True Reviews, Updates and Common Sense Opinions
The new dungeon, Prophecy, was released at 5 pm PST yesterday, the first day of the new season in Destiny 2, Season of the Arrivals. I’ve put together easy to follow instructions on how to finish the encounter.
Continue reading “Prophecy Dungeon Guide (simplified) | Destiny 2: Season of the Arrivals”
Watch Bungie Destiny 2’s General Manager Mark Noseworthy and Game Director Luke Smith discuss the future of the Destiny franchise.
Continue reading “Destiny 2: Season of the Arrival, Beyond Light, and more”
Trailer alert!
Continue reading “Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy – Gameplay Trailer and Roadmap”
A big piece of playing any looter shooter involves optimizing your gear set to be most efficient in the game. In the Destiny universe, we have been grinding for gear since 2014. Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is no different. (Full Destiny 2: Shadowkeep review available here).
Continue reading “Easy guide to level up to 900 light, 920 light for raid | Destiny 2: Shadowkeep”
I made an interesting choice for this exotic questline. I started the quest on my hunter, but it’s account-wide which will come in handy later. It’s simple enough to start the quest.
Start the Quest/ Boons:
You’ll see a huge statue of Calus. When you approach him you’ll see four daily bounties that you need to pick up and complete in order to get purple Boons.
Go to Werner on Nessus and open the chest to the right of him. It will give you the Invitation exotic envelope in your pursuits and you’ll need to visit the Visage Tribute Hall by clicking on the icon on the Nessus map.
These boons will be turned back into this Calus statue in order to give you a discount for buying your tributes.
Your invitation bounty will turn into the Golden Hero bounty and prompt you to turn in tributes in order to make progress. You’ll need 18 in total to get the Bad Juju mission to open for you.
You’ll open up a door behind the statue and you’ll open up all of your tributes there.
Discounts:
Now, here is the discount workaround. If you only do 3 Visage bounties on each character, you’ll be able to get more than 4% discounts a day.
For instance, I did 3 on my hunter and 3 on my warlock. Please remember not to do more than 3 bounties per character per daily reset because you’ll get glimmer instead of your discount boon.
This is how you’ll be able to use fewer resources to fill up your tribute hall.
Once you have turned in 18 tributes, you’ll get a Pest Control message and then a Reality Shutters prompt you next to the chest in the middle of the tribute hall.
Once you click that, ‘The Other Side” adventure will be available at the chest with the Bad Juju’s Ahamkara’s skull in the case.
You can rally the flag once you start the mission.
This mission is based in the ascendant realm. You can solo it if you’d like. It’s not a timed encounter and you can always use your optimum loadout to melt majors in the encounter.
My loadout included Outbreak Prime, Calus Mini Tool Submachine Gun, and Bane of Sorrow Machine Gun. I ended up swapping my loadout around during the final part of the mission. I chose Blast Furnace, Beloved and 1K voices.
I played it slow at the end especially because of the axion darts and shriekers.
Once you finish the mission you’ll be able to open the chest and your Bad Juju is yours!
Yay!
Catalyst:
You need 45 tributes for the catalyst to be available for you. You can use the same method to earn your discount as before. It will save you time and resources. After the catalyst is available, you’ll pay 7 legendary shards to buy it from Calus statue.
Materials and Resources:
Here’s the thing, this mission can certainly feel punishing to the players that don’t store up resources. Players who don’t have a wealth of materials and resources to buy tributes outright will feel like they are left behind. The everyday player won’t feel the squeeze so much. Most likely because they have a wealth of materials to use without running out.
Glimmer will deplete very fast because the cost of the tributes is very high. But, it’s time to get used to this type of game in Destiny 2. As we phase into the MMO era of Destiny, it will be the player’s responsibility to predict the necessity of materials to make headway in the game.
I predict even the hardcore-est of players will feel the materials squeeze at some point during Shadowkeep.
Anyway. Good luck in your quest!
How excited am I about the new expansion for Destiny 2?
Very!
