#winterbites

[thefirstknife]

Category 1 billion important lore event happening.

So I finished the exotic glaive quest which was super cool and interesting. A lot of stuff about previous Cloud Striders and their lives and how much their heroic images told to people clash with who they really were. Fascinating stuff, well worth the time to do the quest and read.

The lore book is Cloud Strider Legacies and deals with four specific Cloud Striders connected through their knowledge about something in the CloudArk. This something turns out to be a... friendly Vex Mind. Called the Occlusion. The first Cloud Strider discovered it and left it there because it appeared to be useful somehow.

When you finish the quest, there's a huge thank you note from the archivist Quinn and also some data from Occlusion meant for us specifically. The text, part one:

REALLY GOOD. If I'm reading this correctly, this Vex Mind was connected or made from or influenced by Soteria, the Augurmind, which is the AI submind made by Braytech and Ishtar fusing warmind technology and Vex technology. Soteria is responsible for Neomuna existing.

Not sure how much of a connection there is, but either the Vex found Soteria or Soteria found the Vex and somehow merged or influenced them. It resulted in the friendly Vex Mind called Occlusion who is just kinda chilling in the CloudArk. But it also sent a message. About some sort of "paracausal hero." It also says that "it endures." This might be referring to Soteria itself as enduring within Occlusion or something entirely different. This might end up being relevant when we delve more into the Vex again.

The next part:

Also really good. This means that the header is a general description that is attached to the start of the files and that all files could be containing years worth of data. And now for the kicker, the urgent file attached at the top:

I am VIBRATING OUT OF MY SKIN RIGHT NOW. "Saturn VI" or Saturn 6 is another designation for the moon Titan. So like. Titan has to be coming back and also we have something or someone to find there. Something that is an enemy of the Witness and that has to be preserved "if still living."

Going insane right now. This will be all I talk about until this shows up in the story this year. Titan is coming back Titan is coming back Titan is coming back!!!!! No clue when but hoping in Season of the Deep. No clue what this thing might be but whatever it is, it's important and like. I am so normal right now.

[searsage]

doodeododidid

[galacticdrift]

picked up Winterbite and it feels like there's something very interesting there in the associated lorebook (Cloud Strider Legacies) and the dialogue from Quinn as you complete the various memorials -- the first Cloud-Strider-ization happening as some kind of industrial accident; Maelstrom's apparently-metaphorical comment that your death isn't after 10 years of service, it's the day you get enhanced; the involvement of a "baby" vex mind; the implication that that vex mind is somehow a crucial and necessary part of becoming a Cloud Strider, even the fact that what's left of a dead Cloud Strider is a record of every moment and aspect of their time of service, turned into a data server...

building on what we know from Beyond Light about how Exos were made (fill up those chassis with clarified Vex fluid), I'm getting the impression that becoming a Cloud Strider is baaaaasically a sort of fundamentally-failed Exo conversion with the unintentionally beneficial (-ish) side result of 10 years of superhuman physical performance.

[paracawsal]

heavy glaive: because i wasn't obnoxious enough with my regular one

[lucariwoah]

My first thought was "as a fellow furry I love the character design and think it's really neat, I love the giant earrings"

My second thought was "damn they got winterbite with the hibernal thorns ornament and I love that weapon but it's not a very meta pick"

Basically this is amazing and I love you

Commission for a client over on twitter.

[catamar-ii]

Taken Warlock w/ the new Winterbite ornament

[slayanyhivegodslately]

Spinfoil hat time

So with the reveal of next season, and the image of Sloane, the giant eye, and what might happen.

So, the biggest thing is Sloane, still alive after these few years. Although, Taken, but only partially. Which is interesting. And with all of the buzz around everything, I saw something that caught my eye and has me thinking.

When you finish the Winterbite quest, we get a piece of info saying “The enemy of the Witness is on Titan.” And of course its fun to think it could be Sloane, but for as an accomplished titan she is, I don’t think she is quite on the level of say, Saint, the scourge of both eliksni and vex back in the day. So of course a lot of people are saying that it could the the Long Boy in the Soup. That it could be a leviathan similar to the one on the Fundament that the young hive siblings encountered before becoming gods. And it would make more sense for that to be the “enemy of the witness” than Sloane.

