#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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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

[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!

[thetoxicgamer]

A Destiny 2 Bow is Dealing Huge Damage – if You’ve Got High Fps

According to the YouTube channel Cheese Forever and corroborated by Destiny Bulletin, who claims to have tested the bow and discovered it does an additional tick of damage at greater hertz per second in the FPS game, a Destiny 2 bow deals more damage at higher frame rates. Due to modifications made to the game's overall sandbox, Leviathan's Breath, a heavy Exotic Void bow that can be found at the Monument to Lost Lights and was first introduced as part of the Shadowkeep expansion, is swiftly turning into a meta weapon. The weapon has intrinsic anti-Champion capabilities, and its Exotic perk, Big Game Hunter, means it fires a massive jolt. Paired with its secondary Exotic perk, Leviathan’s Sigh, a fully drawn shot will induce a charged knockback effect over a limited time. However, players playing at a higher frame rate will find an extra tick of damage. While Destiny 2 has several known frame rate issues, typically, the problems involve taking more damage at higher frame rates. However, in this case, the issue is that Leviathan’s Breath inexplicably grants an extra tick of damage on increased FPS. This Destiny 2 bow does extra damage at higher frame rates: The Leviathan's Breath, with a unique weapon ornament.This isn’t the only issue players have encountered involving Destiny 2’s frame rates. Players using higher frame rates had less time to dodge lasers in Season of the Seraph, while others have suggested that players take less damage in other aspects of the game when playing on lower frame rates as well. Although Bungie has not offered a clear reason for the differences, some suspect it has to do with the game engine, originally designed to build games for console devices with internal frame rate caps. However, this is unconfirmed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIEfTATU5NQ While Cheese Forever suggests the Leviathan’s Breath issue only occurs at frame rates of 160, Destiny Bulletin’s analysis showed notable differences due to ‘ghost’ damage at frame rates of 60-70. Another weapon that appears to be dealing extra damage is the Destiny 2 Winterbite Exotic glaive, one of the new Destiny 2 Lightfall Exotics. Destiny 2 season 20 is reaching its halfway point, and the multiplayer game‘s newest expansion is currently on sale on Steam. If you’re a New Light or just jumping back into the game, check out our Destiny 2 Lightfall guide to see everything new with the game’s most recent expansion. Read the full article

[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???

[theclaravita]

Lightfall Thoughts - Spoiler Heavy

So I've given the expansion a bunch of thought, played a bunch of the new stuff, done a bunch of testing, talked to a bunch of people, watched a bunch of videos... I have a list. It's a very depressing list. Filled with spoilers. And salt. Read at your own risk.

PROS

Strand is an absolute joy to play. I've only played on Warlock, but the general consensus that I'm seeing is that Strand is powerful, satisfying, and fun. The three things all subclasses should be.

Strand upgrade unlocks happen at a quick, satisfying pace. You can plan your build at the Pouka Pond, and Meditations drop really frequently, especially once you get to 1720+ and can actually start doing Terminal Overload for 100 per key. No bullshit questing requiring dead gamemodes. No strings, ironically enough.

Neomuna is gorgeous and full of lore references. As a lore junkie and devout watcher of My Name Is Byf, Neomuna is so fascinating and I see the history flowing out before me very clearly. You can see how the city is cradled by the rocky floating island it's on, how the cliffs around it are craggy and treacherous, and how the buildings are all very clearly Braytech/Ishtar Collective themed. The design is clearly inspired and thought-out: this city didn't pop into existence overnight and it feels like it.

The cutscenes are phenominally directed and cool. Almost all of the plot happens via gorgeously rendered cutscenes that had me leaning in and staring at my screen in awe. The events happening on-screen were baffling, terrifying, and made me acutely aware of the stakes. The deaths of the OG fireteam was... Chilling. And the Witness unnerved me in just the right way anytime they were present; even more so when Calus got his scolding for his failures.