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is coming out September 17, 2019. I think I can speak for a lot of the Destiny community and say that hearing Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy talk about all of the changes Bungie has implemented as a result of separating from Activision was like breathing new air. They released a new ViDoc and Trailer for Destiny 2: Shadowkeep.
I personally tweeted that watching the ViDoc in the live-stream from Bungie felt like watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon. This is a very exciting time to be a Destiny fan, especially off the back of the Season of Opulence release this week.
Important notes from the stream:
Exciting mentions from the ViDoc include:
I think I saw Crota in the ViDoc as well. That’d be a great throwback!
Take a look at the ViDoc for yourself:
How much fun did I have yesterday with the new content in Destiny 2: Season of Opulence?
So much!
Bungie hit it out of the park with everything regarding the Season of Opulence, in my opinion.
Invitation:
You start off the season with an invitation from Emperor Calus to come back to the Leviathan. Before you can get on to the Leviathan you have to go through a series of tasks to acquire your Chalice of Opulence and allow you to enter The Menagerie.
You also open up new daily and weekly bounties from Benedict that will give you a treasure map to a chest. The chest rewards you with a powerful engram, a rune, and Imperial currency for your efforts.
I enjoyed running through Nessus getting the Invitation done. It didn’t take long, but it did require some thought as each step introduced a new mechanic of utilizing your Chalice.
Knowing how to work your Chalice of Opulence is key this season and as soon as you reach The Menagerie and opened the final chest, you’ll know why.
The Menagerie:
To me, each room in The Menagerie felt like an ode to the best encounters in the Destiny universe so far. Besides the obvious gauntlet room and cranium uses, which made an appearance in Destiny 2 year 1 in the Leviathan raid and the Eater of Worlds raid lair, I saw so many nods to endgame activities already in the game.
For instance, in one room, you need to use swords to take down Hive Knight shields.
Hey Crota!
In another room, you had to keep feeding your well to keep the shield up. I found it to be a nice upgrade to the Blind Well in the Dreaming City, which is already a great activity.
Then we fought an Atheon-like boss this week! With the added killer vex walls, it really made for a blood pumping encounter.
Leveling:
Yesterday, I ended my playing session at 712 power. I chose to play one character, my hunter. I ran The Menagerie twice, some Dreaming City activities, a Nightfall, three strikes, and Gambit. I completed all of the Benedict bounties, as well as Ikora’s weekly.
I would say leveling was fair. Sure, you need to do all of the activities available to you, but I think that worked out fine. To be at 712 power without pushing myself for the grind is a good thing. That is a balance that I very much appreciate.
Overall, I have a very positive impression of Season of Opulence. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in the rotation for next week and stepping into the raid this weekend.
Plus, I’m waiting on June 6th to find out the big announcement from Bungie about the future of Destiny 2!
Should you prepare for Season of Opulence? Good question!
Based on the trailer that just dropped, I’d think there is actually minimal preparation that you can do before the new season begins.
I understand top streamers have put together spreadsheets to maximize the amount of power you can gain in a short amount of time before the raid releases, but for some reason, I get the feeling Season of Opulence is not meant to punish players with hard and unbearable power grinds.
Is it possible that Season of Opulence is actually meant reward players for sticking with Bungie and the Destiny/ Destiny 2 franchise?
I watched the Destiny 2: Forsaken- Season of Opulence (trailer) that released earlier today and the wording in the trailer made it seem like power isn’t going to be an issue this time around.
We’ll be heading back to the Leviathan for treasure hunts, a 6 player activity, and a new raid. Minus the raid which always rewards with power items, it sounds like power items will be in abundance.
Before I saw the trailer, I decided that I would save up bounties and see if I could get the jump on a few weekly power bounties from Ikora, Petra, and Ada-1. Now after seeing the trailer, I don’t feel anxious about being able to gear up enough to join the raid day one.
But who’s to say? I could be wrong and come June 4th and we’ll all hit a power wall despite any preparation that we’ve tried to take.
To that, I ask…
Is not being completely overpowered on day one such a bad thing?
