Guardians!!!! Welcome back for another week here at Stack-Up with the Destiny weekend news roll-up. As you all might have heard Bungie released a plethora of information yesterday about their upcoming DLC content called Rise of Iron. We will be diving through all of that information here shortly. First we will rummage through Xûrs inventory, then check out some tips for the Challenge of the Elders, and finally, dive into the depths of the Rise of Iron DLC news.
-Xûrs Inventory-
Guardian’s new and old should report to the Tower and find Xûr over by the Hangar entrance. All of the armor Xûr brought with him should be somewhat familiar since they have been sold before somewhat recently compared to the weapon which he brought today.
Starting off with the Titan we have “The Glasshouse”, a helmet that was designed around the Defender subclass. This helmet’s perk called Bathed in Light allows both weapons of light and blessing of light to last longer. This means that you won’t have to constantly run back to the Ward of Dawn to reacquire those bonuses. The helmet this week has Inverse Shadow, Second Thoughts, and Better Already for its selectable perks.
Overall Opinion: This helmet can be extremely useful for keeping the weapons of light and blessing of light benefits lasting longer meaning a little bit more mobility. This was extremely helpful for me during this week’s Challenge of Elders keeping the weapons of light perk active longer. This helmet by far is a PvE centric helmet, and even then it is only useful in those situations where you need that shield or firepower and mobility. For me, it’s a 50/50 toss-up between this helmet and Helm of Saint-14. One offers a long lasting buff while the other provides the bubble of PvE survivability.
For the Bladedancer Hunters Xûr has brought the “Don’t Touch Me” gauntlets to the Tower. Ever wish your hunter could have invisibility to get you out of tight situations without having to play a bladedancer? These gauntlets use it’s exotic ability “Defensive Reflex” which grants your Hunter the ability to make them invisible after taking melee damage. One of the best bonus perks that you get with this armor is decreasing the melee attack cooldown timer. Extra bonuses are Scout Rifle loader or Sniper Rifle loader to choose from.
Overall Opinion: I personally don’t see a good use of these gloves in PvP since by the time you get hit by a melee it’s likely that you may be dealt a killing blow. I have used these plenty of times in PvE to give me a little bit extra survivability (especially while running the lamps in Crota’s End raid). There are times though that enemies will still swing at your last known position while invisible, and have a chance to kill you even after you are invisible. Although these gauntlets have a few PvP benefits, they don’t provide great additions like some other gauntlets out there. Pass on these if you want, pick them up if you’re a collector of the sort.
Voidwalker Warlocks, “The Ram” is back up for grabs again. Not only does it make your Warlock look like a badass, but it actually makes your Warlock extremely powerful. This helmet does a lot for the Warlocks, the exotic ability called Strength of the Ram increases the base armor and makes all Voidwalker melee’s trigger Lifesteal on hitting. The standard perks (Inverse Shadow and Heavy Lifting) on this helm make The Ram more designed for PvE use, but the exotic ability is what makes this a nasty Warlock to go up against in PvP due to survivability.
Overall Opinion: This is a must own by any player, even if you have yet to make a warlock. Pick this up just in case you do make a Warlock down the road, trust me you’ll thank me later. The survivability that this helmet provides for the Voidwalker is tough to come by, granted you have to get up close and personal with your enemies to trigger the lifesteal perks. I have also seen other subclass Warlocks use this helmet in PvP for the armor boost alone.
The weapon Xûr has brought for sale today was last sold by him nearly a year ago ( June 26th – 28th 2015). This weapon I am talking about is an original year one exotic pulse rifle called “Red Death”. This weapon feeds off the death of your enemies and allows the wielder to reap the benefits. The self-named exotic ability allows each kill to heal you and speed up weapon reloads. Extra perks on this pulse rifle include unflinching, and your choice between Single Point Sling, Snapshot, or High Caliber Rounds.
Overall Opinion: Don’t let this weapon pass you by, pick this up the first chance you get from Xûr. Not only does this weapon take forever to get sold again it does wonders in both PvP and PvE. This weapon in really useful in PvE situations where survivability is key, I used this primarily while learning raids making it easier for my group. This weapon has dropped out of the PvP environment recently due to the weapons rebalance but it still can help give you extra survivability after each kill which helps if you have to go up against a couple enemies back to back.
-Challenge of the Elders-
This week’s Challenge of the Elders grants extra bonus points for any precision kills generated. The active modifiers this week are Grounded which makes you take more damage while in the air and Juggler. Juggler will only drop ammo boxes for weapons that are not being used to kill your targets. if you don’t switch weapons every once and awhile you will be lacking the required ammo to take down your foes in a timely manner. It is up to you guardians to pick weapons that allow you to get precision kills at a fast pace. I personally went with First Curse since it’s bonuses are triggered by precision kills and that it can one shot your enemies in the first round. During the second and third rounds, I found that having a Titan with weapons of light made the First Curse one shot precision kill almost all minions during the rest of the challenge. Plus having the Ward of Dawn up from a titan allows you to have a little bit extra survivability if the Fresh Troops get out of hand. Other weapons I went with were Sniper Rifle/Sidearms for special weapons and a Machine gun for the heavy weapon since I can get precision kills with all those weapons types also. Ultimately the key with this week is to pick weapons that you know you can get precision kills within a timely manner.
