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    Destiny Tales From the (Deep Stone) Crypt

    March 04, 2021

    Destiny Tales From the (Deep Stone) Crypt

    Tales From the (Deep Stone) Crypt

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 11:19 AM PST

    Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50141

    By its very name, Destiny 2's Deep Stone Crypt raid suggests depth; a sprawling subterranean adventure, with Guardians plunging far below the surface of Europa to uncover the mysteries and terrors that await them. But in typical Bungie fashion, the experience of the Deep Stone Crypt raid is more than just a straight line down into the unknown. Instead of simply heading into the unexplored depths, Guardians also find themselves literally reaching new heights as they experience the grand adventure that the Deep Stone Crypt raid offers.

    The call to action leads players across the sub-zero expanses of Europa and inside an abandoned Exo facility. Guardians blast off into space and explore an orbiting space station (from both the inside and the outside), before plunging back to the surface of Europa for a final confrontation against a deadly and familiar foe.

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    The Deep Stone Crypt raid is Bungie at full blast: an experience that is the culmination of a large group of talented people combining those talents in a unique way. In the Crypt, you'll find all of the hallmarks that Destiny fans have come to associate with raids – challenge, puzzles, the constant necessity for coordination and communication, amazing boss fights, beguiling mystery, and more, all contained inside a collection of dynamic moments that run the gamut from stark simplicity to epic edge-of-your-seat adventure.

    From the icy expanse of Europa to the fiery carnage of that plummeting space station, the Deep Stone Crypt is a spectacle unlike anything seen in Destiny history; an expansive adventure that rewards players – both literally and figuratively – for returning to its heights and depths.

    But what was it like to create this epic adventure? As the Bungie developers behind the raid will tell you, a raid as intricate and impactful as the Deep Stone Crypt is the process of a big team working together to tell an amazing story.

    SETTING THE STAGE

    As with so many big complex ideas in Destiny 2, the early ideas of the Deep Stone Crypt began in brainstorming sessions across the studio. Lead by the Destiny RAD (raid and dungeon) team, these sessions included representatives from across disciplines throughout the studio; designers, artists, testers, producers, composers, and more, all gathered to share ideas and bounce around inspirations and "what-ifs" in a setting where no idea was a bad one.

    Destiny is naturally steeped in sci-fi traditions and influences. Yet after a few raids that leaned heavily into the space fantasy side of things, this time around the RAD team was ready to dabble in some of the harder science fiction leanings that inspired them.

    "I've been obsessed with this idea of leaning into more hard sci-fi themes," said Brian Frank, a leader of the design contingent of the RAD team. "For example, raids frequently use separate locations to split the fireteam and enforce communication strategy. I wanted to avoid using teleportation and instead keep that a grounded experience that capitalized on the fantasy and spectacle of a rocket launch."

    As the ideas were flowing and concepts were coming into shape, it was also clear that the team was excited about the possibilities that Beyond Light's new destination brought to the table.

    "I think everybody at Bungie has been excited for Europa in general," said Darin Lantzy, a senior technical designer who worked on the technical execution of some of the bespoke mechanics of the raid, including advising on the augment terminals that are an integral part of several encounters and allow players to switch roles during encounters. "So it was like, 'Hey, here's a new planet, a full new destination, and a new idea; [let's] get to work.'"

    Jupiter's frozen moon was a new setting full of possibilities and, with the narrative concept of the destination being centered on an abandoned Exo facility, so much of the raid fell into place in a natural way. For Beyond Light and the Deep Stone Crypt, the RAD and campaign teams were in lockstep, creating a seamless experience where the two experiences naturally intertwined. The result is a raid experience that feels more aligned with the larger Destiny experience than ever.

    Bungie's Adam Miller is part of the narrative team that drives the ongoing stories of the Destiny universe. As he puts it, two reasons behind the Deep Stone Crypt's success are the way the story, the characters, and settings of Beyond Light worked together in such a seamless fashion, and the team's commitment to telling a story within this mysterious setting.

    "From the characters of Taniks and Atraks – and even the cameo from Clovis Bray's disembodied voice – to the appearance of the living Darkness statue, we worked closely with the entire design team from the beginning to ensure that everything about this raid – from visuals to the experience – accentuated the setting, had a strong basis in Destiny narrative history, and helped move the overall story forward," Miller said.

    "Something else I think helped our success is the maturation of the team," said RAD team producer Katherine Walker. "We had done a lot of learning and I think, as a whole, the team was maturing into a really good space – even over the course of working from home – to a place where we were able to make some great stuff."

    FROZEN

    Not long after touching down on the surface, and after a brief skirmish with Fallen Dark Council guards, players enter the first challenge of the Deep Stone Crypt: Europa itself. After leaving the protective warmth of a bubble, the players are met with the full force of Europa's harsh environments: freezing temperatures, gale-force winds, and limited visibility. Mounted atop their Sparrow, the goal is to brave the elements and simply survive, speeding from one protective bubble to the next. To find the way across a wasteland, where dangers – from Fallen forces to perilous cliff-side drops – await at every turn.

    Bungie's Ray Broscovak was a primary contributor to the world art for the Deep Stone Crypt raid, including working with members of the team to develop this opening adventure. As he put it, the idea for those perilous drops and all-too-rare oases of warmth was a fair bit different from the original raid opening.

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    "The journey out to the Crypt was something we really wanted to have," Broscovak said. "[We wanted to] make it feel like you were venturing out into a place where no people had been; the Fallen had been there but you're kind of following in their footsteps, or what's left of their expedition team."

    "The initial idea, was thinking about a wide flat expanse of Europa, making it feel very vast, which is obviously not what it ended up being at all," Broscovak said, adding that the team initially imagined a high-speed Sparrow sprint across the snowy plains of Europa. But what to do along the way? The team talked about lots of ideas that created opportunities for new gameplay.

    As the team continued to work through the possibilities, Broscovak recalls that one of the members of the team suggested the idea of "safe spots" that would shelter the player from the raging storm, taking inspiration from the "Haunted Wasteland" section from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as well as an underwater level from a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

    With that central idea in place, it was then a matter of creating the path across the wilds and placing the heat bubbles at just the right distance and direction to keep things interesting and challenging for players, a process whose recipe calls for a mixture of design instinct, a dash of healthy player-focused sadism, and plenty of playtesting.

    "It's kind of an organic process. [The designers] use their instincts and then we playtest it," said Broscovak. "Then there's feedback [as in] 'Well, the drive between Bubble Two and Three was not as fun as I want' or 'That was amazing. Can we do more of that?' How do we make each of these spaces feel different?"

    ROLE PLAY

    From the deadly outdoor environments of Europa players finally find shelter – if not safety – with the first main encounter in the raid: Crypt Security. Also known as the "Fuse" encounter, this part of the raid features the players' first prolonged firefight against Fallen forces.

    However, in true Destiny raid fashion, the challenge for this encounter – in addition to fending off the enemies – is the mystery of how to bypass the security systems that seem to confound players at every turn. It's a firefight, a puzzle, and a test of observation and coordination for all six members of a raid fireteam, as well as an effective preview of what player can expect from the rest of the raid. One of the first things players need to figure out are the roles they will play here (and eventually, elsewhere in the raid).

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    "We had talked a bunch about cybernetic augments and that sort of thing, trying to go again with the hard-science feel," said Jake Meyer, feature lead designer for the raid. "We looked at the different sorts of ways that you interact with raid mechanics and [the roles] just fell [into place] naturally."

    Hidden information mechanics are part of the tools of the trade for enforcing coordination and communication, as any good raid fireteam member will tell you. Learning what information is available and how to best communicate it is one of the art forms of raid completion that the RAD team is focused on perfecting. With Deep Stone Crypt, that manifests in the form of the different roles that players perform and their ability to communicate crucial information about what's happening on the upper and lower levels of the Crypt Security room.

    "It's a challenge for the team to balance the experience, where executing on a known encounter strategy is fun and quick to do week over week, with the blind runs that the community undertakes when we launch," said Brian Frank, who recalls watching the various teams racing to complete the Deep Stone Crypt World First on raid launch day.

    "We don't want players completing the encounters right away, we want to create drama with the strategy unfolding over repeated attempts. We're looking for that sweet spot [where] it takes them a while and they're stumped, and then someone figures it out and it's a big breakthrough.

    "Just all the little moments where people are putting together in real-time what's happening and they're having 'ah-ha' moments – like in [the Fuse encounter] when they finally figured out you've got to look through the floor. It's incredible and we love seeing fireteams go through that experience at launch."

    A FAMILIAR RETURN

    With the Crypt Security breached, players move through the Exo facility – encountering the iconic veiled statue that has become synonymous with the raid – before meeting yet another familiar face: the Fallen mercenary Taniks, who has been revived with the assistance by Atraks-1, the Fallen Exo. Taniks immediately escapes, setting up a series of connected encounters as players chase down both of the Fallen before they can enact their plans.

    "I really liked how well we worked with Narrative on this raid and how every encounter feels like it's the catalyst for the next encounter, so it really feels like a grand adventure," said Bungie's Andrew Hopps, world lead for the Deep Stone Crypt.

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    Before players can confront Taniks, they'll need to face off against Atraks-1. Multiple Atraks-1's in fact, as the Fallen Exo has managed to replicate herself, setting up an epic encounter that will see players not just fighting Fallen enemies in the Exo facility, but also far above the planet as well.

    The three words that are perhaps most associated with the Atraks-1 encounter might be "I'm in space!" – exclaimed by streamer Teawrex during his team's World First attempt on launch day of the Deep Stone Crypt. Indeed, loading into the pods and blasting up past the stratosphere and onto the space station orbiting Europa has become an iconic moment of the raid. It also presented technical designer Darin Lantzy with an interesting challenge. Lantzy recalls his conversations with the team after hearing about the idea in a brainstorm.

    "[The idea was] we want to send a person into space. We wanted the experience to be: Open the doors, walk-in, close the doors [and the player] teleports to the new area – open [the doors] and walk out." Lantzy said the team considered many ideas for what this experience might be like, including a brief third-person cinematic to tell the story of blasting off into orbit.

    After a good deal of discussion and iteration the team came up with a different approach that didn't use teleportation at all but instead focused on tech that already existed in the game. By using a modified form of the same vehicle tech that Destiny uses when players hop on their Sparrow, Lantzy and the team were able to make the "blast off" sequence feel much more immediate and real.

