Destiny 2

[Eivion]

7 hours ago, J.T. said:

It was almost comical how scientific the killing of the Taken Ogre bosses became.  It had been a while since I shotgunned this mission, so I completely forgot that the appearance of the second boss is health gated to the first one. 

Once the second boss was up, we had to whittle away on the first third of his yellow bar before we could start damaging the first boss again.

I did not realize this. I thought you had to kill the first ogre before the second one showed up. I guess I lucked out both times.

7 hours ago, J.T. said:

The Sword Knights were more annoying than anything, but the fucking Shriekers on the gauntlet were super dangerous.  A Nightstalker with a high Mobility score melee buffs could probably smoke bomb stealth solo his way to the boss, but this encounter is best done with a full fireteam that kills the ash and trash and avoids the Knighs to save some tincture buff time.. 

Glad you mentioned this. I had every intention of trying to solo this before reading that.

6 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I feel like for how much Eris has been brought up she has to eventually return in a DLC.

Now will I actually get those DLCs.... that is a different story

Its possible she shows up at the end of the Dreaming City story line. I don't think we are quite finished with it content wise.

6 hours ago, J.T. said:

Why can't they get rid of someone annoying like Brother Vance?

You know we aren't getting rewarded with that until Destiny 3.

6 hours ago, J.T. said:

Yay!  Yet another mechanism to diss casuals and reward hardcore douchebags!  I'm sure that only grinders who are 590 LL or better and have weapons from the raid will have the best chance of surviving to the late stages of this event.

Honestly, it doesn't sound too different from EP and Blind Well. You complain about only rewarding hardcores, but I'm almost certain you and me are already strong enough to probably complete it with a fireteam. RIPPA himself is probably only a week or two away from that point.

[Eivion]

A plague upon the house of whoever made this week's Ascendant Challenge. Yeah, I died 4 or 5 times and just had to give up so I wouldn't hold my poor fireteam back anymore. Its the same bs that was getting me with last week's challenge with those damn spinning rocks and annoying lack of strong visuals in the Ascendant realm.

[RIPPA]

Twice I was one jump away and the spinning rocks went “fuck you”

[J.T.]

17 hours ago, Eivion said:

A plague upon the house of whoever made this week's Ascendant Challenge. Yeah, I died 4 or 5 times and just had to give up so I wouldn't hold my poor fireteam back anymore. Its the same bs that was getting me with last week's challenge with those damn spinning rocks and annoying lack of strong visuals in the Ascendant realm.

Well at least you had the opportunity to die and try again,.

Last night I hit up LFG and found a group trying to do the challenge.  I made it aaaaalllll the way to the boss in one run (including the spinning rocks part!) thanks to the trial of errors that Rippa and I experienced when we tried to do it. 

There is absolutely no real serious cover where the boss is and my fireteam members kept dying on the way up so I figured I'd chip away at the boss's health and die and then make another run and pray that these dunces can finish the job before our Tinctures wore off..

Well, sure enough as predicted, I engaged the boss and died and went back to start and wouldn't you know it, the encounter glitched so that I could not see the portal even though I had my Ascendant buff up.  I could not continue the challenge..

I could feel my anger beginning to burn my brain and make smoke come out of my ears..

To add insult to injury, my two idiot, clubfooted, non-platforming fireteam members finally made it to the boss and destroyed it... and I didn't get credit for my bounty because I was not on the Ascendant Plane when the kill went down.

.... and then Tropical Storm fucking Michael  knocked out the power at my 'rent's house...  and the electricity stayed off for the rest of the night...

You cannot imagine the rage...

The power still isn't back on, so I put my mom on an Amtrak this morning to Odenton and she'll stay at my crib in Maryland over the weekend while my sister hangs out with her homegirls at the bachelorette pad in Henrico with the Yorkies until Dominion Power gets their shit together.

I'm beginning to think that this shit was not meant to happen this week.  I may make another go at it on Sunday since I have to have my kid back early for her stepdad's birthday party and that's when I'll bring my mom back home as well, but most of the LFG cookie cutter groups are only taking 580 or higher light players on their fireteams and I am only 565 with all of my best gear on. 

I'm low on Legendary Shards anyway, so I may just take some time out to farm gear for infusion material and try out the new challenge after the hard reset on Tuesday.

At least I got the Nightfall done and got a badass 570 Last Dance sidearm with Armor Piercers and Full Auto / Dragonfly.  I am a little bummed because my beloved Vestian Dynasty also has AP rounds and has Dragonfly / Kill Clip.  I don't really need two near God Roll sidearms, so the 570 Last Dance is probably going to end up being Infusion Fodder for my Subtle Calamity combat bow or for my Trust hand cannon..

