Destiny

im gonna try & get bk on this over the weekend, i got side tracked this week with shadow of mordor & the evil within. Will you be able to help me with my raid if you're on?

I've only got a couple of missions left on Shadows of Mordor, but it's been a lot of fun. Destiny, despite that I'd stand by my earlier criticisms that it feels a little hollow somehow, I am really, really enjoying. The gunplay feels very solid indeed, and even if the core game is a little underwhelming, it's still a lot of fun.

I'm out tonight so probably not, should be on tomorrow though.

Just hit level 15 with my Warlock and unlocked Sunsinger. Of course, by this stage my Voidwalker is reasonably well progressed; is Sunsinger good enough that I put aside Voidwalker for the time being and work on earning a few basic skills?

all the subclasses are more OP than the first ones, also you can immediately switch if you play any other class now you have done one to 15

testtubebaby wrote:

all the subclasses are more OP than the first ones, also you can immediately switch if you play any other class now you have done one to 15

That's definitely not true, though Sunsinger is very good. Just use whatever seems cooler.

Don't listen to Neo. He's a sunsinger downplayer.

PvE: Sunsinger (warlock) > Defender (titan) > the rest
PvP: Bladedancer (hunter) > Striker (titan) > the rest

I've cleared the raid multiple times now with both subclasses and I can tell you they both have their uses. Sunsinger is better if you're not confident in your ability to stay alive or are the designated relic carrier (as it gives you a lifeline and you can't use your regular super anyway) but otherwise Voidwalker is far more useful. One of the people I regularly raid with always comes in the portals with me (I'm relic holder) and he trivialises the entire mechanic by oneshotting everything inside with nova bomb so we can focus entirely on oracles.

The massive damage reduction from Radiance gives Sunsinger a lot more survivability than a Voidwalker, even if the trade-off is to lose the sheer offensive grunt of Nova Bomb. That said, being able to spam three or four Firebolts/Solar Grenades per Super activation is pretty sweet and makes short work of anything except bosses.

Revive is usually the best radiance upgrade anyway.

I wholeheartedly disagree with you Neo (what a surprise, I know). Every class can be useful in a way, but Sunsingers are clearly the best. Compared to the Voidwalker, Sunsinger has superior grenades, melee and super.

Vortex grenades in general are awful; the enemies are programmed to get out of their range, so they won't take much damage. The rest of the Voidwalker's grenades are mediocre. Sunsinger's fusion grenade outdamages all of them as they do 2k damage (and he gets two of them).

Voidwalker's melee is quite inferior too. Sunsinger gets an extra lifebar which is a lot more useful for surviving and skipping battles.

Voidwalker's super is very good for killing at once a group of (weak) enemies. Sunsinger's Fireborn super is far better because he can resurrect himself and spam fusion grenades and melee. You mentioned raid, where if you die, your teammates would have to wait 30 seconds before they can revive a fallen teammate. It's rather obvious which one is more useful.
If you don't plan to die, you can still use Fireborn or the increased defense ability instead of it. Also, Sunsinger's super is actually the most damaging out there thanks to fusion grenade spam.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Sunsingers can take more risks since they don't care about dying and that they're the best class for soloing stuff too. I feel that Sunsingers are also better than VW for Crucible too. Basically, Voidwalkers is not worth playing at all. My PvE tier list:

S+ Sunsinger with Praxic Fire
S Sunsinger, Defender with Saint-14
A+ Defender
A Voidwalker, Bladedancer, Gunslinger
A- (B?) Striker

Vortex (and Solar) grenades are actually very powerful area control tools, if you place them correctly you can control entire waves of enemies with ease. They're not as easy to use as fusions or axion bolt but that doesn't make them bad.

Axion Bolt grenades are one of the best choices in the entire game, fusions are only better single target.

Voidwalker melee has just as much utility as sunsinger, it just works differently. Instead of getting an overshield you can get a crazy movement and reload bonus that increases your DPS (and indirectly your survival) by a significant amount. If you don't want that you can have it instantly heal you on kills or reduce your super cooldown by a fairly large amount.

