Welcome back to another weekly roll-up of Destiny information guardians!! Xûr has brought us some goodies to trade our strange coins in for. In addition, we will be scanning through the Challenge of Elders, a brief overview of the Trials map, and finishing up with going over recent news.
Xûr Inventory
It’s that time of the week again, Xûr has arrived back at the Tower again. He has set up his trade shop over on the West side railing near The Speaker. This week his back of goodies includes Titan gauntlets, a Hunter helmet, a Warlock chest piece, and a Fusion Rifle.
Starting off with the Titan, we have the ACD/0 Feedback Fence gauntlets. These gauntlets have not been sold by Xûr since last year. If you like to get up close and personal with your enemies than these gauntlets are made with your play style in mind. The exotic ability Wrath Conductors grant you the ability to damage any attackers who get a melee swing off on you. Basically, what happens is these gloves give off a pulse of damage around you dealing damage to all enemies in that near vicinity after you have taken a melee hit. Not only do these gauntlets help with melee defense, they also help on offense as well by increasing your melee attack speed. These gauntlets also provide you the choice of increasing reload speeds on Hand Cannons or Sidearm weapons.
Overall Opinion: If your Titan likes to get down into an arm’s reach of your enemies than these gauntlets are for you. If you are looking for exotic gauntlets that allow you to use any sub-class on the Titan then these will be able to work for you. These gauntlets are also balanced for both game modes of gameplay but will only be extremely helpful if you are up close to your enemies. I know that these don’t work for my playstyle but they may work for you.
Next up, we have the Hunter helmet Graviton Forfeit. Last time this helmet was sold by Xûr was two months ago. This helmet has been specifically designed for the Nightstalkers subclass of hunter. The thing that makes this helmet special is its exotic perk called Elusive Shadow. This perk unlocks the subclass node called Shadestep for free. Shadestep, if you have not used it allows your hunter to dive out of harm’s way quickly and can save you when in a tight spot either PvE or PvP. By using this helmet to unlock Shadestep for free this allows you to use your selection in either Predator or Keen Scout. Predator allows your Shadowshot to become traps that stick to surfaces and will trigger when enemies are near. Keen Scout allows you to sprint and sneak faster, also allows you to get an enhanced tracker for your radar giving you a more accurate depiction of your surroundings. But wait that’s not all! You also get a marker placed on any targets you damage allowing you to track their moments for a short time through walls and obstacles.
Overall Opinion: If you love the Nightstalker class then definitely pick this helmet up. The fact that you get a free avoidance perk makes it worth it. If you see hunters rolling all around in PvP making it hard for them to shoot”¦..this is why.
For the last piece of armor left, we have the Alchemist’s Raiment chest armor. This is a year two armor that has been brought to the table to help farm glimmer plus other things. Just looking at this armor’s exotic abilities name of “Iron to Gold” makes sense of what this armor does exactly. The perk states the guardian has a “chance to gain glimmer on primary ammo pickup”. So if you are hurting for glimmer after buying all the weapons from the gunsmith this is the route to go. In addition to that, the armor also allows a warlock to collect Orbs while your super is full. If that is done then the Orbs will be used to recharge your grenade and melee skills instead. This armor has the same elemental damage inhibitors that the Crest of Alpha Lupi has as well as ammo for special or heavy weapons.
Overall Opinion: This armor at a first glance it may look like it doesn’t bring a whole lot to the fight in regards to exotic abilities. That being said the other abilities this armor brings to the table brings it up to a sliver above average. The fact that it brings more heavy and special ammo (depending on selection) is huge in the PvP side of the house since those ammo types are starting to get harder to collect. In addition to that, it packs the same armor boost that can save your guardian from a death or two while using those defense boosts. It’s a nice to have armor but not required to pick up if you are tight on strange coins.
The weapon Xûr has brought with him can definitely catch your enemies off guard at mid to close ranges. The Fusion Rifle that Xûr has brought is the Plan C, so when Plans A and B don’t work out you can always fall back onto this monster plan. Last time this weapon was sold by Xûr was back in August. Although the basic stats are filled with a good range, solid impact, and great reloading speed, it lacks charge rate on basic usage. The exotic ability makes up for the slow charge rate though. When switching to use this weapon it reduces the charge time dramatically. On top of that ability, this weapon comes with many useful perks that either increase range, or stability.
