This week I’m covering what I’ve been doing in Destiny since that first week. It’s Destiny Daily Log Day 8+!

What levels I’ve reached: So since that first week I’ve reached Level 30 on my Hunter, my main character I play on and the one I enjoy the most, Level 27 on my Warlock, and only a measly Level 13 on the Titan my brother started playing before he went off to start his fall classes at college.

Gear:

Hunter:

I’m rocking my Lord High Fixer, and Knucklehead Radar is my Exotic. I have 4 pieces of gear from the raid, the arm, chest, and boot pieces, and the cloak.  None of the epic cloaks except for those from the Iron Banner, Queen’s Wrath, The Speaker, and the Raid are as long as the blue quality cloak I got from the Moon’s Golden Chests on Day 2. I’m still rocking my usual weapon of choice , a sniper rifle, for my special, I got this one from the Queen’s Wrath event (more on that later). I don’t have an epic rocket launcher yet so I’m kicking butt with one of two different rocket launchers. One has a proximity detonation perk with Void damage (perfect for raiding the Vault of Glass) and the other has a cluster bomb upon detonation perk with Arc Damage (Perfect for dealing with Fallen Enemies).  I usually play as Gunslinger in the Vault of Glass, because it’s less prone to getting myself killed, but I prefer the abilities of the Bladedancer over it. Sidenote: I’ve fully unlocked each perk in both Gunslinger and Bladedancer sub-classes.

Warlock:

I’m rocking the same weapons as I had just finished raiding on my Warlock before taking this screenshot. I’ve also got an exotic helm that isn’t too bad for either subclass for my Warlock. I got it by buying a helmet engram from Xur last weekend, I bought two and also got a Titan Helm that I don’t really need. I play with the same weapon types as I do on my Hunter, snipers for special and rocket launchers. I haven’t touched PvP on the Warlock yet, but I’d probably use the same setup as I do on my Hunter.

Titan: Not going to even picture this guy, since I’ve not really touched him except to do a few public events occasionally for extra Ascendant materials for my other two characters. I’ll probably end up leveling this guy soonish,as I bought him an Armamentarium Exotic from Xur last weekend. [Side note: The week after I wrote this he sold an even better version of the same exotic. I was super mad.]

Raiding: I’ve only done Vault of Glass a couple of times, and not really touched Hard Mode yet, although I’ve cheesed Atheon on Hard Mode on the Hunter (I wasn’t hoping to get an easy Vex Mythoclast or anything at all, nope not at all.) That said I really like the Raid as it takes the best parts of raiding from WoW, the teamwork and coordination, that I loved and distilled it into a smaller setting with fewer people requirements. I actually enjoy raiding with 6 people in Destiny much more than I ever did raiding with 10 people in WoW, because honestly 10 man raiding in WoW isn’t nearly as hard to coordinate as a 25 man raid. The jumping puzzle section killed me once, the stupid wall obstacle course right after it has killed me much more (oddly enough only on the Warlock, I was fine on my Hunter). I’ve even gotten to the elusive 5th chest a few times, although the second time I passed it by and was unable to collect the contents because I was an idiot and jumped down a hole without looking around. The Gorgon’s lair portion of the maze is pretty fun if your group isn’t terrible, I enjoy the stealthy portion of the section. Atheon is incredibly difficult before you get every mechanic down, or have 6 people equipped with fully upgraded Gjallarhorns to kill him in 17 seconds. I even got the Epic Sparrow from Atheon, which is incredibly fun to use by the way.

Sparrows: I spent some of my hard earned Vanguard marks on two rare sparrows, which are now equipped on the Warlock and Titan since the Hunter has the Epic one. Lateral movement is incredibly useful.

PvP: I’ve taken only a small part in PvP, really for only two occasions. The first was the PvP portion of the Thorn bounty and the other was the Iron Banner Event. I use the following for my loadout in PvP. Auto Rifle, from now on it’ll be the Suros I previously used Doctor Nope (an epic Auto Rifle I got from an engram), Shotguns and a Rocket Launcher, with proximity detonation for when I inevitably miss and and still kill the other guy anyways because of it. I finally got a full auto Shotgun, which is incredibly nice if it had more than 3 shots. I’d probably care more if I PvPed more.

Iron Banner: Bungie has said they’ll make power matter in the future, but with the first Iron Banner event I was seriously disappointed that I was getting my butt kicked by level 6’s. I got killed by a level 2 once, which is really infuriating for someone who was level 26ish at the time. That said I didn’t get to Rank 2, which is why I was participating in the first place, and was unable to buy the Hunter Cloak that I had obtained in the Beta.

Queen’s Wrath: I enjoyed the event, but I was frustrated at it’s lack of rewards, and I don’t really enjoy the color purple enough to use the shader and emblem that I got from the event. I’m not even touching that Epic Cloak I got from it. I also was looking for a pair of epic gloves and epic boots, both of which were unobtainable (The items are in the game, they just weren’t dropping this time around. Maybe in the future?) There was however one reward that I use everyday though, and that is The Supremacy, a sniper rifle. It’s got the perfect scope on it, the longest range available, and when paired with it’s solar damage and the range and accuracy perk I really love using this gun.

That said I really hated the ship that you could get, because it’s aesthetics just don’t match up with mine. It’s got an ugly snubbed nose and is a really bad shade of purple and yellow.

