Discussion: things to do to get ready for TTK

[wittyscorpion]

TTK is coming out on 09/15, exactly 9 weeks away. For bros who plan to get it at launch, lots of grinding awaits to the point of overwhelming:

a) 3 subclasses to grind from scratch;
b) a brand new raid that requires you to level up as quickly as possible;
c) new batch of gears / weapons to earn / buy from vendors;
d) new stuff to buy from Xur, and engram lotteries for new exotic armors;
etc.

If you need extra incentives to play Destiny in these 9 weeks, there are a lot of things you can do to get you better positioned for TTK .

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Hoarding currencies

1) weekly -> strange coins, which can also be turned into motes / exotic shards;
2) cleansing bounty from Eris + NF -> motes;
3) marks: reach / maintain a level of 150-200 marks on both Crucible and Vanguard, so you will be ready to buy any good new weapons/armors right after TTK is dropped;
4) glimmers & glimmer consumables;

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Hoarding materials

1) Planet materials: exchange excessive marks into materials;
2) Weapon parts;
3) Armor materials: note that if you are low in one class and high in another, you should move the engrams earned at the latter to former, then convert and dismantle;
4) Exotic shards: to ascend exotic weapons / armors
5) Etheric Lights? this is questionable, but does not hurt to always have some around. Maybe you can use them to ascend your legendary armor to max light and help your guardians reach max level (like what we have been able to do in HoW);

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Hoarding packages

Postmaster can hold up to 20 packages, the best kind to hoard is probably daily-first-gold-public-event-completion package. Have 20 of them saved up per class can give you significant amount of XPs on launch day;

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"Edge" your Vanguard / Crucible / Cult reputations

The goal here is to get your reps on Vanguard / Crucible / FWC / DO / NW as close to the next rank as possible (provided you are already at >=2 ranks, if not, you may want to grind that out first), so you can rank up right after TTK is dropped, getting the rank up packages that can contain new legendary weapons / armors;

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Hoading completed bounties that can reward 5000 XP

This can wait until a few days before TTK drop

[iw5000]

[mannon]

My TTK todo list:
Decide what to do with my free time. ;3

[markopolo]

Jul 20, 2015 15:12:06 GMT -5 mannon said:

My TTK todo list:
Decide what to do with my free time. ;3

Why? Did you get fired from your job?

You and bradman need to roll your 3rd character. That's your two's priority now

[mannon]

I have a titan. Just need to grind up to 20 and the titan is prolly instant 29 or 30 or something... Haven't added it up all the light.

[markopolo]

Then git grindin' homey

[mannon]

It's not that high a priority until I have more playtime. Case in point. For last week only completed 2 weeklies, 1 NF, and about 6 bounties. That's all I did the entire week. I didn't even see Xur.

[markopolo]

Jul 21, 2015 7:52:39 GMT -5 mannon said:

It's not that high a priority until I have more playtime. Case in point. For last week only completed 2 weeklies, 1 NF, and about 6 bounties. That's all I did the entire week. I didn't even see Xur.

Which was reason #1 why I mentioned you should grind another warlock... It's the quickest, easiest, and profitable way to go. Then once things get better, you have more time, delete it

[mannon]

But there's not much point when either character will be instantly high level once I grind to 20. So why not go titan now and enjoy playing multiple classes? I don't need a carbon copy of my main, but with needing to unlock subclass abilities and story missions... I have to do that for the new class anyway, but at least there it's permanent and not just something to delete later when I've got enough gear for a titan... which I already pretty much have.

[wittyscorpion]

Regarding rep edging (push New Monarchy / Dead Orbit / Future War Cult / Vanguard / Crucible reps to right before the next rank up):

turns out it is much easier than I thought. By simply doing a NF and a Weekly per week, you'll earn 500 + 499 ~= 1000 reputations, or 8000 in 8 weeks (from now to TTK drop). That alone is enough to push NM/DO/FWC/Vanguard from 0 to 2000 each. A few more bounties then you can easily get to 2300-2400 on these 4. Crucible ranks can be easily edged as well if you at least play the 2 IBs between now and 09/15.

If you have more solo time after doing the above, I recommend playing Crucible if you are not totally against Destiny PvP. Besides getting reps from Crucible bounties, you'll also get fairly decent drop rate on legendary gears, which you can either keep for post-TTK reforge, or dismantle for motes.

[wings]

I wouldn't fuss over doing bounties to edge your rep. It's not like you get much for grinding bounties, which is why I never bother. I just do the bounties and let them complete in the Crucible. And I get to have some fun times wiping the floor with Lighthouse emblem wearers.

[wittyscorpion]

This is more of a note for right after TTK;

currently the daily heroic missions is pretty pointless because its main reward, 7500 XP, does not even apply to weapons and armors. So for players who have maxed out all o ftheir subclass progressions, these XPs are going nowhere.

This will change after TTK is released through. We will have 3 more subclasses to grind and this daily 7500 XP will suddenly become lucrative.

