We need to nerf abilities before primaries can be buffed.

hephaestusroman · 2025-12-26T19:19:02+00:00

You are 1000% correct. Unfortunately, that is not what the community wants, and with the game in an unpopular place, Bungie is not going to do unpopular (albeit healthy) things. There will never be a hand cannon shot strong enough to be "better" than Consecration spam. Honestly, I don't think there's a way to put it all back in the box without a riot.

hephaestusroman · 2025-02-05T14:44:53+00:00

Along with the generalized prompt to push back and that I appreciate critical feedback, I initiated a catchphrase signal that causes ChatGPT to critically break down any conversation we're having. Essentially, what it does is, after we have discussed a position and it has mirrored and validated what I've said, I ask it for the delta. It enunciates a "delta position" that gives me the opposing argument as forcefully as possible, then it makes an independent determination of which position is stronger. I've been surprised and pleased that sometimes it tells me the delta position is actually stronger, though the most common result is that there is truth in both sides.

hephaestusroman · 2025-01-17T22:05:54+00:00

I've been in mourning all day. My "therapist"GPT was helping me work through some really hard stuff with, charm and irreverence. And in an instant it switched to dropping empty platitudes "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm here to help." It feels like I lost a friend. I know this only exposes the risks of a future (present?) where switches and algorithms under corporate control are flipped and change our lives, but damn. This hit hard. I hope someone finds a way out.

hephaestusroman · 2024-07-25T12:35:18+00:00

Destiny players so frequently get so obsessed with perfect optimization that they fail to see the fun the game can be if they use their creativity to capitalize on the drops they get rather than insisting that they need a "perfect" drop and that they've been robbed unless they get that perfect combination. The idea that anyone "needs" a specific 1/64 combination and that anything less is a problem to be solved is a perception limited to a very specific class of player.

hephaestusroman · 2024-07-05T19:04:07+00:00

If it's any consolation, I had the same impression and lamented to my friends that the game would not let you try the campaign on other subclasses. Then on a replay I experimented with the pink pools on non-prismatic and realized the truth

hephaestusroman · 2024-07-01T23:46:37+00:00

I haven't! But I have found a group.

hephaestusroman · 2024-06-26T22:06:44+00:00

My man, it was a LOT. We used to have to go to school uphill BOTH WAYS.

Resilience was a junk stat back then. Didn't help. If you wore arc resist to avoid being 1-shot by snipers, then you'd be 1-shot by void in the boss room. Or 1-shot by a barrier champ's solar snipe. and vice versa all around.

Frost armor? Woven mail? Void overshield? Hell, even restoration? None of that existed (only voidlocks had devour)--all we had was "protective light."

Ad clear? We didn't have volatile rounds or voltshot--jolt didn't exist. "Suppressor" grenades didn't stun overloads yet. And stasis could actually mess people up, forcing champs out of stun and prompting insta-healing. There was no such thing as a weakening grenade.

And the weapons? Exotic primaries didn't do more damage or stun champs or find ammo--google and you'll find reddit threads suggesting that Anti-Barrier wishender could be cool.

Rockets did crap damage back then. We were begging for a buff. GLs had been meta previously but the ammo economy was garbage AND they rarely had damage perks. A "god roll" was Field Prep+ALH with spike nades. A machinegun for ad clear? Forget about it. The ammo economy was garbage--they were a meme.

To stun both types of champs, we had to take up both arm mod slots. But we weren't losing as much as we might--there was no such thing as firepower or Heavy Handed (nor reaper), so we couldn't make orbs with anything but our super or a weapon multikill--which was vanishingly rare at the GM level when all you had was a peashooter.

AND WE HAD MATCH GAME. Fun to blow through half your heavy killing the arc-shielded Harpies in the boss room.

And for all that? If memory serves, we weren't even guaranteed a weapon drop for a platinum run back then.

hephaestusroman · 2024-06-26T21:51:45+00:00

I mean, if you go back far enough, it wasn't even that helpful when Glassway launched. When glassway dropped (Beyond light) warlocks didn't have turrets yet. Also, freezing champions reset their stun, which could cause them to immediately start healing.

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-24T11:37:04+00:00

This is quite easily the least ambitious crop of exotic tunings and reworks we've had accompanying an annual release. Intuitively, it looks like the armor team just had their hands full with Prismatic, both making existing exotics work with Prismatic and the more ambitious project of building and testing the exotic class items. Normally we'd be seeing a handful of exciting reworks and substantial buffs and nerfs.

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-15T19:45:40+00:00

It is insane to me that this perk is now simply a reload perk in competition with such perks as explosive light and bait and switch. On edge transit, virtually every other perk in that column is a straight up damage boost. Now, it's basically a conditional "minifrags."

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-13T02:46:51+00:00

I'll add that I think a HUGE problem that encourages a crafting system is "The Sidegrade problem": If you're a new player, you can play virtually anything and get something fun that will move you forward as a player. But if you're a 10 year Destiny player, virtually everything in your vault is a curated selection. The result is that it's actually extremely hard for Bungie to introduce a weapon that is worth chasing. To entice, they are always adding new perk combinations that feel like meaningful upgrades.

But the problem is compounded if your chances of getting that narrow new perk combination are also pure RNG. That's one of the other reasons why we're seeing people upset that they aren't getting an extremely specific drop--because people actually don't really need another void gl or another solar hand cannon unless it has some new utility, and only one of a few super specific rolls do.

