Destiny Discussion Thread - Fear The Moon Wizards on September 9th

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aFrostyONE said:
Nice.
It looked like you guys don't bother popping the titan bubble on the tower, right?
Nope. I had wanted to try that but we pretty much had it down with just staggering the boomers on the right side. Rad with his level 31 char did a good job of that (better than me when I had been doing it earlier). In fact, it might work out better with a 31 since they won't damage them that much but can still stagger them. You don't want to kill both of them of course (because then a wizard comes out). So the way it works is 3 people each fire one G-Horn rocket and then follow up with primary. The other 2 are responsible for staggering the right side boomers. That reminds me of another BS glitch. If the 3 rocket shots are too perfect and all arrive at the same time, it doesn't seem to register as much damage and Crota won't kneel. We wiped at least 2 or 3 times because of being too well coordinated.

The hardest part for us was dealing with the ogres once the two swords were up. Chammer had Crota down to less than 1/4 at that point. We were running into the lower right tower where one of the ogres spawns. I had a hard time with that because I kept getting hit by stuff and on my Hunter currently have no way of healing (though by next week I'll have that Mask of the Third Man maxed out for orb health regen). I also couldn't jump up onto the doorways to save my life. Bu luckily I was just fine on the smaller ledges though the Ogre would come out nearly right on top of me. The guys up top took him out nearly instantly though.

We screwed up, though, when we didn't handle the second one across the way quickly enough before he moves to the center. Once we got him, though, we were nearly home free. We just wait for Crota to return middle and then it is just one more round - which is the part you see in the video. Of course even there we had some bad luck a few times. One time the swordbearer went WAY off to the left inside the ogre room I think and by the time we got him down, Crota moved left.
 
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How do you guys find 2-3+ crews to run raids with....I'm having a hard time finding 1, I know I got help from some of you CAGs recently and I'm very appreciative but to find a crew to run stuff weekly seems almost impossible specially with my small windows every night. So jelly...I'm going to try to see if my luck improves with Dads of Destiny.
For me at least I have 3 groups I can run with. io's if they need someone, I've been filling in. I have 2 friends that I've known IRL since Halo 2 (we are all from the same hometown). And then I have a pool of about 8-10 that I've met through mutual friends. Funny thing is, quite a few of them are from the achievement community and still can't stop playing Destiny despite getting all the achievements already. :D

I love playing shooters with my 2 IRL buddies. We get each other's play styles and have so much time spent playing together it usually doesn't matter who the other 3 are. :)

 
Second character, lfg group, first try. Conversation literally was hey guys were doing the middle technique. I haven't had it that smooth on normal even.
 
Tojokun1 said:
Second character, lfg group, first try. Conversation literally was hey guys were doing the middle technique. I haven't had it that smooth on normal even.
Ha - nice. But that is definitely an outlier with respect to LFG groups. Plus even on "middle technique" there are a lot of variations. Does the swordbearer go left or right and do you kill or just stagger boomers? DO you use Titan bubbles on the boomers or near Crota? How do you deal with Ogres, etc...

My one LFG attempt on hard they stayed left and tried to kill everything, thus spawning the wizard. The problem was it would often spawn right when it was time to down Crota.
 
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Also wanted to note, if anyone that is not 32 or even any 32s that haven't passed the first part of the raid, I am capable of solo'ing that part with my hunter and can run people through it to try and get the Pulse Rifle. :)

I did tell Rad I would run him through it so got some other slots open.  It takes about 10 minutes as long as I don't screw up at the end but I got 2 consecutive runs in last night. :D

 
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So Crota on Hard mode only drops the primaries.  So if you did Hard mode first can you still do normal to get a shot at the old weapons or are you done for the week?

My schedule is all over the board so I have pretty much been raiding with people from lfg and some others I have added from there. I'd much rather join with some people from here, but things haven't worked out.  I have had a decent amount of luck, but I'm in the same boat as most others, i just want to get the scout rifle and the auto rifle and not bother with hard mode unless I have to.

I did have some good luck last night running with a group starting from the 2nd bridge.  Eventually cheesed it with 2 guys across and a warlock using radiance on the starting side.  The group wanted to stay around and try to do the deathsinger and after wiping a few times we were able to take her out.  One of the group was like "isn't that is, i thought we defeated her" I told him that we needed to leave the room and wipe out the other ads for it to go forward and then when we finished 'everyone would get ghallahorn'.  So sure enough we finished up and I finally got Gjallahorn!  One of the last exotics I needed I finally scored so that was a pretty good night for me.

 
Oh yeah definitely, I was wondering if someone was going to run outside right after the crystal room in the beginning but we all knew to stay back. Makes the sword bearer much easier.
 
So Crota on Hard mode only drops the primaries. So if you did Hard mode first can you still do normal to get a shot at the old weapons or are you done for the week?
You're done, unfortunately. I have all the primaries already so next week I'm running on normal first to try for armor with better stats. I want intellect and discipline for my characters.

 
Also wanted to note, if anyone that is not 32 or even any 32s that haven't passed the first part of the raid, I am capable of solo'ing that part with my hunter and can run people through it to try and get the Pulse Rifle. :)

I did tell Rad I would run him through it so got some other slots open. It takes about 10 minutes as long as I don't screw up at the end but I got 2 consecutive runs in last night. :D
Vendetta I am 27 now so probably too low but if you want to help I am down :D Wont be on till later tonight 10pm EST. Add me my GT is in my sig.

 
Tojokun1 said:
Oh yeah definitely, I was wondering if someone was going to run outside right after the crystal room in the beginning but we all knew to stay back. Makes the sword bearer much easier.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Middle technique requires running out and jumping to the window doesn't it?