So of course the speculation is how is it an enemy? And for that I remembered some stuff back during the Season of Arrivals. It was during that time, with the pyramid ship hanging over the oceans, was the first time there was taken on Titan. There was actually dialogue from Drifter during the public event where he was commenting how weird it was to see them there, that that was the reason he didn’t have gambit maps on Titan for so long. He couldn’t get the taken to cooperate.

So what if, before the pyramid ship showed up, the leviathan was keeping the taken away? I wonder if it can hamper the Witness’ power somehow, seeing as how Sloane has hints of being taken, but doesn’t seem to be taken entirely. And it wasn’t until the Black Fleet entered the system properly that they were finally able to manifest on Titan without hindrance.

Of course, if Sloane is actually properly taken than all of this goes out the window, and I don’t know how much this theory actually holds up, but it is fun to speculate. And now with all of the new knowledge we have, that old line from Drifter really made me wonder.

[allteacher]

rambling about maya re: lightfall (tl;dr i'm... not as thrilled as i would've anticipated?)

i'll start off by saying that i think her involvement in seraph was fun! i like soteria and i like maya-as-chandra, especially because soteria getting PILLORY'd is a nice way to stage maya's broader disillusionment and why she might've left ishtar for lhasa.

and i've said before that i enjoy the concept of maya being the protagonist of the golden age (ishtar, the copies, lhasa/the cult, europa and clovis)-- but i think her involvement with neomuna is... odd? maybe? i don't really get the how-why of why she and chioma would end up on an exodus ship, unless it's a matter of convenience-- in winterbite they're apparently just beyond hyperion, where chioma was as of vex 5, so maybe indigo launched from there and they decided to try their luck? maybe some lingering attachment to soteria, but iirc there's no way she'd've known about the fragmentation, and no reason to believe soteria had any connection to exodus? presumably it's been years, anyway.

i think some of my reluctance stems from the divide between maya-prime and the 227: the 227 are historically the explorers, while the prime ishtar team are... stagnant, maybe? maya stays at ishtar for decades; she stays joined-at-the-hip with chioma for even longer. she tries going to lhasa and almost breaks her own brain trying to escape back into the past. her leaving for hyperion is her big moment of movement, but i don't know if i can see that carrying into this grand mara-esque adventure of colony-starting. maya-as-founder just feels very divorced from her previous roles to me.

ultimately: i think i'd prefer the 227's loose ends tied up (aspect, OXA, etc.). i'm not unhappy that original maya's returned in a big way, but i think she's superfluous to requirements in this instance. there's no real reason she needed to be on that ship-- maybe it's that that's grating; the idea that the vague outlines of what happened around/after lhasa have been solidified in service of what is ultimately an easter egg, or what feels like one. look, she's on neomuna! and she died there, too.

(also, i never ended up writing it, but i've had a years-long idea kicking around that the maya/chioma marriage dissolved prior to lhasa/vex 5: why maya and chioma are so far apart in the first place, maya's desperate longing, her obsession with finding happy 227 pairs... i feel its moment has passed, but i'm thinking about it!)

all this to say: go reread ghost fragment: vex 4

[abyssalcleave]

fuck it - its 2am and I need to sleep but lets take a look at the new weapons we are getting with lightfall, shall we?

//SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!

these are probably the new legendary expansion weapons. we see a hand canon, and a sniper. also a fusion rifle and a pulse rifle (?). the weapons look very clean and I hope bungie is gonna release the shader as well. <3 very interested in the hand canon especially. <3

// Final Warning uwu sidearm - pretty sure thats an exotic? kinda reminds me of cryosthesia 77k from splicer (man i love that gun - i should use it more). even tho we don't have a sidearm meta (like i would care what meta we have lmao) but I still enjoy a good sidearm. also very pleasing to look at imo.

// Deterministic Chaos exotic machinegun next <3 its promising a lot of fun and as a void hunter main (i won't ever be tired of saying that) i am very interested in how it feels ingame. (but we also got a very good legendary machinegun this season too - we will have to wait and see i guess.) I'm a huge fan of the aesthetic at least! its super pretty <3

// Winterbite STASIS GLAIVE?? YES PLEASE!! when glaives were introduced in witch queen i was looking forward to getting an stasis one too and here we are! it looked very good in the trailer and I am super excited for it as well! + it just looks so dope, doesn't it??

