Meet the expansion

[markopolo]

Dec 5, 2014 14:23:16 GMT -5 tooros said:

I am less that 40 points short of rolling over a vanguard ranking. I've stuck my new monarchy band back on to halt this progress. What do we think? Is that the best idea? The vanguard commendations aren't really clear but, I suspect it's as simple as just ranking up. I also wonder if faction ranks will count too, my plan being to get NM ranking ready to upgrade as well after Tuesday.

I haven't seen factions being mentioned as need accommodations. Granted, I haven't gone out of my way to look, but I haven't seen it.

My plan is to get as close to the rank without going over and getting a new one rank before the update. I think that's the best bet

[wittyscorpion]

Dec 5, 2014 14:23:16 GMT -5 tooros said:

I am less that 40 points short of rolling over a vanguard ranking. I've stuck my new monarchy band back on to halt this progress. What do we think? Is that the best idea? The vanguard commendations aren't really clear but, I suspect it's as simple as just ranking up. I also wonder if faction ranks will count too, my plan being to get NM ranking ready to upgrade as well after Tuesday.

I did the similar thing. It certainly does not hurt to wait for a few more days

[iw5000]

Dec 4, 2014 18:20:55 GMT -5 mannon said:

I'm thinking it breaks down kinda like this:

S+	New Exotic (Gold)	reXurbished Old Exotic (Gold)	Crota's End Raid Legendary (Purple)
S	Un-exchanged Old Exotic (Gold)	Vault of Glass Raid Legendary (Purple)
A+ or S?	New non-raid Legendary (Purple)
A	Old non-raid Legendary (Purple)
B	Rare (Blue)
C	Uncommon (Green)
D	Common (White)

Although I don't think the new non-raid Legendaries really deserve their own row, I'm not quite sure where they'll stand. I guess if the new legendary armor goes up to 30 light that makes them S and if not it makes them A or A+ if slightly better than vanilla legendaries... though I'm not sure they will be better rather than simply different.

Note: I used letter grades instead of tiers to avoid confusion with Witty's list. Also I'm just discussing, he'd clearly more pro at Destiny than I am, being stuck at 28 as I am. ;p (Actually I can probably hit 29 if I don't mind burning some shards... that I don't have... since I got my IB boots.)

I think people need to get away from thinking in terms of 'attack'. The whole '300' number is a bit deceptive, especially when it comes to Exotic versus Legendary (at least the old way)

For example. My fully leveled Legendary Shadow Price is pretty much (damage wise) the equal of my fully leveled Exotic Suros Regine. Rather than look at the guns in terms of '300' attack, it's better to look at them in terms of 'Damage/per Clip' or 'damage per second'. This is more useful, especially when shooting something like a Praetorian in the VoG (at least the initial stage), that has around 5,000 health. When comparing the two guns, the Shadow Price kills in about 5.52 seconds (925d/sec), while the Suros Regime kills in 5.90 seconds (865d/sec). The Suros is weaker, but does have better control, enabling better odds for more bullets hitting. But being an exotic, it hogs up a needed slot. For the most part, Legendary > Exotic.

Again...Legendary can be better than it's Exotic counterpart, in some circumstances.


The above comes into importance with the update. Whether the number is 315, 330 or 350 on the new guns, that number is mostly irrelevant. People shouldn't get hung up on it. What will be more important is the above damage/per bullet and damage per clip stats. What you need to stress, especially with fighting harder/higher level beasts, is being able to take them down quickly. Preferably in one clip. What simply KILLS a player in hard levels/raids is needing to reload in the heat of the moment. That extra 1.6 to 2.5 seconds is typically the difference between controlling a scene, and losing control of it. And needing two reloads? Odds of losing scene control get even worse.