No sense in infusing my Badlander shotgun since that is going to get sharded as soon as I complete the Chaperone quest and finish the shotgun part of the Close Combat triumph for Gambit.

[RIPPA]

I would have been better off playing than sitting through the disaster that was the Giants game

[J.T.]

7 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

I would have been better off playing than sitting through the disaster that was the Giants game

At least you had electricity at your crib and could watch the entire game.

Making lemonade out of the lemons of life, at least I can say that last night I got in a full eight hours sleep for the first time in weeks.

The base opened this morning on a two hour delay, so I had time to sneak into the gym on base to catch a long, hot, refreshing shower after dropping mom off at the train station and then I went to the shoppette to get a haircut. 

I feel, smell, and look like a proper human being again.

My mom just phoned and said that Uber had dropped her off at my house, so she's also squared away and safe.

[J.T.]

20 hours ago, Eivion said:

I did not realize this. I thought you had to kill the first ogre before the second one showed up. I guess I lucked out both times.

Yeah, the Twinsies triumph in that mission was obviously not designed with solo play in mind.  

If you're doing the Oracle Engine encounter solo, the smart play is to focus on damaging one ogre at a time while also dealing with adds to get yourself more ammo drops and using your Heavy Weapon (hope you brought a Grenade Launcher or a Rocket Launcher instead of a sword..) so that you have plenty of Scorch Cannons available for when you have an ogre with one foot in the grave.

Getting them both down to zero health in order to finish them off almost simultaneously is counterintuitive if you are by yourself.  Better to hit and run and pick off the weakened enemies first.

[J.T.]

Oh, and I tacked on two more wins in Supremacy yesterday and my lifetime ER is back up to 1.60, so my actual K/D can't be much further behind that stat.

I need 17 more wins to get the Crucible triumph for the Supremacy game mode, but I don't think I'll have the patience to spam that much PvP between now and Tuesday. 

Not when I'm close on the Demolitionist triumph for Gambit, am nearly done with the shotgun kills part of the the Close Combat triumph, and would like to get a Hazard of the Cast auto rifle before I turn eighty years old.

[RIPPA]

Starting Oct 16 - buy Destiny 2 Forsaken will grant you the two previous Expansion Passes for free. Basically for $60 - you get everything that is currently available (Instead of the $100 that us suckers paid)

Everyone who already owns Forsaken will get...

Whee!!!!

(Oh and you won't get it until sometime in Dec)

[RIPPA]

Also - IB is back next with the changes we already talked about

More importantly - the entire week is double and triple Valor

Double Valor: 10/16–10/19
Triple Valor: 10/19–10/23

[Eivion]

4 hours ago, J.T. said:

Well at least you had the opportunity to die and try again,.

Last night I hit up LFG and found a group trying to do the challenge.  I made it aaaaalllll the way to the boss in one run (including the spinning rocks part!) thanks to the trial of errors that Rippa and I experienced when we tried to do it. 

There is absolutely no real serious cover where the boss is and my fireteam members kept dying on the way up so I figured I'd chip away at the boss's health and die and then make another run and pray that these dunces can finish the job before our Tinctures wore off..

Well, sure enough as predicted, I engaged the boss and died and went back to start and wouldn't you know it, the encounter glitched so that I could not see the portal even though I had my Ascendant buff up.  I could not continue the challenge.. 

I could feel my anger beginning to burn my brain and make smoke come out of my ears..

To add insult to injury, my two idiot, clubfooted, non-platforming fireteam members finally made it to the boss and destroyed it... and I didn't get credit for my bounty because I was not on the Ascendant Plane when the kill went down.

.... and then Tropical Storm fucking Michael  knocked out the power at my 'rent's house...  and the electricity stayed off for the rest of the night...

You cannot imagine the rage...

Oh I forgot to mention that part didn't I. After my second or third death I was locked out of the damn thing as well despite having 13 minutes of Queensfoil Tincture left. Still didn't have it as bad as you since my team died and got locked out as well (we tried one more time before I gave up after making it far and dying 2 or 3 more times) and I of course had my power. That is a weird damn glitch they have going on.

So how tough is the boss? I've been thinking of trying it solo since I already know I'm going to die way too many times just gettign to him. I'm 577 right now.

[J.T.]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 2:50 PM, Eivion said:

So how tough is the boss? I've been thinking of trying it solo since I already know I'm going to die way too many times just gettign to him. I'm 577 right now.

