Guys, I am so close to getting the MMXIV seal in Destiny 2. All I need is the Revoker for the Crucible Pinnacle Weapon and I’m home free. But wow, is grinding for Glory a miserable experience. I’m going to get there, though — I might even do it this weekend.
Speaking of, I’m changing formats for my weekly Destiny 2 posts a little. From now on, they’ll be going up on Fridays rather than earlier in the week. This means I’ll be hitting Xur’s inventory as well as any relevant updates from This Week at Bungie, giving you everything you need to know about Destiny 2 in one place as we move into the weekend.
More Destiny 2:
- Bungie Pushes Back Release of Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
- The Best Gambit Weapons in Destiny 2 (August 2019 Meta)
- European Aerial Zone: A Review
Destiny 2 Weekly Reset – Week of August 6 2019
With another weekly reset comes the regular rotation of activities:
- This week’s Flashpoint is on Mars
- Nightfalls are Lake of Shadows, Will of the Thousands, and Hollowed Lair
- The Strike Singe element is Void
- The featured Crucible playlist is Doubles
- The Dreaming City curse is at its strongest
- The Menagerie boss is Hasapiko, Vex Minotaur
- The Reckoning boss is The Swords
- The Escalation Protocol boss is Nur Abath, Crest of Xol
Destiny 2 Solstice of Heroes
The Solstice of Heroes rolls on in Destiny 2 this week. If you’re working on your Solstice armor, you should know that Bungie has adjusted one of the requirements for upgrading the rare set. Previously, you needed 100 miniboss kills in the European Aerial Zone. Since this requirement only tracks minibosses you’ve damaged, the EAZ ended up feeling more competitive than celebratory.
This week, Bungie reduced the miniboss kill requirement to 50. And to provide more incentive for players to stick around once the final boss shows up, they’ll now count for five miniboss kills. This step was definitely the worst grind of any of the Solstice armor requirements, and these changes will make it much less onerous.
Xur Inventory and Location — August 9 2019
This week, you’ll find Xur on Calus’s barge on Nessus. In addition to his Exotic Engram and Invitation of the Nine (if you haven’t finished that quest) he’s selling The Colony, Shards of Galanor, Chromatic Fire, and ACD/0 Feedback Fence.
The Colony is a fun Exotic heavy grenade launcher. While grenade launchers have seen a big boost in popularity this season, The Colony isn’t the most effective in most situations. Instead of a single grenade, it fires a swarm of homing robots along the ground. It’s a unique and fun weapon in low-stakes situations, but it likely won’t be your go-to heavy or exotic weapon.
Shards of Galanor are Hunter exotic gauntlets. They’re one of the armor exotics that refund super energy — in this case, energy for the Solar super Blade Barrage. These kinds of exotics used to be dominant in both PVP and PVE, but after a recent nerf they’ve fallen a little out of favor. That said, they’re still effective in PVP for add clearing if you’re a big Blade Barrage user.
Chromatic Fire is a Warlock exotic robe. It essentially gives all of your kinetic weapons the Dragonfly perk, generating an explosion on precision kills. The explosion type is determined by your equipped energy weapon. Honestly, it’s a pretty lackluster exotic. Most of the time in PVE you’ll be wearing Lunafaction Boots, and the effect is basically useless in PVP. Can be fun to try on occasion, just don’t expect much. Oh, and maybe this is just me, but it looks ugly as sin.
ACD/0 Feedback Fence is a Titan exotic gauntlet. While equipped, your melee kills build up energy. When you’re hit by a melee attack you release your stored energy in a “devastating” explosion. Potentially useful in the Menagerie and Reckoning when Blackout is on, but otherwise the best thing about them is the name. In other words:
Armor 2.0 and Cross Saves in Destiny 2
We’re all wondering about how Armor 2.0 works, and we’ll find out very soon. Next week sees the return of Bungie livestreams, where we’ll get a look at the new system in action. I’m cautiously excited — the customizability sounds great, though I’m kind of worried about what it means for all my old masterworked sets.
Additionally, we have a date for the introduction of cross saves in Destiny 2. Players will be able to use their account across different platforms starting on August 21st. For the full details, check out our post on Destiny 2 Cross Saves and Armor 2.0.
Destiny 2 Ascendant Challenge — August 6 2019
This week’s challenge can be found in the Aphelion’s Rest Lost Sector: The Strand. The portal is about halfway through the Sector, right before the last large area where the boss and its corresponding chest are found.
When you reach the area, you will notice a large central arena surrounded by a number of crystals and bigass sword-bearing knights. Avoid the latter like the plague. They’re tough and can chop through you like driftwood.
To finish the challenge, you need to find and destroy four Taken blights that spawn around the outskirts of the area. Pesky, infinite shadow thralls and other enemies will try to slow your progress. So keep moving while you destroy the blights as fast as you can.
Those crystals in the room become vulnerable when all four blights are destroyed. Destroy all the crystals to finish the challenge. A good tip here is to keep your distance and use something like a bow or a scout rifle to pick the objects off from a safe distance. But keep in mind that the knights will continue to chase you around the area. Keep moving and the knights shouldn’t be a problem.