CaseX said:
You're done, unfortunately. I have all the primaries already so next week I'm running on normal first to try for armor with better stats. I want intellect and discipline for my characters.
Actually, you can still get armor from the hard Raid along with the primaries. It is only at Crota that you don't seem to get the special/heavy weapons even if you haven't run Normal. You can still get a helm there though. All I got from my very first Hard mode clear was the shader, ship, and Warlock helm.

It could be a bug that they will fix, because it seems like it should be like Atheon where you could get anything from the whole loot pool. It could also just be that much like Crota Normal mode, on your first run you are guaranteed the shader along with a hard mode drop (which is a primary or the helm) and on subsequent weeks it will revert to being 2 chances from the entire pool. I'll be running hard mode first thing Monday night after reset so I'll let you guys know what happens then.

I examined the rewards at the end of my video from the second bridge and here were our drops:

Me (who had run Normal): 3 radiant shards
Vendetta (not sure): radiant shards + Deathsinger's Herald
Guy #3: (did not run Normal): radiant shards, radiant energy, Tireless Striders
Guy #4: (again not sure): radiant shards, Willbreaker's Greaves

And, well, even though there were 6 of us you know how the game is flaky with showing everyone the rewards so I didn't see what the other 2 got. But the point is, armor definitely drops from the Hard mode at least for people who hadn't run Normal yet and possibly even for those who did.

But I can see why you might want to run Normal first as you have less chance of a double hard mode drop like could happen on VoG. Also it will be kind of exciting to see if anyone gets the Crux in the second week.
 
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It could be a bug that they will fix, because it seems like it should be like Atheon where you could get anything from the whole loot pool. It could also just be that much like Crota Normal mode, on your first run you are guaranteed the shader along with a hard mode drop (which is a primary or the helm) and on subsequent weeks it will revert to being 2 chances from the entire pool. I'll be running hard mode first thing Monday night after reset so I'll let you guys know what happens then.
...
But I can see why you might want to run Normal first as you have less chance of a double hard mode drop like could happen on VoG. Also it will be kind of exciting to see if anyone gets the Crux in the second week.
That'll be helpful. Thanks! I'm usually asleep at the reset and read about your progress the next morning. I definitely don't want to run hard first if there's a chance I might end up with two more pulse rifles. In the hard Vault, there had been multiple instances where I got two shotguns or two Fatebringers from one checkpoint.

 
So over the weekend I'm working on maxing out Word of Crota and Abyss Defiant since I figure the Burn this week has to be something other than Arc. Watch them now use arc again ;). But if so, I'll just go with Fatebringer.

There's some discussion on the Bungie forums about Fatebringer still being a better gun than Word of Crota. That is kind of disappointing. Apparently the higher damage is offset by lower impact and the overall damage ends up being about the same but you lack the Firefly perk on Word of Crota.

And yeah, just like with Hive Disruptor and the ammo regen perk not working together on Black Hammer, apparently there is the same problem with the "Phantom Gift" (3 rapid precision shots return one to the mag) and Hive Disruptor. Sigh...
 
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So over the weekend I'm working on maxing out Word of Crota and Abyss Defiant since I figure the Burn this week has to be something other than Arc. Watch them now use arc again ;). But if so, I'll just go with Fatebringer.

There's some discussion on the Bungie forums about Fatebringer still being a better gun than Word of Crota. That is kind of disappointing. Apparently the higher damage is offset by lower impact and the overall damage ends up being about the same but you lack the Firefly perk on Word of Crota.

And yeah, just like with Hive Disruptor and the ammo regen perk not working together on Black Hammer, apparently there is the same problem with the "Phantom Gift" (3 rapid precision shots return one to the mag) and Hive Disruptor. Sigh...
Fun fact - 50% of all nightfalls have been arc. And yes, impact means everything (which is why most of the old 300 vanguard gear is still better than the new ones in a sense)

 
I have been absent from the thread all weekend so I am trying to play catch-up!

What is your strategy for Crota? Our sword guy invariably (well all but one time when I was there) either gets killed from boomers or by taking too long and getting hit by Crota.
We have changed a couple times but the by far best way that we have done it now is:

  • Start off normal
  • Leave Knights with low health so that they can be supered (ideally by a Gunslinger) so that we have a safe pool of at least 8 orbs then in the main room for healing
  • Everyone go to glass ledge (Thrall can kill you on the later runs of this through the glass so you have to stay at the edge of the ledge)
  • Take out Swordbearer
  • As the guy goes to grab the sword we have a Titan run to the top right bridge and puts up a bubble that aggros the Boomers
  • First take down we pelt him with primary as the sword and bubble get into place and then as the sword guy runs up we shoot 1-2 rockets to finish.
  • Sword guy goes invis with his melee and then we all rocket him again.
  • As soon as Crota is down the 2nd time we run to the left. The first guy going in the left should be a Titan with Blessing of Light that puts up a bubble in the doorway so that everyone gets inside easy without taking damage from left side Boomers.
  • Regroup in the spawn
  • As soon as Crota moves from the right back to middle we have one Titan put up a Blessing of Light bubble at the right door and we all run through and have Blessing as we go to the middle ledge again and are protected from the right Boomers if they hit us.
  • Same as the first time where we have Titan on the right taking aggro and we down Crota twice. Sword guy makes sure that his total hit count does not exceed 13-14 heavy smashes.
  • As soon as Crota takes a knee for the second time in that set everyone runs to the right. We all pass through the bubble that was aggroing the Boomers and get Blessing of Light. We then go into the bottom right tower and jump up on the doorways.
  • Everyone sits and waits and then the Ogre comes out of the doorway and we all rocket him to death instantly from above him and he dies without even doing anything.
  • We drop another Blessing of Light bubble right before the doorway out of the right tower and we just take out the second Ogre from there as by this point he is right in the middle.
  • We all snatch up a quick thing of Blessing of Light and make our way up the right side stairs avoiding the Thrall back to the spawn.
  • From here we stick together taking out the Thrall form the center and we wait a full rotation. We get there and Crota is in the middle but we wait for him to go to the side first because otherwise there won't be enough time.
  • As he goes from the side back to the middle we repeat the same as before with the first bubble with Blessing and we all take our positions.
  • As soon as we finish the first down of Crota his Oversoul summons and we just ignore it completely as we just rocket him as soon as we can to take him down a second time and he dies right then and cancels Oversoul.

