melmer

Destiny

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Got my first exotic gun! A Suros something assault rifle. They're my least favourite weapon class so I still have some room to improve, but on the other hand it's nice to have an excuse to try ARs out again.

 

e: Jon, I won't be able to join tonight's thing, past midnight on a weekday's a bit rich for my blood. Also not 32 yet.

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The Suros is pretty nice! ARs aren't really in the PvP meta right now, but lots of people use it for PvE and enjoy it well enough. It doesn't really fire exactly like any other AR out there, which makes it fairly unique.

 

Also, you're not obligated to join anything! :) I imagine that many of the nightly events for those of us in America won't be able to appeal to the Europeans among us due to the timing, but I'm sure we'll get weekend events going. I would have made an attempt to get a Crota group going this past weekend, but Iron Banner + an American holiday made it difficult.

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Back in the good ol' days, Suros was the go-to gun for PvP. ARs got nerfed not long after though and now you almost never see them. I've still got a few decent ones in my vault for the day when they get buffed back into relevance. And fun to break them out in PvE patrols and such now and then.

 

I tried to get up to level 3 (from nothing) in IB last night but couldn't quite get there as a few of the bounties just weren't happening for me. They need to address the PvP balance soon. I'm so tired of playing against Thorns. It's not even that I care too much that it's overpowered (it is), but it's just boring to fight against a single gun almost exclusively, with a few Last Words mixed in. Something should probably also be done with the shotgun range situation too but that seems less critical.

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I haven't found Thorn to be particularly game-breaking, just boring as you said. I think it'd be different if it wasn't able to be countered, but TLW/snipers/shotguns are all more than enough to handle a Thorn user. But then again, maybe I'm biased. I brought three characters to rank 5 IB and got a flawless this weekend in Trials. I don't really know if Thorn is as easily countered by less enthusiastic PvPers.

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I have been finding Thorn pretty damn annoying in PvP. I did pretty decent in Iron Banner over the last week. Got to rank 5 and even hit the 10 kill streak bounty almost every day that I played (which is usually much more of a challenge for me). It was a lot of fun but I'm so fucking tired of all the post mortem Thorn deaths. Nothing says fun like killing someone and then just watching the last few chunks of your shield melt away with nothing you can do about it.

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It's game breaking in that it's by far the best gun to use, so everyone uses it. You can kill in two headshots thanks to it's damage over time (which also lets you disengage before the opponent's health is at zero) and the range and accuracy are so good that there really isn't a map it's not suited for. The Last Word is basically the only alternative because of it's insane rate of fire, but you also have to be in a bit closer for it to be useful. Honestly I think both of those guns kill too quickly. One thing I generally like about Bungie PvP is that you have time to react after getting hit, unlike a Call of Duty style game. With either of those guns you can drop someone in an instant (just talking primaries here, obviously sniper headshots or close range shotguns are gonna be one hit kills).

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You can kill in two headshots, unless -

  • You get melee killed by a Sunsinger with Flame Shield or a Defender with Force Barrier that procs on a melee kill
  • You get melee killed by a Warlock with The Ram
  • You get killed by Red Death with health regeneration on kill
  • Your opponent takes cover after the first shot
  • Your opponent blinks after the first shot
  • You get killed by The Last Word, which has faster TTK
  • Your aim is disrupted by a Pulse Rifle with high ROF and high-caliber rounds, which causes extreme stagger
  • You get killed by OHKO secondary/heavy weapons

That's a lot of counters and not all of them require extreme gunskill or situational awareness.

 

None of this is to say that Thorn is not overpowered, because it is. I just don't think that it's uniquely overpowered, as TLW does kill faster than just about anything and there are people who can practically snipe with it. Or Firebolt Grenades can stop enemy regen through burning via Viking Funeral/Ignite and you can fire those around corners. Or Arc Grenades are practically instantaneous and go around corners and can kill three or more guys at a time.