[wings]

Jul 25, 2015 21:32:35 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

currently the daily heroic missions is pretty pointless because its main reward, 7500 XP, does not even apply to weapons and armors.

It does.

[markopolo]

It does, so long as you equip it before the mission end timer starts

Yesterday was toughish to do, because the 3 sol proginys can make it hard when soloing... But I definitelly maxed out my plan c and vfv using the dailys

[hebbnh]

Jul 25, 2015 21:32:35 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

This is more of a note for right after TTK;

currently the daily heroic missions is pretty pointless because its main reward, 7500 XP, does not even apply to weapons and armors. So for players who have maxed out all o ftheir subclass progressions, these XPs are going nowhere.

This will change after TTK is released through. We will have 3 more subclasses to grind and this daily 7500 XP will suddenly become lucrative.

Daily story has always applied that XP toward armor, but not weapons. They fixed it in the last patch (I think) so that it applies to both weapons and armor now.

[wittyscorpion]

Great to know.

Also, there are no longer any exchange for extra plant mats, say to Glimmers? I have been converting extra marks into mats and now the mats are overflowing my inv space.

[markopolo]

Jul 26, 2015 14:02:30 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Great to know.

Also, there are no longer any exchange for extra plant mats, say to Glimmers? I have been converting extra marks into mats and now the mats are overflowing my inv space.

Nope...

[mannon]

Maybe in a future patch, but not as of now... unfortunately. The only exchanges they added were really for ascendant and radiant currencies. My guess is they'll add EL to the Speaker's exchanges too when TTK comes out, but only to motes and glimmer.

[TheHawkNY]

So to prepare for TTK, I'd say make sure to do Crota until you get a Crux if you don't yet have the Necrochasm, and do POE 34 and 35 until you get the Lord of Wolves.

Have a full inventory when you do activities where you get drops, and leave at the postmaster items that you might want after the rebalancing (ex auto rifles).

Do public events and leave the packages at the postmaster for when you want to level something up quickly.

Buy a few of whatever telemetries Xur has for sale each week.

If you don't have three characters, now's a good time. If you don't have one of each, do that.

Increase the size of your friends list. If TTK has a ton of great co-op activities, but when you get online you can't get a group together to do them, you're missing out.

Probably most importantly, get better at PvP. Already, a lot of the best items for PvE can only be acquired through PvP, and I think that's likely to continue.

[wittyscorpion]

+1, especially on intentional forcing gun loot into Post Master. HoW weapons will no long be available aftet TTK, and until the new wrapon tuning becomes effective we don't know which ones are great to have. Better save them up, and the best way is at Post Master to preserve vault space.

Nechochasm can be a very good weapon after weapon tuning, for PvE and even for PvP.

I have one active Elder Cipher bounty and still trying to decide between Lord or Bow. Former is practical while the latter has a novel design. Was planning to go with Bow but now looks like Lord probably should take higher priority. Bow gets a serious buff on its "Devil's Touch" perk (tripled), while Bow is probably nerfed due to the Fusion Rifle projectile speed reduction.

[wittyscorpion]

Reveal from Game Informer: denkirson.proboards.com/post/215529/thread

In light of this new information:

1) Year 1 weapons / armors will become obsolete in the near future. So only purchase / ascend the ones you absolutely love and will definitely be using at the beginning of TTK, and don't get attached to anything else;

2) It is unclear what roles EL / Armor Core / Weapon Core will play in post-TTK world. You can either spend them now to reap the benefits, or save them in hope of them being still useful after TTK;

3) Edge reps, save bounties, and accumulate daily-public-event-packages become even more useful;

[hebbnh]

So I got to thinking. In vanilla, you couldn't equip legendaries or exotics until you hit level 20. I'm wondering if the new TTK legendaries are going to have a similar restriction, where you can't equip them until you hit level 40 or thereabouts. That would kind of defeat the purpose of edging up your faction rep and/or hoarding marks, because anything you get in a reward package (assuming those still work the same way) or buy with the marks (assuming they convert directly to legendary marks) might be stuck with that level qualifier, meaning you wouldn't be able to use those items anytime soon. I guess at worst you'll end up with a stockpile of gear that you can equip later, but it does make me rethink whether I want to continue edging or just finish off the ones I'm close to and calling it a day.

Saving up 5K XP bounties and event packages is still a good idea I'd imagine, though now I'm thinking I might hold off on turning any of those bounties in until the new subclasses are unlocked. All will be revealed sooner or later, but those were a couple thoughts that popped up this morning.

[mannon]

They could make the new legendaries level 30+ to equip or even a bit higher. If they did that would actually keep all the old legendaries relevant as they would still have a niche in the progression. What they have done up to now is cut the head off the endgame and replace it with a new one each time. If they kept the old endgame activities and rewards relevant, but added more to the actual progression that would be interesting.

I think that's actually closer to the way MMO's traditionally did it. They would increase the level cap and add new zones or areas with higher level content and rewards and it would generally mean that there was more progression in the system and going from zero to level cap would take more hours played. Bungie has been completely replacing the end game each time and extending the level cap in name(number) only, but actually keeping the play time from zero to level cap around the same, or actually reducing it.