The boss is pretty tough but the problem is getting to him with enough Tincture time to put him away.  If you screw up and die, you have to make the run all the way back to his spawn point and God forbid you waste even more clock time incurring multiple deaths attempting to complete the dumb rotating asteroids part of the gauntlet.

It's best done with a fireteam.  I'm going to put that off until some of the returning DARPA clan peeps catch up to my LL and then we'll knock that out together.

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 12:28 PM, RIPPA said:

Also - IB is back next with the changes we already talked about

More importantly - the entire week is double and triple Valor

Double Valor: 10/16–10/19
Triple Valor: 10/19–10/23

So, they're having Double Valor during the week and Triple Valor over the weekend?  That's fucking sweet!  I'll be hitting the tourney hard from Tuesday to Friday, but weekend gameplay will be tough.  

My boo and I have some house projects to tackle and I don't like to play much on Saturday and Sunday since I don't get to be home during the week thanks to my fucking job.... which I am thankful for.

I should be able to get in a little Triple Valor play on the evening of the 22nd, though.

The Flip Your Valor Five Times In One Season part of Redrix's Broadsword is retroactive, so scooting my Valor along as far as I can would be beneficial to me.  The more Valor Resets I get in before that step, the less time it will take me to complete that step when (or if) I get to it.

As for my brief weekend play

• I'm up to 10 wins in Supremacy.  I need 15 more to complete the Triumph.  Now that we know that the IB is up this week, I'm inclined to stay the course and keep myself in PvP shape until the tournament.   It is hard because the Crucible is getting sweatier as the week draws to a close and players are zerging to complete the Weekly PvP challenge.
• I got my first Crestfallen medal yesterday (Create 5 Crests that are 100% Secured by you or your fireteam), but I keep getting beaten to the first enemy crest created so no First Secure medal yet. 
• I always somehow manage to get killed before recovering three allied crests in one life, so no Friend Indeed medal for me either.
• I'm at 67% for PR precision kills for the Redrix's Broadsword quest.  This is taking longer than the Double Kill part.
• I'm at 18 / 20 shotgun final blows for the Chaperone.  I never seem to have enough Green ammo to shotgun rush my way to a Close Encounter medal.
• Riskrunner catalyst dropped for me while I was helping a clan mate with her Vanguard Strikes.  The catalyst only requires normal kills and kills when the Arc Generator buff is active, so I can probably just wander around Trostland and farm the Fallen to complete that catalyst in record time.
• RIP Arcane Mind and Splendid Mind.  That takes care of my Triumph for The Spider's Free Roam Bounties on Nessus.
• I am going to try to hit up LFG tonight to see if I can get into a group that is farming the Warden's Law hand cannon from the Warden of Nothing Nightfall Strike.  I probably won't get into one since I am not quite 570 so I may have to post an LFG myself and coax a couple of idiots into helping me get one. It doesn't bother me that much that I probably won't be able to find a group, since most dummies are running Solar Singe so that they can spam Sleepers and Whispers?  Unless they are deadly accurate and have plenty of purple to spare, the Warden Servitor is going to melt the entire fireteam with it's Radiance AOE if they have Solar Singe active.

[J.T.]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 12:27 PM, RIPPA said:

Starting Oct 16 - buy Destiny 2 Forsaken will grant you the two previous Expansion Passes for free. Basically for $60 - you get everything that is currently available (Instead of the $100 that us suckers paid)

Everyone who already owns Forsaken will get...

Whee!!!!

(Oh and you won't get it until sometime in Dec)

If they really wanted to apologize, we'd get a buff that gives us a better percentage chance to get a special Nightfall reward.  I'm skeptical about shaders as gifts since most of the color patterns look horrible on my Prodigal armor anyway.

[RIPPA]

Random things from the weekend

- Have started to pay more attention to the bounties from Spider so - like JT - I am knocking out Triumphs (I tended to really only get the ones from a single planet).

- Played on the Crucible map in the Dreaming City for the first time and was utterly lost the entire time. God that map is fucking enormous.

- I still can't get the third seed of light for my Titan for the life of me. I am debating stealing the seed that I am about to get for my Warlock (assuming seeds are shared across characters)

- Continuing to get more done with my Warlock. Redid the opening story with her and then spend time collecting the visions of light dealies. Hit Level 43 which allowed me to start yanking better weapons out of my vault. Am at 45 so shortly I can yank even better stuff out (and push me over 500).

- Realized I will have to do Ace of Spades again and now am sad.

- I really should got and get all the Ascendant chests but I am so lazy

 

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

- Played on the Crucible map in the Dreaming City for the first time and was utterly lost the entire time. God that map is fucking enormous.

It's just two long corridors (one inside and one outside) with two large open areas at either end of the map.  The Heavy Spawn island on the outside and the round room in the middle of the building are both killboxes.  

Most of the firefights go down in the middle of the map.  Don't stay in iron sights for too long because it is easy to get flanked.  I usually never get melee kills, but I managed three yesterday because guys 

Whenever I'm in a match on that map, players on my side tend to have an annoying habit of not covering any players on our side that go to get the heavy.  I am not sure how it is better to let the dude die and hand purple over to the enemy team than it is to not have the heavy ammo yourself. 

That being said, if I see a guy on my team rushing the purple and I don't see anyone else going to cover him, I also tend to let the dude die because I'm not trying to get team shot right along with him. 

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

- I still can't get the third seed of light for my Titan for the life of me. I am debating stealing the seed that I am about to get for my Warlock (assuming seeds are shared across characters)

The Queen may be holding court after Hard Reset Day and she usually has a Seed of Light reward for people that turn in their Oracle offering.  Your inventory is shared across all of your characters, so any Seeds of Light you get should be useable across all characters. 

The only reason I'd start using my Warlock or Titan again is if I receive another Seed of Light while running my Hunter.

You will probably want to loiter around the Well with your Titan since the Taken boss should be the Tier IV main critter after Reset and you will get a Triumph for killing him.

I think I have hit for the cycle on all of the Tier IV BW bosses.

[RIPPA]

Well the Blind Well is also heaven for when I am working on Triumphs that are "Kill X amount of dudes with Y super" (also doesn't hurt when working on grenade kills too)

Considering how many Triumphs are linked to doing something with all three characters - I highly doubt you won't use your other characters.

[J.T.]

34 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Considering how many Triumphs are linked to doing something with all three characters - I highly doubt you won't use your other characters.

Eh.  There are no new achievements involved with getting Triumphs with all three characters and it is highly likely that I can eventually complete a Triumph Seal without using my Warlock or my Titan.

[RIPPA]

If the goal is to just get a Seal - then I totally get it.

Like the ones that require me to coordinate with two other people to play the same exact class as me - yeah those aren't getting done (not to mention anything Raid related)

[J.T.]

31 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

If the goal is to just get a Seal - then I totally get it.

Yep. that's the ultimate goal.   The Lore seal could prove to be the easiest to get or the most frustrating depending on how much wandering it will take to gather the fetchits.

One day I need to fake a migraine so that I can hit up Esoterickk's YouTube channel and chase down all of these Dead Ghosts for the Ghost Stories lorebook.

The lore in the Man Called Cayde-6 lorebook is RNG once you complete the Ace of Spades quest.  Eventually I will complete that lorebook once I open enough loot chests.

Cracking the code to get entries in the Varicks / Most Loyal lorebook is proving to be baffling.  I think it is tied to PEs and other activities you complete in the Tangled Shore and admittedly, I don't spend a lot of time piddling around there unless I am in need of Ghost Fragments to pay for Spider's bounties.

I should probably do more of Spider's bounties so that I can try to unlock the Rare drop for my Baron Kill Count emblem.

The lorebook that requires you to find Ahamkara bones is going to be a pain in the ass since some of the collection widgits are located in the Ascendant Realm.

[J.T.]

Hey!  Today's Daily Challenge is to complete a Gambit match! 

Watch me rage uncontrollably when I get Armor that is shard fodder or a Hazard of the Cast with a horrible roll as my Powerful Reward!

[Eivion]

6 hours ago, J.T. said:

I am going to try to hit up LFG tonight to see if I can get into a group that is farming the Warden's Law hand cannon from the Warden of Nothing Nightfall Strike.  I probably won't get into one since I am not quite 570 so I may have to post an LFG myself and coax a couple of idiots into helping me get one. It doesn't bother me that much that I probably won't be able to find a group, since most dummies are running Solar Singe so that they can spam Sleepers and Whispers?  Unless they are deadly accurate and have plenty of purple to spare, the Warden Servitor is going to melt the entire fireteam with it's Radiance AOE if they have Solar Singe active.

How dare you insult me for completely forgetting the Servitor uses solar attacks. Yeah, I totally forgot about that. I usually have solar singe running just because my current main class is solar. I actually two-manned it with an LFG random this morning. Hilariously enough we did die the first time, but it had nothing to do with the boss and more the should be fodder. Second time we made it to him we did absolutely melted him with heavy weaponry and supers before he could even do his first teleport.

