Destiny - 9/9/14 (PS3/PS4/X360/XB1)

[dejet]

Lol found a nice rifle. Keeps radar when aiming.

[Nightmarelord]

Got purple engram from leveling up cryptarch to 6, got a purple rocket launcher

POIDH

[Adajer]

how did you decrypt same item like 5 times?

[Serif]

Randomly got Universal Remote today haha...now I just need to farm up Vanguard Rep and then I can be 25.

[Serra]

how did you decrypt same item like 5 times?

He had a bunch (I'm assuming). The game doesn't show 5 if you have 5 of the same type.

[Obsidian]

You can see how many you have right there on the Engram. In the thumbnail he has three Special Weapon blues.

[BadKarma]

Shotguns are disgusting op in MP.

And there REALLY need to be level brackets for the MP

[Teknique]

Special weapons* are disgusting op in MP.

And there REALLY need to be level brackets for the MP

Fixed. They need to tone down the damage or reduce ammo spawns. Im tired of running around a corner and just getting a fusion rifle to the face and dying instantly from 30 feet away.

[Weltall]

Omg...my exotic bounty part 3:

Kill 500 Guardians in Crucible with Void Damage; deaths take away from the count.

[Cail]

Got my exotic weapon bounty! shotgun!

[Akiyama]

Got my exotic weapon bounty! shotgun!

Still haven't seen it. RNG hates me in this game

[Serra]

Man, just (and by just, I mean an hour ago.. I hope someone appreciates this!) called it a night, gonna meet up with my group on Saturday to finish up (hopefully after we've all leveled a bit). The raid is incredibly challenging and incredibly fun. For those who have felt that they're doing the same thing all the time, the raid really has a lot of variety and creativity that makes it awesome. I also feel that any review that came out before today is complete garbage based on not experiencing the raid. It is that amazing an experience.

So, general points, observations, recommendations, etc follow:

Spoiler: show

My group consisted of two Hunters, two Sunslingers, two Titans. One of the warlocks and one of the hunters were 26, the rest of us were 25. The levels weren't a problem till we reached the area we stopped where the enemies were level 27. All of us had solid progress through each subclass though and switched them up when necessary. That said, I'd say the Hunters having access to both is the least necessary, but I still used both classes. Given how much time we spent, I'm fairly sure we did not receive any experience from the raid (I had bought some new boots beforehand and those show no progress). We also saw very little loot. Like.. only in the last area did we see any engrams drop. There were a few treasure chests though. Both rewarded me Ascendant Energy. Beating the first real boss (the Templar) gave us all Ascendant Shards though, which immediately were spent upgrading gear.

All of us had a mic and I do not think you can pull this off without a mic. It's necessary to discuss strategy, to shout things out, to call for raises, etc. MAYBE you could get away with one person not having a mic, but I think that's stretching it.

Gear wise, at least one of you needs to have really high Int. Like, I can switch things around and have 83% or 87% (more on this in a sec). It isn't necessary to have it at all times, but being able to switch was really helpful for the Templar fight. Similar to the nightfall and weekly strike last week, having the right damage is huge -- in this case, Void. I recommend either a Void rocket launcher or machine gun and a shotgun. The biggest threat you face are enemies called Praetorians (essentially Vex Minotaurs) (more on this in a moment as well). I switched between all three special weapons (although, if I had a void shotgun, I would not have used my fusion rifle). I also switched between primaries a bit (hand cannon, assault rifle, and my legendary pulse (if it wasn't legendary, I probably would have used my scout). I did not use my Machine Gun much, but that's largely because it's taking forever to upgrade and I haven't unlocked the perks that make it really good yet. I also bought fifteen special ammo and fifteen heavy ammo, but found that it wasn't really a problem. Still, I'd recommend at least five of each.

