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@notblonded @huh-gerin @fionnafree-blog @soulessgamer562 @danny-olvera @aloraclaire @kaykay221335 @gotherealaidanworld-blog 

Ray-Ban Sunglasses

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@notblonded @huh-gerin @fionnafree-blog @soulessgamer562 @danny-olvera @aloraclaire @kaykay221335 @gotherealaidanworld-blog 

Ray-Ban Sunglasses

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Nerfed Hand Cannons

Destiny 2's PvP meta has long been dominated by Luna's Howl and Not Forgotten, the pinnacle Crucible hand cannons available from Shaxx. In an effort to make other weapons more relevant, Bungie announced it's heavily nerfing both guns in the Season of Opulence which starts in June. The nerf is two-fold. Most importantly, both Luna's Howl and Not Forgotten will have their rate-of-fire reduced from 180 to 150. However, they will still be precision-class hand cannons - the only 150 RPM precision hand cannons in the game. This will dramatically lower their time-to-kill without removing their smooth recoil and sharp in-air accuracy.Additionally, the unique perk Magnificent Howl - which is the main reason these guns are so strong - is being adjusted. Currently, this perk dramatically strengthens your next shot whenever you rapidly land two consecutive headshots. As you can imagine, this perk can lead to exceedingly fast kills as long as you land all of your shots, especially on 180 RPM hand cannons which usually take four headshots to kill. However, after the nerf, Magnificent Howl will only boost body-shot damage. In other words, the optimal time-to-kill with these guns will now be two headshots and a body-shot finisher. "After significant amounts of feedback, internal discussion, and playtesting, we’ve decided to adjust how these hand cannons work," Bungie said. "For some players, these weapons can represent a significant investment of time and the personal improvement needed to acquire them. When tuning, we attempt to take into account the time commitment players make to acquire weapons and balance that against how those weapons affect the different game modes." "The team has been hard at work on these changes, ensuring the weapons are still viable (and heavy hitters) in the sandbox," community manager dmg04 said on Twitter. "Coming from playtests, they still feel to be the 'pinnacle' legendary hand cannons of D2."

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Thanks

The latest Destiny 2 patch notes acknowledged that Hunter's Spectral Blades Super is "out of bounds" and assured players that nerfs are on the way. In a recent blog post, Bungie detailed how those nerfs are shaping up, and they look promising.

"As you’re all aware, Spectral Blades has been running amok in the Crucible," the Destiny 2 sandbox team wrote. "The two main issues are the length of the Super, especially combined with Gwisin Vest, and the survivability of the player while it is active."

An upcoming update will reduce Spectral Blades' damage reduction from 60% to 52% when out of stealth mode, and from 62% to 54.4% while in stealth mode. It's a wonder it was ever granted such massive damage reduction - the highest of any roaming Super, Bungie said - given its mobility, so it's nice to see it getting toned down. This change should make interactions between Spectral Blades and other Supers much fairer, and will hopefully make team-shotting a Spectral Blades user more feasible.

"This change reduces Spectral Blades to have the lowest [damage reduction] of all the roaming Supers while stealth is not active and to be in line with the low end while stealth is active," Bungie explained. "With stealth, vision through walls, and fast, shifty movement, this Super ability actually has a lot of built-in survivability. This means a lower [damage reduction] will demand better planning and positioning to survive for multiple kills, which lines up well with the fantasy of the path."

Additionally, the base duration of Spectral Blades is getting nerfed from 17.5 seconds to 14.5 seconds. The in-stealth duration, meanwhile, will be decreased from 26.6 seconds to 23.5 seconds. Finally, to further temper the Super's duration and reign in its spammable attacks, the cost of Spectral Blades' light melee attack is being increased by 50%. Bungie said that while this increase "may seem like a lot on paper, previously it was almost nothing."

"Now you need to think just a little bit before spamming away. We didn’t want to make it cost too much, as it’s the only way to chase people down, but it did need to have at least a small visible cost to make it more of a choice."

As for Gwisin Vest, an Exotic chest piece which can greatly extend the length of Spectral Blades when used properly, Bungie says it's "looking at Gwisin Vest now and playing with some changes. We also want to see how these initial changes go. If we decide to change Gwisin, you will see it in Season 7."

Spectral Blades is strong for many reasons - ahem, invisibility and wall hacks - but its most obnoxious traits are its excessive armor and absurd duration. Shotguns and snipers don't phase it, most roaming Supers can't beat it in a fair fight, and it's definitely the worst offender when it comes to Super spawn killing. If all goes well, these changes will even out those outliers without killing the Super outright, like what previously happened with Warlock's Nova Warp (which has since been re-buffed). Bungie didn't say when exactly these changes will arrive, but let's hope it's sooner rather than later.

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Revelry

Destiny 2's spring Revelry event is due to start on April 16 and run through to May 6. As well as giving the Tower a luminous makeover, there will be a new activity and new gear and guns to win.Verdant Forest is a lot like the Haunted Forest event, but with more blossom. You fight through as many rooms as you can, facing off against bosses to full up your 'Reveler's Tonic' and drop event armour pieces.The Tonic is a special event item that can reduce cooldowns on grenades, melee, or class ability. Wearing pieces of Reveler armour increases the potency of the buff. The buff works in all Destiny activities except private matches. Yep, that applies to Crucible PvP too. You can also earn armour pieces from Eva bounties.There's a new gun to earn as well. You can earn the Arbalest Exotic Kinetic Fusion rifle by completing Triumphs and giving spare Reveler's Essence to Eva.Cosmetic Bright Engrams will drop at twice the rate for the duration of the Revelry, and you can check out what they look like on the Bungie site.

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Xur.

Xur, Agent of the Nine, has returned to the solar system in Destiny 2 for another weekend. That means he's brought another crop of Exotic weapons and armor to help fill out your collection. Xur can now sell Exotics from the Forsaken expansion thanks to a recent update, but his inventory is random--and this week, there are no Forsaken Exotics in Xur's haul. You can still grab an Invitation of the Nine, though, which offers new story info and Powerful gear.

You can find Xur hanging out in the Tower, near the back of the Hangar on a catwalk. From the entrance to the area, hang a left and walk toward the drop-off, then up the nearby stairs. Xur's weapon offering is Sunshot, a powerful Solar hand cannon that fires rounds that explode. Anybody damaged by the gun or the resulting explosions gets marked, making it a pretty handy weapon for both the Crucible and fighting around the solar system.

As for armor, you won't find any Year Two Exotics among Xur's inventory, but there are solid options if you need to fill out your collection. Hunters can snag Foetracer, an Exotic helmet that marks any enemies you target, allowing you to see their movements on the battlefield even behind cover. You'll also deal additional damage to enemies who you've marked if they're already low health--making it great for finishing people off in the Crucible. Warlocks can pick up Sunbracers, a set of gauntlets that increase your Solar grenade duration and give you Solar grenade energy when you make Solar melee kills. For Titans, there's the Helm of Saint-14, a helmet that blinds enemies who pass through your Ward of Dawn Super and nearby enemies when you guard with your Sentinel shield. Meanwhile, any allies who pass through your Ward of Dawn get an overshield.

Here are all the Exotics Xur offers this week and what they'll cost:

Sunshot (Exotic hand cannon) -- 29 Legendary Shards

Helm of Saint-14 (Exotic Titan helmet) -- 23 Legendary Shards

Foetracer (Exotic Hunter helmet) -- 23 Legendary Shards

Sunbracers (Exotic Warlock gauntlets) -- 23 Legendary Shards

You can also buy a Fated Engram if you can afford it. Dropping 97 Legendary Shards on the item will grant you one Year One Exotic you don't already have for that character. Xur also offers the Five of Swords challenge card for free, which allows you to add difficulty modifiers that increase your score in Nightfall runs.

As has been the case for a couple weeks now, Xur also offers an Invitation of the Nine, a special weekly bounty that gives you a Powerful gear reward and new lore about the enigmatic entities known as the Nine. You'll need to go to the EDZ on Earth to complete it--shoot Cabal, Fallen and Taken enemies there to gain Samples drops from each one, and complete the Lake of Shadows Strike. It's easiest to get the Fallen and Cabal Samples from Public Events, while the Taken ones you're likely to acquire from the Strike itself. Once you've finished the Invitation's steps, head up to the Drifter's Haul location in the Gambit menu for a new scene and your reward.

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The Invitation.

This week in destiny, we got to see Xur (as per usual) this Friday and will until reset. He isn’t selling anything all that special. Specifically, he is selling the Crimson burst Handcannon, Orpheus Rig Hunter Legs, Wormgod Caress Titan Gauntlets, and the Chromatic Fire Warlock Breastplate. But players noticed something special. That was a Bounty titled ‘The World’, Costing only nine legendary shards. 

To complete the bounty, players are required to complete a strike, kill Cabal, kill Fallen, and kill Taken in the EDZ (European Dead Zone). Do note that from killing each mob, you will be rewarded within RNG items for each type. You will need to gather enough of these items until the bar reaches 100. It should take a total of 30 minutes at most and that's if RNG isn’t on your side. It isn’t too bad to complete. 

