Destiny 360/PS3/XBOX ONE/PS4 review

[S3M]

S3M - your evaluation of PoE is premature. The last two difficulty levels are completely transformative. Also, the modifiers change every week, like nightfall, which will require radically different strategies to complete 34 & 35. The easier PoE are not really indicative of the whole experience. I think what they've done is really quite inventive, and not at all like any other horde mode in any other game.

No there rubbish already done them pre-set mops and modifiers easy to beat with a few minor changes not really game changing. It's just a case of kill the bosses with ghorns again bcass. Doesn't make a huge change to nightfall either. The maps the same for PoE the only change is which room you go in and what the mid level task is, all in all it very lack luster. Trials of Orisis is little better it's fight 9 teams on the same map.

[Panta Rhei]

TDB was a pile of crap.

The only reason Heroic Crota's End was difficult because Bungie overleved the final enemies. Try to beat it at light level 33 and its laughing stock again. Its badly balanced. VoG was on level and a fair challenge. Crota's End on level is ridiculously easy. But its hard (cheap) when you're one level below. They even gave Crota insta Enrage, because well, what if a team is too good with the sword? So its badly balanced.

HoW is better but not by that much, it won't have a lot of staying power. There isn't much strategy to Prison of Elders. With Solar Burn you can Horn the final boss, which is about the only working strategy because of how the fight is played out. With another burn it will become apparent that this encounter is very cheap. I'm already tired of disabling mines. Its cheap.

But Bungie changed the game for the good. Loot drops are better, leveling up is better. If you jump in now, you don't have to do much. I took an Invective I never leveled up and it was my first ever exotic. I ascended it and now its PoE ready. Leveling up weapons goes much faster now too, use them in Crucible or whatever there is to play and they level up at a decent pace. My Thorn which was 3 orbs shy of max had a full orb after a handful of clash games. Commendations are gone, use them and your rep will skyrocket, and the Xur reset stuff is dropped. Pretty good changes and confirms TDB was trash. The Story missions were actually decent, a first in this game.

I did 2 Vanguard Dragon strikes and got a legendary engram + Four Horseman. Which was great because all I need now is Hawkmoon and i'm complete (regarding exotics up until TDB). That will be a challenge as I think its not on my loot table lol. Got like 4 Gjallarhorns, 3 monte carlos, 3 suros, ice breakers and everything else twice. But, I haven't played since end of Jan so missed a truckload of oppertunities.

[bcass]

Sitting there with all three players firing ghorns isn't going to work as a strategy for the last (lvl35) boss after the reset tomorrow when the modifier will no longer be solar burn. Even if the lvl34 boss had solar this week (which it doesn't), sitting there spamming ghorns wouldn't work as a tactic either. Come to think of it, given that you only get a max of 14 ghorn rockets for every two heavy sythns used (every 10 minutes) just sitting there spamming ghorns isn't an effective strategy for any of it. I had loads of fun going through all difficulty settings with all three of my characters. We worked out all sorts of little strategies for completing each section during each run through, the most tense being when I ran through the lvl35 arena as a lvl33 with two lvl34s. It's not raid-level problem solving, but it's a nice change of pace and a welcome addition to add a bit of variety to the game. This weeks Bungie Update suggests that they haven't revealed everything about the PoE yet. If you look at the redesigned Reef map screen you can see several empty slots, which I recon will turn out to be the true hard-mode arenas, that will have a staggered release in a few months time, much like the hard-mode raids did.

ToO doesn't appeal to me at all. The only reason to play that would be for the weapons, but once ascended, the existing raid weapons outclass all of them when it comes to PvE. Seems odd that the ToO primaries have elemental damage at all really.

In other news, I spent over 400 motes of light at the weekend buying exotic helm engrams from Xur in a bid to get the three new exotic helms. Managed to get two of them, but not the one I really wanted - the Celestial Nighthawk. Also, it looks like the ship and sniper rifle (The Supremacy) from the original Queen's Wrath bounties are not part of the new Queen's Wrath loot table, which means they may well become some of the rarest loot in the game. The Supremacy is a great sniper too, and is a legendary to boot, so well worth ascending if you kept hold of it.

