Destiny 2

[Eivion]

I find when I die in gambit it is via Sleeper Stimulant half the time. Weirdly enough I think it happens more now after the supposed nerf. Usually though I hide and let the bastards come to me unless I have an idea of where they are (hunting my poor teammates). Then I go after the fucker for revenge. This has actually worked out well enough for the most part. I either don't have the Sleeper Stimulant or just don't use it. When I invade I just use what I have on me, usually a bow and my abilities. I took out 4 guys as an invader earlier today and killed two invaders as well in the same match via Ace of Spades. One lucky bastard disappeared right before I would have iced him.

[J.T.]

You have discovered the key to being a good defender, my friend.  

You remembered that you are playing Gambit and not Clash.

Once you embrace the mechanics of the game mode, everything else falls into place including the part of the Ace quest that people think is impossible ONLY because they rebel against the rules of the game.

You will NOT beat an Invader armed with a Sleeper by yourself, so don't even try.  Be patient and smart about bow you pick your opportunities to use your Hand Cannon and everything will be okay.

Usually, the beginning of our downward spiral towards a loss begins when the Invader claxon sounds and my idiot teammates pull out their Hand Cannons and go to zerg the Invader... who then pops his Super or whoops out a Sleeper and obliterates half of the team in seconds.

Invariably, one of the deceased will have been carrying ten motes or so.  it is at that time that I find a place to hide and then scream at my television set.

[Eivion]

That is the other thing if I have a lot of motes my ass is hiding. I'm not going to risk that shit against a guy likely to pop a super of snipe me. One of the games I lost today was because someone was smart enough to invade after their team sent several blockers over before any of us could get in many motes.

[J.T.]

25 minutes ago, Eivion said:

One of the games I lost today was because someone was smart enough to invade after their team sent several blockers over before any of us could get in many motes.

Sometimes I wonder if my team sees the same HUD I do.

The one that shows our potential mote deposit count vs. what we actually have banked.  

if that is the case then WHY ARE THEY NOT TAKING TIME TO KILL THE FUCKING TAKEN SO THAT THEY CAN BANK~????

ARRRRGGGGGHHHH~!!!  RAAAAAAAAGE~!!!!!!!

Really good Gambit teams know that regular banking is the key to victory.  Mote Denial and Prime Evil Healing are the primary things a good Invader should be concerned about.   Killing defenders for the sake of killing does not win matches.  It is a waste of an Invasion opportunity.

You have to be smart about when you invade and the best time to go is when your team has a Block Party going on and you can see from the HUD that the other team has a LOT of motes that they unwisely chose to sit on.  That's the perfect time to invade.

There is a special place in Hell for players that don't make PE's Heroic AND players on my team who invade the other side when their potential mote count is very low, before we've sent over any blockers, or when the Prime Evil hasn't taken much damage.  WHY~??

And if you decide to invade dammit, you'd better make sure kill at least one of the defenders.  Invaders on my team that routinely come back empty handed can eat a bag of dicks.  If you suck at invading, stop camping the fucking portal.

[Eivion]

I made the mistake of going over too early before. I didn't make it again and made sure the one person I got was the one with 13 motes. Then immediately after returning I went on to shred the Primeval with my grenade launcher.

[J.T.]

We're moving my dad to another mental care / assisted living facility tomorrow, so I really didn't have a chance to do much in Destiny today. 

I was with a pretty good Gambit crew and got my first Taking Turns medals.  We all invaded at least once in the two rounds we played, I couldn't get more than two kills per invasion and one of the other players went out on his shield to protect the guy with 14 motes that I was gunning for. 

My Infamy Rank is up to 10 now.  Two more level-ups and I can buy that Bygones pule rifle that the Drifter is selling, but I'd rather have a Hazard of the Cast with a good roll to use in Gambit and the Crucible.  It would also be nice to get a Bad Omens rocket launcher that did not have shit perks.

After that, I hit the Crucible for a few matches and finally got my Jade Rabbit catalyst done after a tense Breakthrough match.  Using Trust as my clean-up weapon is paying huge dividends.  I'm making solid progress towards my Hand Cannon Mastery triumph.

My Prometheus Lens catalyst is also done, so now the only new catalyst I have left is for the Huckleberry.  My new Borealis has no catalyst yet but it only requires enemy kills, so eventually it will drop if I use it often enough in PvE.  Since you can adjust the elemental damage for it, I'm taking it along for every Strike I run.

