Xur Week Eight: 11/3/17

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Xur this week is located in the European Dead Zone near the Winding Cove drop zone.  He is located on top of a hill that has an actual path to get up there…  but I never can seem to find it…  so I end up hopping up the rocks.  In some ways this is a disappointing week and in other ways…  for Titans at least it is a potentially exciting one.  This represents the first week I have been able to do the entire screenshot thing on the PC as I now have Titan, Hunter and Warlock up to the appropriate levels to get the items at the 270 maximum level.  Lets get on with the items he brought for us.

Destiny 2

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This weapon is a little disappointing because it is one of the items you can get from the quest at the end of Io.  Additionally it seems to be an acquired taste.  Some folks absolutely love this thing… and others completely hate it.  It is essentially a pulse rifle that doesn’t fire like a pulse rifle, and in order to get the most out of it you sort of have to line your shots up like you were using a scout rifle.  That said it does seem to be considerably more reliable on the PC than it ever was on console.  If you can learn to use it you can shred things, but it takes a lot of getting used to.

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Mask of the Quiet One has become this defacto crucible relic of choice for a lot of Titans.  The perks do a few things…  one of which is actually important and the other not so much.  The lesser of the perks is that Void Ability kills grant health regeneration, which rewards a chunk of health back to your bar when you kill a target with any of your void abilities.  This is useful for Sentinel Titans but fails to trigger on shield slams making it a little fiddly.  The perk everyone cares about however is that when you are damaged you gain melee, grenade and class ability energy.  Again this is rewarded as just a chunk of your energy bar and why this is so insanely popular in the crucible is the fact that you are ALWAYS getting damaged.  Just the act of running around while trying to avoid taking damage… ends up seeing you take plenty of damage to make this item useful.  I picked it up because I do not already have a copy on PC side, and is well worth hanging on to just in case you find it useful.

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We’ve seen Nezarec’s Sin before from Xur and again it is a mid range item that to some extent gets out shined by several other Warlock exotics.  The perk Abyssal Extractors activates on void damage and causes you to gain a tiny sliver of energy back to grenade, melee and class ability.  This is interesting because the item says void damage and not void ability kills meaning you can proc it off of an energy or power weapon if you are carrying one of that type.  The biggest problem with the item is that the tick rate of this ability really is not that fast, and for me at least gets outshined by Eye of Another World which grants 10% increase to your recharge rates for doing nothing.  The only way Nezarec’s Sin would be useful is if you are really married to the voidwalker spec, and even then…  you are probably going to be better off just going with the Eye still.  It is worth getting the item for unlock purposes only.

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Do you love the Crucible?  Do you really like using Tripmine grenades?  If you answered yes to both then these might be the right exotics for you.  If not then they might still be worth just getting the unlock because they look awesome.  These are essentially a worse version of gauntlets of the same name from Destiny 1.  I say they are a worse version because the old ones used to give you an extra tripmine grenade charge, making it extremely useful for trapping up multiple spots in an area.  In Destiny 2 they lost the extra charge and instead gained additional duration which is nowhere near as sexy.  The other interesting benefit is that they now highlight targets damaged in your grenade blast, making it easier to see which players may or may not have been weakened and giving you the ability to track them through walls if you are going to chase them down.  This is a situationally good item for players who really like the crucible and really like trip mines…  if you are neither or these things then you can pretty comfortably pass them up.  They are still largely worth the unlock slot to me however.

Destiny 1

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In Destiny 1 this week Xur is located at the big gate near the speaker in the Tower.  Once again he is offering the formerly exclusive Jade Rabbit scout rifle giving a weird second chance for Xbox One users to get this up.  I am sincerely hoping that this is not going to be what he brings every week from now on since Destiny 1 has gone into maintenance mode.  Of the items available Twilight Garrison is especially interesting because it gives Titans the ability to do a midair dodge attack.

  • Legacy Special Weapon Engram – 31 Strange Coins
  • Twilight Garrison – Titan Chest – 13 Strange Coins
  • Don’t Touch Me – Hunter Arms – 13 Strange Coins
  • Alchemist’s Rainment – Warlock Chest – 13 Strange Coins
  • Jade Rabbit – Scout Rifle – 23 Strange Coins
  • Invective with Storm’s Reproach Ornament – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust
  • Zhalo Supercell with Shock Hazard Ornament – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust