Where is Xur
For the last month or so I have not really been that heavily engaged in Destiny. In fact I have flat out missed the opportunity to pick up a few decent items from Xur and Armsday as a result. In fact there was a Suros Pulse Rifle a few weeks back with Full Auto that I am really wishing I had managed to get in on while it was available. As a result the last few weeks I have started at least logging into the WhereIsXur.com website to at least see what he is still Friday mornings. This week I noticed he was selling the Monte Carlo, a year one juggernaut of a weapon… and I believe it was a PlayStation Exclusive until year two. I have heard so many other auto rifles compared to this one, that I have always wanted to use it… if for no reason other than having a proper frame of reference. The challenge however is that I only had 8 strange coins… and purchasing any weapon is 23 strange coins. This meant that at some point this weekend I would have to do some grinding.
So last night I set out to grind a little on my Titan and my Hunter for the hopes of getting there without a ton of issue. One awesome thing however when I logged in is that apparently if you are signed up for the destiny email letter you get an in game package of strange coins for every character. Or at least I got three separate allotments of three strange coins, which immediately greatly helped out my mission. Also while grinding I got the amazing ship that you see above. I am not sure why but collecting emblems and ships makes me happy, especially now that with the kiosk you can give them to any of your characters without much issue. I am not sure about the paint job, but I have wanted a ship of this style for awhile. I’ve been relatively lucky so far with picking up ships from the Dreadnaught chests, and I believe this is like my fourth one. After a bit of grinding and doing quests… and not managing to get any strange coins I went with a different avenue. I noticed that both the Hunter and the Titan were not too terribly far off from the next rank of their faction… so I spent some motes of light to get a package with guaranteed 4 strange coins each.
The Monte Carlo
I ended up transferring all of the coins over to my hunter and giving him the Monte Carlo. It might seem odd, but I felt kinda bad about robbing the “good” Zarinaea-D Auto Rifle from that character earlier, and still had not found another Auto Rifle that really made me happy for that character. I am attributing feelings… to the characters I am playing… which is strange as hell but whatever… it is I guess a me thing. I spent a bit roaming around the Dreadnaught shooting things, and I have to say… I love this style of Auto Rifle. It reminds me about a lot of the things I liked about that Zarinaea-D, high rate of fire and good stability… and not amazing impact but not nearly as low as some of the other high rate of fire weapons. I’ve not really had time to finish leveling this weapon, but the whole dealing damage reduces melee cooldown thing is nice especially in a closer quarters fight. The increased hip fire accuracy thing is largely useful for me… because there is rarely a situation where I am not aiming down the sights… even if for just doing some quick sighting. Other than that… probably going Send It to increase range and accuracy, and then Aggressive Ballistics.
I am really liking this weapon because it feels good, and significantly different from most of the Auto Rifles that I have been using. Especially since Auto Rifles have improved in the recent patch… I am really thinking this is going to end up being the trademark weapon for my hunter. I would absolutely steal it for my Titan main… but I have a new main crush as far as weapons go for him that I will get into shortly. So if you have the coins laying around… or even if you don’t and you think you can get the coins together before Xur disappearing late tonight I would highly suggest picking it up. It is a solid weapon all around, and seems like it would be a work horse for both PVP and PVE content. The main difference is I am highly likely to go High Caliber rounds at some point, because I really love it when a weapon can stagger. I have a bad habit of wanting to run up on a target rather than running away… and this play style absolutely fits the titan… but does not at all really fit the hunter other than if you plan on knifing them.
Fabian Strategy
I have honestly liked the Fabian Strategy since the moment I first used it. This is the Titan exclusive exotic weapon that you get from the Gunsmith quests at I believe Rank 3. From the start it felt like a Titan weapon, with its strange battering ram/shield thing on the front, and as I have said before… a lot of my enjoyment of games is the way they feel moment to moment. The problem with the weapon as a whole is however, that as every guide will tell you… this weapon was a casualty of the early balancing changes in the game. The thing that sets the Fabian Strategy apart from just a decent legendary auto rifle… is the Front Lines perk which states that “the weapon has increased handling, stability and rate of fire when enemies are close”. This was such a negligible change that most people simply thought the weapon was broken. Instead it is much more likely that they just thought the weapon was overpowered and nerfed it into oblivion in Taken King testing. This gun in the hands of a pre-nerf Sunbreaker, would have essentially meant that they would be unstoppable killing machines. But it turns out… that the sunbreaker on its own… did a pretty good job of being that anyway.
With the latest patch, they finally “fixed” this gun and I have to say I am freaking in love with it. This gun plays to all of my bad habits… and rewards me for them. Crowd Control… kills with this weapon grant bonus damage for a short time, combined with Life Support… mean that by picking off smaller mobs while engaged you can increase your survival quite a bit. What this feels like in practice is more like a life drain ability in say a MOBA… where you can take out little minions to help increase your sustain. This allows me to do stupid things and charge the enemy…. which procs Front Lines. It is hard to describe quite what the difference is, but when the perk kicks in it literally feels like you just doubled your rate of fire. I am sure that is not quite what is happening, but in any case… the difference is noticeable and the weapon becomes this machine gun of doom while the proc is happening. Combine this with the fact that the weapon has always done a decent job of staggering mobs… earlier when taking these screenshots I staggered an Ogre with it. It finally feels like the archetypal “Titan” weapon that it is supposed to be. This thing is going to be fun in strikes, which I hope to be able to do a little later today. I am extremely happy with this patch so far, especially since I have spent a lot more time playing a defender titan than I have a sunbreaker lately.