Destiny: The King's Fall Raid Strategy Guide Part 1

The Prior Raids

King's Fall marks the third raid to be released for Destiny players. The first raid, the Vault of Glass, has been marked by most of the Destiny playerbase as a truly awesome experience that never seems to get dull, and always presents a challenge due to the mechanics and puzzles presented to the players. Crota's End, the second raid, has been criticized since it launched with the first expansion for Destiny, The Dark Below. Most of the raid's puzzles and mechanics could simply be skipped due to poor design and small glitches, not to mention the hard mode version had next to no difference than normal mode, except for an increased level cap (which was above what players could achieve at this time), to make the raid more difficult without having to add any mechanics. The King's Fall raid which came with The Taken King expansion, and opened up for players on Friday blows these first two raids out of the water.

Opening the Raid

To first gain access to the raid a player had to be level 40, completed the main storyline for The Taken King, and have a light level of around 290 (which is the recommended level). The fireteam will load in to the Dreadnaught, at the entrance to the Court of Oryx. There will be two relics that spawn right next to you, both must be picked up, and placed in the glowing statue around the same time in the hallway leading to the Court of Oryx. Enemies will begin spawning, and the two more relics will spawn, one down the corridor to the left, the other to the right. The ideal way to manage this is to split into three teams of two. Two left, two right, and two stay in the main room to clear the enemies and destroy the barriers that are summoned once a relic is picked up. Rinse and repeat this strategy until all six statues are glowing, each time you place the relics, they will spawn further away. Enemies also spawn around the relic holder when each are picked up, which is why you send two people in each direction. Once all six statues have been placed, the portal in the Court of Oryx will open and you can enter the raid.

Jumping Puzzles Set #1
After running through the portal, grab your first chest, which only gives moldering shards and ammo synths before moving on to the first of two jumping puzzles in this area. The first is not really a puzzle, but a series of platforms that are arranged in a zig-zag formation, which every few seconds will switch sides. If you are looking to play it safe, just simply wait until after they move and take one platform at a time. The second jumping puzzle consists of a series of hive tomb ships that you have to jump on top of as you make your way across a chasm. Advice here is to max out your agility stat, even use perks that you would not normally use, such as angel of light for sunsinger warlocks, because it grants an extra agility point. Hunters could use Bones of Eao here and not worry about dropping in light level because there are no enemies here to be careful with. In this jumping puzzle, you should focus your attention towards the direction the ship you are on is moving towards and constantly check to the left and right for the next ship spawning in. Once you make it across, there will be another ship that travels straight towards the next area. The doorway is sealed off by two plates that must be held active by two of your fireteam members so the other four can pass through the doorway. There are two other plates once you pass through the doorway to allow the two members that held the original plates open to catch up. Continue on by going up the gravity lift to move to the next checkpoint.

The Warpriest
The Warpriest is the first boss encounter of the raid, but you first have to gain access to it. When your group first enters the room there will be several hive bowing their heads towards a blocked doorway, to open the doorway your fireteam should split into two groups of three. Each group will pick a side, left and right, on your way down to the annihilator totems on each side there will be a buff that you will have to claim. The buff, and those standing close to the person holding the buff are shielded from the small damage over time each those will take once you enter each side. The buff has a thirty-second timer, upon expiration, it will be transferred to one of the other players standing in its aura and the player who just lost the buff will gain a new one titled Deathsinger's Power x10. This player from each side should then run to the middle, and stand on the plate there to drain away this buff. Doing this will work towards opening the door, which you can tell how far your group has progressed by watching the runes on either side of the door light up. Having a few defender titans in this encounter that place their bubbles on top of the plate in the middle can make this encounter a breeze. Once you have drained your entire Deathsinger's Power buff, run back to your corresponding totem, and the next player that gets Deathsinger's Power will rotate into mid. If you fail to drain your entire Deathsinger's Power buff, you will not be able to reacquire the buff that allows you to survive while standing on the totems.

Once your team has opened the door you can begin the Warpriest fight. There are three small plates in this room, top left, front middle, and up the small stairs to the right; stand on all three at the same time to begin. The Warpriest is immune to normal damage, dodge his fire, while clearing away all the enemies that spawn until you see a hallowed sword knight that spawns on each side and in the middle. Once each one of these has been killed, the glyph sequence will be started. Send one of the two guardians in mid behind the three pillars with runes on the front. On the back side near the top of each pillar is a small symbol that will glow blue if the corresponding plate is the next on in the sequence to be pressed. Have a member of your team go stand on that plate, and another symbol will glow blue, have another member move to the next plate, and then activate the last plate. You must stay on each plate while waiting for the others to be activated. The person who activates the last plate will get a buff that allows those standing in the red aura to damage the Warpriest. This aura lasts for ten seconds, the person who holds the buff can refresh the timer up to five times by killing an acolyte. If they fail to refresh the buff, they will die and the buff will be passed to another person. After the buff expires the Warpriest will activate the Oculus, which will kill anyone not standing behind one of the pillars. Your entire fireteam should stand behind the same pillar as you should already be grouped up close to the person who had the damage aura. Once the Oculus is over, the pillar will be consumed. Enemies will respawn and repeat the process until the Warpriest is defeated. Since one of the pillars is gone, when it is the corresponding plate's turn to be activated, a beam of red light will be where the pillar used to be. You have four rotations to kill the Warpriest, as there are three pillars, on the fourth buff claiming the Oculus will kill you. In addition, once the Warpriest health is dropped low enough, ~30% or so, Taken enemies will spawn instead of Hive.

