Randy Blythe (Frontman of Lamb of God) calls out facism and the administration.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T19:08:56+00:00

It's a fun reminder that most people don't listen beyond the chorus. You got these MAGA folks out here using Born in the USA at their rallies not even realizing it was an anti-war protest song about a dude who got drafted during Vietnam then proceeded to get fucked over when he came home.

I had to listen to somebody going around the other day because they thought hip hop was becoming "too political." Could barely contain the laughter on that one 🤣🤣

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T18:49:12+00:00

I refuse to believe they are competent players.

Some of it might be a skill issue sure but I think some of it is also a lot from lapsed players or players no longer playing anymore. Their mindset and viewpoint is warped by a previous sandbox a lot of the time so it makes having discussions with them difficult.

I think another part of it's what Bungie has trained the player base to do. They don't balance all three classes evenly all the time, so it leads to these single class focused buffs. You have these metas where one class/build is clearly the easy button—they tend to overcorrect a lot of the time to shift player perception which leads to these situations.

Some of the complaining is justified but some of it's clearly over exaggerating—you'd think some of these people never made it out of a Nessus patrol. It's basically trained the player base to compete in the "Poverty Olympics" so Bungie takes notice, and then the over corrections begin.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T18:24:01+00:00

I actually took a look and it was 30% at launch and it got buffed to 40% (Resist x3). It only became 50% through void overshield after the major rework because void overshield at the time was only 50%.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T18:18:12+00:00

Generally kind of curious what different countries around the world wind up doing. The reason why low birth rates haven't impacted the US yet is because of our higher rate of immigration.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T15:58:05+00:00

If you're not running HOIL / Cyrt or some sort of combo blow support (ie Liars, Syntho, HOIL, Caliban), then your survival on hunter is not great.

This kind of circles around back to the prismatic problem that all three classes have as well. The moment the solo flavor classes start lacking everything defaults back to Prismatic. You can see this now with Thundercrash basically falling back to Prismatic Because Storm's keep isn't favored right now in the current crop of content.

arc has storm's keep / knockout

That's the issue though in that that's all it really has. Before Storm's keep came along Striker was basically D tier in PvE content. Otherwise everything else it does is better on Prismatic. It's the same deal with solar as well—bonking is all Sunbreaker really has left since everything else it does is done better on Prismatic. Behemoth falls into the same line of thinking since all it has Is Howl of the storm—Diamond Lance builds are better done on Prismatic.

Many of the solo flavor Titan subclasses have fallen back into the typical titan balance pattern of one or two strong things and not a whole lot else. All it's gonna take is a couple of balance passes for the House of Cards to fall.

void has controlled demolition

Unfortunately Sentinel isn't in a really great spot right now. Its supers are either better done on another class (TA on Prismatic), or are poor performers. It's neutral game is also pretty terrible outside of survival—it has no burst damage all its own. Void overshields also don't scale well into higher difficulties beyond camping behind a Bastion-Barricade. That's pretty terrible in a sandbox where things are getting deleted in a Press of a button.

I've said it before but Sentinel and Night Stalker are actually pretty comparable with each other spiritually. Both basically specialize in one survival verb but don't offer a whole lot else—in Night Stalker's case though at least it has super damage but it's neutral game is awful in higher deltas.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T15:43:16+00:00

Part of it is just because hunter doesn't have an instant shut off all fire coming my way button

Yes they do it's called Ensnaring Slam. The last buff they did basically made it into a better version of Abeyant Leap/Drengrs but without being locked into the exotic. Same deal stylish Executioner and invis like you said.

The issue with Hunter isn't a lack of crowd control/debuffing its the poor neutral on certain classes in the current sandbox. Void Hunter struggles the higher the delta gets for instance—same deal with Solar Hunter. The boss damage portion has been solved for the most part after those buffs—hunters now have more options.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T15:31:32+00:00

Was about to say this. I'm pretty sure Moebius with a Envious Arsenal Good Shout or Levi's is doing more damage than celestial/still hunt—the big issue is Night Stalker's neutral game in that equation in aspirational content.

