good candidates in Arms Dealer and Tree of Probabilities since they both have Cabal bosses that you can two phase if you have a team that's not fucking around.  I ran Arms Dealer so many times on Hero last night that I finally got the last upgrade for the strike emblem.  The game is still stingy about giving me the reward sparrow, though.

That 1 million is for Nightfalls? I did not realize that. I just got to that step last ngiht. That is going to be somewhat annoying though I have yet to do a hero or Master Nightfall, the Ordeal. Maybe now is the time.

3 hours ago, J.T. said:

And I am dumb and anti-social.  I am just now noticing that we can target other players and press / hold the right thumbstick to bring up the social menu.

I'm right there with you. Only because your comment now do I realize why have been seeing R3 pop up when i get close and am looking at another player.

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I feel a little bad that since receiving my PS5 last Christmas I have played exactly 1 and 1/2 game on it

How are you speaking to us from the future?

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

Oh, and almost forgot.  Someone at Bungie must've lurked this board and saw me talking shit about survivability during Vex Incursion gameplay and wanted me to take a long sip from a nice hot cup of STFO, because the Sundial stuff is totally fucking lethal at every turn. 

I feel that I am ahead of the curve if I only die twice per encounter. 

Not the entire thing.  PER ENCOUNTER!  It is going to require either maximum effort or major cowardice on my part to stay alive for the Complete Sundial Without Dying triumph.

I'm managing well with around 2-4 deaths on the whole encounter. Sticking with a void tether Hunter means I have the option of invisibility and running the hell away quite often.

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

I have even dudes get killed via decapitation from jumping too high while inside the Sundial itself.  Holy fuck, Bungie.

That was actually a design mistake on their part that they seemingly find too amusing to fix. It was not intentional.

 

[J.T.]

30 minutes ago, Eivion said:

That 1 million is for Nightfalls? I did not realize that. I just got to that step last ngiht. That is going to be somewhat annoying though I have yet to do a hero or Master Nightfall, the Ordeal. Maybe now is the time.

Yeah, the "Score" thing definitely tallies up your accumulated scores on Ordeal Nightfalls so four 100K runs would get you over the hump quickly if you can find people to run Legend or Master with you.  Otherwise five or six Hero level runs will get you there and add the shader to your collection.  

The final stage for the seasonal Vanguard emblem requires you to reach a million points but look on the bright side.   You're practically half way there already.

34 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I'm managing well with around 2-4 deaths on the whole encounter. Sticking with a void tether Hunter means I have the option of invisibility and running the hell away quite often.

I die at least three times: once per stage and usually once in the final fight.  I also run Bottom Tree Nightstalker for the Vanish In Smoke escape button.

36 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Not sure when, but at some point legendary auto-rifles became decent Crucible weapons this third year. I find it annoying.

I think the reason I notice is because I am forged to engage close these days thanks to me running a LFR as my preferred means of attack and depending on an SMG for personal defense..  

If I were running my RTK as my Primary, I'd be fighting more to my strength of medium range engagement and using the Recluse to finish gun battles rather than initiate them.

[RIPPA]

 

[J.T.]

6 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

 

That is kinda bullshit since we all knew the reason they took Xur's vendor marker off of the Destinations map is to force us to Google him for his location or check our YouTube subs.

Edited December 17, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Just a note for you assholes that will get to go home and play before I do.

The transponder loc for the Impossible Task quest appears to be in the Tangle but it's actually in The Mists; a sub-zone of the Tangle.

Go in the direction like you're on your way to fight the Psion Flayer boss in the Insight Terminus strike and the spot you'll need to plant the transponder is on the other side of the chasm jump..

IIRC, there is also a scannable Vex conflux nearby.   I remember being able to access it by dropping down to a fairly hidden ledge on the stage right side of the zone as you enter in.. 

You'll know you're close when you see Ghost trying to scan a waypoint that appears to be under your feet.

I would not be surprised if the game made you do the Perfect Paradox quest first before it let you run this week's quest since (according to the spoiler-ish Friday pop-up alert) we're supposed to go looking for Saint-XIV's ghost!