So for example. There will be harder monsters/beasts coming. Harder Strikes, harder Raids. Lets say their health is now going to be 5,500 (rather than 5,000). In some instances, your old Legendaries and exotics still could be quite useful, and not horribly underequipped. Again, the key is the TimeToKill, if it stays under that reload limit. So if a new hard enemy is 5,500 now, and my Shadow Price does 129d per bullet....it's going to take 43 bullets to kill. The Shadow Price has 42 bullet. Ouch. Guess what? My TTK is going to get hammered. It's going to take a full clip of shooting 5.86 seconds, PLUS reloading of 1.65 seconds, plus another bullet to kill.

My TTK suddenly goes from 5.52 sec to around 7.61 seconds. That extra two seconds makes the Shadow Price MUCH MUCH worse.

But....if the new bad monsters & beasts, the tougher ones, stay around 5,400 health points (rather than 5,500)...the Shadow Price stays a pretty effective weapon. No reason to get concerned right now. Bottom line, the old guns might, probably will be, still be very effective. I'm running Hard Raids right now, with a Shadow Price as my main AR and having no real issues or difficulties. It works very well.

[iw5000]

...at the end of the day, what determines success in doing hard Strike modes, or harder Raids isn't so much incremental differences on gun damage stats....

....but mostly a person's ability to USE the gun of choice effectively in stressful conditions. Hitting all your shots. Shooting while dodging/jumping. Scene awareness. Knowing when to switch up guns & what gun to use. Knowing where you need to be. These are the factors that determine most of your success. You are solid on these fundamentals, the gun damage stats won't be a huge factor.

[wittyscorpion]

IMHO the attack number is very important in PvE. It is the baseline Bungie uses to balance weapons across weapon classes, and weapons of different traits (e.g.: RoF, impact, stability, etc) within a weapon class.

Your Shadow Price has the same attack number as exotics, that's why it is why it can be just as good. If you are using one with less attack (say 280), you will feel the difference, especially in intense PvE experiences like Raid.

In the new world where the "new" legenderies/exotics have 330+ attack, the 300 attack legendaries will feel outclassed, eventually, when used against enemies of level 31/32/33 (I was told that in hard raid the enemies will be at level 33, 1 level above players' max level).

[iw5000]

Yes, but I think you are missing my point. On some of the charts in this thread, people are listing Exotics above Legendaries, as if they are always a better gun. They aren't. And same deal with the Raid guns versus the Legendaries. The differences are minimal at best. And it's not necessarily the level of the gun (280, 290, 300), but the TTK's including reload times. That break point with killing things.

I wouldn't stress it. I've watched good players run underequipped level characters in the Raid, and with good positioning, scene awareness, etc... and they always do just fine. You cover those basics, the current legendaries and exotics will be fine for a while.

[malgato]

Well, the exotics are generally better than legendaries based on the perks. But a legendary primary with elemental damage is a hugely important perk.

[mannon]

My list above was probably slightly more armor focused than weapons. Weapons are a bit more complicated to compare and quantify than armor which is pretty strait forward in it's tiers.

[wittyscorpion]

Dec 8, 2014 13:12:53 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Yes, but I think you are missing my point. On some of the charts in this thread, people are listing Exotics above Legendaries, as if they are always a better gun. They aren't. And same deal with the Raid guns versus the Legendaries. The differences are minimal at best. And it's not necessarily the level of the gun (280, 290, 300), but the TTK's including reload times. That break point with killing things.

I wouldn't stress it. I've watched good players run underequipped level characters in the Raid, and with good positioning, scene awareness, etc... and they always do just fine. You cover those basics, the current legendaries and exotics will be fine for a while.

Sure. There are crappy weapons in each tier I listed that are much worse than the tier below it, and of course there are also personal factors (say 1 person just prefers auto rifle over any hand cannons).

However, I like to establishing these tiering as a baseline, based on the following facts and observations:

1) Higher attack numbers = generally stronger weapons;
2) Exotics > others because they will never become UP (from attack numbers point of view);
3) Raid weapons are generally better than regular legendary weapons, based on my observations that lll the raid weapons I acquired so far feel like exotic-level quality, and to make thing better, without the exotic limitation;

These 3 rules resulted in the following tiers I mentioned earlier:

Tier 1: New exotic, revamped old exotic
Tier 2*: Crota's End raid legendary
Tier 3: new non-raid legendary (available from vendors and loot drops)
Tier 4: Un-revamped Old exotic
Tier 5*: Vault of Glass Raid legendary
Tier 6: old non-raid legendary
Tier 7: Rare
Tier 8: Green
Tier 9: White

(* Note: tier 2 ~= tier 1, and tier 5 ~= tier 4)

The main purpose is to give people a sense of what to purchase, priorities on what to upgrade, etc.