The Loadout and Mod Systems are a godssend. I don't use the Loadout system nearly as much as I should... Which makes sense, seeing as I'm just above the soft cap for now. But the new Mods system is INSANE and lets me do disgusting things like INCREASE THE PASSIVE DAMAGE OF MY GJALLARHORN TO OVER 100K PER ROCKET. I've heard of people making builds that cause Winterbite to do over ONE MILLION DAMAGE. My current favorite casual build is orb spam with Osteo Striga + Necrotic Grip, then Kinetic Surge x2. Single projectiles are doing 3k-5k and it's ticking for 8k at times. It's FOUL in Terminal Overload and it carried me through the Classic Campaign.

The new Tower is great. Nothing else to say here; I like the tree and Cayde's memorial. The destroyed corner of the Tower was honestly jarring and pissing me off. I'm just that petty.

Vendor rankups are lightning fast. I'm already rank 30+ with Nimbus, rank 8 with the Vanguard, and I finally reset with Xur. I think I'm also around rank 10 with the War Table already, though I have no idea how; I think it grants EXP from Neomuna stuff too?

Nimbus.

CONS

So. Many. Bugs. I know it's said every update, but this feels like an open beta. The game's clearly done, but it needs polish. The amount of times I had graphical bugs during the amazing cutscenes really threw me out of the moment and undercut the gravity of those scenes. ("Osiris, I don't mean to interrupt my own training montage, but your robe seems to want to go back to Earth.") I've had a few game breaking bugs that I'll list here. - Player models turning invisible... Including my own, along with my weapons' sights and scopes as well. Every time it happens, it suddenly makes the game almost impossible to play. I can't see where I'm aiming when I ADS, there's no audio feedback from reloading or moving/jumping/gliding, and I never realized how much I relied on those audio cues while playing until they were gone. - The seasonal artifact keeps breaking. I've narrowed it down to the second column of perks for me, but not everyone is having this issue. If I unlock any of the mod authorizations, all of my perks stop activating -- including anti-Champion measures. - Commendations overview screen crashes my game. I've had it happen only once, but the fact that it happened at all is troubling. I've also heard of other people having this happen every time they open it, and Bungie has acknowledged it. It's still inexcusable that this wasn't caught. - Mods don't apply all the time. The new Mod system is great... When it works. Several times now, I've applied mods to test a buid and they just... Don't work. I thought I was misunderstanding their effects or something. Nope; sometimes you have to unequip and reequip mods to have their effects actually work. This specifically happens every time with the Empowered Finish mod, (I make sure I have no Armor Charge before trying, since it only grants a charge when you have none), and the Stacks On Stacks mod, (it regularly only grants a single Armor Charge unless I have two instances of the mod equipped).

Enemies are harder now, and we can't spam abilities as much... And the enemy placement did NOT change to accommodate this. If you're going to make an enemy one-shot with a clearly charged and obvious attack, MAYBE don't have FIVE OF THEM PERFECTLY POSITIONED TO BARRAGE ME NO MATTER WHERE I TAKE COVER. That shit worked when I had a Rift or Barricade every 45 seconds. I could weather it. I could huck a grenade over there and clear some space. But enemies are all sponges, they do an asston of damage, and I have NO FUCKING COVER. There's a BOSS-LEVEL HVT that's 1800+ that roams around IN THE SKY with two adds that follow it, similarly beefed up, THAT FLOAT DOWN INTO THE COVERED SPACES??? WHAT DO I DO AGAINST THAT??? I'M JUST TRYING TO DO A PATROL, MAN.

Lots and lots of kills credited to the Architects. I understand that you need a failsafe for when the player and enemy interact in an unexpected way... But RAGDOLLING MY GUARDIAN OUT OF THE MAP because an enemy GENTLY WALKED INTO ME is not valid. The most prevalent strategy I've seen deployed by minor enemies on Neomuna is crowding the player and pushing them into walls to death. Psions do it, War Beasts do it, Goblins do it. They just dash/run/teleport into you and push you around. Oh, got a Rift there? SEVEN WARBEASTS ALL ATTACKING YOU AT ONCE, DOING NO DAMAGE BECAUSE THEY'RE PUSHING EACH OTHER OUT OF THE WAY AND OOPS YOU'RE IN A WALL AND ARE CATAPULTED OUT OF THE MAP. WOE BE UPON YE, LIGHTBEARER.