There won’t be any other parts to actually complete this bounty except for opening the Gambit Directory and clicking on the special event listed. After doing that, you will then be transported to “The Emissary of the Nine” and a giant version of her seen prior only in that of the “Trials of the Nine” flawless achievement. Once going up to her, you will see it is required to hold whichever button it is on the console you are on to view a special Cutscene.

Once holding down the button and then being able to view the cutscene, you are now witnessing something rather interesting and spectacular. As well as unique dialogue from the emissary. In the Cutscene, you see the Drifters ship and then it cuts to the inside where you see the Drifter and a Guardian (that everyone was arguing about who it was about online, which by the way it ended up only being a Shadow of Yor) playing guards. Harsh words are traded as the Drifter used to be affiliated with the Shadows. Then the guardian pulls a gun on the drifter, and just when it seems it is all over for the drifter. He has a trick up his sleeve... Literally! and he pulls a mote that we see from gambit and summons a taken captain to subdue the Guardian who attempted to take his life. After this, the Captain we see turns on the Drifter and is then saved by the Emissary of the Nine and she says the Drifter proved himself worthy and he is to accept a gift. after this, it cuts to dead space and we see the drifters ship with the Giant ball put at the end of the Drifters ship as we are used to seeing it. Here it is below :). 

I honestly love this and I am pretty sure that we will see more cutscenes like this every time Xur comes back. I really liked seeing this also as it gave us a bit more into the secret life of the Drifter and a bit on who he is. Anyways, I’ll see you guys next week!

#destiny 2 #drifter #taken #the nine

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Hmm.

Destiny 2’s Season of the Drifter launched this past week, introducing Gambit Prime and The Reckoning, one spin on an old activity, one completely new. The power cap has been raised, and I’ve been crawling my way toward 700 all week, no thanks to bugged powerful engrams dropping too low, and also I’m playing the new activities.

Something…feels off about the entire concept of Season of the Drifter and the way the content cycle works so far. Gambit Prime is a new take on Gambit that is one round with a modified Primeval phase. But the real draw is the addition of “roles” where when players get a full armor set for either the Reaper, Collector, Sentry or Invader role, they get special bonuses pertaining to that role like weakening powerful enemies as Reaper or the ability to summon a 20 mote blocker as Collector.

But the way to get those sets is…strange. The idea is to do The Reckoning, deposit currency you get from Gambit Prime, complete the mode and get armor drops for Prime. Do this enough and you’ll get a full set eventually.

This process is filled with clutter and armor that is turning out to be almost entirely useless, however. There is not just one set of armor that lets you pick your role, there are four sets of armor for each role, for each class, even though they are visually identical minus changing the decorative snake color. That might be fine on its own, but Season of the Drifter has also revealed that there are three tiers of armor. The bottom tier might get you a single Gambit Prime perk if you have a full set. The second tier of armor, now live after Tier 2 of The Reckoning appeared yesterday, may get you 2-3 perks. But obviously, the end goal is the final set where a full collection will get you all four perks for a role, or you can mix and match a few perks from other sets if you want.

I don’t really understand why Bungie has designed this system to create two tiers of armor that are fundamentally going to be useless after what, two weeks once Tier 3 launches? I get that maybe it was an intro to a few perks with the rest to follow, but I don’t understand why you would bother wasting Synth currency on these bottom-to-mid tier sets when you’re clearly going to need a lot of it when it takes three synths and a Tier 3 clear to get one piece of final-stage Prime armor. Like Tier 2 launched yesterday, I tried to beat it a few times, failed with randoms, and then…stopped. Why do I care about beating it now? What’s the point of farming Tier 2 armor when Tier 3 will be here soon?

Furthermore, because of the way The Reckoning works, where you can pick what tier you want to play, this feels like it’s going to make Tiers 1 and 2 pointless in a few weeks, as why would anyone ever run anything but Tier 3 if they’re trying to farm for the only armor that matters? Granted, there’s still stuff to come in this season that we don’t know about, and I have a hunch that the Invitations of the Nine will probably require different Tier runs, but it sure seems weird right now. Also, there are new guns to pursue, but I'm still not clear on how to even get them minus curated rolls for a few based on certain achievements in Prime/The Reckoning. Ranking up in Gambit and bounties are still giving old gear, from what I can tell. I haven't seen a new gun as an end of match reward in Prime yet either.

