Bungie's Destiny

Finished up getting the new Ager's Scepter Trace Rifle last night and is pretty cool (pun intended). I kind of like the quest to get it and the catalyst comes out next week so we'll see what that does. It doesn't seem to do anything exceptionally well but it very well may be pretty good once the catalyst comes out. It is kind of cool freezing adds around it once you get a kill. I "think" the freeze radius is 20 meters but I could be wrong. No matter, once you get a kill and there are adds around they will be frozen and you can make short work of them. As far as boss damage? I don't think it will ever be like Coldheart was against Calus. That Trace Rifle was almost a requirement when the Levithan Raid came out. I don't foresee it becoming like that but maybe a decent add clearing machine. We'll see.

 

Lol... all the streamers are pissed that Bungie has implemented the system that if you go flawless this weekend you only get matched with others that have gone flawless. That means that their streams will be harder since they won't be facing anyone but those that have gone flawless and will prevent carries. Give me a break. I've played since Trials was reintroduced back in the first part of 2020 and I've matched up against the same teams weekend after weekend. Sometimes we win and sometimes we don't. But I've yet to go a weekend where I didn't go flawless when Trials was active. And it was always against the same flawless teams that I've played hundreds of games against. If we go flawless this weekend then I'm perfectly happy playing against others that have gone flawless. That's the ENTIRE point of Trials. Playing the best players in the game.

Fucking Trials isn't an "everyone gets a trophy" playlist. But I'm glad that they have made it more accessible to everyone since that does nothing but help the entire playlist out. But if I go flawless then I shouldn't be thrown back into the same player pool as those that are just dipping their toes into Trials for the first time. I should be playing other flawless players. But the outrage is funny.

 

Goddamnit.... We had a game set up for tonight to play Trials at 8pm. I made it VERY FUCKING CLEAR that I'm not playing for loot or rank. I'm playing to go flawless. One of the other guys in our clan was exactly the same way. Then we had another join when I specifically said that this is a flawless run. Not a run for loot or experience. I sent a text to my friend and told him "you watch... he'll play for 45 mins to an hour and then he'll quit". He does this all the time in some of our raids. Raids are no big deal since we can usually get someone to come in and fill that spot without having to re run the entire raid. We were just about to start our 6th match on our card with no losses and he said "I think I'm done for tonight guys". WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?????????. We only needed two more matches and we would be at the Lighthouse. Goddamnit I was pissed. We were literally 45 mins into our card and hadn't lost a match and he just ups and quits. So we ended up having to get another one of our friends since the main guy that I play with wasn't able to play tonight. Ended up getting mercy'd on the 5th match. Fuck he pissed me off. Don't sign up for something if you don't plan on following through with it.

Anyway... This is why you never ever give up in a game. They had us down 4 - 1 and we came back and beat them. Sorry there is no voice chat. PS updated and I suppose that we need to go back in and share our coms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8ebMrdJWbo

 

Finally got our team together tonight and went Flawless in 45 mins. I'm so happy that now there are people in our clan that actually want to play and I no longer have to play with an outside clan anymore. It's also nice when one of the team doesn't decide to leave in the middle of a card. It worked out great. One friend in the team had never gone Flawless and the other that I've been friends with for 7 years now were able to get him his first Flawless. Was probably the most fun I've ever had in Trials and we bullshitted almost the entire card. Now we have a team each weekend and we know we can go Flawless from now on. Most fun I've had in the game in a long time.

Sent him this message earlier today. He was the one that I was playing with last night when the other dude quit.



Still can't figure out why our voice chat isn't coming though. Something about the last PS update did something and we can't figure it out. I love how fast the matches are now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nquli8TokYE

Us at the Lighthouse. Driven_one's first time there



Posing in the Tower



And "almost" a god roll. If it just had Triple Tap

 

So, I went on vacation for 10 days and have been trying to catch up. I got 2 anteater boots in a row last night, right before finishing the last round of Astral Alignments. No big deal since I need the rifle kills for the exotic quest, but frustrating all the same. Maybe they needed this extended maintenance, but also wondering what they have in store for us.

 

I would be lost as a motherfucker if I got back on now.