[hebbnh]

First, read this: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2mivxq/updated_some_testing_with_voc_and_level_30_vex/.

Attack is definitely important, but player level is importanter! A level 30 player fighting a level 30 enemy is doing 45 more damage per shot (135 per critical) with a Vision of Confluence at 300 ATK vs 267 ATK. That's a 17.8% increase in damage resulting in needing 2 fewer bullets to kill a Minotaur Disciple. I imagine that difference would only get larger against tougher enemies like Praetorians. A 331 ATK (not sure if that's what the new weapons will max out at, but that's what I've seen thrown around most) vs 300 ATK comparison will be very similar. That being said, the difference between being level 30 and level 29 is much greater. In fact, as summarized at the bottom of that link, a level 30 with a 248 ATK VoC does around 13% more damage than a level 29 with a 300 ATK VoC. A level 30 with 300 ATK vs a 29 with 300 ATK is doing 47% more damage against a level 30 enemy.

Therefore, the priority for purchasing new items has to be on armor. Getting to 31/32 is much more important than getting a 331 ATK weapon. This is only magnified further when you consider that none of the new vendor primaries will do elemental damage. Vault of Glass primaries will remain vital for Nightfalls, Heroics (assuming a burn is on), and against shielded enemies in other activities at least until Crota's End hard mode is unleashed in January and the new Crota's End primaries become available.

[wittyscorpion]

Dec 8, 2014 14:26:45 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

First, read this: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2mivxq/updated_some_testing_with_voc_and_level_30_vex/.

Attack is definitely important, but player level is importanter! A level 30 player fighting a level 30 enemy is doing 45 more damage per shot (135 per critical) with a Vision of Confluence at 300 ATK vs 267 ATK. That's a 17.8% increase in damage resulting in needing 2 fewer bullets to kill a Minotaur Disciple. I imagine that difference would only get larger against tougher enemies like Praetorians. A 331 ATK (not sure if that's what the new weapons will max out at, but that's what I've seen thrown around most) vs 300 ATK comparison will be very similar. That being said, the difference between being level 30 and level 29 is much greater. In fact, as summarized at the bottom of that link, a level 30 with a 248 ATK VoC does around 13% more damage than a level 29 with a 300 ATK VoC. A level 30 with 300 ATK vs a 29 with 300 ATK is doing 47% more damage against a level 30 enemy.

Therefore, the priority for purchasing new items has to be on armor. Getting to 31/32 is much more important than getting a 331 ATK weapon. This is only magnified further when you consider that none of the new vendor primaries will do elemental damage. Vault of Glass primaries will remain vital for Nightfalls, Heroics (assuming a burn is on), and against shielded enemies in other activities at least until Crota's End hard mode is unleashed in January and the new Crota's End primaries become available.

Next week is going to be a crazy week, with Iron Banner giving out level 31 gears. Unlike the last time when a significant amount of players already at level 30 and therefore don't have much incentives to grind for IB gear, this time I expect everybody and their dogs to jump in

I will need to get 3 characters leveled high enough to get all the IB gears and probably IB weapons (most likely they are going to be more attractive this time, at least with higher attack numbers). That's crazy amount of playing time, and even crazier amount of glimmers required. Scary...

[iw5000]

Dec 8, 2014 13:56:27 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Dec 8, 2014 13:12:53 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

Yes, but I think you are missing my point. On some of the charts in this thread, people are listing Exotics above Legendaries, as if they are always a better gun. They aren't. And same deal with the Raid guns versus the Legendaries. The differences are minimal at best. And it's not necessarily the level of the gun (280, 290, 300), but the TTK's including reload times. That break point with killing things.