Ask me how many times I ran ‘Zero Hour’ before I finally found the perfect loadout combination, with the perfect amount of luck in the jumping puzzle, and the greatest optimism from my teammate.
Between May 8th and May 9th, it took 10 times to finish the Zero Hour and finally receive the Outbreak Perfected!
Loadout
I ran a Warlock because I knew I was going to be a mess if I tried to use my hunter. My loadout included top tree Nova Bomb, axion dart grenades (I contemplated switching to scattered but I didn’t), Skull of the Dire Ahamkara and strafe jump (the best decision I ever made for the jumping portion. It’s more controlled than any other Warlock jump).
I used Go figure (with Armor piercing rounds, hip-fire grip, and high-impact reserves), Arc Ikelos_SMG_v1.0.1, and One Thousand Voices (very helpful at the boss if you are lucky enough to have ammo).
My clan mates were both Titans. The only thing I know for certain one ran solar hammers with melting point and Whisper of the Worm (he did have the catalyst) and the other ran void shield with Arbalast.
Strategy
Initially, I used Riskrunner because of the Arc Shanks shields and a void Edgetransit, and sniper as a primary but I found myself running out of heavy ammo fast and that’s not good for the boss room. After I switched it up, I was still able to get rid of the arc shanks using Ikelos and I had to rely on my teammates or my grenade to break the void and solar shields.
My Nova Bomb focused on the servitors. If timed right, you can blow up the servitor and the shanks around it, get your super back because of Skull of the Dire Ahamkara, turn around and kill the next servitor and his shanks as well.
My teammate used Whisper of the Worm to post up and snipe the Walker Tanks that spawn after the servitors. In our case, after the Walkers neck opened he was able to get critical shots off while we used our sub-machine guns to shoot into the neck or clear ad mobs.
We did shoot the boss periodically throughout the encounter leaving him at half health by the time the final Walker was almost down. I used my Nova bomb and emptied One Thousand Voices into ton the boss, while the solar Titan used his hammers to clear ads/minions, and then the void Titan used shields to finish off the Walker tank.
We finished the encounter with seven seconds left.
It was satisfying.
Tr3-Vr tips:
In the Tr3-VR room, never leave a man behind. If one person gets left behind in the room, and the other two teammates go to the next elevator room, Tr3-VR will box the room off and will instant death the player left behind every time. In my experience, there is no way to get out of that room alone.
The best thing to do is split off going left and right to spread out the room and make Tr3-Vr chose which way to go.
Whoever is fastest could run alone. If two are running together and Tr3-Vr is coming, find a cubby hole in the wall. One person should stay out of the cubby, one person should stay in the cubby. Let Tr3-Vr satisfy its blood lust, DO NOT respawn, just wait for the revive.
If two people try to sit in a cubby, one will die and have to respawn because their ghost will get stuck up in the wall.
Worst case scenario, you need two people in the room to make it out alive.
Overall thoughts:
This mission was fun. My clan mates and I had a great time playing through it. After we beat it, we went in to figure out the Heroic mission course. We figured that out so we plan to finish that soon as well.
The Revelry event is about to end next Tuesday on May 7, 2019. During my first week playing, my clan mates gave me grief for actually wanting to explore the content. They were quickly bored of the Verdant Forest and didn’t want to grind to get the exotic linear fusion rifle, the Arbalest.
I understood their frustration. However, I wanted that fusion rifle so I ended up going solo with matchmaking to finish my triumphs and get my fusion rifle. Of course, they ended up grinding anyway because that’s what Destiny players do.
We ask for things to grind for, we get things to grind for, we complain about the grind and then we complete the grind. It’s the circle of our gameplay.
Honestly, the Verdant Forest was cool. I think Bungie did a great job reusing content that should have weighed more during the Curse of Osiris DLC last year. What made the Verdant Forest better than the Haunted Forest was its uncapped level system. Allowing players to go as long as they wanted.
It may have been more exciting if there were more than five bosses depending on how many levels you completed, but I won’t complain about semantics.