I think that Night Duty will run until Midnight tonight. I grabbed quite a few Gambit bounties before I bounced to work, but I may abandon them and finally go back and find all of Uldren's lore in the Tangled Shore and then pass out.  I may start grinding the Malfeasance quest in the morning if I do not hear Gambit calling my name.

Tess gave me the All The Motes emote, so my life is nearly complete.

I got a Parcel of Starlight shotgun with decent perks as one of my Gambit bounty rewards today, but it is a Kinetic weapon and I don't really have a back-up Energy Weapon to serve as my fake Primary for when I go and chase down shotgun kills for the Chaperone quest. 

I'll start gunning down fools buckshot style in the Crucible once I get a decent Misfit or Wrong Side of Right to use with the Gambit shotty.

With all of my good gear, I am high enough Light to attempt a Normal Nightfall.  I may hit up LFG to check out the unreasonable equipment demands that players are making as a condition to run with their fireteam.  

[Eivion]

Didn't do super well at Crucible with two victories and three losses. Still knocked the weekly so there is that.

Went ahead and spent time in the Dreaming City doing the Blind Well. I ended up doing two Heroic Blind Well and amazingly didn't fail miserably. This was my first time doing them. It actually wasn't too bad as its just Taken and a big boss battle against a creature similar to the one who tricked Uldren. Managed to knock out a purification quest and the Blind Well weekly. I think I got 2 Transcendent Blessings out of it. This week's oracle offering doesn't offer powerful equipment, but it is another step in the story

Spoiler

since you finally get to see Mara Sov in the flesh

. This should knock out a triumph. I was at 552 or 551 during the Heroic Blind Well by the way. 540 or 545 might be enough to survive it.

[J.T.]

14 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Didn't do super well at Crucible with two victories and three losses. Still knocked the weekly so there is that.

Went ahead and spent time in the Dreaming City doing the Blind Well. I ended up doing two Heroic Blind Well and amazingly didn't miserably. This was my first time doing them. It actually wasn't too bad as its just Taken and a big boss battle against a creature similar to the one who tricked Uldren. Managed to knock out a purification quest and the Blind Well weekly. I think I got 2 Transcendent Blessings out of it. This week's oracle offering doesn't offer powerful equipment, but it is another step in the story

  Reveal hidden contents

since you finally get to see Mara Sov in the flesh

. This should knock out a triumph. I was at 552 or 551 during the Heroic Blind Well by the way. 540 or 545 might be enough to survive it.

I'm woefully behind on that stuff.  I've had the Dark Monastery mission in my Pursuits queue since Tuesday and I think I need to finish that and another mission before:

Spoiler

The Audience With The Queen" bounty shows up where you can talk to Mara after you give your offering to the Oracle

Or are you talking about something completely different?

 

[Eivion]

Nope, that is it.

[J.T.]

25 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Nope, that is it.

If that is just a plain ol' bounty that I can get from Petra and it doesn't require doing the other missions as pre-requisites, I am getting that done ASAP since I was smart and saved the offering I got last week instead of using it in the Oracle for gear.

I sure do hope that Oracle Offerings don't have expiration timers like bounties do.  That would make me sad.

On second thought, that is just being lazy.  I should just grab Gateway Between Worlds and Audience With the Queen and go grind in the Blind Well for another Offering and a chance at a third Seed of Light.

That way, I will also complete Petra's Weekly Bounty completion challenge.

[J.T.]

Oh, and has anyone else noticed that Suraya's Daily Clan bounties change every day after the daily reset?  

I rolled up to her expecting to go grind Gambit for blocker credit and she popped a fucking Complete 5 Rounds in the Crucible bounty on my ass.  

Note that Quickplay only has Clash and Control in the playlist.  If you want to complete the bounty, you have to play something in the Competitive playlist like Survival or Countdown or you will have to dip your toes in the waters of the featured Breakthrough game mode.

If it were me, I'd just suffer through Breakthrough matches since all games in the Competitive playlist have motion trackers disabled.

[Eivion]

Actually reflecting on it there isn't a proper Audience bounty this week. Not sure why since bounty for the offering itself is still there. It is how you get the third seed of light for sure.

1 minute ago, J.T. said:

Oh, and has anyone else noticed that Suraya's Daily Clan bounties change every day after the daily reset?  

This s the norm for all of the daily bounties, isn't it?

Also has anyone done Breakthrough yet? I was curious about it, but haven't checked it out yet.

[J.T.]

36 minutes ago, Eivion said:

 Not sure why since bounty for the offering itself is still there. It is how you get the third seed of light for sure.