I wouldn't stress it. I've watched good players run underequipped level characters in the Raid, and with good positioning, scene awareness, etc... and they always do just fine. You cover those basics, the current legendaries and exotics will be fine for a while.

Sure. There are crappy weapons in each tier I listed that are much worse than the tier below it, and of course there are also personal factors (say 1 person just prefers auto rifle over any hand cannons).

However, I like to establishing these tiering as a baseline, based on the following facts and observations:

1) Higher attack numbers = generally stronger weapons;
2) Exotics > others because they will never become UP (from attack numbers point of view);
3) Raid weapons are generally better than regular legendary weapons, based on my observations that lll the raid weapons I acquired so far feel like exotic-level quality, and to make thing better, without the exotic limitation;

These 3 rules resulted in the following tiers I mentioned earlier:

Tier 1: New exotic, revamped old exotic
Tier 2*: Crota's End raid legendary
Tier 3: new non-raid legendary (available from vendors and loot drops)
Tier 4: Un-revamped Old exotic
Tier 5*: Vault of Glass Raid legendary
Tier 6: old non-raid legendary
Tier 7: Rare
Tier 8: Green
Tier 9: White

(* Note: tier 2 ~= tier 1, and tier 5 ~= tier 4)

The main purpose is to give people a sense of what to purchase, priorities on what to upgrade, etc.

I hear you. It's just lists like the above, while really helpful, can paint an murky picture, confuse newer people on the scale of things. For example. It can take a green weapon (tier 8)as much as 35 seconds to kill an early VoG Praetorian, huge difference from the higher tier weapons. But the differences between a tier 4 through 6, it is really only talking a second or so between weapons. That tiny gun performance difference between Exotics, Raid Legendaries and Legendaries (tier 4 through 6)......can be minuscule, especially when compared to what Mal Heb pointed out, how just being ONE level below 28 on the VoG can put around a 22-25% nerf on your gun's damage. (* keeping things apples to apples, assuming all guns leveled up)

Gun's just aren't that crucial in PvE. At least in terms of importance when compared to other factors one controls, like your light level, gun level, how you play, etc.... If doing a VoG Raid, and you don't have a Raid 'Vision of Confluence'? No big deal. I could equip a legendary 'Crusader I' and honestly probably not even know the difference.

[hebbnh]

Dec 8, 2014 14:31:57 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Dec 8, 2014 14:26:45 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

First, read this: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2mivxq/updated_some_testing_with_voc_and_level_30_vex/.

Attack is definitely important, but player level is importanter! A level 30 player fighting a level 30 enemy is doing 45 more damage per shot (135 per critical) with a Vision of Confluence at 300 ATK vs 267 ATK. That's a 17.8% increase in damage resulting in needing 2 fewer bullets to kill a Minotaur Disciple. I imagine that difference would only get larger against tougher enemies like Praetorians. A 331 ATK (not sure if that's what the new weapons will max out at, but that's what I've seen thrown around most) vs 300 ATK comparison will be very similar. That being said, the difference between being level 30 and level 29 is much greater. In fact, as summarized at the bottom of that link, a level 30 with a 248 ATK VoC does around 13% more damage than a level 29 with a 300 ATK VoC. A level 30 with 300 ATK vs a 29 with 300 ATK is doing 47% more damage against a level 30 enemy.

Therefore, the priority for purchasing new items has to be on armor. Getting to 31/32 is much more important than getting a 331 ATK weapon. This is only magnified further when you consider that none of the new vendor primaries will do elemental damage. Vault of Glass primaries will remain vital for Nightfalls, Heroics (assuming a burn is on), and against shielded enemies in other activities at least until Crota's End hard mode is unleashed in January and the new Crota's End primaries become available.

Next week is going to be a crazy week, with Iron Banner giving out level 31 gears. Unlike the last time when a significant amount of players already at level 30 and therefore don't have much incentives to grind for IB gear, this time I expect everybody and their dogs to jump in

I will need to get 3 characters leveled high enough to get all the IB gears and probably IB weapons (most likely they are going to be more attractive this time, at least with higher attack numbers). That's crazy amount of playing time, and even crazier amount of glimmers required. Scary...

