destiny

Destiny 2

This week we have a phenomenal week for Xur at least as far as I am concerned.  He brought a bundle full of goodies that I either had never gotten to drop or did not yet have on the PC.  As a result this week is an extremely expensive week for me personally.  As is always the case he can be located on the Flashpoint location and in this case that is Titan.  You can find him in the rig section in a building devoid of enemy spawns.  That said be careful because they will absolutely stand at the doorway and shoot you while you are hanging out and doing your business with your face tentacled friend.  You might need to do a little pre-clear before you duck inside.  Let’s get on with the goodness.

Hard Light as a gun has always been in the marginal category as far as usefulness goes.  It was never a bad weapon but it also never really stood out in the pack.  The year two Hard Light feels better across the board but still is far from the best Auto Rifle that you could be using in your energy slot.  That said the it is still a really interesting weapon because of its ability to shoot around corners and the fact that it lacks damage fall off.  That is however a deceptive thing to say given the way Hard Light works in that it fires a volley of projectiles that go bouncing around as they hit surfaces, meaning you can in theory “curve the bullet” and fire around corners.  While the gun doesn’t have damage fall off there is absolutely accuracy falloff the further from your target you get because you increase the likelihood that it will encounter something else and cause the trajectory of the original round to shift.  All of this is still in the fun and interesting but not amazing category until you bring into play another intrinsic ability of the weapon, and that is to shift the elemental damage type by swapping around your perks.  This isn’t near as handy as the playstation exclusive sniper rifle that has a keybind allowing you to do it on the fly… but it does serve as an excellent prism/match game weapon that can shift to whatever element you happen to be lacking.  If you do not already have this it is well worth the pick up and I know I personally am definitely going to be grabbing this for the PC since I’ve yet to get it to drop otherwise.

The Synthoceps are another fun and interesting item, but maybe not best in slot at anything.  If you are a Titan you probably like punching things…  and these gauntlets improve the way you punch things.  The exotic perk Biotic Enhancements increases your melee range and improves melee damage when surrounded.  That last bit can be a slight improvement if you only have a few targets around you to a massive improvement when you are fighting packs of things like thralls.  If you combine this with something like the striker melee build…  you can do a number of very interesting things and cause massive amounts of damage as a melee titan.  Similarly this would benefit the sentinel spec path that causes you to regain health on melee kill, but not nearly as much given that spec cannot really chain melee abilities in the same fashion as Striker.  This is an item that I had yet to get so I am definitely picking it up for the unlock, and more than likely going to try out a striker melee build around it.

Do you really still want to punch all the things even as a Warlock?  Karnstein Armlets are a set of exotic gloves that are effectively all about punching things as a warlock.  They have a built in version of the devour perk, though as I understand it significantly weaker that causes you to gain health recovery on melee attacks.  Note that it says attacks and not kills so in theory just punching things are going to help slowly regenerate your health.  While doing this punch happy life you are also slowly increasing the regeneration of your melee, grenade and class ability.  I am absolutely certain there is a build out there that could make the most of this… and I feel like double dipping with devour is maybe a great option.  Sometimes you look an an item and think to yourself…  I can build something around this and that is definitely the case with these gauntlets.  If nothing else I wanted to pick them up simply because I did not have the unlock in my collection.

The Lucky Raspberry is a returning item from Destiny 1 that more or less kept the same ability.  Probability Matrix the exotic perk causes your arc bolt grenades to chain significantly further than in their default state.  Additionally dealing damage with your arc grenade has a chance of recharging your grenade.  This means that if you drop your arc grenades in a large pack of mobs, it is extremely likely you are going to get a proc and return your full grenade charge.  This makes this item a beast for doing something like the Nightfall on the weeks where every kill counts towards gaining back time on the clock because you can wait until arc burn and become a mad bomber dropping grenades everywhere.  The rest of the time however you are probably not going to see enough mobs tightly clumped to really make this worth using.  Occasionally in the team shot environment of the crucible you can drop one and take out an entire team…  but that is going to be the exception rather than the rule.  Still a very interesting chest to pick up and at least add it to your collection.

Destiny 1

Xur had a similarly interesting day in Destiny 1 as he brought a couple of my favorite items.  Firstly the Armamentarium is the chest piece that I want back for my Titan more than anything because it simply gives you a second grenade charge.  Right now I am so enamored with striker titan largely because it is the only spec I can have this functionality back.  Similarly once I found the Bones of Eao I never looked back because it started enabling me to quad jump as a Hunter, a piece of utility that beat out every other possible exotic that I might want in that slot.  The Warlock helm is largely forgettable because it is their version of the Alpha Lupi chest that Hunters and Titans have…  but Xur did bring the Universal Remote which is the very odd primary slot shotgun.  Lots of stuff worth picking up if you don’t already have them… and I would say for Titan and Hunter these are absolute must haves.  Enough so that I am legitimately considering grinding out the strange coins so I have them on my Xbox One account.  Here is the full run down of what he is selling.

• Legacy Chest Engram – 29 Strange Coins
• The Armamentarium – Titan Chest – 13 Strange Coins
• Bones of Eao – Hunter Boots – 13 Strange Coins
• Light Beyond Nemesis – Warlock Helm – 13 Strange Coins
• Universal Remote – Primary Shotgun – 17 Strange Coins
• Dragon’s Breath and Tigershark Ornament – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust
• Nemesis Star and Meteorite Ornament – 30 Strange Coins 25 Silver Dust