 

My point is just that Thorn is overused because it's in the meta, not because it's uniquely overpowered. Thorn could easily be nerfed if the burning effect was altered to be less devastating, it lost perks like Send It that gives it ungodly range, etc. It could also be nerfed if ARs were fixed, because ARs are supposed to be a close-to-middle range category that could potentially counter Thorn even more broadly than anything I've mentioned.

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I actually prefer using Hawkmoon over Thorn in PVP and don't really feel it's over powered, I just think other primary weapons are underpowered. I feel Thorn's main advantage is that it keeps shields from going back up more then raw damage, allowing others to came in for the kill. I honestly don't get many kills from the damage over time effect.

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I actually prefer using Hawkmoon over Thorn in PVP and don't really feel it's over powered, I just think other primary weapons are underpowered. I feel Thorn's main advantage is that it keeps shields from going back up more then raw damage, allowing others to came in for the kill. I honestly don't get many kills from the damage over time effect.

 

I've grown pretty fond of using the Vex Mythoclast myself. It worked pretty well for me over the last week and it's range and rate of fire is just right for my play style. But man there were so many instances where I would manage to kill someone in a shootout only to bleed out and die right afterwards. I try to be sneaky but more often than not, the person I am shooting manages to at least get a couple shots on me, and if they have a Thorn that's all it takes.

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I played a bit of the iron banner this weekend, and I found thorn to be my biggest bugbear. I did eventually learn how to play around it, but even then there was sometimes just nothing I could do but watch my health bar trickle down. What I found so bothersome about it is really just that a DOT in a modern FPS is really annoying. It significantly delays health regen, can't be cancelled or dodged (the only defensive maneuver besides healing), Makes the weapon much more powerful comparatively, and has that psychological effect that anything you do is futile. I've never played PVP all that much aside from this weekend, but it did seem like that in most typical situations against thorn I would lose, and against other weapons it was more even.

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I don't disagree that Thorn is too effective right now (I'm one of the arseholes who uses it and blink + max range/impact shotgun), but I think there's a problem with Iron Banner as a whole. With level advantages enabled, you're at a disadvantage unless you play at max level, so you only really see level 34 players in there. I guess that's also a function of the max level being much easier to compared to previous endgames, but I digress. I think the biggest problem is that the way things are balanced right now in IB, everything just feels like it does more damage. It feels like regular Crucible but faster. Video games is right that Bungie games (excluding Marathon) have always felt a bit slower and more deliberate than Call of Duty-style shooters. That makes Iron Banner feel less fun, because you kill a little quicker and you die a little quicker. And I'm not sure what the point of that is considering that everyone has the same level advantage as everyone else anyway. I imagine it's a gametype they came up with before launch that's just become a permanent staple, but it's not the kind of thing they'd design knowing what they know now.

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Yeah while enabling level advantages sounds cool, all it really means is that only people at level 34 will play and that they will only use weapons they've completely leveled up. So what's the point?

 

And I'm not saying Thorn breaks the game. There are ways to kill people with it for sure. I just think it's current abilities/stats make PvP less fun (this goes for TLW too, which I really do love using). I want to use and go up against a variety of primary weapons and for weapon choice to actually depend on things like map and play style. As things stand right now, you generally put yourself at a disadvantage by not using Thorn or TLW all the time.

 

By the way, did you guys see Bungie's update today? A special emblem for completing a bunch of the endgame content before TTK comes out. Guess I'll spend this weekend finding those gold chests (I feel stupid for doing it, but I will).

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Not to be pedantic, but I played as a level 32 for the last two days on my new Hunter and had no trouble competing. However, I don't think that obviates the fact that IB is not particularly effective at changing the gameplay in a positive way.

 

I do think that House of Wolves and reforging has set the foundation for making legendaries more competitive with exotics on the whole, at least now there are specific rolls of Scout Rifles and Pulse Rifles that compete with Thorn/TLW legitimately. If and when they fix ARS, nerf exotic HCs, and add a greater variety of weapons in general, I don't anticipate such an unbalanced meta subsequently.