    Instead of teleporting, the player is actually physically moving through space, with no need to cut away to a cinematic or any other trickery. Couple that with some effective skybox graphical work seen through the launch-pod windows and you have a much more immersive feel of actually traveling into orbit. As Bungie skybox artist Eric Cassels said, the challenge of the drop pods was in conveying a lot of information in a short period of time.

    "The drop pod sequence was challenging in that it was only visible for seconds and had to sell an experience without anything really leading up to it," Cassels said. "Getting the timing just right for all the elements was a group effort between many disciplines. I was so happy to see it come together and visually link Europa to the space station. It was also a great setup to the reveal of the initial view in the station."

    It begs the question: Why go to all the trouble and technical investigation for a moment that's only a few seconds long? "Well, we could have done it [another] way," Lantzy said. "But no matter how I would have implemented it, even [using a teleportation sequence], it wouldn't really have felt like launching into space for [players]. I couldn't think of any cinematography or any [other way] where it would have the same kind of feeling of them going to space."

    Emerging from the launch pod, the player enters a vast room where the Atraks-1 encounter is fought. With the fireteam split between the lower (surface) and upper (orbit) levels, players will once again use roles in order to identify the correct Atraks-1 copies to attack, grab her replication orb, and carry it to an airlock, where it can be blasted into space, preventing her from creating new replications.

    After multiple trips to and from space, and whittling down Atraks-1's replications and defeating her, even the best of fireteams are exhausted. What follows is a notable change of pace, where players find a brief respite exploring more of the space station, beginning with a series of long corridors, before taking steps outside and into one of the most unforgettable sequences in Destiny history.

    WALK AMONG THE STARS

    The first few steps onto the outside platforms of the space station are disconcerting to say the least. The enormity of the station is impressive enough, but it pales in comparison to the grandeur of space that surrounds you. And while jumping puzzles are nothing new to Destiny, Ray Broscovak said designing this platforming sequence was unlike anything he's done before in the game.

    "A lot of people thought it wasn't going to work because we didn't have low gravity or no gravity," he said. "[We wondered] 'Are people are going to like it if there's gravity outside in space?' My thoughts early on were, 'Let's not worry about it too much. We can fictionalize that all we want. We can say that you're still within the sphere of the ships, artificial gravity or whatever. Let's not let that one thing ruin the possibility of this experience.'"

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    Broscovak was tasked with creating the experience of the walk itself, choosing the path alongside the station's many platforms to get the players where they needed to go. One of those crucial early choices was the decision between going "over" the station or "under" it.

    "I quickly decided, based on Eric Cassel's work on the skybox, which is so awesome, that it would be a disservice if we climbed over the space station. So I wanted to go under it because, if you go under it, you're jumping from platform to platform, you're constantly looking down at the skybox. So that was the inspiration for the route you take; you spend a lot of time hanging, clinging to the underside of the space station, so you can look and see the sky."

    "A lot of time was spent crafting the look of everything in relation to the sun angle, trying to achieve a view that lies somewhere between believable and sci-fi fantastical," said Eric Cassels, on the work to bring the skybox visuals to life during this sequence. "The position of Europa changed a few times as I tried a handful of different distances before settling on one that had a good overall composition and was framed well from the space station. It was important to visually stage everything to get the maximum 'wow' factor."

    With grand scenery surrounding you, and a challenging series of platform jumps and encounters ahead, the spacewalk is a welcome change of pace from the furious action of the previous encounter. That change of pace was a deliberate choice. As RAD test lead Zach Zoske puts it: "This [is a] very different traversal space and I think the fact that it was slower paced really lends itself to be able to look down and absorb [things].

    "This one felt so distinctly different because every other [raid traversal section is] over a pit and you can't see the bottom. This is the first time you feel like you're actually clinging to the bottom of this large thing and you could see where you were going. There's this unique moment of 'Oh my God, I can see all of Europa… it's beautiful.'"

    Ask practically any member of the team what their most memorable moment of the Deep Stone Crypt is and they'll point to the spacewalk, an oasis of calm in a raid that is full of ferocious action and challenge. But dive deeper into why they all love this sequence, and the same answer pops up over and over: the music.

    A MUSICAL INTERLUDE

    Moments after the leap onto the outside of the station, the theme music begins – a lone piano playing a distant, soothing melody. Where minutes earlier, players were running for their lives under the constant assault by enemies, they are now immersed in challenge of a very different sort, and accompanied by a soundtrack that is unlike anything they've heard yet.

    Creating musical moments or "cues" as they're called, is the purview of Skye Lewin, Bungie audio director and composer, and Bungie composer Michael Sechrist, who are each part of the team that created the music for Beyond Light. Sechrist in particular is credited with originating the ethereal calming "Deep Stone Lullaby," and he remembers coming up with the tune at a memorable time in his life.

    "My son was two years old at the time," Sechrist said. "And I had just found out a couple weeks earlier that I was going to have another kiddo, so I think that explains the lullaby nature of the cue. Lullabies were definitely in my head when I wrote that."

    However just because a musical piece is composed doesn't necessarily mean it has a home in the game experience yet. According to Lewin, selecting the right music for the right situation is the result of collaboration between the composers, designers, and other team members. It's a process that is full of fun challenges and careful coordination, as the nature of the encounters and experiences continue to evolve during development and playtesting. "At the beginning, it's kind of like we're riding on a horse trying to shoot at a moving target with a blindfold on in the dark," Lewin said. "We're basically just trying to gather as much information as we can and constantly adjusting our approach to the target we're trying to hit."

    "In the case of Deep Stone Crypt, it's got a very strong Exo theme, so we developed a [musical] palette and a feel around that," Lewin said. "The ['Deep Stone Lullaby'] cue was one that very immediately fell into that."

    The task of fitting the musical cue to the activity is a process that is equal parts art and math. "[The space walk] was one of those gameplay moments where we were able to collaborate with the RAD team to make sure that we could fit it there," Lewin said. "Sometimes a moment might not be long enough for a full piece of music. [For example] that traversal could be two minutes and it wouldn't be as impactful to insert such an impactful piece of music where it's going to not even get to the climax before [the activity] ends."

    That cross-team collaboration is the key, Lewin said, marrying the experience design with the right piece of music to create something that lifts and enhances both efforts into something special.

    "It kind of turned the whole thing into this interesting epic Exo tone poem that was the final result," Lewin said.

    That tone poem has become something of a legendary track for Destiny fans, who have played the track nearly 1 million times on the Destiny YouTube channel alone.

    "For me it's a huge honor," said Sechrist. "It's amazing to see the response. With the weird alternate dimension we've been living in this last year, I could be convinced it's not actually happening. I couldn't be happier about the reception."

    CRASH AND BURN

    With the spacewalk complete, the respite is over, as the Deep Stone Crypt raid enters its endgame. Players next encounter Taniks himself in the control room of the station. While the players are busily being confounded by a hectic encounter that involves dunking nuclear cores, a new third role called "suppressor," and tons of enemies all around, they'll also need to contend with the fact that the construct they're on is careening through space on a direct crash course with the surface of Europa.

    "Early on, I remember when we were talking about the player journey [throughout the raid]," said designer Jake Meyer. "We kept looking at things and comparing how large the [space station] would be in comparison to the International Space Station, and trying to figure out, 'OK, if we're going to crash this, how do we crash this in the player journey?'

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    "We were trying to do the math with internet calculators for the relative mass of the space station and how long it might actually take to get into the atmosphere." With those numbers in mind, the team concluded that it made the most sense for the player journey to crash the space station during the encounter, as opposed to crashing it after the fight was complete. Thus the first Taniks encounter, as the station begins its planet-side plummet.

    With the speed and frantic nature of the Descent encounter, it's easy to miss some of the subtle cues that tease the impending disaster on the space station. As RAD world lead Andrew Hopps put it, "I think about the first phase against Taniks. When you're up in the space station, you're obviously doing a whole bunch of jobs running all around the space trying to survive, but outside the window the space station is slowly starting to tilt and you'll see Europa shifting in the sky. That's pretty hard to notice in the middle of a raid encounter until the whole room is on fire and then you really know what's going on."

    "[The station descent] was a really cool moment and I wanted to capture the feeling of this massive space station you are on listing towards Europa as it begins its descent," said Eric Cassels, who again contributed his talents to the skybox for this encounter. "This was a custom variant of the space sky specific to the sequence, getting the right speed of rotation to sell this took a few tries but I was quite happy with the result."

    As this section of the raid developed, so too did the dramatic nature of the station's plunge to the Europan surface, according to RAD test lead Zach Zoske. "We had an interesting moment where [play testers didn't know] the space station is crashing. We weren't getting that feedback."

    Zoske said the team began brainstorming ways to increase the intensity. "[We talked about] what if we made fire outside [the station]? What if we made it so there was screen shake and rumble?' We tuned it so high that all of a sudden, you'd be mid-encounter and your screen would shake up and down like a snow globe and you would just splatter and die. We were like, 'Oh no, OK, let's bring it back.'"

    After the inevitable space-station crash that follows, players escape the burning construct only to find themselves right where they began the raid, near the entrance to the Deep Stone Crypt, with the burning remains of the station all around, as they prepare for their final encounter. The final fight against Taniks the Abomination is the culmination of all of the mechanics that players have learned – full of role switching, core dunking, frantic fireteam callouts, and lots and lots of enemies to contend with.

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    SPOILS OF VICTORY

    After an intense fight the rewards of victory are suitably grand. As in previous Deep Stone Crypt checkpoints, the rewards include raid-specific weapons and armor, complete with a set of new bespoke perks designed by the gear gurus at Bungie. Designer Chris Proctor, who leads design on Legendary and Exotic weapons, said the goals for raid gear are varied but balance is a key. "We try to make sure that [rewards] are not too concentrated in a single weapon slot; so we have the Kinetic, Energy and Power slots, and we aim to have an even spread between those.

    "There's generally some conversation about weapon count and normally raids get six Legendary weapons and often an Exotic as well. Generally they tend not to have specific [design] requirements. We do try to have weapons that you get from the raid be useful in the raid. For example, the slug Shotgun Heritage that you get from Deep Stone Crypt is the best damage weapon for the final Boss Encounter, if you have a Warlock with Lunafaction Boots. [That] worked out really well for [the raid]."