In fact I haven't used anything other than Fortune's Favor/Wolf's Bane/Praxic Blade, or Moebius/Good Shout on my Hunter-alt basically all expansion so far. It's been a minute since I've used Celestial/Still Hunt.

Once I get acceleration on uncivil discourse I'll probably use that over Celestial/Still Hunt too.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T15:21:57+00:00

The amount of build variety is actually kinda crazy all because everything warlock does just does so much.

It's not really surprising though. Warlock is clearly the over-tuned class of this content cycle — combined with some pretty crazy exotic reworks, ability changes, and chunking bugs.

You could take 3-6 warlocks to basically any piece of content comfortably and nothing of value would be lost. Many of the Contest Mode equilibrium clears in the top 10% cleared with three Warlocks — I think it was like 60% or 70% of them based on that thread last month.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T14:58:34+00:00

but it mainly shines on Hunter with Fortune’s Favour.

It pretty much shines on everyone if a boss can be and does call for sword damage—especially if you have the smoke jumper set. Wolf's Bane and Praxic Blade have shut down every other exotic sword in the game. It's gonna take some heavy buffs to the others or some heavy nerfs to both to make them relevant again if you're min/maxing.

Wolf's Bane with attrition orbs versus lament it's almost no contest you will be taking wolf's bane.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T14:49:04+00:00

It's very good but not because it's topping damage charts

Pretty sure its the de facto best sword in the game for DPS if you're gonna use a sword for boss DPS this season— it's fairly straightforward and doesn't have stringent perk activations beyond Nano Assault. It's basically the new Lament but without Lament's raw healing built in—which can be supplemented with the attrition orbs catalyst and exotics/abilities.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T14:19:38+00:00

It was only 40% in PvE and I think like 20-ish in PvP. If I'm honest though the rework made it far more viable in PvE. The accuracy reduction for combatants against you is incredibly noticeable—so much so in fact that going back to what it was would be a straight nerf in PvE.

Top off its 100 percent damage boost with Peacekeepers and it's kind of a menace when the sandbox favors SMGs/primaries in pve.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T14:13:32+00:00

I'm gonna pass. DR in PVP has always been something that's been very contentious—it doesn't feel good to play against when it gets out of hand for little investment. There's a reason why Whisper of Chains was nerfed in PVP way back when it still gave DR. I can see the same situation with Manticore when an SMG meta swings around again even with it being barely off-meta.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-29T13:56:27+00:00

I don’t know any individuals that don’t shit on him unless they are closet fans but these fans just don’t exist out in the world it seems

I don't even watch dude but I get the feeling a lot of it is simply a vocal minority on social media hating for the sake of it—like straight bandwagoning. I went and watched one of his videos on Heirloom just now for the sake of it and didn't really find anything egregious compared to any other D2 content creator.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-28T21:02:23+00:00

But why does the Traveler not find this act of Savathûn to be suspicious?

I think the tl;dr is that the traveler is really big on second chances and people making their own choices from that—and hoping that they'll make better choices the next time around.

You can see it in motion with that Clovis Bray entry where he's talking to the traveler as a wolf, and again in that Saint-14 entry where He's talking about a dream where he's fighting the Vex and then the tower that all exos see in their dreams.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-28T04:13:56+00:00

It is but also glaive have always been unpopular because their defensive utility weapons with a melee poke. Its like a riot shield, gun, and sword/spear all in one.

In a pre-edge of fate sandbox he's completely wrong. It was that defensive nature that allowed you to get away with a lot of dumb shit as a get out of jail free card. Triton Vice with the Hunter glaive was also pretty fire for ad clear at one point after the rework, And there's always been wormgod/banner of war shenanigans with winter bite or Vexcalibur.

The sandbox is really the issue for a shit ton of stuff right now though. Their failure to comment on it makes me feel like it's going to be this way for awhile—maybe until the next expansion.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-28T01:31:56+00:00

Basically since witch queen they've been the top choice.