This method is pretty freaking awesome and we have been able to do it first try no problem this way. Having at least 2 Titans then is a big deal and then a Hunter for sword duty. Then any other Hunters stick to Gunslinger to help create orbs for healing and bubbles.

Oh yeah, and there was that cool time earlier in the evening that I carried Vendetta's team at the second bridge as the only one still alive (on the side with the Ogres) - had to kill them both by myself and just barely pulled it off. That was pretty cool and definitely the best individual thing I've ever done in this game (or perhaps any game).
There was one time you joined me and my buddy Loskevbo in a Nightfall and we both were dead as you joined and you just freaking destroyed everything and won it for us. It was pretty freaking awesome and so whenever I mention you I am always like, yeah my one friend that freaking beast moded and destroyed everything for us that one Nightfall. Hahah

I have completed all my Crota kills now and I have every weapon I can get. I have all the Special and Heavy from Normal and now I have all 4 Primaries from Hard. I also scored a Warlock Helmet with 114 INT and the Gain Health from Orbs perk which is perfect because now it opens up the ability to use my Gauntlet or Chest piece exotics on him.

Only things I am missing from the Raid now are the Hunter Helmet, Hunter Class Armor and the Crux of Crota.

Realistically I think at this point I am going to take a back seat with Destiny. I will still play of course but really there is not much else driving me forward other than the Crux... which I am sure you guys have seen has been reported!

http://www.inquisitr.com/1787186/destiny-crux-of-crota-finally-drops-necrochasm-will-require-multiple-crotas-end-completions/

*Also I got a new Truth and Icebreaker from Crota. I have refused to upgrade Truth on multiple occassions now so it is funny that I finally have the new one. Icebreaker I am just going to keep. I have decided to keep my extras of those main guns since my Vault is always so full. I have 2x Gjallarhorns and 2x Icebreakers. I should have just bought another Icebreaker last time but I just made the decision to keep my spares of those two guns today haha

 
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Nice strategy Broly, sounds like a pretty fool-proof plan, especially if you have a group you run it with every week.  What are the chances I can pass all this info along to a LFG group while loading from orbit?  lol

Still confused how the Normal/Hard crota drops go.  Sounds like the weapons are on 2 different loot tables.  Helmet can drop on either.  If you run Normal -> Hard you can get drops at both.  If you run Hard -> Normal you will get what?  Nothing at all?  I'm sure someone has run hard first this week then did normal.

 
Nice strategy Broly, sounds like a pretty fool-proof plan, especially if you have a group you run it with every week. What are the chances I can pass all this info along to a LFG group while loading from orbit? lol

Still confused how the Normal/Hard crota drops go. Sounds like the weapons are on 2 different loot tables. Helmet can drop on either. If you run Normal -> Hard you can get drops at both. If you run Hard -> Normal you will get what? Nothing at all? I'm sure someone has run hard first this week then did normal.
Haha well hopefully similar strategies become the norm at least so that LFG players are at least somewhat competent!

From what I have seen Primaries and Helmets are all that are dropping in Hard. I have not seen anyone get any special or heavy weapons or any other armors.

I have not tried it myself but I would imagine it is the same as before where you only get rewards on Hard, though I have not seen anyone get double rewards on Atheon yet. Double as in no 2x Legendary Helmet/Weapons. I wonder then if the drop rate truly is doubled then on hard or what? I know I just skimmed the thread this weekend but perhaps others have reported something other than that?

 
Broly,

That is the exact strategy we settled on towards the end of our runs except for all the Titan bubble placements. I mean sometimes people put them in the doorways on the way in, but we're never consistent about it. The thing is you don't 100% need to do any of that which is good since then it doesn't require any Titans be in the group. The problem with all the winning strats, though, is that they require a Hunter sword bearer... In our group the guy who handles that has 2 Hunters and 1 Warlock, so we're good on 2 runs. But then he'd need someone else to handle the sword the 3rd time. We do have one other regular who likes to run as a Hunter and can do it just fine on Normal - but he hasn't tried the sword on hard yet and I feel like it will take an hour or two's worth of attempts for him to get his timing down.

GLOCKGLOCK said:
Nice strategy Broly, sounds like a pretty fool-proof plan, especially if you have a group you run it with every week. What are the chances I can pass all this info along to a LFG group while loading from orbit? lol

Still confused how the Normal/Hard crota drops go. Sounds like the weapons are on 2 different loot tables. Helmet can drop on either. If you run Normal -> Hard you can get drops at both. If you run Hard -> Normal you will get what? Nothing at all? I'm sure someone has run hard first this week then did normal.
I'm 99% sure you'd get nothing from Normal after doing it on Hard.

I'll try to summarize what I've seen:

- You still get armor drops from the 1st two checkpoints when running hard. But I think only if you haven't done normal. On just Hard, it seemed like it was either 2 or 3 mats or the pulse/auto rifle. People who hadn't run Normal got like 5 mats as well per checkpoint - so they are getting double mat drops.
- Crota only seems to drop the primaries and the helmet (along with the shader, ship, and sparrow) on Hard, even if you have run it on normal. As I said before, though, this may just be a "first week" thing so you are guaranteed a "good" first drop (even though it can just be the helmet like I got on my first clear).
- Oh yeah, Crota also does still drop exotics. I got a Plan C.
- Chests and Ir Yut do not drop anything on just Hard if you did them on Normal, so there is only one drop for those. I did see people who hadn't run Normal get those during our Hard run though - as expected.