Finally, past all of this, I fundamentally think it’s weird that the entire endgame pursuit of this content drop is…to get one set of armor for one specific activity. I am still not even convinced that Gambit Prime is better than regular Gambit, especially with the new sudden death final round changes in the other mode. Gambit Prime’s Primeval phase is a slog, even if you do know the “proper” strategies to do it. And it’s a mode that seems like it’s going to be fully dominated by pre-made teams in specific roles soon enough, more so than Crucible or regular Gambit. I do find myself wishing that the Prime armor perks also worked in regular Gambit, as it would give them more purpose than just being used in one modified version of one single activity in the game. Because if Prime isn’t for you, there seems to be little point to this entire DLC as of yet.

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Season of the Drifter

Bungie just revealed Destiny 2: Season of the Drifter and released a development roadmap alongside it. The roadmap details the next 90 days of planned content for Destiny 2.

Starting on March 5, Annual Pass owners can try out the new modes: Gambit Prime — a more focused, class-based version of Gambit — and “The Reckoning” — a four-player matchmade event like Court of Oryx or Blind Well seen in previous installments to the franchise or really just a horde mode. Three days after launch, “The Reckoning’s” second difficulty tier becomes available. Gambit Prime will only launch with one map — New Arcadia on Mars. A week later on March 12, Gambit Prime will get its second map — Deep Six on Titan.

^Gambit Prime Gear.

Also on March 12, players embark on two quests. The first is to reclaim Thorn, the legendary hand cannon from Destiny that poisons players with a damage-over-time bullet like thorns. The second is for Annual Pass holders only, forcing them to choose a side between The Vanguard and The Drifter. This choice is character-based, so players can see both sides if they have multiple characters.

On Friday, March 15, Destiny 2 will get a new quest from Xur. For the next nine weeks, a lore-packed quest will teach players about the mysterious Nine and their place in Destiny’s universe. The Reckoning Tier 3 will also release on March 15.

The Legion’s Folly map on Nessus will become available in Gambit Prime on March 19, with the EDZ map Emerald Coast coming a week later on March 26. All maps will be playable in Gambit Prime on April 2, and Bungie will add Gambit Prime to private matches.

On April 9, all players can experience an event called Arc Week, though Bungie hasn’t revealed any details about this event yet. The new springtime holiday event, The Revelry, starts the following week and runs from April 16 to May 6.

^Revelry Armor for Titan and Warlock

More details about all of these events will become clear in the following weeks and months. Season of the Drifter starts and will have at least something for all Destiny 2 players, on March 5. Hope you enjoyed and I will see you next week.

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Shotguns, Season of the Drifter, & More

Bungie announced some big changes coming to Destiny 2 in Season of the Drifter. Gambit will be seeing some interesting changes, but the most updates are coming to some of the game’s guns (mainly shotguns). Shotguns have been a cornerstone of players’ load-outs since the original Destiny with a brief hiatus in Destiny 2’s first year. On March 5, they’ll see some significant changes. In all PvE activities, shotguns will now deal double damage (except the exotic heavy shotgun, Legend of Acrius). Yet, the rate of fire or how many rounds they fire per minute of the most popular shotguns will see a change in the rate of fire for shotgun types.

Shotguns with Full Auto will now only see an increase of 10 percent bonus firing rate, down from 100 percent. The firing rates of other shotguns are being adjusted as well. Aggressive shotguns are up from 45 RPM to 55 RPM. Precision shotguns are up from 55 RPM to 70 RPM. Lightweight framed shotguns are now a whopping 80 RPM but are still small compared to their previously classified as 90 RPM. Rapid-fire shotguns are down to 140 RPM from 200 RPM.

Shotguns have had their base damage decreased in some cases to compensate for the losses. But Bungie’s goal isn’t to cut or nerf shotguns from the meta. Bungie stated that the goal for these changes is to create more viable shotguns in PvE play as there is a problem within the game that you will soon hear about.

Before it was practically impossible to take anything other than a rapid-fire frame shotgun like the IKELOS SH or the Threat Detector into a PvE activity because of their insane rate of fire.  This works because the faster the weapon is fire fired, the more damage per second the weapon will put out. This leads to very fast kill times with certain enemies in the game, specifically raid and strike bosses.

 Bungie is also adjusting linear fusion rifles in Season of the Drifter. All linear fusions will get a 10 percent increase in damage in PvE. However, the most popular linear fusion in PvP and Gambit, the exotic Queensbreaker, is having its aim assist adjusted to be more in line with other linear fusion rifles. This should make it much harder to use, making the gun more skill-based, as of now the reticle doesnt need to be on the enemie and the weapon can still manage to hit it.