I posted this in another thread already, but the new expansion vendor armor will be level 31 (max of 33 light), so the IB gear isn't really any better than what you can buy any other time.  That takes a lot of the incentive out of IB for me.  If it was level 32 gear (max of 36 light), then it'd be a different story.  I'll probably see what I get out of the new raid the first 2 weeks and then make a determination of whether to grind IB or not, but right now I'm leaning toward not.

[wittyscorpion]

That's good to know, I am now much less scared about the IB grinding.

I will still participate, and this time focus on pushing my Warlock to IB rank 5. Will see how much the Vex Mythoclast can hold up against Suros Regime...

[wings]

Wait, both Titans and Hunters get exotic boots but Warlocks don't? So Warlocks still need to RNG the level 32 boots, whereas Titans and Hunters need not be at the mercy of RNG? Really?

[wittyscorpion]

Dec 8, 2014 14:26:45 GMT -5 hebbnh said:

First, read this: www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2mivxq/updated_some_testing_with_voc_and_level_30_vex/.

Attack is definitely important, but player level is importanter! A level 30 player fighting a level 30 enemy is doing 45 more damage per shot (135 per critical) with a Vision of Confluence at 300 ATK vs 267 ATK. That's a 17.8% increase in damage resulting in needing 2 fewer bullets to kill a Minotaur Disciple. I imagine that difference would only get larger against tougher enemies like Praetorians. A 331 ATK (not sure if that's what the new weapons will max out at, but that's what I've seen thrown around most) vs 300 ATK comparison will be very similar. That being said, the difference between being level 30 and level 29 is much greater. In fact, as summarized at the bottom of that link, a level 30 with a 248 ATK VoC does around 13% more damage than a level 29 with a 300 ATK VoC. A level 30 with 300 ATK vs a 29 with 300 ATK is doing 47% more damage against a level 30 enemy.

Therefore, the priority for purchasing new items has to be on armor. Getting to 31/32 is much more important than getting a 331 ATK weapon. This is only magnified further when you consider that none of the new vendor primaries will do elemental damage. Vault of Glass primaries will remain vital for Nightfalls, Heroics (assuming a burn is on), and against shielded enemies in other activities at least until Crota's End hard mode is unleashed in January and the new Crota's End primaries become available.

I am having second thought on this, regarding which is of higher priority: getting armors to reach level 31/32 vs. getting 331 attack weapons.

While a level 30 player against level 30 enemy can do a lot more damage than a level 29 player, I believe a level 31 player does the same damage as a level 30. Sure, level 31 players should have more defense, but if I under correctly they don't do more damage against enemies equal or below their levels.

If the above is true: then it is not critical to reach level 31/32 until the hard raid is unlocked. For this week and next week, maybe getting a weapon with higher attack is more beneficial. At least both options are worth considering.

Right out of the gate we will be constrained by Marks on what to buy: new legendary armors or new legendary weapons. To reach level 31 from level 30, we need at least 2 pieces of armor, which will cost at least 130 marks if price does not change. A weapon on the other hand will cost 150 marks.

The next constraint will be the "commendations", which can only be obtained through ranking up. This will severely limit how often we can buy stuff from vendors.


Another unknown factor: things we can buy from Eris. We will have to wait until tomorrow, look at all the options, then plan accordingly.

[hebbnh]

I'll be keeping an eye on reddit tomorrow for sure to see what kind of info I can gather. I fully expect enemies in CE to increase in level towards the end just like on VoG normal where they were 26 at the start but 28 at the finish. If that's the case I think new armor is definitely the way to go, though personally I'll be seeing what I get from Nightfalls and raid runs this week before buying anything. We'll find out soon enough!