[Panta Rhei]

I have the Nighthawk. Its pretty good. Its mostly a boss killer though. I use it on boss enemies and you can free up Keyhole for GT and Combustion for gunfighter since boss enemies don't need combustion. With high INT and gunfighter, you have quite a few shots during such a fight and it takes off a chunk.

The Supremacy is good depending on what roll you got. I prefer the Efrideet's Spear, its the best sniper in the game for both PvP and PvE depending on what you roll for. I've made it Arc way back and it tears through fallen. For PvP I put on Ambush or shortgaze, snapshot or perfect balance (I really prefer snapshot, got no problems with base stability) and with spray and play and final round.

The Horn strat was pretty much the most viable strat on last weeks 35. You can down him within 40 seconds with it by using heavy beforehand and then sitting out the cooldown so you all can use another during the fight. With Arc Burn I figure its a Thunderlord fight.

The big rewards seems to have been moved to PvP. If you want to ascend your legendary stuff, you need a good ToO team and you'll be loaded in no time.

[bcass]

Tough new boss for PoE lvl34 this week.

[stevie vip 99]

I've enjoyed some of the new dlc, as always I wish there was some matchmaking for more than the lowest level poe! Not been able to rank up as I don't really have anyone playing this game. Tried the level 32 poe tonight but couldn't quite make it passed round 4.
3 nightfalls done this week and last and still not seen the new light drop, stuck at 32 on all 3 characters!

[SUMIRE]

How do I get more of those keys to open the chest at the end of The Prison of Elders?

I'm only really playing this as a quick blast on a night. I enjoyed the Prison of Elders, but its just another grind fest as usual.

The story was okish, but seemed to be just doing some of the levels I have already done but the opposite way round lol. A bit like in racing games were you have reverse tracks.

Also, they should have MAGS like in Phantasy Star Online, that would be a cool addition instead of that crappy ghost thing or whatever its called.

The gunplay in this game is awesome though, over all, as a game, it is still really lacking.

[Panta Rhei]

Grind patrol at locations such as skywatch until a pack of prowling wolves will show up. Beat them, find the chest and pray to RNG it has a key. You can leave an area and re enter to take another shot at the chest until the timer runs out.

But this is the only way to gather keys afaik.

I'm already sort of tired of PoE, can't be bothered with it. I'm keeping this game for the PvP as I already did. The new maps are pretty decent, and the Dark Below ones are integrated into the regular playlist.

[bcass]

But this is the only way to gather keys afaik.

Keys also randomly drop when you complete any level PoE. Fastest way to get keys is probably by replaying PoE lvl28, but they're still pretty rare.

[stevie vip 99]

I picked up a key from doing the Queens bounties, one came off the package she gives you.
Are keys even worth it? Not guaranteed an exotic. Do you only get the new light etc on the higher difficulties from using a key?

[bcass]

No, you can get the new PoE and Queen's weapons + shader and ship from lvl35 key chest.

[fishbowlhead]

Got to say that the treasure keys area total joke. Must of opened over 100 chests now from defeating wolves on patrols and not a single one (on and off since the wolves appeared in patrols that is)

It just seems to be focused more towards the jobless and 10 years old more every day.

[wicky]

Got to say that the treasure keys area total joke. Must of opened over 100 chests now from defeating wolves on patrols and not a single one (on and off since the wolves appeared in patrols that is)

It just seems to be focused more towards the jobless and 10 years old more every day.

FYI I think they are addressing this in the next patch, increasing the drop rate.

For what it's worth, the loot from the big chests ain't that great from what I have seen so far.

[Supergoal]

When you get an ether key, how do you know where to find the chest? I only just started playing again after a few months out. Saw some flashing icon on the bottom left of the screen saying ether key. No idea.

[Panta Rhei]

My first 3 big chest rolls on 3 characters was an exotic each. But the 2nd week wasn't. I guess the guaranteed exotic was a first time thing.