I've been watching all the trailers quite a few times now and I am so so excited to see what bungie brings into the game with lightfall. Its only a month now lads! we got this!

[author-a-holmes]

Book Review: Of Wild and Witchcraft by Cassandra Diviak

Shadow and Soul Series, Book Three

'Of Wild and Witchcraft' is the third book in the Shadow and Soul series, and it picks up immediately from the ending of Book Two with a world-shattering revelation for one of our main characters, Cordelia.

Stuck on the strange Island they find themselves on, Percy and Cordelia can't run from what they've discovered there, and that's just the first blow of many.

'Of Wild and Witchcraft' really puts Cordelia through the wringer, and she struggles to overcome not only the aftermath of book two, but each subsequent blow in this book seems to wear her down further.

Beyond Percy, and the presence of the Winterbite Wolves, however, is the brightspot that is Willow. A young girl that Cordelia takes under her wing.

Children are, admittedly, where most books lose my interest, and I did find myself struggling through parts of this book due to the prominence of this newly introduced character. But not due to the authors lack of skill.

Cassandra Diviak handles the sisterly relationship between Cordelia and Willow with skill, and although I sometimes found myself wishing to see more of Cordelia and Percy instead, I can see how the connection between Cordelia and Willow can potentially grow to be very important in subsequent books.

As for poor Percy, I feel like he spent a great deal of this book holding Cordelia together, but there's some important revelations for him within the 'Of Wild and Witchraft' too. Especially in terms of his wolf.

Who finally has a name to put to his gruff inner voice.

And that's something else I'm excited to see in the final installment. All signs of which point to one hell of a ride.

Another enjoyable read from this author, 'Of Wild and Witchcraft' leaves you on the edge of your seat, with a cliffhanger ending, that will have you scrambling to pre-order the next book in the series.

[pilidod]

Winterbite Prism Warlock Build

I've been having a ton of fun with an exotic class item drop I got on my Warlock that, hilariously, I still don't have on my Titan. If you're a Warlock and have gotten an Inmost/Synthoceps roll, and have Winterbite and want to use it, I've had good success with it in the Grandmaster of this week's Nightfall, Exodus Crash. In on-level content you're going to have fun too, but I'm gonna share the version I was using to farm NFs. Here's a DIM link if you just want the build I was running: https://dim.gg/4uie72q/Winterbite-Champion-Slayer

The first important part of this build is this roll of Solipsism. You can probably also do just fine with only Synthoceps, moreso if the first column is Necrotic Grips. This is an ability spam build at its core, and thrives in environments like Exodus Crash and The Corrupted.

The second key part of this build is Winterbite. I have hardly used this weapon since its release, besides the time it was literally broken. It's not BROKEN anymore, but it's still good and has some key features:

Very quickly builds Darkness energy for Prismatic with its projectile attack. Fire it above a large group of enemies for a huge area of crowd control with freezing.

It can deal with Overloads and Unstoppables with both the melee and the projectile due to slow and freeze. It can deal with Barriers just on the basis of doing so much damage, but I'm unsure if the projectile actually goes through barriers while you're radiant.

It gets buffed by Synthoceps. It already has a huge buff to melee damage while it has ammo (NEVER let it get to 0 ammo in reserves if you can help it) and synthos buffs it to a very noticeable degree. This thing chunks champions.

The shield lets you tank alot more in PvE than you normally would, but that's the case with most glaives. Good for closing distance and revives.

And of course, the actual important part. This was originally a take on Datto's snaplock build that used the Necro/Claw class item and is largely the same.

Aspects are Feed the Void and Bleak Watcher. While Bleak Watcher is technically a flex slot, I find that the passive build-up in darkness energy and the crowd control it offers in nightfalls is way too good to pass up, but you can use whichever aspect you want. Feed the Void feeds into ability spam more for more Bleak Watchers or more Jolt Grenades.