Running it through on Hard after doing Normal I ended up with about 5 more shards/energy (from the first two checkpoints I believe) and then the special drops (primaries, exotics, ship, sparrow, shader). I only ever got one "extra" thing from Crota. My Warlock got the helm + ship. My Titan got the Scout Rifle + Plan C, and my Hunter got Word of Crota + sparrow. From the earlier checkpoints I got 2 pulse rifles and 1 auto rifle. I'm guessing that the guaranteed primary/helm drop is a first-week thing just like when Crota first came out and everyone got a weapon on their first run. I expect to see a lot of disappointing mat-only drops from Crota from now on. But hopefully it is like Atheon and there is still a chance for the other weapons too. Like on one recent Atheon hard run I got both Atheon's Epilogue and Vex Mythoclast.

BrolyB593 said:
Haha well hopefully similar strategies become the norm at least so that LFG players are at least somewhat competent!

From what I have seen Primaries and Helmets are all that are dropping in Hard. I have not seen anyone get any special or heavy weapons or any other armors.
Yeah, same here. But hopefully we get at least 2 runs in tomorrow night if not 3 and I'll report back what happens with a full 6 people running it on Hard without having done Normal. I need to figure out if I can still get Hunger of Crota. On the other hand, with the Crux now apparently dropping (what, is the drop rate so low that it took this long for one person to get it, or did they secretly turn it on today?), I'll want to maximize my chances and if that means running it on Hard only then so be it. I can live without Hunger of Crota.
 
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BrolyB593 said:
Whoa - that seems to imply that this guy got it with multiple runs. But since there hasn't been a reset yet that means this is an oddball drop that can still happen even if you already got rewards that week. That is... interesting. Hopefully it doesn't require multiple kills in a single week (on the same character). Hopefully it just means the more kills on one character, the more chance of a drop (with perhaps it requiring some set number before it drops at all). If we start seeing a ton of them Tuesday then we know it was just locked out of the first run rewards, which kind of makes sense. Everyone gets something from that first run (even if it is just a helm) so it wouldn't have made much sense also to hand out the Crux.

FYI - I was playing around the with Scout rifle marking ability tonight and it is kind of interesting. I was wondering if other people on Cosmodrome patrol could see it though. I have confirmed that my fireteam members on a Strike, at least, could see it. It is a green light emanating from the enemy's head and up into the air a few feet - so not at all like the highlight on the enemy who kills you.
 
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That is the exact strategy we settled on towards the end of our runs except for all the Titan bubble placements. I mean sometimes people put them in the doorways on the way in, but we're never consistent about it. The thing is you don't 100% need to do any of that which is good since then it doesn't require any Titans be in the group. The problem with all the winning strats, though, is that they require a Hunter sword bearer.
Yeah it definitely can be done without the bubbles but with them and all the Blessing of Light on everyone it makes it EXTREMELY unlikely that anyone will die from a random shot or Cursed Thrall or something so long as they stick to the plan. It just adds that extra level of consistency I feel like.

And yeah the whole Hunter thing is completely unavoidable. I have racked my brain since the release of the Raid trying to think how else you could do it but now especially with the Hard Raid it is even more difficult. With a skilled player you still can get through without a Hunter swordbearer but the chances of success/consistency go way down because the Boomers are more likely to kill him on the retreat between downs. What would be cool is if Crota couldn't hit through Ward of Dawn bubbles and so a Titan could go up, drop a bubble and do the same thing essentially as a Hunter. Or that if Crota wasn't so damn strong a Sunsinger could use their melee and get an overshield to withstand the first hit.

Again, we have done it without a Hunter it just makes the whole thing way easier with one. I completely agree though I wish there were a more consistent strategy that did not rely on the Hunter being the only one doing the damage.

 
I started a warlock yesterday and just finished Venus at level 16. I have Obsidian mind, as well as legendary arms and boots, in my vault so I should be able to have him to 31 by next weekend. I had planned to start another titan just to double my chance at drops, but I didn't want to waste all that gear. So far it's been fun using a different class, aiming nova bomb has been tough to get down, but I'm preferring it over fist of havoc.

Story is a lot easier the second time.
 
Whoa - that seems to imply that this guy got it with multiple runs. But since there hasn't been a reset yet that means this is an oddball drop that can still happen even if you already got rewards that week. That is... interesting. Hopefully it doesn't require multiple kills in a single week (on the same character). Hopefully it just means the more kills on one character, the more chance of a drop (with perhaps it requiring some set number before it drops at all). If we start seeing a ton of them Tuesday then we know it was just locked out of the first run rewards, which kind of makes sense. Everyone gets something from that first run (even if it is just a helm) so it wouldn't have made much sense also to hand out the Crux.

FYI - I was playing around the with Scout rifle marking ability tonight and it is kind of interesting. I was wondering if other people on Cosmodrome patrol could see it though. I have confirmed that my fireteam members on a Strike, at least, could see it. It is a green light emanating from the enemy's head and up into the air a few feet - so not at all like the highlight on the enemy who kills you.
Reset doesn't matter, he could have just re-leveled a character like people have been doing

 
RADa5AURU5 said:
Story is a lot easier the second time.
And it is really easy the third time ;).

gotdott said:
Reset doesn't matter, he could have just re-leveled a character like people have been doing
But wouldn't the new character just get the standard "guaranteed" drop like all others who complete it the first time?

I dunno - until more start showing up, while it is fun to speculate, there's not much to go on. It would help immensely if the guy who got it explained the circumstances (replay or re-roll, what else he got for a drop, etc).
 
