Destiny Expansion I: The Dark Below Preview

I need to add Avolanty and soccerking to my friends list, will probably do so tonight.

So I finally had time to screw around with my Ice Breaker and I really like it (plus it sounds so freaking awesome). Regen time on the ammo is freaking fast too, fully understand why it's such a sought after weapon. Fully intend on using it to it's fullest (but I still need to get a better main hand, I like the hand cannon but I just feel so underpowered with it) and luckily with it I now have a sniper rifle of all damage types so I'm covered.

Ward of Dawn is probably the most effective for high level situations as Sunsinger really doesn't bring much the the plate other then the solar damage and their ability to self res (plus Song of Flame does decrease cooldowns for all fire team members when it's activated but it takes away the self res ability). I've looked at the tree fully as I'm leveling my Warlock as a sunsinger but really it's not that great (I do love their grenade types though). Honestly a Voidwalker is better to bring along for all high level encounters.

I love the invisibility crouch for the bladedancer class and the Ice Breaker is an amazingly effective weapon in the crucible. I tried some Iron Banner today and held my own no problem. Here is a highlight of some of my kill streaks:

And I had one round that I completely dominated in. I had a 7.0 kill / death ratio.

I played enough iron banner rounds to get to the first rank so I could get the shader and emblem. You only need to be on the winning team 4 times to get enough points.. but if you are on the loosing team you get no points towards the iron banner event. The bounties are ridiculous and I'm not even going to attempt them.

A few observations from my short time tonight.

I think the emblem buff is true... each emblem's hidden buff is very minimal though. Just doing the 2 moon mission bounties and patrol bounty garnered me 5 blue engram drops. I experianced this on a daily heroic with sledge yesterday as well. I've also gone through regular dry spells. The Cryptarch seems to give me more motes of light for blues than usual as well... again its not by much, so the theory is iffy. If you go to the reddit link from the original link I posted, someone posted break downs of the supposed chest loot one.... the gains were very small from field testing.

That being said. I'm convinced my luck with chests just comes from the time I've spent farming the planets. My grimoire has to be off the charts in the Cosmodrome due to my loot cave shenanigans. The Moon and Venus are about equal. I got 2 blue engrams, an 2 special ammo synthesis and helium filaments from a moon chest tonight. I've started saving the video clips to make a montage later.

Leveling up the Cryptarch yesterday finally gave me my first post patch postmaster legendary engram. It ended up being a Legendary Crucible Pulse Rifle called Fair and Square. Honestly I like how it handles better than Red Death.... if only it had that heal perk. I was going to scrap it once I got all the upgrades unlocked.... but now I'm thinking about keeping it for another character. Its a damn nice pulse rifle. It's bursts are faster than Red Death, and it has the high caliber rounds upgrade I like.

The bounties need more variety. Shrine of Oryx two days in a row is uncalled for.... on top of that, the 3 public events bounty carried over as well. These same missions get redundant. Experiance means little to me outside of motes of light. They should make ascended bounties that give out a chance at some material. I don't care if they are more time consuming. Kill 5000 enemies, Kill 3 or more with your super 500 times, revive 250 team mates.... something different for a reward that is worth it for higher level players.

I wish they'd give out new bounties we've never done before and not have them crucible related. After iron banner, salvage will be the next event and it's crucible also. I hope the expansion in December is good. I'll level up my armor when I see anyone else on so I can be set for trying the raid, but other than that I'll be playing some GW2 more often now.

the secret is out.

http://kotaku.com/great-destinys-auto-rifles-are-about-to-get-worse-1645922570

Well... now I want the MIDA Mutli-Tool more than anything else. The Loot Steps will be gone... and a huge nerf to the Vex Mythoclast

EDIT: http://www.vg247.com/2014/10/14/destiny-patch-vault-of-glass-templar-cheese-ps4-xbox-one/

This link describes how they got rid of an exploit on Vault of Glass.

I'm not too worried about the chest farming on venus.. that video was posted 3 weeks ago and Bungie hasn't changed it yet.

That is a massive nerf to the vex mythoclast. wow. The two primary exotics I want now is the MIDA Multi-tool, Hawkmoon and the Universal Remote.