    Alongside the raid gear, there's also a new set of bespoke perks for the raid weapons: Recombination, Redirection, and Reconstruction. While Proctor said the team generally knows which gear players will favor, guessing which perks will rise to the top is more unpredictable. "It's just hard to tell in advance how much players will take to perks," Proctor said. "[For example] Reconstruction will slowly load the magazine over time to double its capacity. It does take a pretty long time to fully load, [so] it was hard to be sure upfront that it was going to be as desirable as it ended up being."

    Proctor said that while he likes it when players enjoy the perks he and his team create, there's value in all kinds of feedback. "It's always instructive if they [don't like] a perk and we can figure out why, and maybe we adjust it later or we avoid doing that kind of thing again, so it's all good. But when players love something that you've made, that's a really satisfying feeling."

    Chasing those perfect perk combinations is nothing new for Destiny fans. With the Deep Stone Crypt raid, players who want to chase "god rolls" now have more options than ever with the introduction of raid caches. By spending their earned Spoils of Conquest currency on raid caches, players have some control over the kinds of rewards they earn. As Bungie's Peter Hood explains, giving players choice is part of creating a positive raid experience.

    "All the early conversations we had did revolve around providing players agency in what they specifically wanted to try and go after, as well as giving more hardcore raiders a reason to play a raid more than once a week and still feel rewarded for it."

    The new raid currency also created the opportunity to increase the value of playing the other raids in the game. Internally these concepts were well received when playtest groups saw them for the first time and the team says that after all the investment design and test work in building and tuning the economy it has been rewarding to see a positive response from the Destiny community as well.

    A common theme when discussing the making of the Deep Stone Crypt raid with the Bungie development team is how in-synch everything feels – the story, the setting, the characters, the way the encounters flow from one set piece to the next, with each scene effectively setting up the next. The cross-discipline integration that manifested itself in the Deep Stone Crypt feels like a glimpse of Destiny's future – a place where adventure can come anywhere, from the heights of space to the lowest subterranean reaches, and where experiences come in a variety of flavors, from the surprisingly mellow to the utterly intense.

    Still, the ultimate reward for Bungie has been watching players enjoy themselves as they uncovered the raid's mysteries, be it for the first time or the twentieth. From unforgettable shared moments like "I'm in space!" to personal instances like humming "Deep Stone Lullaby" to one's self while working, the raid is a collection of individual elements that is much larger than the sum of its parts.

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    Bungie's Michael Sechrist perhaps sums it up best. "Writing music, being in art in general, and doing what we do can kind of feel self-serving sometimes, because you're doing what you love so much. And building a game or a raid like the Deep Stone Crypt while in isolation from each other can feel a bit like, 'I'm just here doing my music or whatever.'

    "It's nice to actually see it matter to people. And it's not just me doing what I love. It's affecting people in a positive way, which is hugely important to me. I'm thrilled."

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    Daily Questions [2021-03-04]

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 07:00 PM PST

    New player? Please read the New Light Guide & Gameplay Guide

    Want to buy the DLC? Beyond Light Guide

    Returning and not sure what was vaulted? Destiny Content Vault: Year 4

    Unsure what you need to pay for and what's free? Check out the Beyond Light & Season of the Hunt Calendar

    Top Known Issues List by Bungie

    Welcome to the Daily Questions thread! Do you have a Destiny related question that needs answering? Can't find it anywhere else on the web? Well You're in luck! Simply ask your question down below, and the knowledgeable community of /r/DestinyTheGame will answer it to the best of their abilities!

    Be sure to use the search in the top right before submitting a question, as it could have already been answered. Also, be sure to check the thread itself!

    We also have a nice collection of useful resources below "Useful links" in the sidebar / top menu.

    Be sure to sort by new to see the latest questions!

    Rules

    • Absolutely no down talking. You were all new to Destiny once, so there's no need to belittle anyone just because you might know more.

    • All hateful comments that derail conversation will be removed. This thread is a place of learning, so keep it civil.

    You can find the full Daily Thread schedule here.

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    Just saying, since the Ruinous Effigy nerf, I have literally never seen someone use it. Not once.

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 09:26 AM PST

    Pretty sad for a gun that was fun to use and provided alternative strategies for fights. It's not like it was crazy OP either. I'm sure there was a good reason for the nerf whether it be DSC Day 1 runs or causing issues with some encounters in activities that weren't out yet, but it would be nice to see the gun get some love. It's beautiful, unique, and has some great lore behind it.

    submitted by /u/SaladinsSaladbar
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    Crow dialogue regarding Cayde...

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 08:31 PM PST

    Amanda in the battle ground event after saying Zavala is family, she gets really emotional and choked up. "...and Cayde-6, I really miss him".

    Then Crow to Amanda "the stories I have heard...Cayde-6, I wish I could have met him."

    Amanda, "his killer got what was coming to him."

    Damn Bungie.

    submitted by /u/suteivu
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    Moving into high-level PvE, a guide (Season 13 update)

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 05:42 AM PST

    Season 13 Update: What's New

    • · Extended GM advice
    • · More stasis thoughts
    • · Discussion of new exotic
    • · Season-specific mods
    • · Discussion of new Aeon exotic armor
    • · Short guide to Presage and Hawkmoon solo

    Part 2 of the guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/lwu8my/moving_into_highlevel_pve_guide_season_13_part_2/

    Before We Get Started

    Why you should trust me

    I've got a few hundred raid completions, including flawless completions of the post-year 1 raids, and I've soloed each of the dungeons flawlessly as well. But also: I'm not an amazing player; I'd say I'm above average but I am nowhere near as talented as some of the people whose videos you can watch online, or indeed who are in my clan. I am someone who has to work hard to get good and who makes up for a lack of talent with stubbornness and a willingness to learn from my mistakes.

    So this advice is not for the amazing D2 player. It's for someone who's just starting to move into raiding or is thinking about working on raid triumphs, or soloing a dungeon for the first time, or maybe dreaming of earning the Conqueror title. My main goal is to help you become a better teammate—to know what weapons, mods, and armor you need in different situations, and to learn how to use them. Hopefully I'll answer your basic questions and give you a starting point from which you can learn more.

    What do I mean by high-level PvE content?

    1. Raids: multi-encounter structures that require team coordination and adaptation to/knowledge of various raid-specific mechanics (ball throwing, buff swapping, tethering, cranium charging, etc.)
    2. Sublight challenges: master and grandmaster nightfalls, master nightmare hunts, solo lost sectors, master empire hunts, or any new content where players are likely to be 0-25 light levels below the enemies they face. This content includes raids and dungeons in their initial season of being offered.
    3. Solo challenges: attempts to accomplish 1 and 2 by yourself or with a suboptimal team (like doing a raid with three people instead of six, or soloing a dungeon or an exotic mission like the Hawkmoon or Presage encounters).

    General Advice

    As you begin to push into more challenging content, one lesson is key: dying is not good. That's kind of a strange lesson to have to learn, but the reality is that Destiny does not punish you much for dying in ordinary content. That makes it easy to develop habits that will serve you poorly in raids and other situations, where dying can lead to a cascading series of mishaps that will cause a wipe or an extinguish mechanic. So one of your main goals as you start playing in these situations is to try to get better at not dying.

    The other thing to begin to learn—and which the game does not really force you to learn—is how to make weapons, armor, and ability builds that synergize both internally, in relation to your own character, and externally, in relation to your teammates and the environment. Understanding, for instance, not only your role in a given raid encounter but the roles of your teammates, and knowing what classes or weapons they're running so that you can communicate with them about what to do next, are both critical to becoming a stronger team player. And understanding how your armor and weapons, your mods and class abilities, all interact is critical to your being able to maximize your impact as a solo player.

    All this advice is focused on building up the basic sets of gear that will help you through difficult PvE content. I have probably forgotten many things, and of course you can always do things with an off-meta or weird loadout, either because you're a masochist or because you want to challenge yourself. What's below focuses on the basics.

    Part 1: Armor and Armor Mods

    In general a good PvE build will be a fully masterworked set of armor with high recovery and discipline or intellect. (Resilience sounds good but has only a very small impact on PvE combat.) For raids you might end up using melee abilities, but for sublight content you will mostly be fighting at range, and meleeing only in a panic. Grenades have a wide variety of important uses (hence discipline), and supers (and super energy) are also always useful (hence intellect), so spec into one of those if you can.

    For now it's worth noting that high-end PvE content tends to feature a pretty limited set of class and subclass options, along with a certain number of key exotic armor pieces.

    Hunters: (1) Top or bottom tree void, with Orpheus Rigs (especially top tree) or Sixth Coyote or Wormhusk Crown (the last two for solo especially); bottom tree with Omnioculus for group content (damage resist plus invis). (2) Bottom tree solar with Celestial Nighthawk for one-shot boss damage, mainly in raids. (3) Middle tree solar, or top-tree Arc, with Assassin's Cowl for heal on melee, for solo content. (4) Stasis, especially for solo content where the grenades and debuffs help with champions.

    Titans: (1) Top tree void, for the bubble, along with the Helm of Saint-14 (in some circumstances), or (2) middle tree void, for the barrier, with Ursa Furiosas for orb generation. In some situations, particularly when using Xenophage, Titans will run with Actium War Rigs for the reload benefit. For some raid situations Thundercrash with Cuirass of the Falling Star is lots of fun for boss damage.

    Warlocks: (1) Top tree void with Contraverse Hold gauntlets for frequent charged grenade use, or (2) Bottom tree void with Nezarec's Sin, for a devour-focused build especially useful for soloing content (in which case you would want to be running a void energy weapon). (3) Much more often, middle tree solar with either Phoenix Protocol for super regen or Lunafaction Boots for reload benefit, for almost any content involving groups. (4) Middle tree arc with Geomag Stabilizers for some high-end content like grandmaster nightfalls.

    Beyond Light added stasis subclasses to all three groups. One of the huge advantages of all stasis supers is that they allow for significant crowd control—for slowing and stunning enemies to take them temporarily or permanently out of the fight. This is true for supers, melees, and grenades. Of the three classes the Warlock super is the most useful in grandmaster content, because it allows for targeted crowd control.

    Note that the most common subclasses for group content are the ones that boost the entire team (Titan bubble, Warlock well), protect the entire team (Titan barrier), make allies invisible (Hunter smoke grenade on bottom tree), or control/manage and debuff enemies (Hunter tether, the stasis classes). Solo players tend to focus intensely on survival abilities—the Warlock devour, the Hunter invis, or the healing melees of top tree void Titan, bottom tree arc Titan, or top tree Arc hunter.