 

Knock on wood I haven't received any boots since the last update. They fixed the one where we had to completely reinstalled the game. Did receive "contacting Destiny servers" while in VoG last night but no problem. It worked itself out.

Yes you would. You wouldn't even know where to begin the game has changed so much and you have A LOT of catching up to do.

Trials is the biggest change for me. Instead of having to run with the other clan that I've been running with for the last year, we now have people in our clan that actually want to play Trials each weekend. For the longest time it was just me that was interested in Trials so I found a group of hardcore PvP players that played each weekend. And although we got it done, it was never as fun as running with friends. Last week Grasty and another in our clan that had never been flawless took him to the Lighthouse. The reward structure and they way Trials works now is great. Took us 17 matches to get it done but once we got our groove on, we steamrolled our way to flawless with no losses. The flawless card took about 45 mins. with no losses. Grasty and I are going to grind our way back up to 5500 once again. I thought he had the "Unbroken" title but he is missing one season of 5500. I've hit 5500 each season since I came back so why not again?

 

This is what we play for

 

Finished up Trials for the weekend. Spent Friday and some of Saturday finishing up parts of the Gilded Flawless Title. Had to run a Passage of Ferocity, Passage of Confidence, and a Passage of Wealth. Finished that part up then I had to carry someone that has never been to the Lighthouse. So one of my friends hopped on his girlfriends account so I could get that part done Saturday night. But I didn't pay attention and you had to be wearing the "Light for the Lost" Emblem to get it to count. I don't pay attention to the emblems I run as I generally stay with the same one on all the time so it didn't count when we went Flawless. Fuck me...

Anyway... I'm NOT a fan of this weekend and the way Trials was set up. First I hate Wormhaven. But second I hate the way the objective is set up. If you beat a team on the first round the capture point moves to their spawn. It doesn't open up for 30 secs but considering it takes almost 15 secs run across the map (assuming they don't meet you in the middle) then you only have 10-15 secs to come up with a plan. But basically what we did is if we were up on round 4? We'd throw the round so we could get the flag to spawn our our side and have the advantage to win the match. It isn't right but neither is this game mode so we just took advantage of it. I "personally" like Trials as pure skill vs. skill and not camping in the back or having someone stand on the capture point and even if you kill everyone, there is still a chance they win the round if they die right at the end. Fucking stupid.

If they would just make the capture point in the middle where you know all the fighting is going to take place? Fine... But this setup? Not a fan at all.

Steamrolled our way to Flawless. Never had to use our Mercy.

Still can't figure out why our voice chat isn't coming through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgsKfxHL8SI

 

I dont think so. Its still the same game. Same shit.

Strikes, crucible, gambit, dungeons, seasonal shit. Grab bounty, rinse and repeat.

The only overwhelming part is trying to figure out what monatenous thing you want to do more of to grind LL.

 

It's not for everyone

 

Ugh... Finished up all the IB quests last night and only got two Peacebond Sidearms which is really the only thing to go after for IB. The Pulse is okay I suppose but there are so many other Pulse Rifles out there that are so much better. I hate the scope on the Forge's Pledge. The way the reticle dot moves within the scope basically makes it a shit dueling weapon if you want accuracy. But the Peacebond is an amazing sidearm. But out of all the tokens I turned in I only got two and they are meh rolls at best. Good range, shit rolls. Oh well... not a big deal since I'll still use my God Rolled Fractethyst Shotgun anyway. Should have run IB on my WL since my Hunter is maxed out at 1330.

As far as IB goes? Lot of different weapons are being used which is great that they have finally balanced PvP where quite a few weapons are viable now. It's no longer "you must use this to succeed". First time I've played sixes all season since all my time has been in Trials. I've played enough Trials that I've reset my Valor rank twice without ever stepping foot into sixes. Now all I need is a few more rocket kills to get the Gilded Unbroken Title once again.

