Professor Video Games

Later.

Yeah, as goofy as it could be, I kinda liked how you had to complete some specific in game activities to hit the level cap and in HoW there was a good variety of ways to do that instead of constantly running the raid like the in the first two expansions. As long as the new endgame activities drop cool unique gear it doesn't really matter though. With Black Hammer specifically, even if it's damage is less than ideal, it's perk was still overpowered. Having a damage rating 50 less than max won't matter when you can dump infinite sniper shots into a boss' dome.

Whoa there are a lot of bombs dropping. The death of Dinklebot, obsolescence of old guns, and a straight up xp-based levelling system instead of the gear-based light level one. Bananas! Edit: Legendaries are specifically mentioned as being left behind, so it's likely exotics will make the jump to Year 2. Probably the right move overall.

It's crazy how rapidly my PvP skills fluctuate. I generally only jump into PvP for IB so there's a one month gap every time and when this one started my K/D avg was somewhere around 0.8 (the games below that avg were ugly). By last night it was probably 1.5, with multiple games well above that and kills per game way up. Probably doesn't hurt that by Monday night all the hardcore players have already hit rank 5 and quit playing . Few other misc thoughts from this IB: I got a BTRD finally. That thing is a Joldor's Hammer on steroids. Good lord. Also, I surprisingly had very few lag issues this time which was nice. At this point the main things I want to do are low time commitment activities: finish out my Elder Cipher, actually get my Husk upgraded to a Nechrochasm, and some occasional PvP to prevent my getting steamrolled (maybe some Trials attempts somewhere in there if I feel ambitious). Will definitely ramp it up when TTK hits. Of course if people need bodies to help finish out their year 1 stuff I'd be willing to help out there too.

That last mine round was so clutch. Just a series of frantic revives, self-rezes, and taint passing. I complain about the length of that fight, but the high stakes of failing ratchet the intensity level way, way up. Great stuff. Edit: Taint. Taint. Taint.

It's Mike Danger. I've had my suspicions about him for a while now...

I use SMS Backup+. Works pretty well.

No problem. I got another friend of mine to jump in but we were running out of steam so after a few attempts called we it a night. I'm gonna get that fucker this weekend though. I run into this sometimes and I think it has to do with going in and out of suspend mode with Destiny running. The problem is usually fixed by going to the menu, closing the game manually, and restarting it fresh.

Yeah, being a PvP scrub, the one of the main reasons I want to do Trials is for weapon parts. What sucks is one of the weeks I got 7 wins, my group then did another run, and I didn't realize the level you can redeem is only based on the most recent ticket you turned in. Our 2nd run was shit so once I turned that one in I lost the ability to buy the gun. Lame. Had a Skolas run last night with MikeDanger where we got all the way through the final mine round only to lose after one of us died to an add and Skolas came in a meleed us while we tried to get the revive up. Very heartbreaking. That fight is a lot of fun but man is it long. Losing anywhere in the 2nd half is really demoralizing.

It might be frustrating because of the damage scaling like you mentioned, but if you can rank up enough you can get some gear that might help you get at least to 32 (depending on what you need), plus a couple Etheric Lights as well. But your first priority should be your most leveled character, because once you get that one to rank 5, your other characters get a buff to help them rank up faster.

N++ comes out today. Couldn't be more excited to smash my controller to bits. Fun N+ story: I stayed up late one weeknight hitting my head against a wall on a particularly hard level. When I finally beat it I needed to get to sleep, so I left my 360 on overnight so I wouldn't lose my progress (levels are grouped in sets of five and you must beat all five for it to save your progress). When I woke up in the morning, my Xbox had red-ringed When I got my system back and had to play that level again, I'm pretty sure I beat it on my first try.

Yeah I was just curious. Like I said, it would take nothing away from the dude's skill. The quick sniping is obviously impressive, but his ability to win in 3 vs 1 scenarios is equally so. The video also really makes me want to get Hidden Hand on my Her Benevolence even more. The weapon parts are killing me.

Is the person in that sniping video using a xim or something? Not that it would make it any less impressive. I couldn't pull that stuff off if the console inputs were hardwired to my brain.

Jon weren't you gonna post some sniper video?

No magic required for IB. It's basically a matter of putting in the time to get to the needed rank. Even losses give you medallions that will be cashed in on your next win. Just do what bounties you can and remember to get the buff from the vendor and that the buff gets more powerful as the week progresses, so games on Sunday will reward way more rep than ones on Tuesday.

I'll probably be busy Friday but will probably be free most any time Saturday, not that you should schedule around me of course. On a related note, if anyone wants to run a PoE of any level and sees me on, feel free to invite me because I need boss kills for the exotic bounty. Per week per character you can get two Etheric Light from PoE, then two from Trials if you can get up to 8 wins, then one from the Nightfall if you get lucky (plus two from IB when it's running). I think that's about it.

Alchemy isn't art, it's science.

I'm fine with the one hit KO on shotguns as long as it's point blank or close to it. The current issue is the range. Right now a Matador or Party Crasher with the right perks can take you out from what really should be the range for a fast charge fusion rifle. But that should be fixed in the weapons patch so I'll just keep running around with my Matador and not complain. What I'm saying is the month or so between the 2.0 patch hitting and the new ideal loadout being discovered (assuming there is one) should be pretty fun. By the way Griddlelol, for normal Crucible, gear rarity isn't really a dealbreaker since damage is normalized. The rarer gear will just have more perks, so if you found a grey or green shotgun with decent decent impact, it will wreck just as well as a similarly specced purple (minus the perks).

Yeah to offset the shitty gear thing I've tried to stockpile blue engrams (and purple for once I hit 20) from my main guy and send them over to the alt every now and then. Not a guarantee to get better stuff but it helps plus it speeds up leveling your cryptarch rank

I've been mainly using PvP to level up an alt. You get one level every 3 matches or so and it's a good way to mix it up from running the same PvE missions again. Plus I was thinking if I avoid running most of the PvE missions until I hit 20, I can run the hard versions of them with some of my unleveled exotics + use telemetries and net a decent amount of XP into them.

Joined, but just a heads up you set it up for Monday

On maps with enough space, scout rifles are totally viable (I mean they're no Thorn/TLW but nothing is right now). At close range they do suffer though. If you have a MIDA that's a great one to use. I think the only way a hand cannon will kill in two body shots is maybe Hawkmoon if they're lucky and get both luck-in-the-chambers to proc back to back but that won't be a regular thing. Go for it...I'd bet you'll be able to pull in three of us on a decently regular basis.

I'm pretty middle of the road when it comes to PvP (a KDR of 1.0 on the nose), but I'd be willing to give it a shot. The few times I've done Trials it's been with random groups and I've had mixed results as well. Would be good to have a regular team for it.

Getting a crew together for a raid or PoE isn't actually too bad. You can usually pull at least a few people from here via our 100.io group, plus at least one person in a group can usually pull in an extra friend or two in a bind. Plus like JonCole said, you can additionally join more general groups and in my experience they have events popping up fairly regularly. I'd say the endgame is pretty well fleshed out at this point. Unless you are a hardcore 3x every event every week kinda guy, it's fairly difficult to deplete the endgame activities of drops and such especially if you are only digging into them now (and even then they are still fun to do). In a given week I'll usually end up doing some combination of Nightfall, PoE, and a raid depending on my schedule, plus PvP or some bounties when I'm in the mood and have a little time to kill.

The most grown up thing ever said.