    The other thing to say is that roaming supers—arc Hunter, solar or arc Titan, top and bottom arc Warlock, middle void Warlock—are generally not good in high-end PvE, especially if you're sublight. They simply don't deal enough damage quickly enough to be viable. This kind of content emphasizes one-shot supers like Celestial/Golden Gun or Nova Bomb for immediate damage, and supers like the well or Titan barrier/bubbles, for protection.

    Must-have exotic armor: Hunter: Orpheus Rigs and Celestial Nighthawk (for group play), Sixth Coyote (solo). Titan: Helm of Saint-14, Ursa Furiosa, Actium War Rig (group), Synthoceps (solo). Warlock: Phoenix Protocol, Lunfaction Boots, and Contraverse Hold (group or solo), Nezarec's Sin (solo), Eye of Another World (for stasis). See also /u/Yourself013's comment below on Assassin's Cowl and Omnioculus, for high-end Hunter play. And see comment by /u/Penthesilean on The Stag as key to a high-end Warlock build.

    In season 13, changes to the seasonal artifact mean that only arc subclasses have the ability to stun Overload champions with their grenades, which makes them slightly more viable than otherwise. But the absence of a mod that immediately returns grenade energy (as there was in Season 12) means that grenades in general are less powerful in GM nightfalls than they were last season.

    Aeon Cult exotics: In season 13 these widely reviled armor pieces have been updated to allow for a new range of abilities. The main value of these is in giving your allies some kind of boost when you do something. These bonuses rely on the fact that each member of a three-person fireteam is running a different mod, with the following results:

    Sect of Force boosts ally grenade and melee energy, and super energy, when you get rapid precision hits.

    Sect of Insight boosts ally weapon damage, and drops ammo on finishers—Special ammo for finishing Elites, Heavy for finishing minibosses and bosses.

    Sect of Vigor gives allies an overshield and a burst of healing when you cast your super.

    We'll see how viable these are in GM nightfall content (they're useless for solo content, obviously). My main concern is that they keep you from running another piece of exotic armor—so you lose out on Phoenix Protocol or Orpheus Rigs or something else that might be more important.

    That said the Sect of Insight mod is the only mod in season 13 that can force heavy ammo drops. (You can always get special ammo from the Special Finisher mod, though it will cost you super energy.) That means it may turn out to be critical for GM content, where a steady supply of heavy really makes life easier.

    Armor Mods

    The key difference between high-level PvE content and ordinary content or PvP content is the importance of armor mods. Where PvP builds tend to focus on statistics like Recovery or Mobility, PvE armor tends to focus on damage resistance.

    The Destiny mod system is unfortunately pretty bewildering. There are many many choices and it's not clear how much any of them matters. So let me cover a few things—all of these now updated for Season 13.

    The first mod slot

    This mod slot allows you to boost your character's basic stats. For group PvE content, you'll want to focus on Recovery (which affects how quickly your health begins to regen when you're not being hit), Intellect (which increases super regen speed), and Discipline (for grenades). (But see /u/Elderbrute's comments below about intellect--they argue that anything above 30 intellect is probably better spent in other areas.)

    For solo content that relies heavily on a single ability to survive—like the Hunter's dodge, which regens faster with high Mobility, or the Titan's healing void melee, which regens faster with high Strength—you will want to focus on those things specifically.

    In the previous seasons this mod slot could be used for resistance mods, which are central to many PvE builds. But that has all gone away since Season 12, which means that this slot is less interesting, and less important, than it used to be.

    Legacy, Combat, and Raid mod slots

    These should be focused on one or more of the following goals, in order of importance:

    1. Resistance mods (on chest armor) that reduce incoming damage
    2. Mods that stun or disrupt or otherwise affect champions (arms or class item)
    3. Raid-specific mods (final mod slot only, and only on raid armor)
    4. Charged with Light, Warmind Cell, and Elemental Well mods (fourth slot)
    5. Ammo Finder (helmet) and Ammo Scavenger (boots) mods.
    6. Season artifact modes that boost damage or add damage resistance.
    7. For grandmaster nightfalls in particular, finisher mods (mainly Special Finisher) that go on your class item and allow you to trade super energy for special ammo drops.

    Resistance Mods

    Resistance mods come in four types: energy, melee, sniper, and concussive dampener. They all go on your chest armor. Melee reduces any damage done within 5m (does not have to be melee damage) by 25%. Sniper does the same for damage done from 29m or farther. Concussive reduces splash damage from grenades/boomers. These mods stack, with the second mod getting you to 40% damage resistance. The same goes for the energy resist mods.

    Because the energy resist mods (arc, solar, void) only go on chest armor pieces with the associated energy, as you build armor sets for high-end PvE (especially GMs) you will want to collect one of each energy in the chest slot.

    Since you only have two slots, you will probably want to change them depending on the activity. For Gambit or really any content where you're at or above the appropriate power level, melee/concussive or melee/melee is quite strong, since you'll probably be mixing it up with mobs on the regular. For grandmaster nightfalls and other sublight content, sniper/concussive is a good place to start, but you really have to adjust depending on what you're facing.

    Anti-Champion Mods

    These mods come in two types: weapon-specific mods, which go on your arms, and grenade or melee mods, which go on your class item. These mods come from the seasonal artifact and therefore change each season (which is why I have to update this guide).

    Most high-end content will have two kinds of champions, so you'll want to go into encounters making sure that you or your fireteam can stun, disrupt, or stagger the appropriate champions with the appropriate weapons.

    For season 13 these mods include smg, sword, and bow mods for Overload champions, pulse and hand cannon mods for Unstoppables, and scout and sniper mods for Barrier champions. One potentially interesting combination here involves the Disrupting Blade and Passive Guard mods, which combined can stun Overloads and create damage reduction. Combined with a Titan bubble, these mods worked very well in season 11 in some GM nightfalls. We haven't had a chance to see how they work this season. That said the sniper anti-barrier mod, though expensive (6 points), is pretty fantastic and likely to be useful, since snipers are often useful in nightfalls.

    Two other interesting season mods are Focusing Lens (increases damage of light abilities vs. mobs affected by stasis) and Sundering Glare (debuffs mods hit with precision hits from a distance). Combined, for instance, with Divinity (which guarantees precision hits, making it easy to proc Sundering Glare), Sundering Glare and Focusing Lens can produce significant increases in damage. In Gambit, for instance, the combination of these mods with a couple Titan thundercrash supers can melt the Primeval in seconds.

    Raid and Other Activity-Specific Mods (5th slot)

    These include mods that affect Last Wish, Garden of Salvation, and the Deep Stone Crypt, as well as Nightmare Hunts on the moon. For Last Wish Taken Barrier and Taken Armaments are both incredibly useful; for GoS you really only need Enhanced Relay Defender.

    For Nightmare Hunts I find that only the Nightmare Breaker mods really come in handy; the others not so much. You can read more about them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/dkpssk/breakdown_of_the_nightmare_mods_banisher_breaker/.

    In Year 2 and Year 3 armor, these mods go in the fourth slot. Year 4 (Beyond Light) armor has a fifth dedicated slot for these mods, which frees up the fourth slot for other things.

    Early analysis of the DSC mods suggests that for most six-person content they are not really worthwhile. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/k2mi9s/quick_look_at_the_dsc_raid_mods_minus_suppressor/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

    Charged with Light Mods

    The CwL system works as follows: certain mods (colored in green) give you stacks of CwL, up to a maximum of two stacks. Other mods (yellow) spend those stacks. And a third set of mods (white) changes the number of stacks you get or can have (increases your stack maximum, up to five, or gives you two stacks instead of one each time you get a stack).

    The basic system is this: (1) Get CwL (2) Spend CwL. The easiest way to get CwL is to use the Taking Charge mod, which gives you charges for picking up a light orb. Combined with a masterworked weapon that drops orbs on fast kills, you can pretty much guarantee that you'll spend most of the time CwL. You can also get charges from mods that give charges on weapon damage (kills with a certain weapon give you charges) or action triggers (breaking a shield, doing a finisher).

    So now you have charges. How should you spend them? One option is to look for damage resistance or damage buffs. The best damage resist mod is Protective Light, an absolutely crucial choice that gives you 50% damage resistance when an enemy breaks your shield. I use it almost all the time. Useful damage boost mods include High-Energy Fire (generic 20% damage buff till you kill an enemy), Lucent Blade (for swords), and Surprise Attack (for sidearms).

    Other CwL mods will give you chances to drop special ammo, return grenade or melee energy, heal you on grenade kills, and more.

    For lower-level PvE content I tend to use damage mods like Lucent Blade or Surprise Attack. For scarier content I'm almost always on Protective Light.

    If you have room for mods that increase your stacks, Stacks on Stacks (gives two stacks for each one you earn), Charged Up (increases total stacks by one), and Superpowered (increases total stacks by two) are all useful here.

    TL:DR: if you do nothing else use Taking Charge (green) and Protective Light (yellow), and get more fancy once you understand more.

    Warmind Cell mods

    Like Charged with Light, this system involves creating an opportunity to affect the gameworld (by making a Warmind Cell), and then using that opportunity (the Cell) in a certain way. You create a cell by getting a kill using a Seraph weapon (which now are world drops; Ikelos 1.2 weapons also count as Seraph Weapons). Once the cell exists you can either pick it up or shoot it. Shooting it causes it to explode, and a number of WC mods increase the range of that explosion or add effects to it. Picking up the cell will allow you to throw or, or will (with a Warmind's Light mod) Charge you with Light, or have some other effect.

    Here are the Seraph weapons currently available. Names include "Seventh Seraph" except where noted:

    Kinetic: auto rifle, hand cannon

    Energy: smg (Seraph and Ikelos), sniper (Ikelos), sidearm, shotgun (Seraph and Ikelos)

    Heavy: machine gun

    When I'm playing I'll tend to run an auto/shotgun/Xenophage loadout for max solar explosion damage, unless I'm running a void Warlock, in which case I use the sidearm (void) with Nezarec's sin. For some explosion-oriented content I'll run the hand cannon, Jotunn, and the machine gun.

    The most basic way to use these cells is to create them and then shoot them. A mod like Global Reach will then give your cell explosions far greater range and effect. But you can also combine numbers of mods to create some pretty cool synergistic builds, as you see here:

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/27/a-destiny-2-solar-inferno-warlock-warmind-cell-build-for-more-room-clearing-fun/#5ec7d0c01c30

    You can find a guide to all the Warmind Cell mods here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kqaf2MdmUm1Ll6jCh-Rt0k6j2-nYCwf5lbbRLtXyr7M/edit#

    But here are the basics: Solar mods generally affect cell explosion damage; Void mods create buff and debuff effects that do not rely on exploding the cells; and Arc mods create effects upon mod pickup.