My favorite part of the Revelry has to but the tonics.
I enjoy spamming grenades on enemies in PVE. Who knew!
I didn’t really go into PVP because I just didn’t, but I ended up swapping between my hunter and my warlock during the PVE activities like Gambit and Reckoning. I had the most fun on my Warlock because using the axion bolt grenade is like a mini nova bomb. Plus with Skull of Dire Ahamkara paired with the top tree of the void subclass is just fun.
I was a walking, infinite nova bomb in every activity.
And I had fun.
-ABD
I have a question for you. If Bungie creates a horde-like unlimited mode in Destiny 2 would you…
I’m only asking because B and C are the most common things that I have run into while playing the Revelry Event. Not that there is anything wrong with speed running. It’s fun to test your fireteams limits. But, I have been getting mixed reviews.
I’ve played the Verdant Forest and my main objective was to optimize my clearing power while moving as fast as possible. But, I had a jarring experience with a teammate on Tuesday.
I logged in and hopped in a fireteam with my group. After running through 40 levels we ran out of time and warped to the 5 bosses. We went back to the tower, picked up bounties from Eva Levante and my friend literally says, “I’m tired of this mode already, let’s run strikes.”
Why can’t we have nice things?
You want to stop playing the new content and go back to playing the vanilla content that you complained about when there was no new content, and now that you have that new content you find old content better?
He wanted to stop because he didn’t want to grind for “no reason”.
It just started on Tuesday and trust me if it was bad, I wouldn’t lie about it. But, even if it’s not mobs and mobs of enemies attacking you in the re-imagined Infinite Forest, it’s still an activity with new triumphs attached.R
I recently wrote about Destiny being in a good place. I still believe that.
Opinion: Destiny 2 is in a great place
The content is literally 2 days old at the time of this writing and I just wish we could enjoy the content without the salt. Destiny 2 still has so many other activities to do. Plus, a new exotic to grind for. Why dog out the content? It’s meant to be an add-on to the other options available. Plus, it’s a free update and the Verdant (infinite) Forest is pretty close to an unlimited horde mode.
I am hoping for a genuine response. How do you feel about the Revelry Event?
I’m a long time Destiny player. I’ve enjoyed my time with this game. Through the ups and the interesting times, I played and so did many others. But now, Destiny 2 is in the best place it’s been since Taken King.
Sure, Cayde-6 had to die and pretty much every guardian you come across is Dredgen but, hey at least we’re having fun, right?
I remember the height of Destiny. Always the top of the Twitch directory, never a dull moment with the grind for over-powered but fun weapons, and a very creative community that always made their own fun.
Members of the community made full blown charity events in the process of enjoying the game!
However, as being a content creator becomes more and more accessible, the voice of the community seems to be trending to a toxic conversation. Rants about economy issues in the game are a mainstay, loot drop issues, and lack of reasons to grind.
But, I think Destiny 2 is actually in a great place in this post Forsaken world with the annual pass.
There is more to do in this game than ever before. As a player, we have a longer content loop. You can do strikes, you can grind the Dreaming City, run the Black Armory Forges, and now play out the new modes, Gambit Prime and Reckoning in Season of the Drifter. And let’s not forget we still have two viable raids available as well.
In my honest opinion, I don’t believe we are expected to do each loop for each piece of content. At least not for the average player.
There are times when I don’t get to every milestone before reset. But for those privileged to be able to grind the content daily and reach max power in two or three days, I have a question.
Do you realize the weight your voice holds?
Between using your platform and attending summits, you are speaking for the collective.
Would it be so terrible to admit that the seasonal content since Forsaken has actually added much needed depth to the game?
Random rolls are back, new loot to chase, titles to grind for, longer content loops to play, and materials to stack.
Isn’t that the name of the game?
Plus, the lore is getting really interesting in the game. Have you been able to read up on the Emissary?
Sure no game is perfect and no developer can make the entire player base happy all the time. But, I’m enjoying Bungie’s game. And perhaps focusing on those positives is why I think Destiny 2 is in a great place.
-ABD