Okay, on to the raid!
First step is actually unlocking the raid. When you go in, you're immediately dropped off in front of the giant door. There are three platforms (one right in front, one to the left, and one to the right). Imagine an upside down U -- you have on on the center part, and then one each on the legs. You need to activate those platforms and then hold them to cause a giant pillar to rise up which opens the door. All three platforms need to be activated at the same time and held for maybe two to three minutes. Sounds easy right? Well no, it's not. In the four corners, enemies will spawn and try to force you off the platforms. These are groups of goblins, hobgoblins, and harpies, and the aforementioned Praetorians. The group of enemies are easy, but the Praetorians are beastly. If you look at the time of my posts, it took us an hour just to get into the VoG. You have to split up into three groups of two, and make sure the Praetorians do not get into the circle. If they do, they start taking over the platforms, and if they do, the pillar resets. Once you stand on the platforms, the enemies start spawning, so if someone fails, it's best to let them take all three to reset the spawns. Honestly, I think we got lucky in beating them, but I'll take what we got.

So, once you open the door, in you go! There's a chest along the way to the next fight. Make sure everyone is nearby and can bask in the reward of making it into the VoG (the aforementioned Ascendant Energy). Once you're inside the VoG, respawns don't exist (in most places), you need to be raised, and there's a 30 second wait before you can be raised.

The next part has been called by some, tower defense. You have to defend a single tower against swarms of Vex who are trying to reach it. This part is fairly easy, but there are a few important things to note. The first is that there is a big boss enemy you can't hurt called the Templar straight away. Look out for him, don't let him kill you. There are also enemies called fanatics (I think) that spawn. When they die, they leave puddles of yellowish-green goop. Don't step in them. If you do, you get a debuff that makes everything look green. The Templar has a move (that I can't remember) that anyone affected by this debuff immediately dies. There's a ring directly below the Templar where you can step in to cleanse you and remove the buff, but I think it has a limited number of uses, so better not to waste them. Eventually you'll have defended the tower long enough that you'll move onto the next stage. In this part, there are two towers (one to the left, one to the right). You have to defend both of these, so split into two groups and get it done. Enemies still spawn from the middle and rush up at you. After that, you move onto the third stage which is all three towers. It's essentially the same, and you probably had people watching the middle anyway, so it's not too difficult to pull off.

After this, you move onto the third step, the oracles. This is still in the same area. The fanatics stop coming, but instead, yellow orbs called oracles start to appear. These can hit everyone with the same debuff if left alive long enough, which can then cause an immediate wipe. There are a total of six locations that they can spawn, and I'm pretty sure they get stronger as the fight goes on (I think they initially took four HC shots, but then took more to kill). I think there are four rounds -- three spawn, then four, then five, then all six. You can tell you've reached this stage because of these melodic tones that play. We're pretty sure each one is associated with a different tone, but we didn't have the time to pay attention to which was which. Our group essentially tasked two people with covering two spots, and that worked pretty well. The cleansing pool is still there, and this is where we used it a lot (and found out it had limited uses). I think in our winning run though, we didn't get the buff put on us at all.

So, once you beat this part, you're given a brief respite. The cleansing puddle turns into a relic which is central to the next fight. So, this is the video that Wulf posted, and I recommend watching that. Once someone picks up the relic, the templar activates and starts trying to kill you. It has a shield that can only be removed when you hit it with the relic's special (the relic behaves similar to the Sword of Crota, but with a ranged attack for the special). The relic move that removes the shield is tied to your special, so if you're the one with the relic, make sure you have a lot of Int gear to reduce the cast time. Whenever you remove it, it hits three people with a debuff that locks them in place. These are rings that can be shattered by shooting them and need to be shattered to shoot the Templar. Golden Gun with explosions works well here, as does an automatic shotgun. The templar can still call oracles which continue doing their same attack. The relic has a move (tied to the grenade button) the cleanses though. If you use the strategy in Wulf's video, it's a slow, but manageable fight. If not.. well, good luck? The Templar has a move where it becomes enraged and starts calling lots and lots of mobs. We think there were two things that could trigger this -- if you didn't do enough damage in time, or if you did enough damage to get past a point. We actually had a hard time with this because of the oracles and the debuff they'd put on us. We wiped a few times because our relic holder would not have cleanse up and the Templar would use his move and wipe us out. One time an oracle used it right after we had cleansed it, but before the move proced.. We finally decided to let the oracles debuff stick to us all until we saw that the Templar was preparing his move, and then the relic user would use cleanse and keep it up till the move went off. One more note.. if you're not playing jumper, don't be the relic holder.. One time we had it down to about 50%, and our relic holder accidentally didn't press both buttons at the right time to use his special and meleed instead -- the melee is a charge, and yeah, he flew off the platform..