    The key to Warmind Cell is to understand that cells, once created, belong to everyone. Effects from shooting or picking up the cells are pegged to the person who picks them up or shoots them. So if Person A has Rage of the Warmind on and shoots a cell created by Person B, who does not have it on, then the explosion will be affected by Rage of the Warmind. And if Person B has Warmind's Protection on, they will get 50% damage protection from mobs standing near a cell created by Person A—even if Person A does not have that mod on.

    What this means that an entire fireteam of 6 people can coordinate Warmind Cell mods to create synergistic effects. I describe some of those below. (Also, please don't shoot Warmind Cells if you have no mods on! It's not useful and makes the people with mods on totally insane.)

    Note that in the recent State of the Game message there was a hint that WCs will be nerfed.

    Recommended Builds

    Add-clear Explosion Fun Build

    Global Reach (1 neutral), Wrath of Rasputin (1 solar), Rage of the Warmind (5 solar), Incinerating Light (3 Solar), Reactive Pulse (CwL, 3 Arc). Ideally paired with a weapon that causes solar splash damage (Ace of Spaces, Sunshot, Jotunn, Xenophage; the Warlock exotic chest Chromatic Fire also causes explosions on kinetic precision kills) and/or a solar subclass.

    This build involves creating cells and then using the explosions from the cells to create more cells, killing everything within 30m (that's the range of the explosion, Rage of the Warmind doubles that). Wrath of Rasputin creates more cells from solar splash so you'll be making cells from your non-Seraph weapons and your class abilities (if you're running a solar class).

    Incinerating Light charges you with light when you kill three or more things with a cell explosion, and the Reactive Pulse mod creates a 30m Arc explosion when you take damage while surrounded—essentially destroying red-bar enemies all around you.

    This is a build for content where you're higher or even in power level with your enemies; it's super fun. In a perfect world it turns your character into the walking center of a series of explosions, and feels awesome.

    Defensive Build

    Global Reach (1 neutral), Wrath of Rasputin (1 solar), Taking Charge (CwL, 3 neutral), Protective Light (CwL, 2 void), Warmind's Protection (2 void).

    This build has a number of variations depending on whether you're running a solar class and/or coordinating with a team. A maximum defensive build swaps out Wrath of Rasputin for Cellular Suppression (4 void); you generate fewer cells but the cells you make help more, since shooting cells when you have CS on will send out a stunning pulse that will stun red-bar enemies for 10 seconds. Warmind's Protection gives you a 50% damage buff against enemies near a cell.

    If you have a full fireteam with multiple people using Warmind builds you can coordinate some of these buffs (making sure a couple people have Cellular Suppression on, for instance, or having someone else run Grasp of the Warmind (3 void), which allows you to pick cells up and move them to better places.

    Here's a list of some fun builds for you that combine CwL and WC:

    Neutral, good for anything

    1. Taking Charge, Protective Light, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Fireteam Medic
    2. Taking Charge, Protective Light, Stacks on Stacks, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin
    3. Taking Charge, Protective Light, Reactive Pulse, Supercharged, Stacks on Stacks
    4. Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Fireteam Medic, Warmind's Protection, Cellular Suppression (this is the build I use most often in non-challenging content)

    Aggressive

    1. Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Rage of the Warmind, Fireteam Medic, Power of Rasputin
    2. Taking Charge, High-Energy Fire, Reactive Pulse, Supercharged, Lucent Blade (sword) or Argent Ordnance (Rockets) or Surprise Attack (sidearms)
    3. Fusion Rifle or Shotgun-focused build: Supercharged, Quick Charge, Heavy Handed, High-Energy Fire, Charged Up
    4. Grenade-focused build: Taking Charge, Firepower, Heal Thyself, Supercharged, Stacks on Stacks

    Defensive

    1. CwL+Warmind: Taking Charge, Protective Light, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Warmind's Protection
    2. All CwL, max defense: Taking Charge, Protective Light, Reactive Pulse, Radiant Light, Charged Up

    Elemental Well mods

    These are new for season 13. The basic mechanic is that certain effects create elemental wells, which drop to the ground. Picking up these elemental wells grants 10% energy to your abilities—either only to your lowest charged ability (if the well does not match your subclass) or to all your abilities (if it does).

    Elemental mods can be fun in low-level PvE. You can create them fairly often (with grenades, with Elemental Ordinance, with supers, with Elemental Light, with weapons that match your class, with Elemental Armaments) and then pick them up for damage buffs (10% with Font of Might) or temporary increased Intellect (+50 for 30 seconds with Font of Wisdom).

    Unfortunately Elemental Wells are not especially viable in high-end PvE (like Grandmasters or solo content) mainly because of the requirement that they match your weapon damage and/or subclass. Since a great deal of high-end content involves Match Game, players in those situations will often run energy and power weapons that differ from their subclass. That makes EW mods nearly worthless.

    Elemental Well mods do not work in PvP.

    (thanks to /u/googler_nyc for catching a couple mistakes)

    Part 2 of the guide continues here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/lwu8my/moving_into_highlevel_pve_guide_season_13_part_2/

    submitted by /u/Ciborium616
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    Shadowprice could be amazing, but it's terrible. Simply because 450rpm auto rifles are weak.

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 12:01 PM PST

    450rpm auto rifles need a damage buff. They don't compete in DPS in PvE or PvP compared to any other auto rifle archetype.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Crucible damage numbers, shots to kill and times to kill, a comparison. Assuming 6 resilence (192 hp)

    High impact/360rpm:

    36 crit 22 body. 0.83 sec optimal ttk. (5 crit 1 body) 1.33 sec body ttk (9 shots)

    Adaptive/600rpm:

    24 crit 14 body. 0.8 sec optimal ttk. (8 crit 1 body) 1.3 sec body ttk (14 shots)

    Rapid fire/750rpm:

    20 crit 13 body. 0.77 sec optimal ttk. (9 crit 1 body) 1.17 sec body ttk (15 shots)

    As you can see they all fall in line having about an 0.8 sec optimal ttk that requires a high crit % and have a decent body shot ttk.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Now the 450's.

    Precision/450rpm:

    28 crit 18 body* (false, I will explain why) 0.93 sec optimal ttk. (6 crit 2 body) 1.47 sec body ttk (12 shots)

    They have the worst optimal ttk and the worst body shot ttk. Which is why they are bad.

    *The reason why those damage numbers are incorrect is because they are rounded up. At 6 resilence, 28 damage would kill in 7 crit shots @ 0.8 sec (196 DMG) and the body shot ttk would be 1.3 sec if the body damage was actually 18. But it isn't. It's less than 17.5. and the crit damage is less than 27.5.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    The end of the line is 450rpm auto rifles need a damage buff. They are the weakest primary weapons of all right now, in both PvE and PvP.

    29 crit 18 body. Would result in an optimal ttk of 0.8 sec, 6 crits 1 body, on 6 resilence or less. And a body shot ttk of 1.3 sec, 11 shots.

    This, is in line with all other auto rifles. Which require almost all crits but allow 1 body shot to achieve an optimal ttk of about 0.8 sec, and have a body shot ttk of around 1.3 sec. (Exept rapid fires which is 1.17 sec)

    This is a very small damage buff that will elevate 450rpm auto rifles to be a viable choice compared to other auto rifles and other weapon archetypes.

    submitted by /u/Seek_Seek_Lest
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    Uncap Clan XP Earnings

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 06:59 AM PST

    This seems like a no brainier. I like being in a little clan with my friends, but there's literally no way for us to hit ranks higher than 3 every season because of this cap. We shouldn't be punished/excluded from clan ranks simply because there's less of us.

    submitted by /u/Tucker_Design
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    Please change the Charge Time masterwork on Fusion Rifles. Many of my rolls have been ruined because they dropped with reduced Impact.

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 08:03 AM PST

    Charge Time is the only MW in the game that decreases another stat when upgrading it, and it's the absolute worst possible stat to suffer from it - Impact aka damage. Many of my FR rolls have dropped with a Charge Time MW on Tier 2 to 4, so the Impact got already reduced without any control over it.

    Please either remove the Impact penalty from this MW, or if that would be too strong just remove the entire MW stat so it can't roll on FRs anymore.

    submitted by /u/zerik100
    [link] [comments]

    Please change back the seasonal level tracker above players heads back to class icons or anything else...

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 04:52 AM PST

    I hear from various people that they get annoyed being told to "play way too much Destiny 2" or "having no lifes" because of having level numbers higher than 100 already.

    I myself catch me making jokes about my own friends playing too much. Please change it back. It influences player behavior in real life and puts a bad spotlight on the players with high levels.

    I have seen last season players with pass level 999+ in crucible! This is just wrong and embarassing/discomfiting.

    submitted by /u/Talia_Sendua
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    I need the militias birthright back again (or a replacement)

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 05:16 PM PST

    Without the militias birthright, I can't use a, on level, grenade launcher in every single slot that uses every ammo type.

    I'd relish the days where I could run fighting lion, militias birthright (or mountaintop if I wanted to upset people) and whatever wacky m32 rotary grenade launcher was on the market.

    But nowadays, I'm limited to only two and it hurts. I just want to hear my thunkthunkthunk again.

    This post was made by a hunter who has lost his legs 5000 times over.

    submitted by /u/Eggth_Wicke
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    Let us re roll our masterwork again. With weapon telemetries to give them a use.

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 06:39 AM PST

    It’s time to update Banshee

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 01:25 PM PST

    Banshee is desperately in need of an overhaul. Weapon telemetry? Complete joke. Mod sale system? It's been 206 days since Wrath of Rasputin was last sold and 128 days since Rage of the Warmind. The app says they drop from rank-up packages. We all know that's bullshit and Bungie just haven't bothered updating the text ffs.

    Armsday was hugely popular in D1 after Banshee had been largely useless in the game prior to that.

    Bungie ought to actually make mods drop from rank-up packages. They should give Banshee 2 random weapons with random rolls for sale each day, or 2 weapon quests.

    They've also removed the weekly quests that rewarded upgrade modules. Perhaps they could allow us to purchase upgrade modules with weapon telemetries, rendering a useless currency useful and still bottlenecking the acquisition of upgrade modules given how infrequently telemetries actually drop.

    submitted by /u/thebeatabouttostrike
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    Having Upgrade Modules drop from high level activities would be nice, instead of having them come exclusively from Banshee/Battle Pass.