The exploit being removed kinda sucks. You guys were wrecking ass with those Ice Breakers. I was walking towards the objectives completely unscathed. Hopefully there will still be a way to at least stand somewhere and take out all the harpies and others focus on the boss. I haven't watched the video, but I assume by the way it was described, that its like the Nexus where annoying Vex keep endlessly spawning while you try to attack the boss.

Ah, if thats the case then those sniper perches would have been ideal. Those Ice Breakers are monstrously destructive. It does about the same damage as The Supremacy, but the ammo regen is the biggest asset. With no need to go do an ammo run, there is no reason for me to ever approach an enemy's firing range. The only thing that was even posing a threat to us were the hobgoblins, but even with level 26 ones.. 2 shots and they were dead. We don't even have the damage fully upgraded or "enemies killed by this gun explode and damage nearby enemies" perk unlocked yet.

With two of you and then Avolanty and Myself with shields. We can make tactical fortresses for you to perch in. With all the orbs being created the shields should replenish fast. We just need a Warlock with self res for insurance.

Is there any perk that lets us shoot through the shield so we can stay safe while blasting the enemy? I've gotten used to peaking out of the shield, taking shots and then dipping back in and with the residual armor buff from exiting the shield which works out good, but if there was a way for us to shoot through the shield, we could take out hordes of enemies quick.

The weekly nightfall strike had enemies at level 28 and the enemies shields were so intense that nothing would break them except that exact element. I could be wrong, but I was blasting level 24-26 minotaurs with my Ice Breaker today and it was damaging them even though it was a solar element.. but at level 28, the ice breaker shots bounced right off them with the word "resist". I had to switch to my supremacy to hit them with void damage. This is also why I'd like to get the "Patience and Time" sniper rifle at some point because its arc damage. With that I'd have a full set of sniper rifles for all enemy types.

Not to mention it gives you active cloak when you ADS.

True.. It would work great with my other invisibility skills and buffs. But if it works like my other skills, then it'll decloak me as soon as I fire one shot. If it doesn't then it sounds pretty good to me. I'm going to try a new bladedancer build later. I'll set my super for invisibility when I hit R2, turn off my crouch cloak and turn on gain hit points with each bladedancer or blink strike hit.. with that I should be able to activate my super, turn invisible, run into a hoard of high level enemies to revive someone and/or attack the hell out of enemies while gaining hit points and taking damage.. once the super runs out, I'd melee attack one enemy to regain invisibility and run for my life. That setup might be the only way bladedancer could work good in higher levels.

The exploit being removed kinda sucks. You guys were wrecking ass with those Ice Breakers. I was walking towards the objectives completely unscathed. Hopefully there will still be a way to at least stand somewhere and take out all the harpies and others focus on the boss. I haven't watched the video, but I assume by the way it was described, that its like the Nexus where annoying Vex keep endlessly spawning while you try to attack the boss.

I'd compare it to Nexus on crack plus the boss enrages after 15-20 minutes so you don't have a lot of time to screw up on the fight which is why the freaking exploit was necessary for groups learning it. Made it so much easier plus I don't really consider it an exploit if you can easily get to that platform by jumping to it. I honestly can't fathom why Bungie keeps doing shit like this, they're going to run their fan base off if they keep patching shit that doesn't really need to be patched (while I don't agree with farming in this game there was no real reason to patch it, it's not like it really did anyone any real good past 24 since purple engram drops were still pretty damn rare). Though I really wanted the Ice Breaker I guess I didn't need to go to all that trouble now since we're going to have to slog through the Templar fight the old fashioned way.

Honestly my ideal set up for VoG would be 2 Titans, 2-3 Hunters, and 1-2 Warlocks depending on what we can get. 2 Hunters are pretty much necessary for the portal hopping during the Atheon fight since Golden Gun can make those portal trips so much easier and faster. 2 Defender specced Titans would be nice to have as those shields will really come in handy during both fights. The Warlock is mostly for the self-res just in case shit hits the fan. The sixth member could really be whatever we wanted which is why I said Hunter since our clan currently has 4 hunters as members so we most likely will have 3 on at the same time. My co-worker has a Warlock with his Sunsinger fully unlocked or close to it so we can bring him in when we decide to do it but sadly that means his brother will most likely be coming along (he's a Titan and also a co-worker) but we can work all that crap out when we actually decide to do it (which I'm on Vacation all week (till the 24th) so I'm up for it anytime this week, weekend, or next week).