I would be okay with that, if all the old weapons still had a place, even if it was just a temporary one on the progression curve. That's not to say they couldn't do a little of both. In other words they could still add to the actual end game progression with a new tier while making what is currently end game faster to progress through. (In fact, it pretty much inevitably will be faster since I'm pretty sure you will be able to start earning TK loot before reaching level 34.)

[wittyscorpion]

I am wondering about usefulness of edging as well. However, I am only 4 NF/Weekly away from done on the PvE side and a few Crucible matches away on the PvP side, I might as well see it to the end.

[hebbnh]

Aug 6, 2015 10:12:41 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

I am wondering about usefulness of edging as well. However, I am only 4 NF/Weekly away from done on the PvE side and a few Crucible matches away on the PvP side, I might as well see it to the end.

Yeah...that's pretty much where I am too.  Need a few crucible marks and rep and I'll be done with Hunter entirely.  Could probably do that today if I wanted.  Titan and Warlock are a week or two away with NF/Weekly, then they're done too.  No point in stopping now I guess.

[wittyscorpion]

Doing Public Events can often feel quite boring and grindy, especially if you are trying to horde 20 per character. I found one way to make it more fun: double sniping at Ember Caves. It's a cool way to train sniping skills while doing chores of public events, rep edging, and 5000 XP bounty hoarding.

Why Ember Caves:

1) Public event appearances at this location are pretty consistent with predictions at destinypublicevents.com/
2) Ember Caves are dominated by fallens, which closely resemble human players;
3) Ember Caves have enemies spawn at various elevations, let you practice headshots at various heights;

Why double sniping:

a) No Land Beyond let you work at close to mid range quick-scope and even no scope, Iron Sight helps your to get better at aiming with primary weapons in general;
b) At special slot you can experiment with various SRs of different aim assists. To make things more difficult for yourself, use low AA SRs like Efrideet's Spear. (AA numbers can be found at destinywiki.com)

[wittyscorpion]

Aug 16, 2015 14:55:32 GMT -5 wittyscorpion said:

Doing Public Events can often feel quite boring and grindy, especially if you are trying to horde 20 per character. I found one way to make it more fun: double sniping at Ember Caves. It's a cool way to train sniping skills while doing chores of public events, rep edging, and 5000 XP bounty hoarding.

Why Ember Caves:

1) Public event appearances at this location are pretty consistent with predictions at destinypublicevents.com/
2) Ember Caves are dominated by fallens, which closely resemble human players;
3) Ember Caves have enemies spawn at various elevations, let you practice headshots at various heights;

Why double sniping:

a) No Land Beyond let you work at close to mid range quick-scope and even no scope, Iron Sight helps your to get better at aiming with primary weapons in general;
b) At special slot you can experiment with various SRs of different aim assists. To make things more difficult for yourself, use low AA SRs like Efrideet's Spear. (AA numbers can be found at destinywiki.com)

Played Crucible after this and I did become better at sniping in PvP. Had a low bar to start with though

Since I am also trying to get ready for Halo 5, to kill 2 birds with one stone I also switched to MiDA as primary. It is fun to use if you can land headshots. Still weak in game modes like Rumble or Skirmish, but in Control and Clash it can hold up on its own. MiDA + Radiant Dance Machine on Bladedancer is especially fun, throwing off enemy's aim with that extra agility.

[wittyscorpion]

In light of today's reveal, there is almost no need for rep edging, because:

1) every week you can only plead allegiance with one faction, so you can only take advantage of 1 faction rep edging on TTK day 1;
2) Current Vanguard marks and Crucible marks become obsolete, and the only way to burn them is to exchange for rep commendation. So if you already have enough marks you can rank up by burning them;
3) Several other materials can be exchanged for rep too, including Motes, ammo synthesis, etc.

[wittyscorpion]

With update 2.0 coming next Tuesday, Bungie suggested the following last minute Year 1 activities in this week's BWU:

Based on this preview, our Live Team has some last minute suggestions for how you might best spend your final moments in Year One:

Complete those Year One Bounties
Don’t delete characters or dismantle items just yet
Try the Year One campaign again
Jump into the Crucible for some new action
Try your beloved Auto-Rifles again
Destroy remaining Wolf Packs and loot their chests for Ether Keys
Complete your House of Wolves Grimoire as it applies to hunting in the wild
Complete your Moments of Triumph [time extended – read below]

Got it? Good. You have approximately three days from the time that this blog article became a thing to make good on your last milestones of action and adventure. Gather ye Spinmetal while ye may!

Specifically, I am going to need to work on this one: Complete your House of Wolves Grimoire as it applies to hunting in the wild.

As an FYI: one wof the best ways to check which ones you still need to kill is to use destinytracker.com:

1) Link your PSN/XBL ID;
2) Go to My Stats -> Grimoire checklist;
3) Click "Missing Only" buttion;
4) Click tab "Enemies";
5) FInd the section titled "Fallen Hunted";