[psychlon]

Armor > Weapon

[hebbnh]

For anyone interested in buying new 33 maximum light armor from the tower vendors, either Vanguard or Crucible, be aware that prices have been raised by 10 marks on gloves, chests, and boots, in addition to needing commendations for some items. Here's a list:

Helmet: 120 marks + 1 commendation
Gloves: 75 marks
Chest: 75 marks + 1 commendation
Boots: 75 marks

[hebbnh]

Also, commendations ARE transferable between characters according to reddit, which is nice. Marks however remain non-transferable.

[markopolo]

How do those vanguard weapons look, guvnah?

[iw5000]

I was up early this morning for work, around 6am or so. My DLC was downloaded. Jumped in to look around. Going from memory.

- Post was already playing the Raid with some of his other friends. They must have started at 5am?

- What Hebbnh said. Regular/old Crucible and Vanguard vendors are now only selling higher gear/armor. Upon which you must buy at the above listed prices.

- The weapons look like typical destiny weapons. Whatever, nothing special in terms of look. I recognized some names off of the gun list, so perhaps some of those guns we've never seen before, were held back for this release? For example, I have been wanting the Scout rifle 'The Saterienne Rapier' for quite some time. Never saw it anywhere. Well, now it's hear, available for sale. And as noted, their attack power is now 330. Needing 150 marks too. Same deal with both Crucible and Vanguard. I had enough money to buy one, but I'm going to wait.

- I saw nothing in the Tower that indicated 'how' to transfer old Legendaries and Exotics into higher ranked weapons. Nor anything for the Exotic/Legendary armor I presently have. Where does one do this? There were no indicator beacons leading me anywhere.

- There's a new character in the tower, Eris Morn. This spot reminds me of the Iron Banner mechanisms. It would appear that you do Eris activities, upon which you level up higher and higher. And as you go, you can buy and equip Eris related swag (banners, junk, etc..) that will enable you to maybe level even faster. Eris also gives you specific missions and bounties. I completed a few of them, plus the first mission. It's a mission to go kill some sword swinging beast/monster. It's on Earth, up in the little-used Groto section of the map. Get this mission done, take it back to Eris, and you get another mission. You also rank up too, moving towards Level 1 here.

- Strike Missions. There's a new 'Dark Below' Strike icon to go into, that sits above the other strikes (Tiger, Eagle, etc..). I did this Strike Mission. If I am remembering well, it plays a level higher, now at level 26. The other strikes cap out at 24. Was this is a new Strike? No. It was the same old shit. Go kill Vogoth, which I have done dozens of times. Yawn. Disappointed here quite a bit.

- New Raid. I went into it solo, as I had no one around and not much time. It's on the Moon, and the entrance is it's own separate area across from the Hellmouth. I don't think you can access this entrance from the regular Patrol mode. So you basically jump into a hole, drop down, and it gets dark. You are in a large room with a path going into darkness. And if you head that way, you get swarmed by a never-ending horde of monsters. I gave up after a while. Oh well.

[hebbnh]

Also also, the nightfall and heroic are the new DLC strike this time. You have to unlock the strike first by completing some quests from Eris, the new tower vendor. Obviously if you don't have the DLC, you won't be able to participate in the nightfall or heroic this week.

[hebbnh]

Dec 9, 2014 9:19:02 GMT -5 iw5000 said:

I was up early this morning for work, around 6am or so. My DLC was downloaded. Jumped in to look around. Going from memory.

- Post was already playing the Raid with some of his other friends. They must have started at 5am?

- What Hebbnh said. Regular/old Crucible and Vanguard vendors are now only selling higher gear/armor. Upon which you must buy at the above listed prices.

- The weapons look like typical destiny weapons. Whatever, nothing special in terms of look. I recognized some names off of the gun list, so perhaps some of those guns we've never seen before, were held back for this release. I saw nothing special about the guns, other than their Attack power is now 330. Needing 150 marks too. Same deal with both Crucible and Vanguard. I had enough money to buy one, but I'm going to wait.

- I saw nothing in the Tower that indicated 'how' to transfer old Legendaries and Exotics into higher ranked weapons. Nor anything for the Exotic/Legendary armor I presently have. Where does one do this? There were no indicator beacons leading me anywhere.