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

I'm off to the races and working on the An Impossible Task mission.  I'm proud of myself for finding the Vex Transponders without cheating, but the ones on Io are the hardest to find.  The one that looks like it is on the path between The Rupture and The Lost Oasis is actually in the Sanctum of Bones lost sector.  It took me close to an hour to figure out where it was.  If you're working on Spider's Wanted Bounties, you can pull double duty.

Now I've got to go Vex hunting.  Time to do the Pyramidion strike a billon times until it's all done and then on to the next step.

The Resonators on Mars and the Tangled Shore are up to 5, so I have access to all of the Timelost weapon quests there.  I did the one on Mars for the badass LFR.  I got a decent roll but it didn't matter since the only thing I really wanted to do was unlock the weapon in my Dawn item collection.

It's time to bake again!  The Dawning SMG's curated roll in the SMG collection gallery is really good so naturally my first roll was shit.  Hopefully I'll do better at getting a good roll for the SMG than I did last year when all of my Avalanche rolls were garbage.

After about four tries at Fractal Rolls, I finally blundered on the recipe and Brother Vance got his baked treats so I have the basic Dawning Sparrow for this year.  Now comes the horror of doing the quests to upgrade it.

I gave my Burnt Edge Transits to the Cryptarch and learned that there is another Secret Triumph this year for making BET's either by accident or on purpose, however there is no Secret Triumph this year for giving them to the poor Cryptarch as a gift.

Bungie sure loves to spoil it's own materiel.  It's no secret that we'll free Saint-XIV from time stasis this season, but it was amusing to hear Osiris go on about how he is beyond help yet the next stage in my Sparrow upgrade quest is to deliver Saint-XIV some holiday treats and there is a Dawning triumph in it for me as well.

Edited December 18, 2019 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

Played very little last night as some family shit came up

Basically grabbed all the bounties, gave Zavala a treat and ran around Nessus for 10 minutes

[J.T.]

The Dawning works the same as last year and you get certain ingredients for killing enemies or performing other actions like doing Solar damage or scoring mutlikills.

There is an ingredient called Finishing Touch which you should obviously get by using your Finisher, but I've done at least twenty finishes and haven't gotten a drop yet.   That will be the bullshit rare drop ingredient like Sharp Taste (the ingredient you got from getting sword kills) was last year 

Edited December 18, 2019 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

I need to ensure that the oven won't be fucking glitched this year

[J.T.]

2 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

I need to ensure that the oven won't be fucking glitched this year

There are triumphs that won't update so of course the oven is fucking glitched.   No one has figured out what the bug is yet.

[RIPPA]

Quote

The game’s subreddit is currently full of posts about people having problems and Bungie has said it’s investigating the issue. Fortunately, there are some workarounds. The bug appears to be related to the other players you’re instanced with and whether they’ve completed the steps necessary to activate the Obelisk. If you can manage to get yourself in a solo instance, the button prompt will immediately appear.

That’s easy enough on PS4, where you can manually change your console’s clock to a different day under the settings. Doing so will spawn you in the EDZ alone. I did exactly that, as Reddit user Faroutrobot suggested, and my Obelisk was up and running in no time. It’s possible that fix also works on Xbox One, although I haven’t been able to try it on that platform. Outside of messing with the clock, you can also simply try fast-traveling to the Gulch over and over again until the button prompt eventually appears.

It’s harder to prevent matchmaking on PC. Players did come up with a script to run activities solo for last season’s Vex Offensive that’s fairly simple and works with Microsoft’s PowerShell program, but if you don’t want to mess around with how your computer runs the game, your best bet is just to keep re-loading.

 

[J.T.]

Yep, that happened to me.  I've got the Nessus and EDZ obelisks up but nothing I did allowed me to access the EDZ obelisk to complete the quest. 

I did the FT thing, I went to orbit and came back, and nada.  I would always spawn in around a bunch of players that obviously could not access the obelisk and that prevented me from accessing it in turn.