Luckily I have sniper rifles of all damage types now so I don't really need another one (though I will gladly take Patience and Time if it was given to me). Sadly, as I said before, I really need to get my hands on a better primary weapon if I'm going to have Ice Breaker equipped since I won't be able to use my Monte Carlo with it equipped. As much as I'm liking hand cannons I just don't think they're as useful in VoG as a AR or a PR.

edit: Forgot to say this earlier but if you guys want to do stuff this week and I'm not on send me a text. I'll probably be playing during the day mostly but I'll get on in the evening to knock shit out with you guys (maybe get in a few more Tiger playlist strikes (need over 100 marks to get my AR from the Vanguard)).

Should we try doing the vault of glass this Friday evening? I've got tomorrow off because of an appt in the morning, other than that I'll probably get on destiny to rank up my weapons/armor for the raid. With 3 days notice maybe we'll have enough ppl?

Whatever works for you guys. The only day I have things planned for is Saturday so that's the only day I can't do it.

Friday is good for me.

FYI I reached FWC rank 4 and received my two legendary items.

1. Ascended Energy

2. Mote of Light

I wonder if that has been nerfed since the article came out about the faction. Its bullshit.

Playing destiny is like playing the lottery.

I think the crucible gets better random drops than pve now. I'll make a character, get it to level 20 so it can get exotic and legendary gear and use it for farming the crucible. I'll enter a match and play horribly. Within one afternoon I'd probably get a couple legendary auto rifles and maybe an exotic.

It takes a couple days to get to the next rank on factions... the least they could do is give you a usable legendary item... On top of that they need to even out the way it gives shards and energies. The shard roll rate is so low only because that's what helps you level up. The game is so bent on not giving you ascended shards I'll have 4-5 completely upgraded legendary/exotics before I even hit 28.

Oh well. I have 24 strange coins now, So I'll see what Xur has this week.

Its like Bungie is scared of loosing their hard core players because they might reach the level cap and then start complaining about having nothing to do... They must be keeping the drop rate for shards so damn low that everyone has to play for 200 hours to actually level up enough to enjoy the vault of glass.. it works for bungie because it keeps ppl playing the match made strikes and crucible.. If they had a quick drop off of players, they'd get even more complaints from ppl not being able to enjoy the game because of the lack of players. They need to add some new strikes, new explorable areas or at least put some match making on the raid so we can actually do it in our free time, because the same bounties over and over again just in the hopes of getting a random legendary is a bit aggravating. Thats why I'd like to try that raid.. I'm wondering just how leveled up do we need to be to accomplish it.. are we good now, or do we have to spend another month farming shards to increase our defense..

I'd keep playing raids for the marks.... but it would be nice to have more vendors. After my next purchase from Xur I will be saving my strange coins and motes of light from here on out. The first DLC drop says it will have new legendary and exotic weapons. I want to get my hands on new stuff as soon as it is out.

I'm finally up to level 27. After 1 more upgrade I'll be stuck at this level until I get more shards.

Nice and welcome to my world. I'm stuck at 28 until I get my hands on 36 more shards to fully upgrade my boots and gauntlets. Them damn shards are just so hard to come by.

I'll have to try out the new scout rifle I got tomorrow. But I read about two legendary guns that are far better.. and they are from the Vault of Glass.

Probably the best legendary assault rifle in the game, it has void damage too.

http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Atheon%27s_Epilogue

And probably the best legendary scout rifle in the game.. it has solar damage, and 2 buffs that make it beastly.. full auto and 'extremely low recoil'

http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Vision_of_Confluence

Yea I'd like to get my hands on both, very nice weapons and I see a lot of people running around with them.

Just to let you and DX know I threw a post up in the Clan forum about Vault of Glass. All it's about is seeing what days and time people can play so we can see if we can coordinate an attempt at it soon. I'm in no real rush to get through it but sadly I'm finding myself getting bored with the game and if that keeps up I'll most likely be quitting until December when the first expansion hits (plus I've been away from FFXIV for three weeks and it's about time I get back on that, as I said before I'm sure my Free Company (guild) is wondering where the hell I'm at). Head on over and give it a read and post your available times so we can work something out. Hopefully the others will see it.