[J.T.]

17 hours ago, Eivion said:

How dare you insult me for completely forgetting the Servitor uses solar attacks. Yeah, I totally forgot about that. I usually have solar singe running just because my current main class is solar. I actually two-manned it with an LFG random this morning. Hilariously enough we did die the first time, but it had nothing to do with the boss and more the should be fodder.

Oh, it definitely works if you have a fireteam that is on point, but it can also go horribly awry if you don't engage quickly and have a good gameplan.

I remember when I was on a fireteam where the leader insisted on doing Strange Terrain with Solar Singe / Heavyweight because he had a Whisper and we had Sleepers.  Nokris always melted us during Stage 3 where he got to wander around and throw fireballs indiscriminately.

I also know that the devs softened The Pyramidion because The Genesis Mind was able to one shot anyone with his giant Trace Rifle if Solar Singe was active.

As for my own pre-IB gameplay last night.

• Fuck.  I only managed to pull two wins out of Supremacy yesterday, so I am 12 wins away from the Triumph.  My DARPA homie, Dylan, hates playing Supremacy for some reason so we hit the Quickplay queue with Jake, but Quickplay was extra sweaty last night with players trying to knock out the Weekly Crucible Challenge at the last minute.  I sucked in our Quickplay matches, but then I turned into a god of death when Dylan relented and we played a match the Supremacy queue just before he logged for the night.  Shaxx still refuses to upgrade my Valor emblem.
• Dylan, Jake & I successfully completed the Ascendant Challenge.  it nearly took us all of our Tincture time, but we got it done.  If there is a Triumph associated with speed running those things (I'm sure there is...), I will never unlock it.
• I got another Purification Ritual for beating the AC.  All I have to do is complete the Corrupted strike while Ascended.  There has to be a catch, because that seems too easy.  Tincture buffs last for 20 minutes and a fireteam would have to go blind to take longer than that to beat that scenario, much less a Heroic Strike in general.
• After we completed the AC,, we hit the Blind Well for a bit, but we never got any rando blueberries good enough to beat Tier III.  The Riven lore page unlocked for me, so I was happy with that.  More Blind Well for me after Hard Reset today to keep that Dreaming City lore rolling in.  I think I have three more pages to go in that particular lore book.
• I decided to farm some Ghost Fragments this morning in advance of Hard Reset just in case Spider's Premium Bounty of the Week is something other than the fucking Gravetide Summoner.  The Riskrunner catalyst is now up to 20% for Enemy Kills and about 33% for Kills With Arc Generator active.  I really should keep the Riskrunner leveled up for when I run Nightfalls with Arc Singe active, but I think my Queenbreaker will be my preferred Exotic Weapon when that happens.

[RIPPA]

I am trying to decide if I am starting to see a trend in Gambit or not

I have run into this a lot over the last few days but basically one team purposely waits till the other team spawns the PE THEN drops at least two Large Blockers. Their invasion portal is up so one guy constantly invading so it is utter chaos on the team "leading"

Then they trigger their own PE just pick it off in relative peace. (Usually because the "leading" team can't organize enough to send an invader back across to stall)

I mean it is a little dicey as it doesn't always work but I definitely lost my last two Gambit matches due to this strategy. (Now both were super close - in fact we lost one round that I swear was more a tie since our PE died before I got the notice that the other side won)

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, RIPPA said:

I have run into this a lot over the last few days but basically one team purposely waits till the other team spawns the PE THEN drops at least two Large Blockers. Their invasion portal is up so one guy constantly invading so it is utter chaos on the team "leading"

Then they trigger their own PE just pick it off in relative peace. (Usually because the "leading" team can't organize enough to send an invader back across to stall)

I mean it is a little dicey as it doesn't always work but I definitely lost my last two Gambit matches due to this strategy. (Now both were super close - in fact we lost one round that I swear was more a tie since our PE died before I got the notice that the other side won)

A proactive team can beat that strategy because they will be smart enough to invade early in the round to go and kack any mote hoarders on the other team. 

These are the players who know what the fuck the Gambit HUD is trying to tell you.

Of course, this defense is only viable if you don't have an asshole on your side that needlessly activates your Invasion Portal the minute it becomes active. 

This sometimes tends to be the player on your team that doesn't get any invasion kills when he goes in.

[J.T.]

Thinking about my previous post got me to thinking......

Why is it in PvP that it always MY team that seems to get lion's share of the AFKs, retards, and quitters?