And it is really easy the third time ;).
I literally did the 4th time in my sleep hahah

I deleted my secondary Warlock and my buddies were helping me level up my Titan late at night and I kept falling asleep on the missions. At one point I slept through two missions and somehow didn't get kicked and just kept leveling up haha it was great.

 
Well that explains why there was a experienced sword bearer on lfg offering to run people through hard mode tonight. He was really good and we beat it on our 2nd or 3rd run on both my other 2 characters (both 31s). He said he had been playing it all day and was just going to keep going until he passed out. Was probably hoping to get the crux to drop.

Got the scout rifle and another hand cannon. Only thing I don't have is the auto rifle, crux, rocket launcher and Titan and hunter helms.
 
Vendetta, can you run me through the abyss on hard tonight? I'll be on starting around 7:30EST.

If I get my lock to 20 (then instantly to 26) tonight I'd appreciate anyone who can carry me through Weekly and Nightfall too; I'll even stay awake through it ;) or feel free to jump in if you're bored and see me on story missions or patrol.


I'll bet third time is a breeze. The fact the grimoire do bonuses are shared across characters must be a big help (having played all these missions 50x doesn't hurt either). I think I'll wait until this point in HoW to start a hunter though; I've been trying to find ways to play less and now I'm fully invested again haha.
 
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I'm working a secondary character now, a warlock, and I'm just under level 15. The second time around really is much easier. I'm already kind of itching to start a hunter, but I don't have any hunter gear stored away in the vault like I do for my warlock.
 
Here's my 2 strange coins on the middle/ledge strategy.  I know it works; I've seen plenty of videos and have done it.  My two issues with that strategy:

1) too many points of exposure: Everyone is exposed to gunfire at least 5 times as you're running in and out from/to the ledge and boomer tower.  The Titan bubbles help, for sure, but what if you don't have a Titan in the group?  And even that's not a guarantee.  I've been hit with splash damage that took down my overshield and some of my health.

2) more difficult for swordrunner (potentially): With everyone on the ledge killing the swordbearer, if the swordbearer is hiding you will waste more time trying to kill him, increasing the chances of Crota moving out of mid sooner, and the sword usually drops middle, exposed out in the open.  All the videos I've seen are near perfect runs (understandably, as why would you show all your failed wipes) where the swordrunner grabs the sword and gets to the rock safely.  When I run out to grab the sword using mid strategy, a small percentage of the time, I've gotten killed by Crota whether or not teammates are aggro-ing him with primary fire.  That's not acceptable (especially for me, as I don't like to die).

For anyone struggling to get the mid/ledge strategy working on hard mode, the normal/left stairs strategy works just as well.  All the times where we're effortlessly killed Crota, we have simply used that.  It doesn't require anyone to learn anything too different so the learning curve is minimal.  Everything plays out exactly the same, except you do not kill the boomer knights.  You kill one, and stagger the other.  If you accidentally kill both, then make sure to kill the wizard who spawns next.

Once we've teased the swordbearer over to left, we nuke him.  The swordrunner can easily and safely grab the sword and it's a much shorter distance to get to the left rock.  Then everything plays out as normal.  For the ogres, we stay in the spawn area (we don't go to the boomer tower), and either kill the ogres from the stairs or from mid (the side by the window ledge), depending where the ogre and Crota are located.  It's also safe to kill both boomers at this point as wizards do not spawn when the ogres are out.

Most people are familiar with using the left stairs on normal so it should be more comfortable for everyone involved.  You have to find different options to regenerate your health, but hard mode isn't all that different from normal.  The funny thing is, playing on normal seems like a piece of cake now.  This weekend, helping some non-32s through Crota on normal, we consecutively killed Crota in just two swords without wiping or even seeing the ogres.  Lol.

 
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Vendetta, can you run me through the abyss on hard tonight? I'll be on starting around 7:30EST.

If I get my lock to 20 (then instantly to 26) tonight I'd appreciate anyone who can carry me through Weekly and Nightfall too; I'll even stay awake through it ;) or feel free to jump in if you're bored and see me on story missions or patrol.


I'll bet third time is a breeze. The fact the grimoire do bonuses are shared across characters must be a big help (having played all these missions 50x doesn't hurt either). I think I'll wait until this point in HoW to start a hunter though; I've been trying to find ways to play less and now I'm fully invested again haha.
Yeah I can but I won't be available until like after 11:00EST. I will probably be on for the rest of the night after that for the reset.

Got my 2nd HM Crota kill last night. And got another Scout Rifle. Not complaining but man I would have rather had the Hand Cannon. Oh well no biggie. Hopefully this week gets me the Hand Cannon, Auto Rifle and Pulse :)

 
Here's my 2 strange coins on the middle/ledge strategy
Whatever gets the job done really hah so yeah if you can get it to work another way more power to you. I definitely see the merit in not having to 'train' additional people because if you don't have a regular group people are idiots hah

In regards to your comments:

I would find it very odd that you every play with a group without a single Titan. Maybe it is just that most of my friends started their first characters as Titans but still every time we have run Crota since the beginning we have always had at least one Titan even when pulling in randoms.

With that then in terms of taking damage, the only time you can ever get hit if you are a ledge person on the strategy I posted a bit ago is when leaving from the right side and then going into and out of the right tower. Each of those times (in my strat) you are covered with a Blessing of Light anyway and so yeah I have taken damage beyond the shield but with the posted strat you literally have orbs of light to pick up at each juncture. So basically each spot you have a potential to take damage, it is balanced with orbs in the next step. Plus that is where having the other non essential super using characters to save their supers and use them to generate orbs when needed comes in with those "just in case" moments.

Sword bearer has ran on us a few times while we are on the ledge but since the person grabbing the sword never uses rockets if he ran our guy would just rocket him a couple times as well as the right bridge bubble guy. Also with running out right away we are able to watch the swordbearer leave his spawn point so we pretty much just always stun locked him with Black Hammers at the door.