Before discounting nova bomb you should try using it more, oneshotting groups of yellow HP minotaurs in the raid is nothing to scoff at and is something that radiance simply cannot accomplish. You might be able to kill them all eventually (it takes around two/three fusions to kill a single one on normal mode) with radiance but often you don't have the time to do so.

Like I said before revive is great if you're dying a lot in the raid but when you have an experienced group that just isn't a problem anymore. It's obviously better for solo play but that's not really relevant.

I'm not saying that Sunsinger is bad at all, It's definitely very strong and I play it a lot, it's just not the be all and end all that you're making it out to be.

I just hit level 19 and have spent the last four levels as Sunsinger switching between PvP and PvE. Currently, Voidwalker is far superior for PvP, Sunsinger edges it for PvE; Voidwalker's grenades have more utility, and Nova Bomb is easier to get mulitple kills with, especially in Control matches. There's a few seconds delay between activating Radiance and then getting the grenades out, by which time you're usually dead. In PvE, that's not an issue, enemies not really venturing out of their spawn zones and are less likely to spring out of nowhere and shoot you in the face.

Neo wrote:

Vortex (and Solar) grenades are actually very powerful area control tools, if you place them correctly you can control entire waves of enemies with ease.

I'd like to hear some examples. In my experience, enemies will instantly walk out of them or stay back to avoid them. By the way, fusion grenades will also damage enemies standing close (and let's not forget that SS gets two).

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Voidwalker melee has just as much utility as sunsinger, it just works differently. Instead of getting an overshield you can get a crazy movement and reload bonus that increases your DPS (and indirectly your survival) by a significant amount. If you don't want that you can have it instantly heal you on kills or reduce your super cooldown by a fairly large amount.

I've a hard time believing you never die if you can consistently make good use of a short-ranged attack, and defensive tool imo, like the melee. That's theoryfighting at its finest. The instant heal is also vastly inferior to the shield (1/3 of life vs a full extra bar that allows health/shield regeneration even if you're still being hit) and I think you're exaggerating about the usefulness of the other upgrades. For those reasons I think scorch is better.

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Before discounting nova bomb you should try using it more, oneshotting groups of yellow HP minotaurs in the raid is nothing to scoff at and is something that radiance simply cannot accomplish. You might be able to kill them all eventually (it takes around two/three fusions to kill a single one on normal mode) with radiance but often you don't have the time to do so.

It's still a situational tool. How many enemies do you usually kill with nova bomb? How many fusion grenades can you actually get with Praxic Fire and about 50% discipline? Also, fusion grenades aren't their only weapon; you can still use your guns and scorch, which is stronger with radiance activated for some reason.

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Like I said before revive is great if you're dying a lot

You're wrong about this. They can take more risks than any other class (for a higher reward obviously). You don't have to wait to die to activate iteither. In addition to this, if you're so sure you aren't going to die, just use Radiance for the defensive and offensive buffs. Of course you claimed you never die and you use the melee for the buffs as a Voidwalker, so maybe you don't need this...

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I'm not saying that Sunsinger is bad at all, It's definitely very strong and I play it a lot, it's just not the be all and end all that you're making it out to be.

It's not godmode by any means, but it's definitely the best PvE class.

Edit: I don't want to sound rude, but I strongly believe in SS's superiority and honestly, unless you can provide specific examples of how SS isn't almost always the better choice, I'm not going to change my mind.

SimianSinger wrote:

I just hit level 19 and have spent the last four levels as Sunsinger switching between PvP and PvE.  Currently, Voidwalker is far superior for PvP, Sunsinger edges it for PvE; Voidwalker's grenades have more utility, and Nova Bomb is easier to get mulitple kills with, especially in Control matches.  There's a few seconds delay between activating Radiance and then getting the grenades out, by which time you're usually dead.  In PvE, that's not an issue, enemies not really venturing out of their spawn zones and are less likely to spring out of nowhere and shoot you in the face.

I've used both classes and while I've had more success with SS because it fits my playstyle better, I think they're about equal.