Abilities are Phoenix Dive, Incinerator Snap, Storm Grenade, and Song of Flame. Incinerator is perfect for Synthoceps; a close-range ranged melee that hits many enemies at once AND causes ignitions to deal with Unstoppables and high-health targets. Sure, you aren't spamming this as often as a Prism Titan can Consecration, but damn, does it feel good. Storm Grenade is there for amplified, you can technically use whatever grenade you want for the content you're running, but having access to amplified while running an arc weapon is nice, since this season it provides damage reduction. You need at least one arc ability or aspect to get amplified (which would make Lightning Surge very good in place of Bleak Watcher). Phoenix Dive is flexible, you can use whatever class ability you want, but I find Phoenix Dive being the most helpful in most content so far. And of course, Song of Flame is the best Prism Warlock super in general; it makes you Radiant, it gives your allies ability cooldown reduction, and it causes a ton of ignitions. Plus, the damage reduction in PvE is frankly crazy; use it while it's good.

Fragments I consider MANDATORY are Ruin and Protection. Ruin synergizes with our shatters and ignitions, which make up a huge chunk of our damage. Protection I run on all my PvE prismatic builds for good reason, but this one especially. We're always in the middle of the fight, going transcendent in like 40 seconds on average, and the damage reduction is vital if you're using a glaive or sword.

Other fragments in the screenshot are Sacrifice, which helps transcendence trigger more often since you're using light abilities alot when you aren't using the glaive, Dominance provides Jolt to Storm nades, and Weaken to your Prismatic Grenade (or vortex nade if you feel like using it). Facet of Dawn is also flexible, but considering the Snap does so much already, we may as well give even more reason to use it by making us and allies radiant for using it. On-demand anti-barrier for any weapon that doesn't already have anti-champion capabilities!

Other fragments to consider:

Bravery can synergize well if you use Void and Strand primaries/specials. You can use it place of Dawn if you like! Unravel and Volatile are both great.

Purpose is probably the one I find myself swapping out the most. It's hard to find the perfect spot for it, since I like Dominance so much. If you don't care for Dominance/don't run storm or vortex nades, you can use Purpose to assist with sustain, though honestly, this build doesn't NEED it outside of GMs

Courage increases damage with Light abilities when enemies have a Darkness debuff on them. Considering how often we slow enemies, you may want to consider this, but it feels like Overkill in anything easier than a GM, personally. You can disregard this if you aren't running grandmasters or like, raids.

Justice is funny. Makes you even better at add clear, but is sort of overkill, and only applies while transcendent (which is alot of the time, but it's up to you to give up a fragment than can help with neutral game more).

Hope makes your class ability come back faster, which with Inmost Light, facilitates faster cooldowns for your Grenade and Melee. The difference is not too big if you have Inmost, though.

Grace if you use a kinetic primary. Helps build up more energy but is not a requirement even if you do run a kinetic.

Command has been nerfed significantly, but it WILL skip the long reload animation of Winterbite.

Solitude is good. Applies an elemental debuff and reduces the outgoing damage of an enemy just for shooting your gun well, but you're usually in the thick of the fight. Use as you will. Worth noting that it can make a tangle basically on demand, though.

Armor mods are flexible, especially based on if you have artifice armor. I have shitty luck with artifice armor, though, so here's the quick of it:

Helmet: At least one Hands-On, and a siphon of your choice based on whatever primary/special you kill most often with. I use harmonic siphon and special finder for my Riptide.

Gloves: Heavy Handed is the only required one. I use two Font of Vigor to speed up my cooldowns (fixing my artifice armor problem, essentially), but you can use loaders for your preferred weapon, or even Firepower.

Robes: Resist mods for whatever content you're running. Charged up is also an option here if you use armor charges like I do.

Boots: I run absolution, recuperation, and invigoration. Since you rarely actually fire your weapons for DPS and rely on shatters, ignitions, and glaive melees, this is what I found most comfortable running.

Bond: Literally whatever you want. Using armor charges? Time Dilation. Want an on-demand Orb? Reaper. Want to pick up orbs from some range since you're in the thick of the fight and don't want to move 8 feet to grab an orb? Powerful attraction. The only one I'd argue keeping always is Outreach. Distribution would be good here if you don't use armor charges for anything!

