Hello to all you Guardians out there. Now that we have had our fun with the Crimson Day’s event, it is time to get set for next week’s Iron Banner monthly event. What better way then by checking out what Xûr has brought to the tower for us Guardians to purchase?
Xûr this week is located in Tower North across the hall from the Speaker. His inventory this is comprised of some item we haven’t seen recently but are a mixture of year one remakes and year two items. Each one will bring a significant boost to a play style. While some are more balanced, others only have one side of playstyle that it helps out with. Honestly, it just depends on what type of gameplay and comfortability a guardian prefers. As always, the following is based off of my opinions based on playing with these exotics already in both PvE and PvP playstyles.
This week’s Titan exotic is a helmet that looks like it belonged on the head of an astronaut during an earlier deep space mission (aka The Taikonaut). What makes this shiny shielded helmet so special is its exotic ability. For all those guardians who had a great stat roll on a rocket launcher, but it ended up without tracking”¦..Worry NO MORE!!! Just slip this helmet on, and your rocket launcher can now track your enemies with the help of the “Air Traffic Control” perk. This perk comes with several bonuses as well, so not only do all your rocket launchers track but also your radar will remain visible while zooming with heavy weapons. In addition, (yeah I know crazy how much this helmet allows) heavy ammo will drop more often (PvE only). Honestly this helmet comes with some extra perks that will help both playstyles.
Overall Opinion: This helmet can really help you in some clutch moments if required to use Heavy ammo. Now breaking it down to PvE vs PvP, I believe this helmet is more fluidly designed for the PvE gameplay around the Heavy Ammo requirement. That being said, freeing up an exotic slot and not having to tote around The Truth can help change up your loadout to one you prefer. It all depends on the player to be honest. This helmet works extremely well in PvE allowing you to keep battlefield awareness while lining up your next rocket shot on a boss/enemy and creating more heavy ammo to throw at enemies. Basically, it all comes down to if you have the 13 strange coins it is going to cost to unlock this helmet. Do you want your favorite rocket launcher to have tracking?? If so, then buy it no matter what class type you prefer.
Ah”¦for the Hunter this week we have a helmet that looks like it has been worn by a guardian who has been touched by the Taken. The “Skyburners Annex” seems as if it can pack a punch and really help out members of your fireteam. Its exotic perk, Versatile Shooter, has a chance to create orbs on heavy weapon kills and, while you have a full super charge orbs, may grant you special ammo. Generating orbs with your super is one way to help your fireteam super chain, but it’s a whole other game when you start creating orbs while shooting a heavy machine gun. This can be extremely crucial in either PvE or PvP game sets. PvE is pretty self-explanatory. However, in PvP after your team has grabbed heavy, they have probably used a super to eliminate the other team’s heavy ammo capacity. What better way to help them out by rolling over the other team with your heavy weapon while popping out some orbs at the same time?!
Overall Opinion: I would buy it if I have not unlocked this helmet yet. Overall, it may take some time to unlock all the perks. Once you do, this helmet will be pretty balanced for both game styles. Having a full intellect roll and bonus super energy on grenade kills, you will have your super in no time, which means a chance at more special ammo while you have your super charged. Since special ammo has become a hot commodity recently, I am looking to see how this helmet may help out in PvP.
Warlock class has some punch happy gloves which were around in year one but have returned to us again during year two. They would be none other than the “Claws of Ahamkara,” the exotic gloves that give you an extra melee charge no matter what your subclass is. You want a chance at getting flame shields more often? Go for it! Life Steal? No problem”¦.Only downside of these gloves is you will have to sacrifice some intellect or discipline stat to help these gloves charge up faster. With them also increasing your melee attack speed and granting you a faster reload for your auto rifle, they can come in handy during a tough bout.
Overall Opinion: These are some nifty gloves to be honest but, unless utilized correctly, are a waste for your exotic slot compared to other exotics out there for the warlock. What I mean by this is if you are not stacking enough strength to get them charged up faster to hold at least a one and a half melee charge, then you aren’t helping yourself. If you prefer to stack intellect and discipline, then these gloves are not for you. It will take you too long to charge up a melee. By the time you get it charged up, you are probably using it almost immediately at times. I would say buy these gloves only if you want to be a punch happy warlock.
Instead of a weapon being sold this week, Xûr has decided to grace us by returning with a helmet engram for purchase. It’s going to cost you 19 strange coins for one. Additionally, they have a chance to decrypt into any of the helmets currently available and will either be at 290 or 310 defense depending upon your light level at time of decryption. They will always decrypt to 310 if you are light level 310 and above. If you are above 301 they will decrypt to 290 but have a small chance to decrypt to 310.
Xûr is also selling the legacy engram (gauntlets) for all the gear hunters out there who have yet to collect all the year 1 exotics they may have missed.
As always Xûr is selling two Sparrow drives this week including the Emerald Coil (Green contrail) and Void Drive (Purple contrail). Each will cost you 23 strange coins. If you are low on Heavy ammo synthesis three of them will cost you one strange coin. The two other consumables you can purchase from Xûr every week are the “Three of Coins” at 5 for the cost of 7 strange coins and the Glass Needles at 3 for the cost of 3 strange coins, 3 motes of light, and 1 exotic shard.
Third row always offers for you to trade in 2 strange coins per mote of light. I would always advise against this unless you are tired of stocking up strange coins and want the motes to level up your gear. Even though motes of light are very easy to attain. If you have spare strange coins laying around, you can always stock up again on Three of Coins, Glass needles, or helmet engrams to store in your vault until the rest of the time gated exotics are released.
Happy Xûr Day Guardians!