Like I said then, I have found little flaw in terms of the actual execution of that strategy but I definitely understand that a big drawback is the altered method so teaching new people can suck but it also means you need fairly consistent team character balance.

I should note too that we have been able to carry a non 32 character through with that strategy as really only 5 people are needed to get it all done.

 
Yeah I can but I won't be available until like after 11:00EST. I will probably be on for the rest of the night after that for the reset.

Got my 2nd HM Crota kill last night. And got another Scout Rifle. Not complaining but man I would have rather had the Hand Cannon. Oh well no biggie. Hopefully this week gets me the Hand Cannon, Auto Rifle and Pulse :)
I wouldnt mind jumping in if you have space. I'm a lvl 31 so i should be of some help

 
I would find it very odd that you every play with a group without a single Titan. Maybe it is just that most of my friends started their first characters as Titans but still every time we have run Crota since the beginning we have always had at least one Titan even when pulling in randoms.
Oh yeah, that is rare. I was just posing a hypothetical although there were a couple of times where my friends had already completed the raid on their titans so we were looking around for a titan to drop a bubble and realized we were all hunters and warlocks. And then the other night we got to the Deathsinger and asked a warlock to toss solar nades up to lure out the wizards, then we looked around and saw that we were all hunters and titans. Lol.

I should note too that we have been able to carry a non 32 character through with that strategy as really only 5 people are needed to get it all done.
That is something I had been wondering -- how many 31s can you have in the fireteam and still take down Crota in 3 swords on hard? Haha.

 
That is something I had been wondering -- how many 31s can you have in the fireteam and still take down Crota in 3 swords on hard? Haha.
Since this is the first week and we were still ironing out the strategy completely we decided one level 31 per run.

We also decided that if our friends had lowered level characters since we could do it with 5 (though ideally 6 of course for speed) that we have them come in with their primary 32 or whatever and help and then once we kill the Ogres they leave and swap out to their low level character and just sit as a ghost and reap the rewards of our success!

 
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After trying out the middle strategy last night I think it is definitely easier that the left side, mainly because the boomers are out of play for most of the run.  Other than entering and exiting to go to/from the middle.  When I run left strategy we would consistently have someone get taken out by the boomers since you are always in the line of fire. Maybe that reflects on the group I was playing with and how effective boomer control went, but I think the left side has more variability in it.  We had the Gatekeeper come up there a few times to foul up our runs as well as the boomers and witch, plus whatever else was spawning on the bridge.  Granted we had the perfect swordbearer for our middle runs, but other than the sword knight wandering a bit, there are really very few things that can go wrong, other than the hunter running sword getting taken out, but that happens in almost any run.  

I think we had at least 2 lvl 31s during our runs last night.  Might have had 3 for the 2nd run, but I can't remember and bungie.net isn't accurate when looking at the stats last night.  I actually think the most difficult part was getting out of the first room just because that is the only place you are really ever under direct fire during the entire run.

That said, and it was mentioned before by a number of people, but if you have a top notch Hunter to run sword then either Middle or Left strategy is infinitely easier.  You really do not need 3 downs at the beginning either, since the ogres are so easy to deal with now.  When I think back to all my runs on normal and hard I think 90% of the fails were due to the person running sword missing the jumps or getting greedy with the # of hits they attempt on each down.

 
Since this is the first week and we were still ironing out the strategy completely we decided one level 31 per run.

We also decided that if our friends had lowered level characters since we could do it with 5 (though ideally 6 of course for speed) that we have them come in with their primary 32 or whatever and help and then once we kill the Ogres they leave and swap out to their low level character and just sit as a ghost and reap the rewards of our success!
Or you can just solo it and have 5 level 31s waving for moral support ;)

 
After trying out the middle strategy last night I think it is definitely easier that the left side, mainly because the boomers are out of play for most of the run. Other than entering and exiting to go to/from the middle. When I run left strategy we would consistently have someone get taken out by the boomers since you are always in the line of fire. Maybe that reflects on the group I was playing with and how effective boomer control went, but I think the left side has more variability in it. We had the Gatekeeper come up there a few times to foul up our runs as well as the boomers and witch, plus whatever else was spawning on the bridge. Granted we had the perfect swordbearer for our middle runs, but other than the sword knight wandering a bit, there are really very few things that can go wrong, other than the hunter running sword getting taken out, but that happens in almost any run.

I think we had at least 2 lvl 31s during our runs last night. Might have had 3 for the 2nd run, but I can't remember and bungie.net isn't accurate when looking at the stats last night. I actually think the most difficult part was getting out of the first room just because that is the only place you are really ever under direct fire during the entire run.

That said, and it was mentioned before by a number of people, but if you have a top notch Hunter to run sword then either Middle or Left strategy is infinitely easier. You really do not need 3 downs at the beginning either, since the ogres are so easy to deal with now. When I think back to all my runs on normal and hard I think 90% of the fails were due to the person running sword missing the jumps or getting greedy with the # of hits they attempt on each down.
Agreed 100%

Most of my teams fails were really stupid:

-Crota getting up immediately and having insane reach to kill the sword. I'm beginning to wonder if this is maybe a host issue and it is lagging for the sword guy maybe?

-People on the final sword run not stepping to the edge and stupid thrall taking out people. This happened last night but I was on the edge and unloaded every G'horn shot I could and we got the bastardo.

-Last night one of my friends decided to keep shooting boomers (we just moved to the left middle ledge rather than running inside) and Crota shot us and we had to wipe. So essentially stupid shit like that or someone trying to be too much Rambo :bomb:

-Mostly though it was the Sword guy being a bastard and running under a tower and getting the timing off. It was getting ridiculous for us.