 

So there is finally an Elite Controller on the market for the PS5. Aim Controllers use original PS5 Dual Sense Controllers and mod them with back paddles that map to the face buttons like Scuff Controllers etc... I had one built with the re mapable paddles on the back. After playing with it for a while I removed the top two paddles as I found they just get in the way for the way that I hold the controller. Besides, all I really wanted was the jump button mapped to one paddle and the slide / crouch / shadestep mapped to the other paddle. But the best investment that I picked was the mouse click triggers. They replace the triggers with a mouse click button so there is very little pressure that you use when ADSing and firing. Keeps you from having to completely pull the trigger. So it's perfect for FPS games and perfect for D2. I didn't pick any color options since to me that is just a waste of money unless you really want to personalize it.

The only con that I've found so far is they replace the thumb sticks with taller thumbsticks. Even if you pick the short version they are still taller than the original thumb sticks that come on an original controller. And you can't mix and match different heights of each stick. You pick tall you get tall on both sticks. The issue with this is I use a low rise Kontrol Freek on the left stick and a high rise Kontrol Freek on the right. So I ended up having to buy a package of Kontrol Freek Precision Rings to go around the base of the right stick since it is now much taller. Since I run my look sensitivity on 15 these work well once you get to the edge of the stick movement for ramping down the movement. Other than that? I've no complaints.

*EDIT* I did forget to mention. You have to have the controller plugged in the console at all times. Not an issue for me since I play about 3-4 feet from a 34" Ultra Wide 4K monitor. But it might be an issue for those that don't have that luxury.

It's so nice being able to jump / slide / shadestep and never take your thumbs off the sticks.

 

Okay... Lorenz Driver is OP as fuck. I've played around with it some but not all that much this season. I've run into it a few times in PvP but it hasn't been obtrusive. We started Trials last night and since Trials is on Javelin 4 this week it was the perfect map to test it out. I haven't worked on the catalyst at all with the exception of just getting kills with it fucking around. The second step of the quest to get the catalyst from Banshee is to get I forget how many PvE kills and then you need 50 PvP kills. Took it into Control with a buddy while we were waiting on our third to get online and got 36 kills with it in the first game. The very first shot with it was a triple kill due to the other team standing way to close together and got sucked into the vortex that it makes with each headshot. Took it into Trials last night and it is now my new baby. I fucking love this gun. It's not nearly as sticky as Arbalest used to be. But the in air accuracy is stupid with this gun. I don't know how many kills you need after picking up the catalyst from Banshee. But it seemed that each guardian kill was worth 2%. Got the catalyst completed just by playing Trials and now this thing is stupid.

Once the catalyst is complete you gain enhanced radar (like you would on Nightstalker) and each telemetry you pick up gives you back class, grenade, and melee energy.

So I'll be running the Messenger with Outlaw / Desperado along with the Lorenz Driver in Trials all weekend.

 

Waiting to get onto Trials this afternoon so I figured I'd play with some weapons I haven't played with. I never played with Symmetry much even when it came out well over a year ago. Scout Rifles just aren't in a good place and haven't been in a very long time. So I figured what the fuck... I'll give it a shot. Surprisingly... It's not bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW_myxPGp3w

Played two matches with it and got 30 kills. So there is a place for it. I'll take a 4.2 K/D with a Scout Rifle anyday.

 

I don't know what it was about Javelin this week. We played all weekend and finally went Flawless Saturday night. But it was a pain. Played all day yesterday in the Flawless pool to get the rewards and it's fun playing the best of the best.

Saying that, PvP is in the best spot it's ever been in. There were so many different loadouts being used, so much so that most anything was viable with this map. Javelin is one of my favorite maps and usually I can burn through it in about 45 mins. But we had to reset our card multiple times at 6 due to a loss. But due to the range of all different types of weapons used means that the balance is finally right in D2 PvP. Anything is pretty much viable. I still hate Jotunn and La Monarque as those are just cheesy weapons in my opinion. Jotuun is just a dad weapon and La Monarque is easy to get a head shot and push you out to heal (that in itself isn't a bad thing). It just shouldn't be so easy to get a head shot with a bow. But anyway... we got it done but it was much harder than I expected. I will applaud Bungie for finally getting PvP balanced. You can now basically use anything you want. Scout Rifles excluded (even though I used one in the video above). But this was probably one of the hardest weekends of Trials that I've played in a long time.