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 08:08 AM PST

    It feels like every so often I have to go and sink all my glimmer/destination materials into 25 modules if i ever want to infuse something, I get that infusion cant be on demand for the sake of introducing new loot etc but just having somewhere to farm the infusion material would be nice, thats all

    submitted by /u/Mufffaa
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    Bungie, can we please get a taken ghost shell

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 07:50 AM PST

    back in d1 we had a taken ghost shell

    we already have a taken ship and taken sparrow, if we also could get a taken ghost shell that would be perfect

    i would even pay silver for a taken ghost shell i just want to complete my taken set, i have the taken sparrow and ship equipped, but the taken ghost is missing :(

    submitted by /u/Luf2222
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    Le Monarque Ornament, its about time we have one

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 01:47 PM PST

    Seriously this weapon has been available for 2 years now and still no Ornament. To my knowledge there are only two exotics without one and one of them was a Play Station exclusive weapon(Wave Splitter). I have a clan member who has had his heart ripped out every season when he looks for it on launch day. Please for his health and welfare please make one. I made a joke about how Bungie posted on twitter that the Ticuu's Divination was originally an ornament for the Le Monarque but it transitioned into a new exotic instead. Let's just say it wasn't a good laugh. It doesn't help a second Trinity Ghoul one came out.

    submitted by /u/Dethconn
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    Bring back the blue flaming helmet for completing GM Nightfalls for the week

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 07:05 AM PST

    Cosmetics like this look great to see around the world and just add that extra incentive

    submitted by /u/PancakeLlamas
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    I haven't participated in altars of sorrow in many months but still, what are those 3 poor dregs on pikes think they are doing driving in between 5 jacked up gaurdians and a hoard of hive?

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 10:54 AM PST

    A funny observation while hunting for a decent heretic rl.

    submitted by /u/know2swim
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    Moving into high-level PvE guide (Season 13, part 2)

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 05:46 AM PST

    part 1 of the guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/lwu5t4/moving_into_highlevel_pve_a_guide_season_13_update/

    Part 2: Weapons and Weapons Mods

    Though the weapons meta changes season by season, depending on buffs, nerfs, and other changes made by the Bungie gods, you can expect a few things to stay consistently true.

    1. For both raids and nightfalls/nightmare hunts, you will want to fill out your seasonal artifact to make sure that you have access to any important mods that it makes available. For Season 13 the champion weapon mods are in the first row (except for the sniper and sword mods, in later rows).
    2. Exotic weapons that affect champions matter a lot: Eriana's Vow (affects Barrier champions), Lament (Barrier), and Divinity (Overload) and Leviathan's Breath (Unstoppable). Of these three Eriana's and Divinity are really important; Lament does great single-burst damage, but requires you to be awfully close to champions to use it.
    3. High burst damage (single-shot) weapons will be important. Right now these include, among exotics, Izanagi's Burden, Eyes of Tomorrow, and Wardcliff Coil, as well as the swords Fallen Guillotine and Lament.
    4. Sustained DPS weapons will be important. These are weapons that do significant damge per shot and have a large magazine or reload perks that allow them to maximize the DPS they do. Given the current reload meta, Xenophage is crucial to have; Whisper of the Worm fits in this category as well. Prospector is a slightly off-meta weapon that also does good sustained DPS. Many slug shotguns are also very good—Bonechiller (void), Heritage (kinetic) were both new in Season 12 and do excellent damage. And snipers, especially snipers with large magazines and perks like Triple Tap, can also be viable in certain situations.
    5. If an important weapon has a catalyst, you need to have it and complete it.
    6. Certain perks are far more useful in PvE than PvP. These include auto-reloading holsters, especially for special and heavy weapons, Overflow, and Disruption Break, again useful for Barrier champions. Reconstruction is a great perk on slug shotguns like Heritage as it can give you up to 14 in the magazine.
    7. High-end content will usually include the Match Game modifier, which means that enemy shields must be broken by weapons of the same type (void, arc, or solar). Having a reasonable range of weapons in these types—especially in the weapons that help you deal with champions (snipers, scouts, smgs, pulses, hand cannons in Season 13)—is part of being a flexible and good teammate. Only being able to run one loadout is … suboptimal.

    For right now, season 13, here are the top five must-have exotic weapons:

    1. Anarchy

    Why it's good: Set it and forget it! Anarchy is the best damage-over-time (DoT) weapon in the game. Put two grenades on a boss, walk around a corner, and emote as the health goes down. More generally Anarchy allows you to do boss damage while paying attention to your surroundings and dealing with adds. It's especially useful in solo content as a result, where you can lay two Anarchy shots on a boss and then hide behind cover or deal with other adds. Anarchy also allows you to control space and quickly deal with low-level mobs by tracing patterns on the floor for them to walk into.

    How to get it: exotic vendor in the Tower.

    What replaces it: Witherhoard can do similar DoT and low-level add control work, though it's much less powerful.

    2. Xenophage

    Why it's good: it's basically a grenade launcher combined with a machine gun. It does very good sustained DPS over the magazine, but suffers from two drawbacks: incredibly slow reload speed and a lack of critical damage. That means that Xeno combines well with the Titan exotic Actium War Rig (which reloads it as it fires) or the Hunter dodge reload, and also with Divinity, which gives it a nice damage boost. Xenophage is sustained boss DPS king right now, not because it does the absolute best damage but because it does great damage and is very easy to use.

    How to get it: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-10-29-destiny-2-xenophage-quest-6007

    What replaces it: Whisper of the Worm, in situations requiring sustained boss damage (final boss of Garden of Salvation, e.g.). Also fast-firing grenade launchers with autoreloading holsters.

    3. Divinity

    Why it's good: Divinity stuns Overload champions and produces a 30% damage debuff on any mob it hits. It combines very well with snipers since the damage field it creates means that you do not have to hit critical spots on mobs to get critical damage (especially nice on console). In six-person content having a Divinity effectively adds about 0.7 people's worth of damage to the fireteam (5 people x 30% = 150%, plus the damage Divinity does which is worth another little bit). In three-person content Divinity allows hard-hitting weapons like Izanagi's to quickly bring down Barrier, Overload, and Unstoppable champions.

    How to get it: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-10-08-destiny-2-divinity-quest-divine-fragmentation-6007

    What replaces it: the debuff function of Divnity can be replaced with a hunter tether or a top-tree solar Titan shoulder charge. The overload stunning function can be replaced with Overload grenades or a seasonal weapon mod. Debuffs caused by stasis do not benefit the entire fireteam, only the caster, and so replace it only partially.

    4. Izanagi's Burden

    Why it's good: with the catalyst, an Izanagi's Honed Edge shot does the damage of six single shots instantly. Paired with Divinity this makes Izanagi's the fastest/best burst damage weapon in the game. Unfortunately a major nerf in season 10 means that the weapon's reload speed is not fast enough to make it ideal for sustained DPS damage. But it's still good. Two Izanagi's shots plus Divinity is enough to kill a champion in a master nightfall, and to bring one down to about 20% health in a grandmaster.

    How to get it: from the exotic vendor in the tower.

    What replaces it: nothing, though on PC, where controlling weapons is easier, you can get off six or seven shots on a Vorpal sniper fast enough to come close. Whisper of the Worm if you hit all your crits (to trigger auto reload) does very good damage but nothing like the instant burst of the Izanagi's. Izanagi's was for a while the meta for many raid boss fights but has been replaced by other weapons on this list, though it's still pretty good.

    Note that without the catalyst Izanagi's only does 5x damage on Honed Edge shots, making it less good.

    5. Eriana's Vow

    Why it's good: it breaks barriers on Barrier champions at range; the buff it gets from hitting crits on your first and subsequent shots makes it a pretty decent damage-dealer as well. In seasons where anti-barrier mods are associated only with short-range weapons (as in Season 10, when they were on sidearms and SMGs) Eriana's is a must for dealing with Barrier champions.

    How to get it: from the exotic vendor in the tower.

    What replaces it: anything with anti-barrier rounds. For season 12, that's pulse rifles, or you can use the heavy attack of the Lament exotic sword.

    Without the catalyst Eriana's does not autoreload and only has 6 (instead of 9) in the mag, making it much worse.

    Some other weapons are important to have and very useful in limited situations. These include:

    Lament

    Why it's good: Lament is a very fun exotic sword-slash-chainsaw that does the highest burst damage in the game. Over time the need to wait for the heavy attack to recharge brings its overall damage down, but if you need to do max damage in a second or two, then this is a great weapon for you. It's useful, for instance, in the Atraks encounter of the Deep Stone Crypt raid for that reason.

    The downside of Lament is that it takes up an exotic slot that might better be used on something else. At reasonable light levels (1250 or so, relative to the 1230 Atraks encounter) Fallen Guillotine does enough damage in similar situations so that Lament can feel more like a luxury than a necessity.

    Where to get it: https://www.fanbyte.com/guides/destiny-2-lost-lament-quest-guide-all-the-lament-exotic-quest-steps/

    What replaces it: Fallen Guillotine or possibly another slightly less good sword with Whirlwind Blade perk.

    Whisper of the Worm

    Why it's good: it's a hard-hitting, three-round sniper that reloads automatically from reserves if you hit all three crit shots. That makes it very useful for sustained boss DPS in situations where you can be pretty sure of hitting your crits: Morgeth encounter in Last Wish (or, in season 11, the boss in Scourge, or the tanks in the Zero Hour mission). It also comes from doing one of the most fun missions in the game, which has now sadly been moved to the content vault.

    How to get it: the exotic vendor in the Tower.

    What replaces it: any number of things in the list above.

    Without the catalyst Whisper is less good; with the catalyst you get a significant damage bonus after aiming down sights for a few seconds before firing.

    Wardcliff Coil

    Why it's good: it's basically a shotgun rocket launcher that does great close-range damage. It's very useful when you can tackle a boss at short range, and when you don't blow yourself up with it. A couple seasons ago it was great in the Strange Terrain GM NF. This season, with the buff to rocket launchers, it may shine again.

    How to get it: world drop

    What replaces it: a grenade launcher with auto-loading holster, kind of.

    Eyes of Tomorrow

    What about this weapon? It sounds amazing but early data seems to show that it will not be great for boss damage. In general it's a cool weapon but it's not clear that it's really the best at anything, though Season 13 rocket launcher upgrades may change this situation.

