Light Rising

Light Rising

I’ve been on a bit of a Destiny kick lately, and that has involved trying to do at a minimum all of the Rise of Iron bounties that Shiro hands out each week.  These largely involve running around the plaguelands and doing “stuff” like specific patrols and participating in world events.  I’ve also recently discovered the bounty that is the Archon’s Forge.  I admit I was a little intimidated for awhile, given that when you enter the forge it essentially locks you out of leaving.  My ultimate fear is that this place would murder me with great prejudice given my relatively low light levels.  That fortunately was not really the case, and I was also pleased to see that the same sort of “key trading” behavior exists in the forge as it did in the Court of Oryx.  I’ve been playing entirely solo so far since the launch of Rise of Iron, mostly because I am playing in short bursts rather than hanging out and making myself available to the clan for shenanigans.  However pretty much any time I have rolled down to the Forge, there have been people there waiting and willing to summon stuff for us to fight.  I still have trouble with the “purple” quality keys, but both green and blue ones seem largely feasible.  Unfortunately it seems like you have zero control over what sort of key drops for you, and at this very moment I happen to be sitting on a purple key myself.

Light Rising

The forge is quite literally a modern day version of the “loot cave” because after thirty minutes or so of running keys back to back… you end up with a full mail box.  This is not actually a screenshot from last night, but one I had laying around from one of my previous trips into the Forge.  Last night however it became significantly more lucrative for me personally.  Patch 2.4.1 did some juggling of things in preparation for the release of the Heroic Mode raid.  As a result the light economy of items got bumped up a bit, allowing folks a slightly easier time catching up.

  • Rare Engrams will now decrypt up to 365 Light
  • Legendary Engrams will now decrypt up to 385 Light
  • Exotic Engrams will now decrypt up to 400 Light
  • Faction packages will now provide drops up to 390 Light

So as a result to these tweaks… I entered last nights play session at 554 and exited at 560 and on the cusp of pushing over the line with several 361 items.  In the first screenshot I am decked out in Future War Cult colors… because I picked up some quest asking me to do a bunch of content both PVE and PVP repping the FWC.  I have no clue what that actually will lead to but I am interested to see.  The moment to moment gameplay of Destiny still feels as great as it ever did, and I am pumped that I can pop in for an hour and do a few things and feel like I moved the needle forward.  I am super loot centric in my games, and so long as I am progressing my gear levels I feel like I am making meaningful progress.

Light Rising

The ultimate short term goal is to get to 365 so that I can join in all of the reindeer games…  namely have access to the normal mode of the raid.  I’ve heard amazing things about it, but I have just lacked the drive to grind things out in the strike play list.  In fact I have yet to run a single strike since the implementation of Rise of Iron…  which seems a little odd given how often I used to run them for nothing more than burning Three of Coins.  I feel like I am torn in a bunch of different directions right now and trying to juggle actively playing four different games:  Destiny, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV.  As a result I am doing a somewhat shitty job of keeping up in any of them other than World of Warcraft, where I seem to be spending most of my time.  That said in WoW I feel like I am bumping up against the ceiling for the gear levels I can realistically achieve other than through my Wednesday night raid… so some of my drive there is siphoning off.  At the very least I am not really doing the world quests like I used to, because I know there is shit for gear out of them at my levels.  This excess time seems to be getting funneled right back into Destiny, but I do need to steal a little bit of it and work on my gearing in Final Fantasy XIV as well.  I am absolutely holding our group back from doing some of the new content because I am about 15 item levels short of being where I should be.  If only I could clone myself… and keep those clones at home all day long playing all the things I want to be playing.

Light Rising

Light Rising

I’ve been on a bit of a Destiny kick lately, and that has involved trying to do at a minimum all of the Rise of Iron bounties that Shiro hands out each week.  These largely involve running around the plaguelands and doing “stuff” like specific patrols and participating in world events.  I’ve also recently discovered the bounty that is the Archon’s Forge.  I admit I was a little intimidated for awhile, given that when you enter the forge it essentially locks you out of leaving.  My ultimate fear is that this place would murder me with great prejudice given my relatively low light levels.  That fortunately was not really the case, and I was also pleased to see that the same sort of “key trading” behavior exists in the forge as it did in the Court of Oryx.  I’ve been playing entirely solo so far since the launch of Rise of Iron, mostly because I am playing in short bursts rather than hanging out and making myself available to the clan for shenanigans.  However pretty much any time I have rolled down to the Forge, there have been people there waiting and willing to summon stuff for us to fight.  I still have trouble with the “purple” quality keys, but both green and blue ones seem largely feasible.  Unfortunately it seems like you have zero control over what sort of key drops for you, and at this very moment I happen to be sitting on a purple key myself.

Light Rising

The forge is quite literally a modern day version of the “loot cave” because after thirty minutes or so of running keys back to back… you end up with a full mail box.  This is not actually a screenshot from last night, but one I had laying around from one of my previous trips into the Forge.  Last night however it became significantly more lucrative for me personally.  Patch 2.4.1 did some juggling of things in preparation for the release of the Heroic Mode raid.  As a result the light economy of items got bumped up a bit, allowing folks a slightly easier time catching up.

  • Rare Engrams will now decrypt up to 365 Light
  • Legendary Engrams will now decrypt up to 385 Light
  • Exotic Engrams will now decrypt up to 400 Light
  • Faction packages will now provide drops up to 390 Light

So as a result to these tweaks… I entered last nights play session at 554 and exited at 560 and on the cusp of pushing over the line with several 361 items.  In the first screenshot I am decked out in Future War Cult colors… because I picked up some quest asking me to do a bunch of content both PVE and PVP repping the FWC.  I have no clue what that actually will lead to but I am interested to see.  The moment to moment gameplay of Destiny still feels as great as it ever did, and I am pumped that I can pop in for an hour and do a few things and feel like I moved the needle forward.  I am super loot centric in my games, and so long as I am progressing my gear levels I feel like I am making meaningful progress.

Light Rising

The ultimate short term goal is to get to 365 so that I can join in all of the reindeer games…  namely have access to the normal mode of the raid.  I’ve heard amazing things about it, but I have just lacked the drive to grind things out in the strike play list.  In fact I have yet to run a single strike since the implementation of Rise of Iron…  which seems a little odd given how often I used to run them for nothing more than burning Three of Coins.  I feel like I am torn in a bunch of different directions right now and trying to juggle actively playing four different games:  Destiny, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV.  As a result I am doing a somewhat shitty job of keeping up in any of them other than World of Warcraft, where I seem to be spending most of my time.  That said in WoW I feel like I am bumping up against the ceiling for the gear levels I can realistically achieve other than through my Wednesday night raid… so some of my drive there is siphoning off.  At the very least I am not really doing the world quests like I used to, because I know there is shit for gear out of them at my levels.  This excess time seems to be getting funneled right back into Destiny, but I do need to steal a little bit of it and work on my gearing in Final Fantasy XIV as well.  I am absolutely holding our group back from doing some of the new content because I am about 15 item levels short of being where I should be.  If only I could clone myself… and keep those clones at home all day long playing all the things I want to be playing.