Grenades: VW's seeker bolts provide a big advantage over enemies hiding in cover or it can be used to finish them off. SS's fusion grenades are one-hit kills if they're attached to enemies and they get two of them. Great for revenge killing shotgun users as well.

Melee: Both are pretty good.

Super: 1 nova bomb = 1 or 2 kills on average (assuming you won't die during the long start-up). Fireborn Radiance is situational too due to the long start-up. On the other hand, the defense buff is awesome and very cheap if you got the heavy ammo. Oh, and Radiance makes scorch (the melee) oneshot.

VW's teleport is better than SS's glide, especially if you are a shotgun player.

Great input, even though the two of you disagree so strongly, it's good tohave two such opposing viewpoints on the merits of the two subclasses.

Just completed a full clear of the heroic raid, shit was tough. I think a lot of people are going to have issues next week when Bungie make portal teams random instead of the three furthest away players.

are you level 30 yet neo?

Yeah.

Just hit level 20, and it has opened up a slightly bewildering new side of the game. Okay, so I've noticed (but not really paid attention to) the fact that I'm earning Vanguard and Crucible ranks for doing various tasks - but several of the Tower vendors sell items that requires hundreds of these, and they only seem to be earned a couple at a time. Is end-game really such a grind fest or is there an easier way to earn Marks or Rank up?

Secondly, I've been informed that there's a merchant at the Tower on weekends who sells really high-end gear, but no one can tell me who he is or where to find him. Anyone got any helpful suggestions?

The fastest way to get reputation is to do bounties and daily/weekly/nightfall missions, then the random missions you get in patrol mode or any PvP mode. The fastest way to get marks (the currency) is to do public events or just play whatever PvP mode you enjoy. It doesn't take that long once you start doing the right things, I tend to max out my Vanguard marks in the first couple of days without even thinking about it.

Xur, the weekend vendor, is only there on Fridays and Saturdays so he's gone now, he also has a randomised inventory and location each week so you'll just have to wait until next time. He always sells one exotic armor piece for each class for 13 strange coins, an exotic weapon for 17 coins and some kind of exotic engram for 23 motes of light so if you don't have enough currency for something you can start working on that now.

E: At your level Vanguard strikes and PvP are really good for gearing up so you should be doing them too, you can probably get away with Vanguard strikes one level higher than you are but I wouldn't go any further than that.

SimianWonder wrote:

Just hit level 20, and it has opened up a slightly bewildering new side of the game.  Okay, so I've noticed (but not really paid attention to) the fact that I'm earning Vanguard and Crucible ranks for doing various tasks - but several of the Tower vendors sell items that requires hundreds of these, and they only seem to be earned a couple at a time.  Is end-game really such a grind fest or is there an easier way to earn Marks or Rank up?

Secondly, I've been informed that there's a merchant at the Tower on weekends who sells really high-end gear, but no one can tell me who he is or where to find him.  Anyone got any helpful suggestions?

its a grind but you need to get light armour anyway, vanguard marks are rewarded from the strike list, level 24 gets 6 marks. crucible marks are awarded per game, 3 for a win & 2 for a loss, there is a maximum limit of 100 per week on each of them resetting tuesday, you can see how much you have by the blue ring around vangard & red ring around crucible.

the merchant you are looking for is xur, he comes friday morning 10am for the UK & stays for 24 or 48 hrs (cant remember which) he goes to a different place every week but as google & you can always find him, he seels exotic gear for 13 strange coins or an exotic weapon for 23, also you can get an exotic engram for 26 motes of light or some upgrades for the sparrow

Maybe exotic primaries are 23 coins from Xur but others are 17? I swear I got something for 17 coins once.

Guys, thanks. It does kind of suck that when thay said Xur is a weekend thing, they meant Friday and Saturday - both days I work! That might limit the time I am able to spend hunting for him. Also, Jay, you say that any marks earned reset on a tuesday? If I'm at five or six marks now, is it not worth trying to get more if they'll reset in two days anyway?

Seventeen coins sounds a lot. I've currently got one. Do they drop in various strikes / dailys etc, or are they simply legitimately that hard to come by?