-Last but certainly not least, our sword guy was closer to the left boomer tower and somehow on one round on the last sword round, the boomers on the right tower shot and killed him. He was invisible too.... That one was hard as fuck to swallow. That one as my group said was Bungie cheesing us. :wall:

 
I had a pretty good haul this past week, Dragons Breathe x2(1 From Nightall and 1 from Crota on hard), Patience and Time(from Deathsinger), The Last Word(from Roc Strike playlist), and Black hammer, Oversoul Edict and Fang of Ir Yut from the raid.  First time I've ever gotten 4 exotics from drops in a week.

Is it just me or are these raid weapons pretty underwhelming? Most of the perks are only useful when fighting certain enemies which you don't even fight all that often. There is only like 6 or so Wizards in the entire raid. I thought they were locking the weapons behind hard mode because they were gonna be really good and they didn't want a lot of people to easily get them but I guess not.

 
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I had a pretty good haul this past week, Dragons Breathe x2(1 From Nightall and 1 from Crota on hard), Patience and Time(from Deathsinger), The Last Word(from Roc Strike playlist), and Black hammer, Oversoul Edict and Fang of Ir Yut from the raid. First time I've ever gotten 4 exotics from drops in a week.

Is it just me or are these raid weapons pretty underwhelming? Most of the perks are only useful when fighting certain enemies which you don't even fight all that often. There is only like 6 or so Wizards in the entire raid. I thought they were locking the weapons behind hard mode because they were gonna be really good and they didn't want a lot of people to easily get them but I guess not.
Damn, those are some solid drops!

And yeah I mean, they are all SOLID weapons but nothing groudbreaking. The Auto Rifle is a very good Auto Rifle. Nothing amazing but on par with the better Vanguard ones with at least Solar damage. The Hand Cannon I think is pretty rad. Still nothing groudbreaking though. It functions well and handles really nicely but beyond that it was not as earth shattering as Fatebringer was. Pulse Rifle is a joke and I am not even going to say anything about it. And then the Scout seems decent. Again like the others they are solid overall weapons for their category with good elemental boosts but that is about it.

 
I had a pretty good haul this past week, Dragons Breathe x2(1 From Nightall and 1 from Crota on hard), Patience and Time(from Deathsinger), The Last Word(from Roc Strike playlist), and Black hammer, Oversoul Edict and Fang of Ir Yut from the raid. First time I've ever gotten 4 exotics from drops in a week.

Is it just me or are these raid weapons pretty underwhelming? Most of the perks are only useful when fighting certain enemies which you don't even fight all that often. There is only like 6 or so Wizards in the entire raid. I thought they were locking the weapons behind hard mode because they were gonna be really good and they didn't want a lot of people to easily get them but I guess not.
From the videos I've seen, I'm not impressed with the Hand Cannon at all. Fate Bringer master race!! The only redeeming thing IMO about the HC is that it is void for the nightfall and anything is better than Atheon's Epilogue. ;)

All my friends have been raving about the Auto Rifle. I guess we will see though. Honestly for solar I'm fine with rocking my Vision of Confluence. I'm really digging the Fang of Ir Yut scout rifle right now. Out of all the raid weapons though, I still think Black Hammer is by far the best one and that is even with Hive Disruptor being shut off right now. Personally for me I think Hammer shits on IceBreaker but then again I hit crits all the time. I love hitting Atheon on hard with weapons of light for 20k plus and not having to reload :D

EDIT: Freaking awesome drops man! RNG gods were on your side this week :)

 
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Oh and I almost forgot and lost my train of thought.  Picked up a few new additions to strategy last night.

io, I was going to share this with either you or Hammer to fine tune your guys' strategy.  I know synthesis was the problem when I ran it with you guys.  I think both of these methods to conserve rockets will really help in that regard.  Also are you all going to have your full team at reset?  I'll be on if you need someone.

-This one was the big one for me as I was burning through Synth and ended up only using 3 the whole raid.  If you don't have rockets, switch your heavy to any weapon that has the Surplus perk.  Corrective Measure is a good one for this.  So you clear out both sides.  If heavy drops, switch to your G'horn or HoC.  When you pick up the ammo, you get 4 instead of 2.  Hell a couple times I ended up with 5 rockets.

-I'm going to assume a lot of you probably use this method but it was new to me and made us not burn rockets as much.  We kill sword guy, hunter goes to the side jump, crouches for invis, we all shoot nothing but primary and try to lag a little bit behind since if we down him too early, the sword guy is screwed.  We had minimal issue with timing on this since the hunter has a fairly long invis from crouch.  Again though this saved rockets and having to use lots of synthesis. :)

-I know some teams have a problem when Crota moves and getting wrecked by boomers, last night we all just stood on the opposite side of him when camping top middle.  Though we had a thrall glitch one time and kill someone.  I think that was a really rare occurrence though.  Don't know if you all run into the back room or not.

-Ogres if it you go under the right tower: Titan Defender with Saint-14.  Popped a bubble in front of the door to disorient ogre.  Worked like a charm and we destroyed him.

 
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Oh and I almost forgot and lost my train of thought. Picked up a few new additions to strategy last night.

io, I was going to share this with either you or Hammer to fine tune your guys' strategy. I know synthesis was the problem when I ran it with you guys. I think both of these methods to conserve rockets will really help in that regard. Also are you all going to have your full team at reset? I'll be on if you need someone.

-This one was the big one for me as I was burning through Synth and ended up only using 3 the whole raid. If you don't have rockets, switch your heavy to any weapon that has the Surplus perk. Corrective Measure is a good one for this. So you clear out both sides. If heavy drops, switch to your G'horn or HoC. When you pick up the ammo, you get 4 instead of 2. Hell a couple times I ended up with 5 rockets.