Oh well, it was serendipity because the scout rifle I want is tied to the Nessus obelisk anyway.  I've got the resonator up to Level 2, but I need Level 3 to get the Timestop weapon quest to drop.  I didn't wake up in time this morning to see if I could access the EDZ obelisk now that it is morning here, lunch time in Europe, and well after peak time in Asia.

The player count should be near zero at this time of day, so if you are "working from home" now might be a good time to see if you can access the EDZ obelisk.

The big fight in the first phase of the Impossible Task mission was fucking crazy in a good way, but I think it might've been better (and a bit shorter) with a full fireteam.   The entire battle takes place out in the open and the only cover you really have is Saint-XiV's bubble, but it has the Blindness effect because (duh!) his helmet.  

You're surrounded by Fallen and there is a really tanky Walker and Servitor constantly pounding your position.  The mechanic is obvious: destroy the Servitor first to drop the shield protecting the Walker Tank and then blast the Tank itself.  The problem is that when I say that the yellow bars are tanky, I mean TANKY, so you are constantly having to dip in and out of Saint-XIV's bubble for protection AND the Weapons of Light buff that will give you extra damage against all enemies.

Take Arc energy weapons along to break the barriers on the Captains.  If you're a Hunter, run Blade Barrage so that you can damage the Servitor and the Tank without having to get too close and I'd probably run Sunbreaker if I were a Titan for the same reason.   I'd also recommend using Truth as your power weapon so that you can lock on to an enemy, fire, and get back in

You'd think it would be smart to run Bubble Titan just like Saint-XIV, but remember that Bungie has nerfed the way damage stacks so you can't double up on Weapons of Light,.

I'm up to 80 LFR kills now after having a decent match in Wormhaven.  My team lost and my Win% is down to 62%, but I made a good showing.  I'm still annoyed by the match that didn't count because I know I'd be over 90 LFR kills by now.

Edited December 19, 2019 by J.T.

[RIPPA]

Wait - you hadn't done that first task last week?

That fight was a son of a bitch - I would have hated it more if it was a Darkness zone. Thank God we could respawn.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

Wait - you hadn't done that first task last week?

That fight was a son of a bitch - I would have hated it more if it was a Darkness zone. Thank God we could respawn.

No, I ran into the weird glitch where you don't get multiple quests from Osiris if you already have one in his queue. 

He wouldn't give me Impossible Task because I had the Mars obelisk quest waiting for me, and then I ran around doing other shit after I finished up on Mars and didn't go back to get Impossible Task from him until the Monday before reset.

I think I was GTG because I already did the quest to find Perfect Paradox.  I just had to finish up Mars so that Osiris would give me another quest to work on.

It looks like it's fixed now.  As soon as I went back to talk to Osiris after finishing up UT, UT Part 2 was in his quest queue.   Now I have to get this shit done so that I can bake Saint-XIV some holiday goodies.

It took me all of my Dawning Essences, but I blundered on to the recipe for Fried Sha-Dough to give to the Visage of Calus to complete a Bright Dust extra quest.  I also stumbled on to the recipe for Hot Crossfire Buns and gave them to Ada-1.

Edited December 19, 2019 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Oh, and if you get a Gift In Exchange For A Gift when you're turning in your baked goods, there is a chance you will also get an Avalanche roll instead of a Cold Front roll.  

Knowing my luck, I will get the Avalanche roll I wanted last year and will have to wait until next Dawning for another shot at a Cold Front that doesn't suck.

Who am I kidding?  I will continue to get shitty rolls for both weapons and end up with coal in my stocking for the second Dawning in a row.

[J.T.]

Jesus Fuck, I must get a Patron Of Lost Causes scout rifle.  The God Roll of Full Auto / Explosive Payload is obscene.

Here is how Azteccross described using the rifle in PvP:

Quote

Imagine if you had a MIDA and every time you pulled the trigger someone died and you were rewarded with the smell of sizzling bacon?

It's the second coming of the Manannan SR4 and I greet it with open arms.

I may have to run double scouts in Ordeal Nightfalls with this beauty as my Unstoppable Champ Killer and a Black Armory Tango as my Barrier Champ Breaker..

Edited December 19, 2019 by J.T.