-Bungie News / Updates-
This week has exploded with news about the upcoming DLC named Rise of Iron which will be released to us on September 20th for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We have all been teased with images of Lord Saladin taking a flaming battle ax out prepping for battle at the broken wall on Earth. If you missed the reveal trailer take a second and watch it here and be prepared to get blown away.
Most of the year one players are already excited about getting the exotic Gjallarhorn rocket launcher back in their inventory. That being said there is a special “Iron” version that will be capable of being earned for all Guardians who pre-order the Rise of Iron DLC. Don’t worry if you don’t like to pre-order items you will be able to get a Gjallarhorn of your very own as well. What Game Director Christopher Barrett made it sound like everyone will have to complete a quest line to forge their own personal Gjallarhorn. I am speculating it is something like we had to do for the Sleeper Simulant exotic weapon, but only time will tell.
First off let’s talk about the size of content that this DLC is going to contain. From what was explained in a Bungie update before it was compared to be the size as The Taken King game. The stream on Thursday revealed that there would be tons of new things to do throughout the Destiny Universe. Not only is there new enemies to battle, a Raid to tackle, a new Crucible mode to dominate; There will be new places to explore and new ways to do it, which includes Felwinter’s Peak which used to be home to the Iron Lords.
This DLC is already opened many doors in the world of Destiny Lore with some explanation of the story behind the Iron Banner and the Iron Lords. We will finally be seeing and going up against the enemies that Lord Saladin has been preparing us for the last two years during the struggles inside the Iron Banner. What lore has been revealed so far is that all the other Iron Lords sacrificed themselves to banish an ancient technological plague called SIVA. SIVA was a breakthrough during the Golden Age of technology being able to self-assemble and self-replicating nanotechnology.
Bungie explains on their Rise of Iron web page that what has happened is that each Fallen house has their own Splicers (bioengineers) who meld technology and flesh together. The Fallen House of Devil Splicers uncovered SIVA and started to use the new tech to create and evolve the House of Devils to become machine gods.
It looks like the House of Devils has used this plagued technology to make all new types of enemies for us to face. So the Fallen enemy we may be used to might have some extra tricks up their sleeves for us to find out.
With the Rise of the House of Devils, us Guardians will have taken this threat head-on outside the Wall which surrounds old Russia. That’s right, we are going beyond the wall to take the fight to our enemies. New zones will consist of Felwinter’s Peak, The Plaguelands, and The Wall. During the stream, it sounded like our first step was to take back what was ours at Felwinter’s Peak. This giant mountain holds the “Iron Temple” the new social hub zone that we have to fight and eliminate the Fallen threat from first.
Once that is complete we will be able to dive deeper into the Lore behind who the Iron Lords were inside the Iron Temple. This is primarily where the rest of the story will be told from. There will be new NPC’s for us to meet and new quests to complete all based out of this Iron Temple.
The Plaguelands will be our next step venturing into the lands where the House of Devil splicers have settled as their new home. Currently, what Bungie has been describing is that this new area will be opening to the south which is where the giant hole in The Wall was created and discovered by Lord Saladin himself. This area looks like it will have a new patrol mode added for us to explore as well as participate in new public events that will be happening within this new region of Earth.
There has also been a lot of talk about a new Raid that will be joining this DLC. I believe it is safe to assume that we will be going up against these powerful SIVA enhanced Fallen Splicers and who knows maybe even SIVA itself. From the looks of what images and small video snips we were able to see about the raid has us fighting a portion of it on top of “The Wall” as you can see in the images below.
During our adventures with this new content, we will be earning new weapons and gear along the way. What we can see in the images from the Bungie stream is that these armor looks like it will be surrounding the Iron Lords, SIVA, and the last and which looks like to be an evolved form Trials of Osiris. The Warlock seems to have the armor which compliments the Iron Lords, and the Titan looks to have stolen armor from the SIVA construct.
The only reason why I am assuming that the Hunter armor that was shown has to deal with Trials of Osiris or something to do with that lore is due to the Cat emblem you receive from Trials after going to the Lighthouse called Bastet’s Dream seen here on the right.
This emblem looks strangely similar to the cat image on the back of the Hunter’s cloak. On top of that the Hunter armor being displayed has cats all over it, the helmet a shape which compliments that form.
The pauldron has a cat head on it, the chest piece has cats on it, etc… That is my honest guess about where this armor could come from, we will find out about that later down the road during other Bungie streams.
For now, we must wait until September 20th to get our hands on this new adventure but be sure that there will be much more news to be revealed about the Rise of Iron content during the next couple of months approaching the release date. The Rise of Iron DLC will only be made available to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. That’s right folks, the PlayStation 3 and the 360 are getting put in the rearview mirror for this next update. As sad and upset players may be about this, it had to happen for the game to evolve and become better with the aging technology. Along those same lines one of Destiny’s guardians “MyNameIsByf” has confirmed that PlayStation 4 players will be getting access to time exclusive content which will be revealed at a later time.
As more information becomes available I will be rounding it up and getting it to you Guardians in the weekly weekend rolls ups. With that being said if you missed the live stream broadcasted on Bungie’s twitch page you can watch it here. Let me know what you guys are thinking about the new DLC, as well as what your thoughts are on the new experiences and armor in the comments section or hitting me up on twitter.
-ShadowAssault86