Exotics Weapons: I’ve gotten quite a collection of Exotic weapons thus far, although I haven’t obtained any special weapon ones yet (I’m currently working on Invective’s Exotic Bounty damn that PvP portion!). They are as follows in order of acquisition: Thorn, Super Good Advice, Monte Carlo, Hard Light, Suros Regime. Of the ones I use regularly, I’ve only really used Suros extensively and that’s because of the one’s I’ve gotten it’s one of only two that are decent. The other Hard Light was obtained two days prior to Suros Regime and has now fallen into it’s shadow.

Thorn: I really want to like Thorn, I do, because it’s my preferred weapon type. I’ve restricted myself mainly to hand cannons due to my controllers being unable to take the abuse I put them through with Scout Rifles. I was surprised at how freaking slow the reload speed on this gun is, it’s terribly slow even with an armor perk boosting it’s speed. The DoT (Damage over Time) perk being weak as hell and not stacking with multiple shots makes me incredibly frustrated. In addition it only has 6 shots, most epic hand cannons and the other two exotics all have bigger magazine sizes. I know 6 is an aesthetically pleasing number for magazine size, but it is just too small. When paired with that super slow reload speed I’ve barely touched Thorn since I acquired a High Lord Fixer, an epic hand cannon, from an engram. The only time I really pull it out is to use against the Cabal enemies, because the DoT perk also includes overpenetration, which is handy against the Phalanx enemy type. If I had Hawkmoon I’d never use anything else in PvE though. Still looking for it however. Special thanks to Michael Sacco, of WoW Insider fame, for helping me complete the incredibly annoying and difficult Xyor portion of the bounty for Thorn.

Super Good Advice: Contrary to it’s name I’ve barely used this crappy machine gun. It’s got terrible magazine size and it’s perks aren’t conducive to skilled play. I honestly only keep it around because it does Solar damage and I accidentally dismantled the better, but legendary  quality, machine gun the other night that did Solar damage.

Monte Carlo: I got this from an epic engram, and while I love the looks of this PlayStation exclusive gun, it’s perks and stats aren’t enough for me to keep using it over the other two Auto Rifle Exotics I got later. [Side note: I’ve gotten another one from one of the chests in the Raid. I was really mad.]

Hard Light: I haven’t really used this much, so I can’t comment on it’s unique perk of overpenetration. It’s a good weapon, it just sucks compared to the Suros Regime, though to be honest nearly every other weapon that isn’t an epic or better hand cannon (minus Thorn of course) is worse than Suros. Aesthetically it looks okay, nothing really special though.

Suros Regime: Boy where to begin with this monster. First off, it’s recoil is non existent, even prior to getting any upgrades (the last of the first tree of upgrades eliminates what little recoil there is when aiming it). It does fire slower than pretty much any other Auto Rifle, but that is because it’s perk of doing more damage when you aim down the sights. The other perk, the one where the bottom half of each clip does more damage and has a chance of healing you is amazing. Did I mention that it has almost no recoil? I expect that after showing up twice in Xur’s shop that it is going to become the bane of every PvPer’s existence. Deal with it, I have no sympathy for you guys because you tend to ruin my fun in PvE Content with your endless whining. I still don’t like it over a good hand cannon like my Lord High Fixer, or a Hawkmoon, but since it’s essentially a fully automatic scout rifle I’m not really complaining that much. I’ve been running around doing my bounties with it since I got it this last weekend in order to upgrade it for the next Iron Banner. Aesthetically it’s very pleasing, and it goes great with my Chatterwhite shader on the Hunter and Warlock. The only thing that doesn’t make this even more overpowered is it’s lack of an elemental damage modifier. This means that Raid weapons like Atheon’s Epilogue will get more use in PvE content most likely.

My favorite weapon: Like I’ve said above, my current favorite weapon other than Suros and only because I don’t have Hawkmoon yet, is my epic hand cannon Lord High Fixer. It’s got a perk where any kills I do with this weapon  gain me more reserve ammo and it’s range is nothing to laugh at either. It’s also a hell of a lot more accurate, and has 13 shots in each clip compared to the measly 6 of Thorn. I’ve been using this guy in the Vault of Glass to one shot Goblins, and it’s great for killing Oracles with it’s 13 shot clip perk. The kills speeding up my grenade cooldown is nice, but I’d rather have a different perk like the one where precision kills gains me faster reload speed.

Overall: After playing Destiny for nearly 2 months, I’m writing this 2 weeks prior to the day it gets posted online, I’m quite happy with the game. I do want more story in game, although for me looking up the Grimoire Cards isn’t that annoying it is for many others. I’m also rather disappointed at the lack of ships that aren’t brown, I mean come on what the hell Bungie? Nearly every ship in this game is brown! Though I read a rumor today that there will be ship shaders, I’m just disappointed that we’d even need such a thing. I’ve yet to obtain an Outrageous Fortune, a PlayStation Exclusive ship, which is the ship I really want.

Conclusion: I really enjoyed my first week in Destiny, and since then I’ve enjoyed playing the game even more with the opening of the Raids and the various events, even though they were handled poorly I know Bungie will learn from the mistakes it made with them.  I hope you all weren’t too bored with me covering a single game for 8 weeks, though I’ll be honest I’m running out of current games to talk about! (If you want to send me free games to cover for my PlayStation 4 or Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 I’ll gladly accept them! My computer is dead and I’ve been writing on a really crappy laptop [It’s got a straight line of dead pixels straight down the center for some reason, which bugs me constantly because I have OCD] for the past 3 months so PC gaming is out of the question.)

Sidenote: I originally planned on making this a 7 part series, but realized that Assassin’s Creed Unity would launch the week after my Day 7 post would go up. Gotta have at least a week’s worth of content written prior to that game’s release so I can play the heck out of it without having to write every day.

Thanks for reading my 8 part series of posts!