*EDIT* The Eye of Sol is dropping as adept this weekend but you can no longer get Snapshot Sights and Opening Shot anymore since they combined those perks in the last column. So the Adept Eye of Sol that I got a few seasons ago has the god roll of Snapshot Sights, Opening Shot, with a Handling Masterwork. You can no longer get that roll so I'll keep using that one. I don't know why they made this chance but it basically makes the Eye of Sol mediocre at best this season. Hell... you can get a Shepards Watch that has much better rolls now. So if your going for the loot? The Eye of Sol isn't the loot you should be chasing this season because there are no good rolls on it. I've got three god rolled Eye of Sol's from previous seasons with well over 1000 kills between them all. And the new one can't touch those.

 

I don't expect many or any if I'm honest to watch a 40 min video on our Flawless run this last weekend. But this is basically how you play Bannerfall. Pretty good combination with me running bottom tree WL with Getaway Artists so I could have Arc Souls up all the time. First time I've run my WL through Trials in a while. The other two in the clan were running Hunters (which is actually my main but we didn't need three Hunters) with Graviton Forfeit. The only issue we had was keeping one of the guys on our team from pushing into enemy territory by himself without telling us and maybe getting one kill or just dying. Once we got him settled down it went smooth. Never used a mercy.

Bannerfall is probably one of my favorite maps. But if you aren't running a sniper? Stay out of the sniping lanes.

Entire Flawless run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQCclnCntNI

 

Went back in to Trials with our full card to farm for another Adept Messenger. Most of you know that once you go Flawless you get put into the Flawless pool and only play others that have gone Flawless.

We won three matches in a row but I forgot to record the first one so I only got the last two. Last match we ended up making the other team quit lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAmJQ7xGdg

Got done eating and came back and jgrey did his normal shit and ran off by himself and... well... you can guess the outcome. I still have my mercy on my card so I can still go back in tomorrow morning and try to farm some more. But we'll see. This is why you don't run off by yourself in Trials. He won't listen. I love how he gets sniped at the end lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfISL3FuSgY

 

Lol... So Trials has been pretty good this weekend. With Freelance Trials I like having the "option" of just solo queuing into Trials and not worry about going against a stack. That said... I haven't gone Flawless in Freelance Trials yet this weekend. What I've found is I win about 50% of my games when solo queuing and Freelance Trials is no different. The best run I've had has been to 6th with a mercy and both times at least one of my teammates will take their super back to orbit. It is infuriating. But... I know what I'm getting myself into by solo queuing. And saying that... It's actually been a lot of fun since you have to play around the way the others on your team play.

I understand those that don't want a Freelance Trials and somewhat agree with that. It does split the playerbase between both modes of Trials. So I'm about 50-50 on if it should stay or go away.

Anyway... here are a few videos of duo queuing into regular Trials. This to me is much harder than playing Freelance since 90% of the time you will be going against a stacked team.

This guy just kept getting himself farmed. Not sure what his intention was but I have a hard time believing he's been to the Lighthouse. He is funny to watch though. I'll give him that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiz_V_lQo2o

Our third teammate just left the game after he was killed right off the bat which left us in a 2v3 situation. My friend made some great plays while I basically farmed myself for a couple games. I made some dumb mistakes in the game but in the end I brought it back around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xewo2qdecEo

Freelance Trials. They usually go this way or the game drags out. There is no in-between.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzZ9IEhsfeo

 

Took a small break from Trials to finish up the Gilded Unbroken 2 Title. The hardest part of this was to get 50 RL kills. Took me a few days to complete that. I finished up the other shit just by playing PvP so that wasn't a big deal. All I needed was 4 straight wins in Comp and since my Comp score is over 3500 it took a few matches before I was able to secure 4 wins.

Winning match. I sure as fuck wasn't expecting Ruinous Effigy in there and I certainly wasn't expecting to get dunked on lol. Don't know why he brought it in there as he actually did terrible. But whatever. The funniest thing is one of the guys on my team teabagging when he was the lowest kd of the match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc8GQB7shpU

But it's now done. Unbroken x 2