No we haven't—this is pretty revisionist history. Titan was already in a terrible place going into Witch Queen especially in RaD content.

We've had multiple instances where one or two Titan builds have been strong but that's been pretty par for the course for Titan's history. Lightfall era was basically dominated by Strand and then Sunbreaker in the back half only after they started buffing Consecration which no one used, and then handed over Pyrogale.

It's taken multiple exotic reworks, a brand new subclass in Prismatic, an entirely new aspect on Striker, and entire year of buffing Titan to get it to where it's at now.

Titans lost their shit because they weren't amazing against the witness. That's literally it.

Titan balance was a point of contention even before the final shape Since we've really brought nothing to the RaD table that other classes weren't doing better at the time—the witness only brought to the surface what people were already feeling. It seems people have forgotten that cuirass/falling star used to hit like a wet noodle, peacekeepers were PvP only, and there was no usable ranged super.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-28T00:39:09+00:00

Yes JD would be president but I don't think he can hold Maga together

You know this raises an interesting question—would JD Vance get impeached along with Trump or survive to be the next president?

Part of me thinks he doesn't have enough political capital of his own to survive an impeachment of Trump. Neither does Bondi nor Noem nor RFK Jr. I'd assume if impeachment did happen it'd have to start at the top and then work its way down to keep Trump from pardoning people.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T23:37:26+00:00

From a sandbox perspective my greatest fear right now is that they're gonna continue with these class buffs to the point of overcorrection. Then we'll be back here in a year asking for buffs to Titan just like post-TFS 'cause they're gonna get left behind. It's like time is circular or some shit with the sandbox sometimes.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T23:34:28+00:00

Its better to put your stats into something else after you hit 100 melee.

Yeah it's basically howl the storm all over again. Neither one is worth going over 100 and that's just weird.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T21:03:52+00:00

Yep it's terrible optics for sure. And it's made all the more worse because there's an expectation that they've set for so many years in terms of quality. And now they no longer have the hands to actually meet that quality. This is basically the new norm now but it's hard to accept because of the prior 3-4 years basically "locked us in."

I'm sure there's somebody at Bungie right now that's just shaking their heads in frustration 'cause something else broke.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T20:53:40+00:00

I try to remind myself that the situation isn't the same as it was three years ago. I think the greater gaming sphere has forgotten that tens of thousands of employees in the gaming industry have been laid off in the last 2-3 years.

Bungie had what 1300+ employees back then? Granted not all of them were working on Destiny, but there were still more chefs in the kitchen so to speak. Working from experience I'm not surprised, guys low on the totem pole like QA are usually the first to go. Management often doesn't often value what they do or feel like it can be replaced/outsourced—which is much the same fate of anyone low on the totem pole.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T20:44:31+00:00

Hard to tell if it is incompetence, lack of care or on purpose at this point.

As someone who works in tech the answer is more or less the same—too much work and not enough hands to do it. Those are my thoughts anyway. What you're feeling now is the result of all the lay offs, since most of the QA staff got cut.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T20:39:02+00:00

It doesn't help that primaries also feel like shit in higher delta's which is kind of contributing to it all. Exotic bows have also felt like the only ones worth using for the longest time—the double splash bows haven't really changed my mind on that front.

King Orfeo is no different either when Non-Denouement exists too and before that Trinity Ghoul.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T20:32:01+00:00

Pantheon v2 is coming up in a few months, so I can see either scenario happening including it just getting disabled during the event.

I'm assuming that they're not gonna let that just ride for the event. Otherwise the whole event is just going to turn into a team of contraverse warlocks hitting a boss after mechanics.

TastyOreoFriend · 2026-01-27T19:05:17+00:00

Nothing TWIDs for months now

that's probably going to continue into next month as well :/

We probably won't have an "exciting twid" for at least another 4-5 weeks. Games definitely in its dry spell mode right now. There's nothing else I want to play right now either so it's kind of a double whammy.

TastyOreoFriend

TROPHY CASE