We Broke Time

Yesterday was the opening of a brand new season in Destiny 2 and with it comes a new batch of events to participate in and quests to complete. Thankfully it seems that if you failed to complete any of the “Ritual” weapons from last season they are still in your quest log and seemingly something you can continue to chew on. I am SUPER thankful about this because I have done a relatively poor job at keeping up with these, and as a result I have a massive backlog of things to work on over time. Gone is the Vex Incursion and here to replace it is the Sundial, which involves us attempting to fight back waves of Cabal culminating in a battle with a super powered Psion.

Similar to last season, if you have the seasons pass you get a full set of the armor and an exotic scout rifle called the Symmetry. Taking this to Banshee unlocks the catalyst quest, and for someone who generally does not like scout rifles at all this is a pretty solid weapon. It is fairly fast firing for a Scout Rifle and packs a surprising punch, but I have not really spent much time doing content with it. I have to admit I was a little uncertain of what this season would feel like since the last season dropped at the same time as a whole bunch of expansion content. However as a result it feels like Bungie made this event way more intricate to make up for the fact that we are not also spending a lot of time doing Shadowkeep content at the same time.

Attached to the Sundial is powering up pylons that appear on different destinations. The first of these is on the Tangled Shore and involves doing content there to gain energy, when you then bank into the pylon. Once the pylon has been unlocked you can spend a currency called Fractaline that you get from doing bounties and completing main quest steps in order to further power up the pylon. Each rank seems to unlock new weapons that you can attempt to “forge” of sorts by completing a bounty effectively phasing them into reality. I completed several of these last night trying to get better rolls of the new Auto Rifle called Steelfeather Repeater which is a fast rate of fire weapon that just sounds and feels awesome to use.

Another weapon that I got from the first pylon was Breachlight, which is a truly badass looking sidearm. Normally speaking I don’t really like sidearms, but this is of the pulse variety firing I believe 3 rounds per burst. I can’t say that my particular roll was amazing, but it is not horrible. The main reason why I am getting used to this is that one of the new ritual weapons this season is also a sidearm and requires you to get a bunch of kills in strikes using that weapon class. I like that they are mixing things up each season and trying to get us playing with different weapon types.

Once again there are two weapons unlocked by leveling your way through the seasons journey. For Undying it was an Auto Rifle and a Heavy Machinegun… both weapons that are thoroughly in my wheelhouse. This time around the first one unlocked is a thoroughly mediocre rocket launcher. Ultimately for me there are three perks I care about on Rocket Launchers… Tracking, Cluster Bombs and Proximity Detonation. This has none of those and as a result is not likely ever going to replace my baby Gjallarhorn which has Tracking and Clusterbombs on it.

Another weapon that is absolutely not generally in my wheelhouse is the sniper rifle. I never use them. Like in Destiny 1 I used to use them during burn phases, but it always feels like there is never enough ammunition available to make them worthwhile. The Trophy Hunter unlocks later in the seasons journey and is extremely high impact and long range… which could be useful for using it to break void shields thanks to the Genesis perk giving you back ammunition. It also has Dragonfly which might be useful if you slot in a Dragonfly mod… which reminds me that I really need to spend more time forging weapons so that I can buy more Black Armory mods. I am not exactly excited to have this weapon but that is only because I am not a sniper person.

The weapon I am the most excited about… I think is going to be tied to the Recovering the Past quest line. I loved Saint-14s shotgun from the Curse of Osiris expansion, and I am hoping that we get an exotic version of this through the questline, or at least a better modern legendary version. I feel like I barely had time to scratch the surface of the new content and there are already enough switches to flip to keep me happy for a bit. I am only rank 2 for the season, so over the next few weeks I will be working on grinding out Rank 100 again to unlock everything. I really like the direction they are going with this game and since I am effectively done with Season 19 in Diablo 3, I am ready to go here again.