Walls are not obstacles to enemies... And empty space is not a passage for players. The amount of times I've been killed by a Thresher from across the map, with multiple walls between me and it... Or better yet, getting headshot by a Hobgoblin that is glitched out of the map, on top of a building, behind an invisible barrier it can SHOOT THROUGH, when I'm literally UNDERGROUND. Or when the Tormenter just fuses with a wall, is nowhere near me, and somehow grapples me? DARK HARVEST, LIGHTBEARER. EAT SHIT. IT DEFIES SPACE AND TIME. Additionally, I've shot Gjallarhorn rockets into OPEN AIR, NOWHERE NEAR AN OBSTACLE, and it blew up in my face. I tested it afterward: if you stand in the very middle of the Zephyr Concourse (with the spinny gyroscope structure) and shoot out of the circle, there's a CHANCE that it will hit a wall that isn't there. It's one of the spinny things. At some point, they desync from the graphic and it blocks your path in midair. I tested it further: I was able to reliably get physics-killed by "nothing" by jumping when I knew it would be there based on previous cycles. I'd been in the area for four hours farming Terminal Overload (before I got a key, sadly), so maybe it just desyncs over time? Still stupid.

The open world is boring and unfun to traverse. It looks pretty. I appreciate the little lore references. But FUCK ME RUNNING it's a chore to traverse. There aren't enough grapple points for Strand, and the ones that are there serve no purpose. There's still annoying as fuck deathplanes and invisible barriers, sometimes RIGHT NEXT TO a grapple point, CLEARLY SET UP FOR ME TO JUMP UP ON TOP OF THAT BUILDING, but if I do I die or bounce out. There's too much ground clutter, too few sweeping avenues, too many bottomless pits, too few ledges to jump down from. THEY LITERALLY SHOWED A HUNTER DIVING OFF A BUILDING IN THE TRAILER. WHY CAN'T I FUCKING DO THAT. YOU LITERALLY SOLD THE FUCKING EXPANSION WITH THAT SHIT.

The rewards from Neomuna activities are boring. The new weapons are neat, and that's about it. I miss gathering materials and trading them in. Using materials for upgrades, and the implication that we were trading them into the vendors who would then CRAFT THEM INTO GEAR for us! That was dope! And using materials to unlock upgrades on my badass weapons as I used them... YEAH! Now it's all cores, prisms, shards, and glimmer. That's it. SNORE. And dropping a ton of Strand Meditations all at once has made what I THOUGHT was going to be a length grind into... Nothing. I'm already 3/4 of the way done. And I've only done 10 Terminal Overload runs. I have 900 meditations. I only need 1600 more to get all the fragments. Why even do it this way? I haven't even played Strand outside of the required times for quests. And I almost have the grind done. Just unlock everything out the gate or don't do this way at all. Another example of the game being stuck with "this is how we did it BEFORE..."

Everything being centered on cores now has put a MASSIVE strain on my stock of upgrade materials, and it's forcing me to CHOOSE: keep my gear up to the bleeding edge of my power level, or reshape my weapon I've leveled up and grinded with enhanced perks? Upgrade my armor, or shape a new weapon from the plentiful patterns I'm unlocking? Giving me assured progress on crafting patterns, letting me unlock new patterns quickly, and letting me do that with NEW WEAPONS that are SHINY and FUN? That's great! Love it! Locking me behind a grind of fucking enhancement cores to take advantage of these increased rates of unlock? Kinda makes me want to uninstall the game. Weapon shaping was such a cool system when it launched: you had to seek out the weapons that had the right perks so you can get the materials you need to craft weapons with those perks. Great! Then it got simplified: no more perk-specific mats. And now it's been stripped down fully: no mats at all. Now it's not worth it. I don't give a single royal FUCK about crafting these weapons, and I'm SO GLAD I reshaped my core loadout BEFORE Lightfall... Because I'm not doing it anymore. Congrats, Bungo; weapon shaping is no longer the most effective tactic... It's the least effective tactic. And with the ability to enhance perks on random roll weapons coming, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE FUCKING GODSDAMNED FUCKING POINT OF ADDING THE WEAPON CRAFTING SYSTEM OTHER THAN TO SELL WITCH QUEEN??? SERIOUSLY??? JUST FUCKING REMOVE IT ALREADY, THEN.