The popular Titan exotic One-eyed Mask is also getting a change next season. The Mark of Vengeance, which highlights a player when they attack the wearer will now only last eight seconds instead of 15. Bungie is adjusting the health refill on a kill as well. Instead of instantly refilling player health, a player’s health (as well as their over-shield) will refill over time. This means a Titan that wins a fight with One-eyed Mask won’t be able to instantly re-engage without healing. One-eyed’s healing perk will also no longer trigger at all when players are in their Super.

Thanks for reading this week's blog! Hopefully, the changes we will be seeing will catastrophically destroy some experiences that players have. I will say though I am confident in Bungie and what is to come. I will see you next week.

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Crimson Days Event

 The Crimson Days February event has been going on since the first installment to the Destiny Franchise. The event always brings new cosmetics for weapons and armor but also a fun limited Crucible event called “Crimson Doubles” which if you didn’t pick up from the name is a Duo game type in the Crucible that has slight hints of competitive feelings. 

To my competitive partner's dismay, I take the game very seriously and often drag along my clan mates into doing cringy or embarrassing things. For example...

Anyways, this year the Crimson event has a bit of a twist to it and that would be the introduction to a currency-like object that you can obtain from Crimson bounties that Lord Shaxx sells for a small amount of glimmer or by winning Crimson Doubles matches. The items that can be bought with this currency are mainly cosmetic such as a decent looking Wardcliff Coil weapon ornament, emotes, and shaders. But there is also something else that caught the eye of many players from the trailer for the Crimson Days event, and that is the Vow Legendary Bow.

^the vow gameplay from the trailer

This bow comes with some decent perks, these perks being: Lightweight Frame, Polymer String, Natural Fletching, Rapid Hit, and Archers Tempo. The bow also comes with a fully upgraded masterwork which is a great way to farm or get enhancement cores if you can obtain many of this bow. This is actually the first bow that non-forsaken game owners can obtain which is cool, but sadly the bow is considered very mediocre if that. My experience with it was eh. It is not as good as most “Arsenic Bite’s” and Subtle Calamity’s” you can pull but if you find yourself to have terrible RNG then this is the bow for you. 

My experiences so far in the Crimson Doubles game mode has actually been pretty good. I find it to be very fun and sometimes challenging which always makes for great practice but also a great way to find out your close friend's Crucible partners play tactics. The environment is a little different as it gives you generally smaller maps to play in and only focusing on having to worry about two enemies definitely opens up the range of weapons you can work with making snipers a very viable option for this mode. Thankfully my Crimson partner and I were very familiar with one another's play and combat styles. This led to us destroying almost every team we faced only losing a total of like three games out of the total we have played throughout the week and weekend. Now it is like the competitive mode in the sense where you will run into the team of “try hards” and it will be upsetting but it is what it is.

^My Titan on the Left and Crimson Partners HUnter on Right.

Thanks for reading this week's blog, stay tuned for next weeks which may cover patch notes and the future of the crucible, more specifically the Trials.

#desitny 2 #crimson #titans #hunters #warlocks #crucible #valentinesday

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Why Titans are the Best Destiny 2 Class @huh-gerin

This post is not going to be beating down on the other classes but more of a complaining type blog, but I will give Titans credit every now and then. So if you are overly offended about anything that can be said about your class then leave.

Titans have always been semi-decent as a character type but never truly thrived until the release of the Forsaken expansion in my opinion. Prior to that, I would say Hunters had it the best considering that they had the Worm-Husk crown that was a really good exotic armor piece pre forsaken. Even now it is pretty viable considering my friend that un-ironically told me to do this topic went on a decent kill streak while using it earlier this week. 

Post-Forsaken, Titans received the very good “code of the missile” sub-class which is basically the death from above striker tree from the first installment of the Destiny franchise. Not only this, but Titans were also granted three very good exotics post-forsaken. These three being the very controversial “One Eyed Mask”, “Ursa Furiosa”, and the “Antaeus Ward”. All three are very competitive armor pieces that helped insanely in the crucible and PVE.  

Pre January 29th, the Warlocks were very close if not superior contenders, this was because of one main factor (but I will say warlock is still pretty close) this was because of nova warp which was by far the best super in the game for PVP that lasted what seemed like forever and had the ability to one shot any other super from what seemed like an impossible range for it. This, as well as the combo of blink shotgun, makes them amazing.