Overall Opinion: If you have not unlocked this weapon go and do so now. This is one of the best fusion rifles in the game. Ever since the April update, the Fusion Rifles have started to be more of a force in the PvP environment. The fact that you can keep a little more range can keep you safe from the annoyance of shotgunners, while sending them into obliteration at the same time.
Challenge of Elders
This week’s Challenge of the Elders grants bonus points for all Super kills. On your quest to get as many super ability kills as possible there will be hurdles of not having a map due to the Chaff modifier. Here are some tips on what subclasses and weapons to use to crank out challenge beating points. There are a couple of exotics which peaked my interest due to their ability to recharge Supers quicker, thus resulting in more points overall. The exotics in which I am referring to are none other than the “Bad Juju” and “Zhalo Supercell”.
Starting off with the Hunter there are a couple ways you can go about this one, either be a supporting hunter with Nightstalker or a Bladedancer. Being a Nightstalker with black hole and light of the pack on can help wrangle enemies for another guardian to utilize their Supers on. This will generate tons of orbs for yourself as well as your teammates that foster Super chaining throughout your fireteam. The other way is going Bladedancer with the “Mask of the Third Man” equipped and encore selected. Doing this extends your super abilities duration to the maximum. You will one shot most enemies except for bosses and shielded enemies. For the off chance that you just must play as a Gunslinger, I suggest that you equip the “Achlyophage Symbiote” helmet to give your Golden Gun an extra shot since more powerful enemies may take two to four shots to destroy.
With the Titan, I tended to stay on the path of the Sunbreaker since I had more chances to produce orbs. If you get a clean first of havoc with a lot of enemies the striker class works well, but if you miss it will be a while until you can super and have a chance to produce orbs again. I stuck with the Sunbreaker and equipped the “Immolation Fists”. Doing so allowed me to unlock flameseeker as well. Other selectable stats are up to you, I went with the forgemaster perk that allows, even more, hammers and larger explosions. If you decide to go with the Striker subclass I would encourage you to equip the Crest of Alpha Lupi to produce extra orbs for your fireteam.
When it comes to the Warlock you have more leeway when it comes to subclasses. Going with the Voidwalker I outfitted my Warlock with the “Obsidian Mind” helmet. I did this due to the fact that kills that you get with your Nova Bomb directly reduce the overall cooldown of your next Nova Bomb. Now think about if you combined that with the other Super chaining that is happening. Almost having unlimited Nova Bombs is extremely overpowered during this challenge mode. On the other side, Stormcaller is extremely useful as well to chain your electric energy taking out a lot of enemies within a confined space.
Trials of Osiris
The Trials of Osiris map this week is once again The Burning Shrine on Mars. This was the first original trials map back in year one and is a community favorite for 3v3 battles. This map has several good sniping lanes all around the maps so you guardians will have to keep your eyes out on some of the long range battles if that happens. One advantage snipers have on this map is if they are on the team A outside. This is due to the blinding sun that is behind them making it a little more difficult for their enemies to see their targets.
Other areas of the map allow for closer range combat and helps grenade effectiveness. These areas are all on the inside of the level around what most players call the bridge. Trials overall is an extreme test of your fire teams communication skills. The more your team communicates the better opportunity your teammates have to adjust to the new information. Big foot stomper for trials is to get revives when you can or are close to down teammates. Revives can quickly turn the battle in your favor if done properly. On the other side of this if you get an enemy down make sure you keep at least one guy guarding to make sure they don’t get revived easily. To help with team communication I have pulled a call out map from Orion8’s reddit page called Cuicible Playbook. There are plenty of other really detailed call out maps that he has readily supplied for the community to use.
Destiny Weekly News Roll-Up
-News From Bungie-
This week’s news from Bungie was short, sweet, and to the point. We left off last week with a lot of questions about the image of Lord Saladin with a giant battle ax outside Old Russia. Bungie has come through and stated, “You’re invited to learn all about the next threat that you’ll confront as Guardians.” That being said I strongly urge all you Destiny fans to be ready for next week June 9th at 10 AM PST. This is when Bungie will be utilizing their Twitch channel to broadcast all the new information on their next DLC titled Rise of Iron. Who will be the next threat?! I have a few ideas of my own dealing with the Fallen hopefully (for once, not the Hive). Let me know what you guys think by hitting me up on twitter.
Thanks for joining us on another week diving through the Bungie universe exploring the ins and outs of what is going on throughout the workweek. I’ll catch back up with you next week Guardians with all the details and breakdowns of the new DLC information!
-ShadowAssault86
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