So, when you beat the templar, you get some rewards (beautiful shards for all of us), and then move onto the next part. You run down a tunnel and eventually come to a big cave. This part is funny because we didn't know where to go.. You have to jump down and then use your special jump at the right time so you don't die. In this part, there's these white Harpies that if they see you, immediately kill your entire team. Before starting this though, directly across from where you enter, there's a cave hidden high up that has a chest if you follow it. Two of the people in our group got legendary class pieces while the rest of us got mats. So, this part is straight up MGS time. I don't know if it's better to work as a group, or to go individually.. We ended up doing three groups of two, and that worked well. It's kinda hard to see where you have to go (it's a dark cave off to the side), so I recommend watching a youtube video to get the idea.

The sixth part is kinda fun. It's kinda the classic platforming stretch There are a number of platforms that appear and disappear, and you have to work your way down across the area. Or (if you can time it) just jump down to the second to last platform and then jump the rest of the way.. Really, once you've got the timing down, it's not too hard.

The seventh part puts you in (what we think is) the final area where enemies are now level 27. You start with a room full of mobs that you have to clear. Then there are two platforms on either side of the room. When you step on them, it activates a portal, and if you step through it, you travel in time to a different area where you have to secure a relic (I think, I was in the group that didn't enter the portal). Now, you might be wondering why I didn't go through.. Well, similar to entering the VoG, you have to defend the platforms from goblins, hobgoblins, and Praetorians. They come from two areas and quickly can overwhelm you. If they take over the platform, the people inside the portal are lost to time, and that's the end of that. This is the part we stopped because it felt like we hit a wall, so that's all I've got. I don't know what happens next, since we only were able to get one relic, and not the second. When we got the first, something happened in the middle of the arena and we failed to defend something (we did not know that's what we were supposed to be doing..). I'm not sure if we needed to get both relics at once, if there was a checkpoint if we got the first and defended the central thing or not, and so yeah..

Anywhoo, hope it helps!


Will eventually repost this to Bungie.net once we finish up so it doesn't get lost as easily.

[Myrrh_Quetz]

How do you unlock Exotic Bounties?

Was soloing a level 24 Vanguard Strike. Got boss down to 10%, two randoms ended up joining. Totally got me killed and made me waste like 2 hours. I really need to get my RL friends to hit 20

[Akiyama]

Fiiinally got my first legendary from a drop that I didn't buy (bought gloves, gonna either buy something that's not the exotic this weekend or save for a helm since mine's still 19) .. but yeah! Was a Machine Gun. Fire damage though so but still. Happy.

[elison]

So just got an exotic bounty and kind of on the fence about which to pursue. Fusion rifle or pulse rifle?

[Ratatapa]

Hate you all still cant get a exotic

[Chun Liroy]

I don't know if this was posted already, but just in case some people haven't seen it, this seems pretty good.

[Nightmarelord]

I don't know if this was posted already, but just in case some people haven't seen it, this seems pretty good.

Omg thank you for posting this.

I watched PhillyD do this on stream yesterday and I got too lazy to look it up. Doing this when i get off work idc how cheap it is lol.

[Akiyama]

It's actually where I got my legendary (off a blue engram) from, lol. It's so lazy to do too..just sit there and hold down the trigger. Whatever works though!

Think Imma save my marks and not spend em on a legendary til this weekend so I can see what the exotic is. Up to almost 20 coins without the weekly too.

[Dantrag]

I did it for about 30min last night and got around 500 kills and I got a total of around 12 drops - 4 were blue no purples.