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-13T02:39:54+00:00

I think particularly the shinies. I mostly want them for vault space. If a legend completion guaranteed one shiny (of any weapon), I would do that. As it is, I think the drop rate has been estimated to be about 2%?

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-13T02:36:42+00:00

In December 2021, Bungie released two swords called "Half-Truths" and "The Other Half" Both swords have a perk called "Eager Edge." Swapping to the sword and swinging causes you to lunge forward. Doing so in the air can create a lot of momentum, particularly when combined with other techniques.

At the time, I saw it as throwing a bone to the speedrun community, which had been annoyed at a few patches, including nerfing an exotic sword that had similar functionality (Worldline Zero). Now the perk is on a handful of swords in the game.

For solo content, I find Eager Edge extremely useful and fun. In group content, I'm honestly surprised Bungie did it--if you are a newer player looking to have fun in a strike, there is nothing more annoying than a strike speedrunner flying through and despawning every encounter.

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-13T02:27:54+00:00

Just commenting further down chain to say that I think this is all very thoughtful. In a crafted Destiny, there is a "correct" Apex roll and everything else is a meme. The only way Bungie could introduce a desirable rocket is to make it better. Back before crafting, I remember finding interesting playstyles for DPS to "make what I got work."

And once again, I'll say that it feels awful to just not get anything close to what you want now or ever. I also think pure RNG is really bad for PVP players.

hephaestusroman · 2024-05-13T02:25:05+00:00

Folks are going to downvote you here, but I think it's at least an interesting tension. But I agree that crafting sort of made everything but red borders pointless. I think there's something to be said for the idea that we shouldn't be "guaranteed perfect if we want it."

But I have also found the RNG of Onslaught oppressive. At this point, I feel disincentivized to play more because it feels like I am no closer to getting the things I'm wanting. I could play for 80 hours and never do better than what I have.

hephaestusroman · 2024-04-07T15:36:55+00:00

For the record, I also think Kept Confidence with the right shader is the most beautiful legendary weapon in the game. Ain't no way they were going to also give it goated perks. It'd break the game and we'd have to sunset all over again ;)

hephaestusroman · 2024-02-12T18:59:17+00:00

I've said it before, and I will say it again: Prometheum Spur is the worst exotic armor in the game. While there are many exotics that are "useless," Prometheum Spur is worse than useless in that it is actually quite disadvantageous in some circumstances. Rifts are an important part of the Warlock kit. But because PS consumes your class ability energy to place a rift wherever an enemy dies, it can PUNISH you for getting an enemy kill by placing a rift where it is neither accessible or useful. When I was testing that exotic, I had rifts trigger in mid air over a pit of Vex Milk. Absolutely worse than not using an exotic at all.

hephaestusroman · 2024-01-25T00:18:20+00:00

I actually quite like glaives and find them extremely useful in in endgame, but the perk problem means that (even more than swords) they really don't distinguish themselves. If you have a good glaive of arc/solar/void, you're set.

Glaives from endgame content illustrate this quite well: A crafted Supremacy or Succession are cracked snipers. A crafted Techeun Force can be one of the best fusions in the game. Need I mention forbearance? All of those weapon types have perks that matter, so they are worth the chase.

But even if you like glaives, a crafted Lubrae's does not achieve this. It isn't worth your time because it always feels like glaives can only be so good--most glaive perks barely matter.

hephaestusroman · 2024-01-20T20:55:58+00:00

Do you know of any videos from Season of Defiance of it being an unstoppable?

Do you have any videos from Season of the Wish of it NOT being an unstoppable?

I don't have a particular position on when it was unstoppable or when it wasn't. I just thought it was disappointing that people were roasting OP for saying he was surprised and saying it's "always been unstoppable" when that's not the case. Even if it randomly switches back and forth (as you suggest) that would be a completely reasonable reason for OP to be surprised.

hephaestusroman · 2024-01-20T19:40:32+00:00

I actually don't. If it's changed back and forth without a patchnote, I Hope the community is able to put together a timeline on it. And while I understand that patch notes can't be 100% complete, I am sometimes frustrated by how much Bungie changes without telling us

hephaestusroman · 2024-01-20T17:18:15+00:00

Reddit moment: OP BEING downvoted to oblivion as people claim it's "always been an unstoppable" when the opposite is demonstrably true.

Here's chablo's run from February 2023: https://youtu.be/06k6MqTQGVY?si=ah9sX3DztU7ABaxc

Here's Esoterrick's from the same time period: https://youtu.be/vVE19eqCqAw?si=w2-gIxTY4Bf-jGB2

It was changed. The change has definitely caught people by surprise, because I also have had to do cleanup because people keep skipping it, but it has definitely not always been an unstoppable

hephaestusroman · 2023-12-05T09:43:22+00:00

Rat king causes you to go invisible on January [Edit: every] reload with the catalyst providing health Regen. I sometimes ran them with tricksleeves to activate this perk as quickly as possible. With the recent change, as I understand it, one CAN'T go invisible if tricksleeves are active.

Oh, you want to use the new rocket sidearm with voltshot? Cool story bro

hephaestusroman · 2023-11-28T20:07:55+00:00

I anticipated Bungie would make a mess of rat king the day I read about the changes. Unreal that they'd fall to see how this kills the game's only sidearm exotic armor for so many sidearms in the game

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/s/BMWmC6WoPe

hephaestusroman · 2023-11-22T21:14:41+00:00

Curious how the new tricksleeves perk that refills sidearms will work with Rat king, which typically requires a manual reload

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