Yeah, I am pretty sure that is the Gateway Between Worlds bounty that gives you an Oracle Offering in exchange for progress completion by getting Blind Well clears.

You can turn in the offering to the Oracle in exchange for loot at anytime IIRC, but most people save the Amethyst lump so that they can use it in conjunction with Audience With The Queen.

I haven't seen that bounty in Petra's queue yet, so I just assumed I have to do these Dreaming City missions first before that bounty will pop up for me.

I already did the mission where you fight those twin honking Taken Ogres as they stalk you all through the Monastery.  I was so keyed up that I couldn't enjoy the gameplay.  The air was thick with tension.  I was totally stressed out.

I usually hate spoilers but sometimes it pays to cheat and look ahead in this game.  There are TWO triumphs tied to the Dark Monastery mission.

The Odynom's recommended LL is 585 so that may have to wait a bit.

It's this kind of stuff that causes me to weird out when I am in the Dreaming City.  So much 580 LL plus stuff is mixed in with the 500 - 550 content.

[Eivion]

I think I just had my best Gambit match so far. I had my highest number of guardian kills both as an invader and defending. Dealt the finishing blow to the Primeval both times. That last time in particular was so damn close to since the opposing team had just about killed theirs as well. Won two rounds in a row. And I settled all of my Gambit bounties including the weekly and the gear based one from the day before. This is such a nice feeling that I know will be crushed the next time I go into to Gambit so I'm just going to revel in it for a bit.

 

Some updates from Bungie today. The important shit summarized:

• The Shattered Throne/Wish-Ender quest is time-gated and will only be available every three weeks when the curse in the Dreaming City is at it's worse like it is currently.
• The Sleeper Stimulant nerf hasn't actually happened yet.
• Masterwork cores will be renamed along with getting more sources for them at some point.
• Iron Banner bounty retirements are getting nerfed and being changed to give powerful gear when completed.
• The chance to get something from exotic drops will increase though it doesn't sound like the rate will.

 

The Wish-Ender quest only coming every three weeks kind of sucks though it doesn't feel as hard as Whisper in the Worm is so I'm not complaining. I probably won;t even be at a LL decent enough for the quest for another two weeks. I actually might try for it the next time around. The Masterwork core thing is kind of annoying. Increasing the drop rate is nice, but the whole thing could just easily be fixed by not making them an infusion requirement outside of maybe exotics. I'm glad IB bounties will give powerful gear though I don't see reason the requirements need to be nerfed, and this is coming from someone who isn't super fond of Crucible/IB. I've been fine with exotic drop rates. Even the lack of Forsaken exotics haven't really bothered me. Still its nice that I may be able to get new shit more often.

[RIPPA]

I accidentally loaded my Warlock so I played her long enough to do the Flashpoint on Io and clear out her inventory.

Of course now the allure of getting Warlock triumph moments is calling me.

We shall see

[RIPPA]

I did spam strikes long enough on my Titan to complete that part of the Ace of Spades quest.

Now I need precision kills in the Crucible and that number might as well be 2 trillion

Hand Cannons and me don't get along in the Crucible

[J.T.]

I completed the Dark Monastery mission this morning and got both of those Secret Triumphs. Something told me to go poke the Odynom to see what would happen and I was perfectly able to smash him at 542 Light.  The Calficied Fragment in the Ascendant Plane was a bitch to get to and I am glad I cheated to find it since the mission ends with a dash for the portal before you're trapped in Taken Limbo.  Holy fuck..

My Gambit rank is up to 10 right now and I am back on a five match win streak.  Still no Hazard of the Cast, though.

I ended up with flakes while trying to win another Breakthrough match so I ran Clash with the Huckleberry with Trust as my clean-up weapon and I tore the other team a new asshole..  I got 23 murders including three Double Kills which brings my total for the Double Play part of Redrix's Broadsword up to 73 / 75.  The Huckleberry catalyst is up to 99% now.

Speaking of catalysts, the one for Borealis dropped for me while I was killing mini-bosses for the first stage of the Malfeasance quest.  The second stage appears to be running a Heroic version of The Corrupted strike, but the recommended LL is 580.  That will have to wait a while.

I hope I am not too burned out from work tonight. I have a couple of Scrapper Bounties I'd like to knock out before their timers expire tomorrow afternoon.  I have two more Control Zones to capture for one and I have to clear a Lost Sector someplace I can't recall off the top of my head. 

[RIPPA]

My kid is performing with the HS marching band tonight before the football game so I am not sure I will play at all tonight.