-I'm going to assume a lot of you probably use this method but it was new to me and made us not burn rockets as much. We kill sword guy, hunter goes to the side jump, crouches for invis, we all shoot nothing but primary and try to lag a little bit behind since if we down him to early, the sword guy is screwed. We had minimal issue with timing on this since the hunter has a fairly long invis from crouch. Again though this saved rockets and having to use lots of synthesis. :)

-I know some teams have a problem when Crota moves and getting wrecked by boomers, last night we all just stood on the opposite side of him when camping top middle. Though we had a thrall glitch one time and kill someone. I think that was a really rare occurrence though. Don't know if you all run into the back room or not.

-Ogres if it you go under the right tower: Titan Defender with Saint-14. Popped a bubble in front of the door to disorient ogre. Worked like a charm and we destroyed him.
Multiple good points and yeah that Heavy ammo trick has been around since the beginning.

In regards to the Ogre, if you are up on top of the doorways on the bottom of the right tower you don't even really need the bubble there to disorient him. He doesn't even look up at you until you have already almost killed him if you are fast enough.

 
Multiple good points and yeah that Heavy ammo trick has been around since the beginning.

In regards to the Ogre, if you are up on top of the doorways on the bottom of the right tower you don't even really need the bubble there to disorient him. He doesn't even look up at you until you have already almost killed him if you are fast enough.
I did forget to mention though that this enabled us to have 2 guys jump down to start staggering the other Ogre with snipers because that for this group I played with was kind of a problem. So that was actually our solution to that problem. Though killing that second ogre from below isn't that hard I guess. ;)

 
gotdott said:
The auto rifle disorient perk works on omnibitch apparently so there's that
Hah - nice. Will have to try that out. I double-bountied last night and maxed out my Word of Crota and have the auto-rifle nearly there.

Vendetta_x360 said:
Oh and I almost forgot and lost my train of thought. Picked up a few new additions to strategy last night.

io, I was going to share this with either you or Hammer to fine tune your guys' strategy. I know synthesis was the problem when I ran it with you guys. I think both of these methods to conserve rockets will really help in that regard. Also are you all going to have your full team at reset? I'll be on if you need someone.

-This one was the big one for me as I was burning through Synth and ended up only using 3 the whole raid. If you don't have rockets, switch your heavy to any weapon that has the Surplus perk. Corrective Measure is a good one for this. So you clear out both sides. If heavy drops, switch to your G'horn or HoC. When you pick up the ammo, you get 4 instead of 2. Hell a couple times I ended up with 5 rockets.
Yeah, we will probably be full tonight but if not I'll let you know. Thanks for the tip on Corrective Measure. I know about the empty ammo/Icebreaker trick but that sounds like a pain to do every time. Switching to CM when out of rockets is much simpler. I'll have to make sure I have one with that perk unlocked since I've never once used Corrective Measure. I'm pretty sure I put some exp into one at least, though.

I think lag and connection issues can really hose with the sword runner. I think one of the problems our group has is that our guy (Chammer) has a bad internet connection and he was getting killed a LOT by Crota when he was trying to get away. To us it would look like he was just standing there or jumping straight up. But he ran it so many times this week I think he has gotten much better at it and I'm looking forward to seeing how quickly we can get it done tonight.
 
The person running sword last night was doing something each time we loaded that he said helped his connection.  I think he would transfer team lead over once we loaded in, then take it back?  I can't remember exactly what he was doing but he definitely wasn't having any issues with lagginess.  I could message him and ask, but I'm sure whatever he is doing is relatively well known. 

I like the new primaries so far, have the Hand Cannon maxed out and all I can say is "explosive rounds".  I know people love Fatebringer and while I like it I prefer to use Praedyth's Timepiece for Arc Burn missions. (ducks behind desk).  I'll probably use the new Arc Scout going forward once I have it maxed out since I prefer scout rifles as my default choice.  Haven't spent enough time with the pulse rifle to get a good feel for it, but doubt it will be a go to weapon for me.  I don't have the Auto rifle so can't really comment on that one.

 
The person running sword last night was doing something each time we loaded that he said helped his connection. I think he would transfer team lead over once we loaded in, then take it back? I can't remember exactly what he was doing but he definitely wasn't having any issues with lagginess. I could message him and ask, but I'm sure whatever he is doing is relatively well known.

I like the new primaries so far, have the Hand Cannon maxed out and all I can say is "explosive rounds". I know people love Fatebringer and while I like it I prefer to use Praedyth's Timepiece for Arc Burn missions. (ducks behind desk). I'll probably use the new Arc Scout going forward once I have it maxed out since I prefer scout rifles as my default choice. Haven't spent enough time with the pulse rifle to get a good feel for it, but doubt it will be a go to weapon for me. I don't have the Auto rifle so can't really comment on that one.
What do you like about explosive rounds? I find them to be total garbage and a waste of a perk. You are doing no additional damage to the enemy itself, it is only turning some of it into explosive. So lets say you are doing 500 a shot normally, with explosive rounds you would then be doing 350 normal (void in this case) damage and then 150 explosive damage. That explosive damage has no range really and does not effect the other enemies around really at all due to the tiny explosion it makes. It is like throwing those little snap bombs at an enemy, it makes the little popping effect and looks cool but that is about it.

 
What do you like about explosive rounds? I find them to be total garbage and a waste of a perk. You are doing no additional damage to the enemy itself, it is only turning some of it into explosive. So lets say you are doing 500 a shot normally, with explosive rounds you would then be doing 350 normal (void in this case) damage and then 150 explosive damage. That explosive damage has no range really and does not effect the other enemies around really at all due to the tiny explosion it makes. It is like throwing those little snap bombs at an enemy, it makes the little popping effect and looks cool but that is about it.
I didn't analyze the hell out of it, I just thought it looked cool, lol

 
a1h5BOn.jpg


for comparison

source: http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2tqldk/visual_comparison_fatebringer_vs_word_of_crota/

 
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