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Congrats Jon!

 

I couldn't log in all evening yesterday due to PSN issues, which ended up irritating me a lot more than I expected. This game is good at getting you to want to play it.

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Congrats man! About 650 hours played an no Gally, mostly wanted to comment on the PvP meta talk.

Thorn definitely needs a nerf but so do The Last Word and "Final Round snipers" - both of which I really enjoy right now.

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The Last Word is the only decent primary counter to long-range OHKO shotguns like Felwinters and Matador. Either those need to be nerfed too, or something needs to be buffed to compensate if TLW gets nerfed.

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Is there ever a scenario in PvE or PvP where it would be ideal to stack strength instead of intellect or discipline? I've pretty much always avoided gear with strength because it seems vastly preferable to have grenades and supers recharging faster than it would be for your melee power.

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I don't know if this is cool here or if there is a dedicated thead for it, but I am going to be one of those annoying people that sends a message to all recent players...

My friend and I are going to try and do VoG for the first time on Saturday. We know no one else that plays on the 360, would any of you like to get annoyed at us for not having a clue what to do? We are going to do this Saturday, mid afternoon bst. My gamer tag is Kyeface.

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Is there ever a scenario in PvE or PvP where it would be ideal to stack strength instead of intellect or discipline? I've pretty much always avoided gear with strength because it seems vastly preferable to have grenades and supers recharging faster than it would be for your melee power.

 

In PvP if you've got an exotic that has a "spawn with grenade energy" perk, then discipline won't really get you anything. I'll likely die before my grenade would recharge anyway.

 

 

I don't know if this is cool here or if there is a dedicated thead for it, but I am going to be one of those annoying people that sends a message to all recent players...

My friend and I are going to try and do VoG for the first time on Saturday. We know no one else that plays on the 360, would any of you like to get annoyed at us for not having a clue what to do? We are going to do this Saturday, mid afternoon bst. My gamer tag is Kyeface.

 

There is a thread in the Multiplayer Networking subforum, but we've used this one for game setup before so don't worry about it. Most everyone here is on PS4 though so you may not get much additional interest :(

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There is a thread in the Multiplayer Networking subforum, but we've used this one for game setup before so don't worry about it. Most everyone here is on PS4 though so you may not get much additional interest :(

Ah cool, yeah most people I know are on the ps4 too, I'll probably be buying the taken king collection to bump be up to current gen. I've not done any dlc so far and only have one character, so there is an unwillingness to do much until September when I will have to start from scratch. Still, I wouldn't mind experiencing the raid.

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Strength is a good stat for Warlocks, where the range of their attacks is long and the Sunsinger benefits from Flame Shield pretty handily. It really just depends on what you actually are productive with, most people swear by Int/Dis but if you're garbage with grenades then Dis isn't going to do you any good.

 

pyeixe, you'd probably do well to join an Xbox 360-centered clan via the Bungie forums, use the /r/fireteams subreddit where you can filter by platform, or join a group on the100.io that is 360-specific.

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Generally strength benefits you if your melee attack gives you some other special bonus, like the extra shield. I use blink strike all the time in PvP, but I have the perk that makes its cooldown 4 seconds long so that replaces any need for strength gear. One novel use for strength is to pair it with Peregrine Greaves in PvP, which turns your shoulder charge into an instant kill if they don't have any overshield or damage resistance.

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I do like the orbs of light I get from melee attacks with my Defender subclass. But what I tend to find is that in any of the higher tier stuff like PoE 32 and above, it usually seems to be a pretty bad idea to get in close enough to melee guys and I usually get wrecked pretty quickly. The best use I've found is to pop my shield near a bunch of guys and start beating the crap out of them when they try to rush me. With the additional shield I get while in my bubble I can usually get quite a few kills, generating a few orbs of light in the process. But even that generally feels like a reckless approach and I feel like I would always be better off trying to keep my distance and kill guys before they can get in too close. Maybe I just need to work on my skills.

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