    How to get it: chance to drop from final encounter in DSC

    What replaces it: ???

    Useful Legendary Weapons

    Having a good slug shotgun for damage in the Deep Stone Crypt raid is very nice. Options include Bonechiller and Heritage, as well as First In Last Out. Look for reload perks or perks that increase magazine size.

    Likewise, a good sniper with Vorpal Weapon and Triple Tap can come in handy for certain boss damage situations. Against barrier champions, weapons with Disruption Break are useful; the Ikelos SMG can drop with this, as can the Jian-7 pulse rifle.

    The other absolutely critical weapon to own is the sword Fallen Guillotine, ideally with Whirlwind and Relentless Strikes.

    Finally, this season you may want to consider having a rocker launcher handy. They've been buffed and a couple of the new nightfall strikes involve large bunches of mobs. We won't know for a while whether rockets are viable, but they might be. A good place to start is with Bad Omens, which is available for purchase from the Drifter.

    Exotic Primary Weapons that Heal

    For raid encounters where you don't need boss damage (Gauntlet in Leviathan, first and second encounters in Garden of Salvation, many others), you can also run exotic primary weapons that help keep you alive: Crimson (heal on kill), Rat King (heal/invis on kill, with catalyst), Suros Regime (occasional heal on kill, especially with catalyst), or Vigilance Wing (heals when a teammate dies). In general you don't want to waste an exotic slot on a primary weapon but if you're not doing boss damage that's fine. These can all be useful for the first three encounters of Deep Stone Crypt, if you're having trouble staying alive. In sublight content (1280 lost sectors, grandmaster nightfalls) you won't kill things fast enough to make these kinds of weapons worth it, but they can be very useful when soloing dungeons (Rat King is great for the Totem encounter in the Pit of Heresy, for example).

    Weapons Mods

    The only enemy-specific weapons mod is Taken Spec, which comes in handy in all sorts of high-end content involving Taken enemies (it does 10% more damage). Other than that a good selection of Boss, Major, and Minor spec (each does 7.5% more damage) will tend to be the most useful.

    Remember also (and see above) that your weapons are very much affected by your armor mods, and that you will need to set up your armor mods with reload, reserves, and/or dexterity perks that affect your current loadout.

    Also, an important note: champions, though they are yellow-bar enemies, count as majors. So Major Spec is the way to go here.

    The Current Metas (Season 13)

    These are the dominant strategies, not the only strategies. But they're what you can expect when joining an LFG group.

    Last Wish: right now Fallen Guillotine or Lament work for essentially every encounter. With Shuro Chi it's nice to have one person running Thunderlord for low-level add clear; the Necrotic Grips exotic on a Warlock is also fun. Having at least one well is useful. For Morgeth encounter you can also use Whisper, especially if you are on a Petra's Run and don't want things to be as risky as they are behind the back. For the final encounter (not legit, but cheesed) having a debuff of some kind (Divinity, or a hunter tether) is very important.

    Garden of Salvation: For the first two encounters anything goes, with swords doing some good work. For third encounter use Xenophage or Whisper plus a Divinity; for final encounter same thing, except that you can just tether the boss and skip the Divinity. Warlocks are better off using 1000 Voices for final encounter instead as the Xenophage reload is too slow.

    Deep Stone Crypt: This raid is nice because it accepts a wide variety of loadouts. For the first encounter, fuses can be broken by one Celestial Nighthawk shot, by Xenophage, or by any slug or pellet shotgun (especially one with autofire; Fourth Horseman is great). In the second, swords like Lament or Fallen Guillotine are the way to go for quick replicant damage; Jotunn is an easy way to kill servitors from afar. For the final stand encounter (upstairs in space) one Celestial Nighthawk shot is almost enough to end the encounter on the first replicant, saving you lots of panicked running around. For the third encounter anything goes; for the final encounter someone needs to be running Divinity, and then damage can be done with Xenophage, slug or pellet shotguns, and snipers (including Cloudstrike). It's nice to save a Celestial for the final stand mechanic.

    The easiest way to run the raid is to run shotguns/swords for every encounter until the last one. Thanks to Sundering Glare/Focusing Lends mods multiple Thundercrashing Titans can also make the final encounter fun.

    Shattered Throne (solo): Sniper rifles for first encounter and second. Be patient! Vorgeth is the difficult piece here. Part of soloing dungeons is recognizing that Bungie puts in sections with trash mobs that are specifically designed for you to fill your special and heavy ammo reserves; use them accordingly. My warlock guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/cohz2w/solo_shattered_throne_flawless_onephase_vorgeth/. The guide is out of date as the mods have all changed; I would make sure you're running Concussive Dampener and Sniper for the first couple encounters. The Stomcaller/GL/Izanagi combo still works for the final encounter.

    Pit of Heresy (solo): The difficult encounter is the third one. Having a way to heal (devour Warlock, punchy Titan) or be invis (Hunter) or both (use Rat King with catalyst) is crucial. Xenophage makes short work of boomers, as does Izanagi. For boss damage in final encounter groups use a well or bubble and swords; for solo I prefer Anarchy and Loaded Question. Hive mods a must. My guide for Hunters is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/f5lo0p/solo_flawless_pit_of_heresy_hunter_guide_for/ The guide is out of date as the mods have all changed; I would make sure you're running Concussive Dampener and Arc Resist for the first couple encounters, as the loss of Hive Armaments and Hive Barrier are going to make life a bit more difficult.

    Prophecy (solo): The easiest loadout used to involve Mountaintop and Anarchy. If you don't have those try Xenophage, Witherhoard, Riskrunner, Fallen Guillotine, and even Trinity Ghoul for certain sections. Jotunn can also work especially in groups. Begin with a plan to use Solar and Concussive resist mods, and work from there. (Thanks to /u/kenkeith for the edit..)

    Hawkmoon (solo flawless): The easiest week to do this in is week 1 (with the single boss who shields up and disappears between damage phases). For the first part be prepared to switch weapons to deal with miniboss shields (there's one of each) and try to damage minibosses quickly so that they move to the next area—this despawns all the adds that surround them. The hardest part of this is the fight against the Unstoppables; make sure you can stun and move around the arena; you can find cover on both sides behind a box that has two pipes attached to it. The key here is to use Xenophage to take down snipers from cover as quickly as possible. For the boss fight I recommend Gnawing Hunger, Xeno, and a sniper. On the right side once adds are down there are rocks you can use to avoid the boss's fire attack and snipe from safety. Once adds spawn in jump up, put down a rift if you have one (I ran a top-tree void Warlock with Contraverse), and immediately destroy the solar-shielded knight. Then clear out the void-shielded adds on that side, then the same thing on the other side. Be patient and calm.

    Presage (solo flawless): Until the boss fight Xeno, a shotgun, and gnawing hunger work well. There's no match game in the regular version (which is where the triumph comes from) so the arc shields you'll encounter in the hangar are easily dealt with. For the boss fight I ran Trustee (but anything solar would be fine), Anarchy, and a shotgun. Since there's no time limit you can really take your time here. I ran a Contraverse Warlock for the first part, and a Well for the boss fight.

    GM NFs: The key here is to adjust loadout and mods to mob type. Depending on the nightfall boss damage can involve Fallen Guillotine (Lake of Shadows) or Wardcliff Coil (Strange Terrain) or Izanagi's Burden (Festering Core) or Xenophage (The Corrupted) … or something else. Plan accordingly. In Season 12 the meta really became a combination of Xenophage and Anarchy; you could practically run that loadout for every single GM.

    For season 13, much of your loadout consideration here will depend on the type of champions. For Overload Champions, Divinity is incredibly useful. It combines well with Izanagi's Burden so you'll often see a two Izanagi's, one Divinity loadout. Having a second person run a scout with Overload rounds can be a godsend here. For Unstoppable champions you'll want a pulse r hand cannon (and probably two people with this). Since they don't heal they are in some respects the easiest champion to deal with. As for Barriers, the Divinity/Izanagi combo will probably work well, both because it synergizes with Sundering Glare and because you can run anti-barrier sniper and then run whatever energy weapon you'd like.

    Another weapon I really recommend is a breech-loaded grenade launcher with autoloading holster and blinding grenades (Truthteller rolls with this combo). It's an amazing useful way to control crowds and does decent damage on direct hits. (Salvager's Salvo seems like it might be neat but the problem is that in GMs you won't get kills often enough to proc Chain Reaction.)

    The other thing to remember is that since Match Game is on you will have to be able to break whatever shields there are.

    In terms of subclasses: it is very rare to see anything other than void Hunters, void Titans, and void and solar Warlocks. In season 11 that was especially true because of the presence of the Oppressive Darkness buff, but even in season 10 you didn't see much else. In general Warlocks are the easiest classes to run through these, because they have good healing (with Wells), good single-burst damage supers (Chaos Reach, Nova Bomb), the best always-ready grenade (void, with Contraverse), and the best crowd control stasis super. If you only run one class and you want to do this content, make it a Warlock.

    Last note: one of the weird things about these nightfalls is that the strategy tends to be split into two very different experiences: getting to the boss fight, which involves dealing with lots of champions, and then the boss fight itself. So for example in Strange Terrain Wardcliff Coil allows you to three-phase the boss, which makes things much easier, but it's more or less useless against champions, so you have to figure out a loadout that works for the champions (auto rifles for barriers, e..g), which occupy the first twenty or thirty minutes of the strike.

    For season 13 we have three older nightfalls, and three new ones (Fallen SABER, Devil's Lair, Proving Grounds). The new ones seem like they'll be especially challenging because of mob density and lack of cover in a number of places (especially Fallen SABER).

    Nightmare Hunts (time-trial): Most of these don't have void shields, so you can spec into arc and solar. If you commit to a full invisibility strategy (which probably requires two bottom-tree void Hunters) you can skip all the champions, but I always find it easier just to figure out how to kill them and move forward. Many of the hunts have a safe area in the final boss fight where you can hide or at least control the flow of enemies toward you. Having a well and a tether is very useful here, and the Nightmare Breaker mod is incredibly useful for getting rid of those pesky solar shields.

    Solo Lost Sectors: Here Anarchy really is your best friend. There are other options but making sure you can break all the shields you need to break (usually arc and solar) and that you can get champions stunned or barriers broken before they heal (which often means making sure you won't have to reload at a stupid time) will really help. I have found that stasis classes, because of the grenade mods and the fact that the duskfield grenade keeps barrier champions from popping their barriers, are easier than others. Most of these are doable, with some practice, once you're 20 power levels below them (so, 1260 for a 1280), and become much easier as you level up.