After seeing that, one may think “How can Titans be at all able to contend”. Well, we have a few tricks up our sleeve which will make you hate us or are the reason why you hate us... Shoulder Charge and Suppressor Grenades. Shoulder Charge has been a thing since destiny one and has always been hated. This is because it is able to one shot melee opponents with full health in the Crucible (something no other melee ability can accomplish). But also because of the insane amount of tracking it has. For example, you can shoulder charge someone that is practically above you. Not only this, but shoulder charge can also now be found in all three subclasses.

Now onto suppressor grenade. The suppressor grenade is a grenade found in the Sentinel subclass, this grenade has the ability to prevent people from being able to jump, use their special melee ability, and throw grenades. But it also can do something else that is extremely annoying when being used against yourself. And that is it being able to take any guardian out of their super and keep them from using it if the guardian is hit by the explosion of the grenade. 

If a Titan is able to use the bottom tree Sentinel path, then they are able to Utilize the power of the Suppressor Grenade along with the shoulder charge often leading those who use it to an almost guaranteed victory. But there is something that makes Titans very good that is not so obvious (oh and if you didn’t catch on by now, the Sentinel is probably your best option for PVP as it has outstanding PVP and PVE capabilities). This not so obvious and “slept on” thing is the “Ward of Dawn” ability found on the top branch of the sentinel subclass. The ward of dawn feels much nicer to use than previous Destiny 2 uses of it. Especially if using the helm of saint 14. I am very often able to 1 shot melee enemies while in it, but this top branch of sentinel melee ability gives yourself and teammates all a formidable over shield after getting a melee kill. Not only this but when leaving the ward of dawn itself, you and all allies are granted an over-shield that proves to be very helpful in competitive situations. This and all the other reasons that were given are why I believe Titans are any players best option right now in the current state of the game.

#destiny 2 #Titans Hunters Warlocks Crucible

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Last Word Review and Update Review

An admired weapon returned in a big Destiny 2 update on Tuesday, the 29th of January. The great hand cannon of legend, The Last Word. It may be the fancy headline feature, and quietly nudge parts of the story along too, but the update’s also notable for a huge number of weapon reworks (as mentioned from what we knew was to come). Some abilities were toned down, some powered up, and some somehow made even worse, while entire classes of weapons have become more useful (Scouts and autos). It’s probably better for you yourself to look through the patch notes.

The Last Word is known within Destiny for being a monster in the first game, though I don’t play on  PC, I already knew that it was gonna mainly excel on that platform as the recoil handling on weapons is far better and that is the Last Words worst flaw. The lore behind the gun isn’t too complicated and has actually been covered in a previous blog of mine, In short, a big hero (Shin Malphur) used this revolver to hunt ‘Knights of Yor’ (guardians who practice the ways of the dark, and through plot armor we’re getting to play with it too.

First, to get the gun, you must complete The Draw. A quest-line involving grinding through various PvE and PvP challenges. I was able to grind that out in a single evening, and it’s capped with a short but sweet new mission set in a place that’s been woefully under-used so far. Visit the Drifter to start the quest. And you’ll need the season pass, as well.

It’s an interesting gun, a short-range and fast-firing revolver you can even fan-fire with whats virtually full-auto, with several perks encouraging firing from the hip rather down the sights. PvP modes are where it’s clearly supposed to live, occupying a mid-range between shotguns and bangier hand cannons, though I’ve not played with mine enough to have a sense of how good it is yet. I can tell you matches will not go as well as Bungie’s teaser trailer for the weapon played out. In terms of balance, I don’t know how to feel as I still outgun it with the Lunas howl and other weapons.

As far as reworks go, Golden Gun gets a huge damage boost against bosses, Blade Barrage is more consistent but weaker, Nova Bomb gets boosted, Nova Warp gets whacked, and all other supers get touches. Auto rifles, scout rifles, and rapid-fire sniper rifles deal more damage, Telesto is less monstrous in PvP, and… many things. Yet somehow One-Eyed Mask is still untouched (thankfully, yes I am a titan main). A few nice little touches are in too. The quest to get the previously touched in the earlier life of this pages posts, Whisper Of The Worm exotic sniper rifle is now available every day and through every Lost Oasis event, making it less elusive. Now the mystery has lifted a little, I’m glad more people will get to see one of the most interesting places in the game. Plus, Ballistics Logs to trade with Ada-1 aren’t wiped every week. And, most importantly out of everything covered today, the knife flip emote now loops endlessly.

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The Long Awaited Day: January 29th is Soon to Come.