- There's a new character in the tower, Eris Morn. This spot reminds me of the Iron Banner mechanisms. It would appear that you do Eris activities, upon which you level up higher and higher. And as you go, you can buy and equip Eris related swag (banners, junk, etc..) that will enable you to maybe level even faster. Eris also gives you specific missions and bounties. I completed a few of them, plus the first mission. It's a mission to go kill some sword swinging beast/monster. It's on Earth, up in the little-used Groto section of the map. Get this mission done, take it back to Eris, and you get another mission. You also rank up too, moving towards Level 1 here.

- Strike Missions. There's a new 'Dark Below' Strike icon to go into, that sits above the other strikes (Tiger, Eagle, etc..). I did this Strike Mission. If I am remembering well, it plays a level higher, now at level 26. The other strikes cap out at 24. Was this is a new Strike? No. It was the same old shit. Go kill Vogoth, which I have done dozens of times. Yawn. Disappointed here quite a bit.

- New Raid. I went into it solo, as I had no one around and not much time. It's on the Moon, and the entrance is it's own separate area across from the Hellmouth. I don't think you can access this entrance from the regular Patrol mode. So you basically jump into a hole, drop down, and it gets dark. You are in a large room with a path going into darkness. And if you head that way, you get swarmed by a never-ending horde of monsters. I gave up after a while. Oh well.

That level 26 stuff is just a strike playlist, same as the old strike playlists.  They just increased the level since higher level gear is being sold by tower vendors now.  Not sure if the new DLC strike is part of that playlist or not, but I assume it is since you can't access that playlist without buying the DLC.

There is no way to upgrade old max 300 ATK legendaries into 331 ATK versions.  Ditto for legendary armor.  That's why we kept saying the old stuff would be outclassed by the new stuff.  To upgrade exotic weapons and armor, you'll have to pay Xur a visit.  Here's how that process will work:  planetdestiny.com/new-exotic-upgrade-process/

[iw5000]

Oh ok. That's why there were no icons in the Tower. Xur won't appear until Friday.

I did see the new Weekly and Nightfall. But those Eris missions need to be done first.



I'm not real sure I like how Bungie did all of this. There are people who put in A LOT of time to do things right. Get weapons finished in all the elements. Upgraded. Get different classes of characters completed. Fought hard to round out armor and gear. Did all this work to finish three completed characters, all equipped and ready to go and then.....

.....Bungie's basically saying "It was all pointless hahaha, you can just buy what you want for Marks now!! Joke is on you!!!". WTF? That's lame. And I say that as someone who put in 1/4 of the time of some other people. A lot of people i know did a lot work getting all their guns and armor and backup stuff leveled up, to be done correctly. No reason too. And yes, I know those who did all the work of getting things done properly will have an advantage now, of being level 28, 29, 30, in doing the new material....but it's a irrelevant. There's just not that much to do at higher levels right now. And a Level 21 player who did no work before, can be leveled up to 30 with just some Strike mission playing now in no time at all. Any time advantage is tiny. They'll catch up in no time, with 1/100th the effort. This is dumb. Prior players spent MONTHS grinding away looking for level 30 gear.....and now Bungie just hands out Level 33 like it's Halloween candy? Lame.

I know Bungie needs to keep the masses of players caught up. You don't do this, you develop a system of Have's and Have-not's. But surely there has to be better way than this. Where it's like, "OH, YOU DIDN'T DO ANY WORK BEFORE, NO PROBLEM. YOU CATCH UP FOR FREE". That seems a bit excessive. I know for myself, there is no way I am going to spend/waste time endlessly grinding extra weapons or armor or anything else ever again in this game. For example, collect weapons? Why bother. It's a time sink and you end up getting them for free later.

I feel like Bungie duped a lot of people into playing this game waaaaaay to much before. This DLC kind of tipped people off now, that those efforts of grinding aren't really needed, or at least as much.

[markopolo]

330?

A bump from 300 to 330?

Datzit?