I hope to get Part 2, which will cover the rest of the raid, up in a few days!

The Crucible: How update 2.0.0 changed Destiny PvP Secondary & Heavy Weapons

Overview

This post is part two to my previous blog entry that I published yesterday which highlighted how the new Destiny update changed primary weapons for the crucible. The focus of this post will be to finish examining how this update changed the crucible but with secondary and heavy weapons.

Secondary Weapons

Secondary weapons remain relatively unchanged in the new update. Snipers, obviously, still dominate the picks for long range, and are selected on the few maps with good sight-lines where they can be used safely and avoid getting engaged on in close combat. Shotguns with range perks still dominate the close engagements, as they have only received a slight range nerf and the other secondary weapon class that can be used effectively at close range, fusion rifles, are still inferior in almost all aspects to shotguns. While they can be used at a longer range than shotguns, the delay of firing with having to charge the weapon, the travel time of the bolts, and the spread of the bolts all make the damage that these weapons can do too inconsistent for most players to use them. Even fusion rifles with strong base stats and perfect perk choices, can struggle for kills at their optimal ranges. I leave the sidearm class off this list on purpose, as there are only two sidearm weapons in the game, they are almost never used, and therefore are hard to place in comparison to the other weapons.

Heavy Weapons

The heavy weapon class, much like the secondary class, has not seen any changes. Rocket launchers still show their dominance over heavy machine guns. This trend is not necessarily showing that rockets are stronger than heavy machine guns, but they serve a much different purpose, and this purpose is valued much higher by most crucible players. Heavy machine guns are much better at chaining kills together and snowballing the game through having the strongest DPS gun in a firefight. Rockets fulfill a very different role, clearing out congested areas and giving your opponent no chance at fighting back. This enables a team to quickly gain an advantage over another, or take away an advantage that the other team has achieved. Rockets are also a great counter to those that choose to use heavy machine guns, as the quick instant kill counteracts their high DPS. This class however may be subject to change, as the Taken King DLC that launches tomorrow morning, introduces a new heavy weapon class, swords. Although just by looking at the weapon type and relative nature of swords in other games, it is not far fetched to say that swords will be outshone in the crucible by their other heavy weapon counterparts. 

The Crucible: How update 2.0.0 changed Destiny PvP Primary Weapons

For months every Destiny player knew what they were signing up for when they decided to play a few games of crucible whether it be Iron Banner, Trials of Osiris or Clash. The equipment for every guardian was the same, Thorn or The Last Word exotic handcannons occupied the primary weapon slot. A rerolled Felwinter's Lie, Matador 64 or Party Crasher shotgun to have shot package/rangefinder with rifled barrel in the secondary slot.Wrapping up the inventory in the heavy weapon slot were the rocket launchers, rerolled to have the grenades and horseshoes (proximity detonation) perk, with tripod/clown cartridge. This led to an inevitably stale experience when playing crucible, and those brave guardians who strayed from this just put themselves at a disadvantage. The weapon rebalancing that came with update 2.0.0 which released on Septemember 8th in preparation for The Taken King DLC which launches this Tuesday, changes this stale crucible gameplay.

The premiere primary weapon class is a little tough to call with only a week of gameplay to go off of, but if I had to choose at this moment, I would say that pulse rifles are the strongest. Both exotics of this class, Red Death and Bad Juju, are extremely strong and a huge amount of legendary pulse rifles can go toe to toe with any weapon in the game. Scout rifles seem to be a class that is often overlooked in the crucible. These weapons favor mid to long range combat which the majority of crucible maps lack. Just as it was before the update, the only scout rifle used regularly in the crucible is the exotic MIDA Multi-Tool. Its relatively fast fire rate, amazing accuracy, and special perk that boosts agility allows skilled players to outmaneuver their enemies to pick up kills.  Handcannons were the weapon class that had reigned supreme for the past eight months in the crucible, but no more. The trio of exotics Thorn, The Last Word, and Hawkmoon (PS exclusive) saw slight tweaks across the board that have made them fall from the clear tier one of weapons into tier two. Don't be too alarmed however, these weapons are still strong, Thorn went from a two shot headshot kill, to a three shot body and walk away. The Last Word still dominates close quarters firefights amongst all primary weapons. Hawkmoon remains the long range choice for handcannons, and can instantly turn a lopsided firefight into your favor with just one luck damage shot landing. Lastly, the original kings of the crucible, the auto rifles. Once the top tier of weapons across not only PvP in Destiny, but PvE as well, the auto rifles have begun to creep back into play with the new update. The once useless exotic Necrochasm is now something to be feared at close ranges. The Hard Light with its freshly buffed ricocheting bullets is a fresh approach to the game and can make for some interesting kills. Finally, the once steady hand of the Suros Regime returns, and although it isn't as overpowering as it once was, guardians are rather pleased to see an old favorite return to life.