And now for the worst part. I was going to write up a huge wall of text outlining my problems with the lore. I was going to go into detail, with references and pictures and shit. But my mental health would not stay in the "I'm okay" zone for long if I did that. This shit absolutely makes my blood boil. Instead of breaking down every single gripe I have, I'm going to make another list. I'm not going to spend 10,000+ characters describing why this shit sucks. I'm going to keep each gribe short and sweet. Well, more sour. Anyway.

THE LORE

The Veil is not a fully-realized concept. I think they had a cool idea for how it would look and then didn't know how to progress from there. It's clearly an eyeball, right? I'm not nuts for thinking that? It's never referred to that way. "Roots" they called them. THEY'RE FUCKING VEINS. THAT'S AN OPTIC NERVE. GHOST. YOU'RE A FLOATING EYEBALL. HOW DID YOU NOT SEE THE SIMILARITY.

People talk about the Veil as if they know what it is. They don't. Why was the dialogue written as if it was understood? It verly clearly isn't, based on the post-game quests. And now there's not threat right? Why don't we go study it? The way is open.

The Veil was unveiled (wink) during the final chapter of the third act. We had no time to really come to terms with it as an object. And now it's hidden away in "you already did this quest" land forever. They talk about it a bit in the post-game quests, but it's almost immediately just shoved aside for "ROHAN'S LEGACY".

Calus was a terrible character and showed no development at all. I expected him to be either a chillingly calculated new kind of evil or fully batshit insane. He's still the snarky, irreverent snob that he's always been. He's just gold-plated now. Also his combat style is just "Colossus meets Caretaker" followed by "he's just a fucking Gladiator". I died more from him pushing me off the edge of the platform than his attacks. Pathetic.

The Witness was chilling and terrifyingly powerful: perfect for a new main antagonist. They killed an entire swathe of Guardians with a flick of their finger. I want to fight them. We do not even interact with them. They then fucked off into the Kaleidoscope Dimension of Triangles. "We can't follow it." Fuck you, I'm gonna try.

I didn't even blink when Rohan died. Not only did I expect it, I called exactly how he would die sacrificing himself because other people fucked up. He was a boring character with a boring end. His legacy is one of mediocrity.

We literally just call it capital-S "Strand" with no ceremony or explanation. It just comes out of Ghost's mouth. I did all the side dialogue stuff, talked to every NPC between each quest. It is never referred to as Strand except when Ghost randomly calls it that. This is minor, but it is a plot hole that triggers my writer's instinct. It needs to be explained. "This power... It's like strings... Ribbons... Strands... Strand!" That's all I wanted.

Stasis spent way too much time introducing the concept and feeding it to us a little at a time. Strand had no introduction, we literally find it randomly in the second mission, instantly play with it, and then randomly master it half-way through the story... But DON'T unlock it as a power? The training montage was cool and funny. Watching my Warlock unmaker herself with cosmic strings got a chuckle out of me. Just really wish Osiris's feathers hadn't been reaching for infinity during that cutscene.

Why and how was Callus able to just shout a hole through all of the Veil's defenses, all the way down to the actual fucking VAULT IT'S CONTAINED IN, but then uses a gun and swords to fight us? He should be able to just... Shout our Ghost apart, right? He can just will a goblet into being with his mind from raw ore, but he can't have a Tormentor grab us so he can crush our Ghost? I can apparently crush a Ghost with my bare hand, (Lucent Hive taught me that), but Callus can't? How was he powerful enough to vocally drill to the core of the planet, but impotent enough that I killed him with a sword?

"The Traveler is gone..." What? No it isn't. It just has aetherpunk-puke hole disorder. We still have the Light, right? So the Traveler isn't GONE... Why is everyone saying it's gone? We can see it from the HELM! The Witness and all the Pyramid ships are gone, though. That's nice. The Traveler is still clearly there. WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK IT'S GONE???

Nezerec? Really? He had no interactions with the Vex that we know of. And he's in the Vex Network? Really? Kind of a blind left hook there, Bungie. And if he betrayed the Witness, why is he still so evil? Is the implication that "Disciple of the Witness" isn't the ultimate way to be evil? That Nezerec is MORE evil? I don't understand. And knowing this game, I never will.

No interactions with Poukas to help us unlock Strand? Except the implied help we get at the Pouka Pond? Not even a cutscene showing that that's how we're doing it? Just walk up and "here's your shit, now go farm currency".

So many glaring issues I saw in the space battle cutscenes... Why was the Traveler's light beam completely ineffective against the Witness? And why did the Witness get a vision when it touched the Traveler? And why was it of Neptune specifically? And how was the HELM hit by the huge Pyramid ship shockwaves when it was clearly on the opposite side of the battle? Did our entire fleet get annihilated by that attack? What about Callus's ships? Why weren't they destroyed? That entire scene was so jarring and cluttered and had so many continuity issues and inconsistencies. It was cool in the trailers, but we literally saw the entire scene from beginning to end before the launch. It was clearly cut to be trailer fodder and that's really it.

Where the fuck is Xivu Arath and the Hive during all of this? No tombships, no Bladed Terrace... Isn't this battle enough of a clarion call to her that Xivu Arath can use it to call forth her forces from the Ascendant Plane? What about the war on Neptune? WHY IS THE HIVE GOD OF WAR NOT PRESENT FOR THE WAR TO END ALL WARS???

The seasonal story... Why are the Cabal taking prisoners at all? Isn't the entire purpose to destroy us? And why are they kept 5 at a time in a giant Pyramid complex with a single cage in the middle of a huge temple-like room? Are they to be sacrificed? And who are these people anyway? They look like civilians, but Amanda was with them... Were they pilots? Are they Guardians? If not, why were they in the space battle? How did they survive an attack that clearly decimated our entire fleet? Why did they crash on the EDZ?

I have more, but my computer is lagging from how long this post has become. I also need to eat breakfast. I've not slept in 24 hours and now I have a long day ahead of me to reset my sleep schedule.

I regret buying this expansion. I'm not going to whine and bitch about refunding. I made the choice to trust Bungo with my money and I got what I paid for. The fact that what I paid for was apparently a pile of shit is irrelevant. I really hope the seasons to come save this game. But I stand with what My Name Is Byf said: this game is now firmly in the category of "I cannot recommend it". Save your money; don't get Lightfall if you haven't already. Unless you really want to spend $60 for a new subclass. The best parts of this expansion for the most part are available for free.

My heart is breaking for this game... Here's hoping it redeems itself.

[ask-ammolite-by-jadedreams]

Regarding the new Winterbite Exotic Glaive.

The new exotic glaive, Winterbite, was revealed to be a Heavy Weapon as of today.

This Is A Problem.

Here’s why: While a heavy glaive sounds cool, in reality it likely will be gimmicky and pretty much useless. We’re talking Salvations Grip levels of useless. From the footage we’ve seen of the weapon it’s primary use is going to be Clearing rooms of enemies, which while really cool, is NOT good for heavy weapons, as Heavy Weapons are meant to deal boss damage, which this weapon does not seem like it’ll be good for. “Why not just use something like Arbalest for boss damage?” Well, Winterbite already takes up your exotic weapon slot, therefore making so you can’t even use alternatives for boss damage such as Arbalest, as every weapon that isn’t heavy that Can do boss damage is also an Exotic.

We need to push for Bungie to move this new Glaive to the kinetic slot or else it’s gonna be Salvations Grip all over again, a conceptually cool weapon that’s Dead On Arrival because it’s a hindrance to player performance. You don’t even have to change the weapons ammo type, just have it as a Kinetic Weapon that uses Heavy Ammo.

But if we don’t push for this change it WILL be Salvations Grip 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Please y’all, for the sake of having a good exotic glaive for once, push for this change.