Legendary weapons and perks I use

Riptide with Lead From Gold/Chill Clip. You can also focus an Aurvandil from Banshee-44 for a Chill Clip roll if you don't like to play PvP. This can innately deal with two types of champions due to slow and shatter (overloads require one shot, unstoppables require 3 and then a shatter), and can then deal with Barriers while Radiant. Also, the darkness energy build-up is really, really high.

Ogma PR6 with Demolitionist and Wellspring. The ability energy you get from a kill with this while Devour is up is frankly insane, almost 50% of your grenade. If your ability loop gets broken, this helps you recover so you can start again.

Note, you can use any weapons you want! Keep in mind what you have trouble building up in combat and change your weapons accordingly. If you don't make enough Light, use a Light special like Aberrant Action. If you have trouble building Dark, use something like Lost Signal (or, y'know, fire Winterbite.)

Notes on the actual playstyle (didn't record gameplay but I want to soon):

You are The Champion Killer. Overloads, Barriers, and Unstoppables are handled quickly and easily before they become an issue. Winterbite can handle two of those types naturally, and either Facet of Dawn or Facet of Bravery lets your preferred weapons handle the Barriers.

While you ARE quite survivable with Devour and damage resistance, remember, you are not invincible. In GMs especially, make sure you don't get caught in the middle of exploding units or enemy stasis abilities. If a champion is flanked by exploders, get rid of the exploders first and then melee the champ to death. A huge part of the build is determined by your own spacial awareness. You should camp spawns, but not too close, lest an Overcharge Shank kills you instantly.

The build excels at crowd control and high burst damage in equal parts, but the damage loop may be difficult to get used to. Winterbite with Synthoceps active can kill champions and grounded bosses extremely quick, but if you don't have a Bleak Watcher down to keep the other enemies in line, you can get overwhelmed quickly. This is why I HIGHLY recommend Bleak Watcher over any other aspect, even though the other options are tempting.

Knowing enemy spawn locations, what order they spawn in, and how many spawn, are vital. This is very much a build you use if you know what you're doing. It is not for doing a GM nightfall for the first time, and it sure as hell isn't for a day one contest mode raid.

If you aren't using Winterbite, you're using your abilities. Always Be Snapping. And Bleaking your Watcher.

Damage loop for bosses you get surrounded in is: Throw down Bleak Watcher, Incinerator Snap boss, transcend, nade, incinerator, swap to Winterbite, melee until grenade is back, and loop your abilities and the Winterbite melee until it's dead. You can also use song of flame, obviously, but I use it for safety or if I have no transcendence.

The build is fun, not safe. What works for me might not work with your playstyle. Do not take this into GMs without practice first. For normal Nightfalls, it's almost overkill.

Exotic Class Item substitutes are pretty much anything that will help your snaps, if not Winterbite directly. Necro and Claw, like in Datto's original snaplock build, will help facilitate the actual snapping part. Using Claws of Ahamkara on its own is also good. Necro and Synthoceps, Assassin/Synthoceps, the MAIN part for Winterbite is the Synthoceps roll on the class item. You can also use Getaway Artist, but I made this build bc I was bored of Getaways, but you do you, I'm not the Vanguard.

You can also use this build with a regular legendary glaive or even Edge of Intent. Can't guarantee the amount of success you'll have with them, though!

Anyways, just wanted to share something I was having fun with. With everything happening with Bungie right now I was debating posting this, but I figured I'd post this before I forget. Have fun, Guardians.

[thefirstknife]

Have you completed all the quests to get the new stasis glaive? I have a lore question but I don’t want to spoil anything

I have! I did a write-up on the most important detail at the end here. If there's anything else you'd like to know, ask away!

[blakistan]