January 29th has been highly anticipated by the community for many reasons, and if you are an active player of the game you may already know why. But here is a brief synopsis on what is supposed to be going down this Tuesday. Mainly and to many, most importantly, the reworks of many different weapon types. For example, scout rifles will be receiving a long-awaited buff as the state they are currently in isn't the best at all. Not only scout rifles, but auto rifles will be earning a buff as well, as certain exotic auto rifles which prior to this update have been very non-usable weapons are now speculated to be top-tier if not the best weapons in the weeks to come. Autorifles also had their time to shine at the beginning of Destiny 2 and as mentioned prior will be making a return a year after their initial demise.   As well as the bough to the exotic tracer rifles with an increase in magazine size as well as the nerf of the Wavesplitter which is considered the best weapon in the game, which is considered necessary due to the fact that since it is so good in the crucible, its only con was the fact that it had low ammo since it was a trace rifle. Now that the ammo crisis is being fixed, its only weakness would no longer remain. This, in turn, forced the developers to nerf the weapon. 

Another great thing about this update is it also brings the rework of many supers. This includes the nerf of novawarp and blade barrage. But this also will add the bough of practically every other super there is that isn’t really being used which is a LOT. A lot of people are happy to see the death of blade barrage and novawarp but with all these new supers being buffed, who’s to know which will become just as annoying or most probably, which will be much worse.  

Now lastly, we have the long anticipated, fan favorite weapon from the first game making a return, The Last Word. A new quest will be rewarded to guardians this Tuesday that upon completion will give the Last Word. I am excited to see the weapon back but am personally worried as I hope for the weapon to remain a top tier exotic, but I don't want it to become just another Luna’s Howl/Not Forgotten where it is just annoying and overpowered. I guess we will see on Tuesday when the quest is released. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this week's blog and I will catch you guys next week.

[dunkelpresley]

CRY FOR HELP (not actually)

I have been struggling with the appearance and path I should take for my Titan as that is my focused character and has been since the first game (with the exception of a weird Hunter phase I went through). 

^The left portrays a Hunter, the Middle a Titan, and the right a Warlock all in standard uniform.

What I hope to address is what a lot of people have been complaining about recently, and that is the lack of original or cool/good looking armor for the classes. What a lot of people have found that is great has multiple flaws. A lot of the cool looking armor is sold from the Eververse item shop meaning that once it leaves the shop, it can never be acquired again. Or also that the cool armor is primarily year one armor, and the problem with that is that all armor from the first year of Destiny 2 has no additional perks, or mods to go with it. While all the new armor has perks that can help with many things, such as finding ammunition, or helping with aim assist, while the old armor only provides a masterwork and a Mobility, Recovery, and Damage Income buff (which the new armor also has). Here is some year one armor and Eververse armor so you can see where I am coming from.

^Year One Dawning Event Eververse armor.

^Trials of the Nine Armor.

This is not to say that all the new armor is bland or boring, but a lot of what they have made in the past is very nice. Like don’t get me wrong all the new exotics and even some of the raid armor looks amazing. But take the Forsaken Crucible armor, it is rather bland or just dull. Or look at the Scourge of the Past raid armor compared to the Leviathan armor. Even then I don't have all that much of a problem with the armor as I do for when the Eververse armor looks outstanding and it can never be obtained again like this amazing Titan set.  

I do believe that most of the problem can be fixed, however, and it isn’t all that complicated. This solution is to have al old armor drop with newer perks when revisiting year one strikes or missions. That way they wouldn’t need to have to all the armor in collections changed and the players will need to earn the armor themselves. Thanks for reading this weeks blog, it is a little different than the usual as this is honestly opinionated.

#destiny 2

[dunkelpresley]

The Long Awaited weapons...

 Welcome back to the blog, this week I plan to talk about two weapons that the community has been waiting for. The two, of course, being the Izanagi’s Burden Sniper Rifle, and the Jotunn Fusion Rifle. The two weapons were teased since the launch of The Black Armory expansion, and believe me when I say that the community has been dying for these weapons. Both have been regarded as great weapons before they have even come out and with the release of the new Bergusia Forge; players are now getting their hands on these two weapons. I’ll start with the Izanagi’s Burden.

The hype centered around this weapon was insane, and rightfully so as the main feature of the weapon is that the cartridge eats all the rounds in the mag and turns it into one high damage dealing bullet. This led to a lot of fear that the weapon would be overpowered and abused (and to be fair it was advertised by the developers as a sniper that one shot body shots in PVP). The quest to get the weapon has been around for a while but the last step required the Bergusia Forge to complete. The forge is rather simple and like the others, the only problem is that the starting level is 650 (the max for this season). Sadly the weapon did not live to its expectations. That's not to say that the weapon is bad, it has great DPS and if you are able to get four shots in your magazine then it can do what promised. But that won't always be the case for you in the crucible. I haven't been able to get the weapon myself as my max power level is only 634, but I hope to get it soon as it has great potential for its high DPS (damage per second). Now, on to the next weapon...