    Master Empire Hunts: With an organized fireteam of three people 20 levels below the activity you should be able to handle things. I've found Eriana's Vow surprisingly useful in these; Anarchy also is great for putting damage on stuff and getting into cover. The smg Overload rounds often put you too close to the action, and seem kind of finicky; I prefer Bows, at least for now, as it more reliably stuns Overloads and keeps them overloaded and not healing. Without Anarchy I think you want to look at Witherhoard as a useful damage over time weapon, or consider having someone run Lament as an invis Hunter so that you can get close to Barriers without dying. I do think that the Barrier champions are by far the most difficult to deal with. The fact that you can bait Overload champions towards you and around a corner, where they can be stunned and then quickly killed with swords, makes them much easier to handle.

    Q&A

    What's one thing I should do differently in PvE?

    Throw more grenades! Most people underuse their grenades because normal-level PvE content means that grenades kill most stuff too slowly relative to SMGs, sidearms, shotguns, fusions, and so on. But they're really useful in high-level/sublight content, where you're almost always going to be at auto-rifle range, or farther.

    What's the one thing I can do to improve in raids?

    Stop dying. Especially in the more recent raids, from Scourge of the Past forward (including Crown of Sorrow and Garden of Salvation) one player death during the third or fourth encounters can lead to a cascading series of disasters from which it is very difficult to recover. Likewise in DSC an Operator death at the wrong time in the fourth encounter, or a Suppressor death at the wrong time in the third or fourth encounters, can quickly produce a wipe.

    Learn the map so you can use cover as you move; learn the spawns so you know when an Ogre will appear and are ready to kill it (rather than get melted because you were not aware it was going to be there); learn to avoid Taken blights and phalanxes and boss stomps that will slam you into a wall and kill you.

    Stop being surprised when you die… so often that I hear someone complaining that they don't know how they died, or that it's unfair that the stomp or the phalanx one-shot them by bumping them into a corner. First of all you need to know what killed you or you can't improve. Second of all it should really not take too many times of being booped into a corner to realize that this kind of thing is part of the game… and it means that you need to know where the boss stomp radius is (as in the final encounter of the Pit of Heresy) and where the phalanxes are, so that you can avoid them.

    What's the second thing I can to improve in raids?

    Learn all the roles. It's very easy to get comfortable with whatever role you have the first time you run the raid, and never do anything else. But it makes it harder for everyone else if they have to adjust to you. Some roles are more mechanical or combat difficult than others (for instance holding down the fourth corner in the second encounter of Garden, or running upstairs Scanner during the Atraks encounter of DSC); you can work your way up to them. Knowing how to do everything means that it's easier for you to cover for your teammates when something goes wrong (and it will go wrong). If you've never gathered motes in the GoS boss encounter, for instance, and all of a sudden someone needs to jump through the portal to get another 10 motes because you had a sacrifice, you want to be ready to do that job. And likewise if you've never built ground, you can't help if one of the defenders goes down and the other one needs you. Being a good teammate means understanding other people's jobs as well as your own.

    What are the important weapons/damage synergies?

    The most important one is the Divinity/Izanagi's combo. Three people who can put a Divinity bubble on a champion and then hit it with two Izanagi's shots within a second of each other will really be able to do well in high-end nightfall content. Less important but useful is knowing how and when to take advantage of debuffs like champion stuns or Titan Melting Points—making sure you're in a position to use as much of the debuff time as possible as efficiently as possible.

    What are some important class synergies?

    Beyond the obvious super-based ones (wells, bubbles and tethers), many of these belong to Warlocks, who tend (in my experience) to underuse healing grenades and ought generally to throw them at their teammates more often. Similarly Warlocks tend to cast their healing rifts when they need them. Cast them when your teammates might need them! As for Titans, they heal their fireteam on melee kills (top tree void) or grenade damage (middle tree void); be aware that you can use these skills strategically to help your teammates survive. Likewise with barricades, which can be critical in securing a rez or keeping someone alive after they're rezzed. As for Hunters, beyond the obvious invisibility perks, I would say that they tend really to underuse smoke bombs in PvE—they can be critical in add control by giving your group time to breathe and pick off adds one by one.

    Part of the reason to get better at this game is to get good enough so that you're not playing just for yourself, but for others—to master your class so that it not only keeps you alive and doing good damage but helps your fireteam do those things too.

    Above-light raids and sublight nightfalls/nightmare hunts: which is harder?

    Raids when you are higher light level than the enemies are mainly a matter of experience, teamwork, and communication. You will engage ordinary mobs at short ranges and can use a much wider range of weapons. Sublight and/or solo content requires you absolutely to prioritize your health, which means using cover and abilities to stay alive as much as possible, engaging enemies at range and using movement to avoid fire. The latter is definitely harder and requires a real focus on gear and mods to make sure you're giving yourself every advantage you can.

    That said, part of building up good PvE gear is to give you the bonuses and boosts you need to help you stay alive in raids so that you can focus on learning the mechanics and doing boss damage. So you want a good set, even if you're above light, because that will help you focus on the important stuff you need to learn, instead of worrying about dying.

    How do I get the materials I need to upgrade all my armor?

    Besides the ascendant shards and prisms you get from the season pass and from the Drifter and Shaxx for leveling up your Gambit or Crucible rank, the best way to get Ascendant Shards is to do grandmaster nightfalls, or to farm master nightfalls once you're close enough in light to that number to make those easy. The other way is go flawless in Trials. So you're probably best off farming the master nightfalls, especially in weeks where there are double rewards.

    This guide didn't talk about something I'd like to hear more about. Or you didn't tell people about some weapon/class/ability situation I think is important!

    Well, yes. It's already 9,000 words long. But if you post in the comments people will read them, and if I edit the document to reflect your suggestion, I'll make sure to credit you! So please give me feedback.

    submitted by /u/Ciborium616
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    Eververst armor that has us cosplaying as the other classes

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 08:27 AM PST

    For the Halloween event, what if the armor was us waiting badly costumes of the other classes, like the warlock wearing cardboard Titan armor, the hunter wearing Warlock robes that are obviously duct taped together and Titans wearing too small hunter clothing and capes that are too short.

    Edit: Thanks for the Silver!

    submitted by /u/Skathlocke
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    Bungie put a lot of effort into the Europa day/night cycle and frankly, it shows.

    Posted: 02 Mar 2021 11:02 PM PST

    https://ibb.co/album/YTwyRM

    (thumbnail view is bad on imgbb, sorry. tap/click into an image for full res gallery view.)

    I just wanted to capture a quick screenshot but I couldn't stop when I realized how drastically the scenery was continuing to shift with the time of day. One hour later, here we are.

    Everyone at Bungie responsible for this, I appreciate you.

    edit: thanks for the morning upvote surprise, everyone. and i would love to deliver on the requests for a gif, but i am no good at that (i'm sure there's an online tool), and also i kind of botched this sequence by idling out in the middle. might try again at some point and do a better job of not moving at all. but if anyone else wants to gif it, feel free!

    submitted by /u/Witha3
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    This is just a dumb thought of mine, but what if Caiatl took The Leviathan from Calus and turned it into a home away from home for The Cabal? It has citylike structures to it already, lots of space, probably has tons of supplies too.

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 09:44 PM PST

    Ok so hear me out here. One of the many, many reasons The Fallen became, well, FALLEN, is because they have nowhere to call home, no society to cling on to. Without it, they became pirates and lost their way over a long period of time, as we killed their elders doubtless many things were lost.

    Thing is, The Cabal only recently lost Torobatl in my understanding. They are certainly heading the same way as the Fallen, but they are not there YET. They have a strong leader in Caiatl, they still have people who know the ways of old despite our killing. If they can secure a safe haven for the non combatants, they MIGHT be able to recover and avoid The Fallen's fate.

    You know what place probably has a lot of Cabal history, supplies for tons of people, a massive cityscape and room for expansion, facliitles for relaxation and entertainment as well as military and scientific endeavers? THE LEVIATHAN.

    The only real problem is... you kinda need to take it from Calus and his Loyalists. But as of the recent Glykon mission, Calus seems to have vanished into midair, might even be dead, and his loyalists are probably in disarray.

    If Caiatl can find The Leviathan, bend it to her will... she could make a HOME for the Cabal that The Fallen currently lack. (Thanks a lot for that by the way Eramis you asshole.)

    submitted by /u/Kylestien
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    Deep Stone Crypt Developer Deep Dive Stream Megathread

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 10:04 AM PST

    YOU CAN WATCH THE STREAM RIGHT HERE

    (No live feed this time)

    This time, we're heading back to the Deep Stone Crypt. As our brave fireteam ventures through the frozen wastes of Europa and polished halls of BrayTech Research labs, developers will be providing commentary on how the secret sauce was made. You won't want to miss this!

    Deep Stone Crypt Developer Deep Dive

    Wednesday, March 3

    10 AM PST

    Twitch.tv/Bungie and Youtube.com/Bungie

    We'll have representatives from various disciplines of development including design, art, VFX, narrative, and more! We're excited to dust off the stream equipment and hope to see you there.

    We asked the Nine what the Darkness was, now once again we ask; "Does Bungie play their own game?"

    Tune in for a definitive answer to the question.

    submitted by /u/DTG_Bot
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    We need more weapon manufacturer guns just like Arms Day

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 01:23 AM PST

    Omolon, Veist, Hakke, Suros, etc seem to have been mostly lost since sunsetting and now its random when a gun is made by them. What happened to adding manufacturer guns into the game to diversify the guns besides their fire rate? There are no suros, hakke weapons, some omolon and 2 Veist weapons.

    Please bring back Arms Day or make a plethora of manufacturer guns!!!

    submitted by /u/ShiningDomingo
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    Being a slave to metas is real thing

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 01:35 PM PST

    The amount of people I've met thru LFG who think Bungie recently buffed Chaos Reach is astounding.

    Nope it's been good.

    submitted by /u/ProxyknifeIsKing
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    Transmat effects should be permanent unlocks as well

    Posted: 03 Mar 2021 01:22 PM PST

    With the news that shaders will become permanent, I think transmat effects should as well.

    It's the same as with shaders - the fact that you lose the one you have equipped when you switch encourages you to not switch and goes against the very idea of customisation

    submitted by /u/epicmemetime15
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