You know, I'm still a little (very extremely) bummed that Ergo Sum exclusively draws from Light-based exotics despite its link to Prismatic. Honestly the only reason I can think that it doesn't include Stasis and Strand rolls is that they didn't want to step on Tessellation's toes as the one-and-only special ammo energy slot weapon that can be any element (which is a paper-thin reason honestly). That or they'd have to make a version for the kinetic slot which means they'd need to fix the animation issues with kinetic swords/glaives. There's also the even more paper-thin idea that there aren't enough/any good choices for Ergo Sum intrinsics among existing exotics, so! Here are some ideas I had for Darkness-based ES rolls: Traveler's Chosen: Not a new idea but a tweak - Traveler's Chosen itself is kinetic with the Osmosis perk but a TC Ergo Sum rolls as void for whatever reason. So instead, in addition to its existing function, TC rolls match their damage type to your equipped super (or perhaps melee ability if we wanted some slightly fancy buildcrafting options) The Navigator: Strand does admittedly struggle from poor exotic selection at the moment, but I think this works well as an Ergo Sum perk. Very simply, heavy attacks Sever enemies and grant Woven Mail to the wielder and nearby allies Final Warning: The original Strand exotic with a very simple gimmick. Similar to the Telesto roll, heavy attacks release a wave of homing projectiles that Unravel targets, with pattern varying between frame types Wish Keeper: This one is probably best kept as simple as possible - heavy attacks suspend targets they hit Verglas Curve/Salvation's Grip: Moving onto Stasis, I'm lumping these together because frankly they both have the same gimmick just applied to different weapon types. For a sword, I have two ideas: either heavy attacks create stasis crystals nearby (number size and pattern varies based on sword frame) or kills create stasis crystals sort of like headstone for swords. I could also see these both being separate intrinsics with SG getting the former idea and VC the latter Wicked Implement: Genuinely I don't think this lends itself that well to Ergo Sum but for completion's sake - for this I'd have heavy attacks slow nearby enemies and picking up stasis shards either boost damage or charge rate Winterbite: Very simple, heavy attacks release a wave of projectiles that track targets and freeze on impact (the same secondary projectiles released from the Winterbite "turret"), with pattern and/or number of projectiles varying based on frame type To keep with the pattern of the other intrinsics I'd guess there'd probably only be two each for Stasis and Strand, same as there is for Solar for a grand total of 12 perks. In a perfect world we'd have three for each but alas here we are.

[galacticdrift]

ALSO.

(I guess I'm destinyposting today since my vacation is over and I have to putter around doing my day job while thinking about destiny instead of actually playing destiny)

From the end of the Winterbite quest:

From Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

"In Greek mythology, Soteria was the goddess or spirit (daimon) of safety and salvation, deliverance, and preservation from harm (not to be mistaken for Eleos)."

hello??? salvation, as in...Salvation, Garden of? in the Black Garden? with the Black Heart, described as a failed/flawed replica of Neomuna's Veil, at its center?

HELLO???

[wonderwafles]

11 and 23 for the edgy/misc OC ask! For whoever you want to answer for.

I've got two others for Aryn and, contrary to what she may think, not EVERYTHING is for her, so let's do Astr for this one :D

11. What is your OC's weapon of choice? Have they ever actually used it?

Astr prefers words over violence, if possible, and would rather meet her enemies on the dissection table than on the battlefield; but when she must fight, she favors Winterbite, which she found on Neomuna, for protecting herself with its guard and keeping her enemies from doing anything ill-advised. :D

23. What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

Astr's fear of the unknown drives a lot of what she does. She's deeply mistrustful of the Traveler, and thinks that if she can understand it and map it and predict it she can come up with a plan for any eventuality, including one where the Traveler abandons humanity. (An "Emperor for all outcomes", one might say. ;))

She'd probably admit this pretty freely, actually, but I wouldn't say that makes her well-adjusted about it; in her new life working for the Vanguard she's putting her life in the hands of somebody else for the first time and it's driving her up the walls. She's getting better with it, though, I think. Her sparing her Ghost, Bark, at the end of Lightfall, was kind of a litmus test for how willing Astr is to leap into the unknown; take the certain outcome of saving the universe by killing Bark, or risk everything with him at her side. She still isn't sure she made the right choice (but then, nobody is), but she'd do it again if she had to.

EXPRESSING fear, though? In a healthy and vulnerable manner? Yeah no way

[limeleviathan]

I absolutely love how much customisation you have within the game. Trying out new, weird builds is one of my favourite things to do, and they often work for some reason

One of my favourite weird builds that worked is Karnstein Armlets and Winterbite, just stabby stab

Hello Destiny The Game Player. I would like to play a game.

Before you is your Twitter account, open to the new tweet interface. You have one minute and 40 seconds to post one honest positive thing about the game, not influenced by the opinions of others and the opinions of content creators. If you fail to do so within the allotted time, you will be banned from the game permanently.

Good luck.