This weapon was more “under-hyped” of the two new weapons. Unlike the Izanagi’s Burden, this weapon is obtained through RNG, so basically you have to get lucky after you finish the Bergusia Forge. When used in the crucible (PVP) this weapon can definitely be deadly as after being charged; it launches a tracking fireball that will one-shot almost any enemy, and did I forget to mention that the fireball launched from the weapon tracks? As well as the sniper, I yet to have this gun as well. But I do have friends that use the weapon and they do very well with it. It also looks very nice as well, as the weapon hangs over the user's forearm. In my personal opinion, out of the two, the Jotunn is better and definitely more reliable. This concludes my weekly blog, welcome back and thanks for tuning in!

[dunkelpresley]

Scourge of The Past

Once players enter the ruins, they will notice that the boss is contained under some rubble that players must break. To do this, Destiny 2 players will need to summon Tanks and destroy the rubble. Fireteams should break up into two groups of three, one for topside and one for the underground. Once players defeat the first giant Servitor, the electric wall will drop, allowing the underground team to head down. The topside team should remain up and kill adds to prevent them from getting underground, especially the shielded Shanks, as the underground team will have enough to deal with.

In the underground, there are three nodes that hold Phase Radiance: Continuous, Angular, and Parallel. This translates to Circle (Red), Triangle (Blue), and Square (White), respectively. Players should not switch Radiance once they have picked up one, as they need to have two of the same Radiance to spawn the tank. Players should also avoid running into another Radiance holder as it will damage both of them. There is a node in the underground that will display all three symbols and it should be avoided as it will cause an explosion that will wipe players. Use a strong weapon like Thunderlord to make short work of any Captains spawning below.

Once each player has collected a Radiance charge, topside players should take down another giant Servitor to respawn the Radiance nodes. Underground players will make another lap around to get another stack of the same Radiance so they will have two stacks each. Once this is done, taking down the large Servitor will allow the underground team to come topside and drop off the Radiance for the tank. All of the Fallen spawning in this encounter will make for easy Dawning ingredients.

Once the tanks spawn, players will use them to deal damage to the structure containing Insurrection Prime while avoiding the missile barrage. After 28 seconds, the tanks will start to detonate so players should abandon them and start the process over again. Hammer Strike will also work on the structure for extra damage. Players need to take down at least 25% of the boss health bar to reset the timer which is shown on the structure holding Insurrection Prime. If this is not done, it will cause a wipe

Once players have collected their loot from the first phase of the fight, a Berserker will spawn near where players entered the arena that must be killed to start the next phase of the fight. There are three roles in this fight: map reader, charge carrier, and shield breakers. Players need to deposit four charges to spawn a tank that will allow players to deal damage to this D.Va mech look-a-like. Shield breakers should be on the buildings near the boss to shoot his weak points when they are exposed, while the map reader should guide the charge carriers to the Berserkers with the red dot and then guide them to the proper terminals. Ikelos shotguns will make quick work of the Berserkers even after the nerf.

Players will need to be flexible and switch rolls as needed since players cannot carry a charge after they receive the Ionized debuff, so the map reader or one of the shield breakers may need to change with a charge carrier to make sure the charges get deposited. Once the Drake tank spawns, players will want to stack near the map and use the tank to cause the boss to lower its shield.  A Servitor will be exposed, which is where players will want to deal damage using a powerful weapon like Whisper of the Worm.

Periodically through the damage phase, the boss will emit a wave that will give each player two stacks of a Radiance buff (either Continuous, Angular, or Parallel). Players will want to avoid other players with different buffs as it will deal damage to them, and they should stack with another player who has the same Radiance to increase damage dealt to the boss, which can make three-manning the boss possible if players are lucky. Players should organize so that each Radiance buff has a specific spot to stand to avoid confusion and unnecessary team damage.

Players will continue dealing damage to the boss, and Warlocks should drop a Well of Radiance in the center of the team so they can dip in and out to heal. Once Insurrection Prime closes its chest, the process begins again. Unlike Riven from Last Wish, Insurrection Prime does have an Enrage timer so players will want to work quickly and efficiently to take down the boss for that sweet loot.