I am gonna have to buckle down this weekend as I am starting to feel like I am really behind with the drop dead time of RDR 2 approaching fast.

[Eivion]

52 minutes ago, J.T. said:

I completed the Dark Monastery mission this morning and got both of those Secret Triumphs. Something told me to go poke the Odynom to see what would happen and I was perfectly able to smash him at 542 Light.  The Calficied Fragment in the Ascendant Plane was a bitch to get to and I am glad I cheated to find it since the mission ends with a dash for the portal before you're trapped in Taken Limbo.  Holy fuck..

Did not know about either of these. Sucks that I missed them. I had to run from the secret Taken boss in the first Dreaming City mission., but I probably could have taken on this one.

9 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I did spam strikes long enough on my Titan to complete that part of the Ace of Spades quest.

Now I need precision kills in the Crucible and that number might as well be 2 trillion

Hand Cannons and me don't get along in the Crucible

Use the Crimson for Crucible.

[J.T.]

54 minutes ago, Eivion said:

Use the Crimson for Crucible.

Yep.  It is pretty much a hand held pulse rifle and it has a chance to heal you if you score a headshot.

It served me well during the Ace quest.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

I had to run from the secret Taken boss in the first Dreaming City mission.

Same.  Hopefully there will be a do-over offered fairly soon.

[J.T.]

17 hours ago, Eivion said:

• Masterwork cores will be renamed along with getting more sources for them at some point.

I don't have a problem with scarcity of MW Cores.  That's a proper currency sink working as it should to keep a game economy in check.

The problem is the scarcity of Mod Components and the means to purchase Armor and Weapon Mods from Banshee.

Banshee should work more like the Spider and either offer a Mats for Mod Components exchange, or he should offer you the choice of either turning WS parts in for Rank or using them to purchase Mod Components that you can turn around and use to purchase Armor or Weapon Mods.

The Devs bending to player pressure reeks of whiny players chafing under the bit of being forced to make the hard choice between Infusion and Masterworking.

 

[J.T.]

I learned a couple of things today.

1. You can't stack offerings.  If you don't use one in the week that you earned it, it goes away.
2. Duh. The Oracle Engine serves as a portal between the Dreaming City and the Awoken Throneworld.

In short, I got my face to face audience with Mara when I turned in the amethyst I earned this morning in the Blind Well while trying to get a third Seed of Light. 

It took me a few minutes before I figured out I was supposed to jump into the big glowing disc in the center of the cosmology wheel.

Mara is as arrogant and batshit crazy as ever, but she did have the good taste to reward me with a third Seed of light and a piece of Reverie Dawn armor, so I can finally start working on Way of the Current and I received the Triumph for collecting a full set of Reverie Dawn Armor....

......even though I have infused every piece of RD armor I have received into my Prodigal armor pieces, my Foetracer helmet, and the Cayde memorial cloak.

I like how I look too much to swap out anything, but eventually I know I will have to collect a set of high-end RD armor if I want to attempt the Last Wish raid.

I thought my Blind Well days would be behind me now that I have all three of the new Hunter subclasses, but now I have the Purification Ritual mission in my queue, so now I have to complete a Heroic Blind Well while under the influence of a Tincture of Queensfoil.

The Dreaming City grind is getting real.

I'm still sitting at 72 / 75 Double Kills so I am hoping I have enough energy after work to PvP long enough to get that complete and move on to the next Herculean labor on the long road to the Redrix's Broadsword.

I'm very annoyed that my five match win streak in Gambit came to an end today.  We had an asshole on our team that kept invading and kept getting smoked without getting any kills.  If you are shit at invading, don't fucking waste our portal time, dipshits..

[Eivion]

I just beat the Gravetide Summoner. That was not easy. Its actually two bosses where you have to beat the core Ogre first. They do however throw you a bone and make the actual Summoner not too difficult outside of the usual wizard blasting bullshit. Got a prime engram from the core so I can't really complain.

Training on the last part for Way of the Current. Have to say it me least favorite of the Forsaken Hunter sub classes. It really didn't get any significant change super wise, and the melee is annoying to hit. Feels like Hunters got screwed there.

[J.T.]

8 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I just beat the Gravetide Summoner. That was not easy. Its actually two bosses where you have to beat the core Ogre first. They do however throw you a bone and make the actual Summoner not too difficult outside of the usual wizard blasting bullshit. Got a prime engram from the core so I can't really complain.

The Silent Fang fight last week nearly turned me into an alcoholic.  I'm not forward to trying to collect on this bounty.