[hebbnh]

iw5000: To an extent, yes, the "Haves" kind of get shafted when the "Have nots" get to catch up so easily. But that's pretty much par for the course for MMOs (from everything I've read, at least). Players in WoW could spend months or years to get the best of the best purple gear available, only to have it replaced by new greens or blues upon completing one or two quests after an expansion. You can't have it so people who join a year down the road basically have no hope of ever catching up to the best-geared players unless they dedicate their entire life to that goal, or nobody would ever buy the game more than a few weeks after release.

I'd argue that the "Haves" still have some pretty nice advantages, certainly not irrelevant as you suggest. 300 ATK primary weapons with elemental damage are going to be extremely helpful against shielded enemies in the new raid, in addition to Nightfall burns and everything else they were already excellent for. They're going to shit on the new "better" 331 ATK kinetic damage primaries for those purposes, and "Have nots" have no way to get those except going back to the VoG instead of playing new content. Players that are already 29 or 30 should be able to run the new content immediately no problem, whereas the "Have nots" are going to have to go grind faction marks/rep/bounties for hours to be able to buy the new gear to get them where we already are. We also have a ton of ascendant materials at the ready to upgrade whatever new stuff we so get, whereas "Have nots" will probably struggle in that regard and have to grind public events, dailies, or VoG to amass a good stockpile of those materials. I think we're still a lot more ahead of the curve than you think we are.

[mannon]

I'll just play it out and see how it goes. If it's as easy as it sounds to get to level 31 now then I am a bit disappoint, but it's not the end of the world. I would have preferred the new raid have level 30 or 31 gear on normal and level 32 on hard and maybe sell level 29 from the vendors. This would have given new avenues to getting level 29 or level 30, but without letting people just buy their way to level 31. Or maybe you could buy 33 light armor but only one or two slots instead of a full set.

But whatever. Not that big a deal I guess... although it sounds like this is not only more accelerated for getting from pre level 28 to 30 but like the end game is far easier than it was before now that you can buy your way to level 31 and be ready for hard raid without even playing the normal raid. In VoG you had to get some raid gear first to hit 29 or 30 or you wouldn't have much luck on hard. Granted, I assume a total noob to the new raid going strait for hard at level 31 is still not going to have a good day, but it doesn't sound like as much of a challenge and I think the high tier players are going to blow through most of this new content in no time flat then be back to the same old exotic collecting business as usual stuff.

[hebbnh]

Dec 9, 2014 11:38:44 GMT -5 mannon said:

I'll just play it out and see how it goes. If it's as easy as it sounds to get to level 31 now then I am a bit disappoint, but it's not the end of the world. I would have preferred the new raid have level 30 or 31 gear on normal and level 32 on hard and maybe sell level 29 from the vendors. This would have given new avenues to getting level 29 or level 30, but without letting people just buy their way to level 31. Or maybe you could buy 33 light armor but only one or two slots instead of a full set.

But whatever. Not that big a deal I guess... although it sounds like this is not only more accelerated for getting from pre level 28 to 30 but like the end game is far easier than it was before now that you can buy your way to level 31 and be ready for hard raid without even playing the normal raid. In VoG you had to get some raid gear first to hit 29 or 30 or you wouldn't have much luck on hard. Granted, I assume a total noob to the new raid going strait for hard at level 31 is still not going to have a good day, but it doesn't sound like as much of a challenge and I think the high tier players are going to blow through most of this new content in no time flat then be back to the same old exotic collecting business as usual stuff.

Yeah, hitting 31 from vendor gear isn't going to be that hard per se, it's just going to require more grinding.

Hard raid is supposed to contain level 33 enemies.  Hitting level 31 from vendor gear will NOT get you ready for hard raid.  That'd be the equivalent of bringing a 28 to the VoG on hard -- suicide.

[mannon]

Yeah I guess that's true, but it still feels like more than getting to level 28 from vendor was...

I think I better save my marks until after I see what Xur has to offer. I'll be pissed if I buy a 33 light legendary chest piece and then he sells an exotic one. heh