Crucible is still very laggy and inconsistent, new maps are mostly horrible.  I bought the vendor roll Dead Orbit Last Ditch shotgun, and it is very, very crispy.  If you don't have a god roll Party Crasher or Matador, this is a pretty good one to have.





Looking forward to raiding tomorrow night.

The one from the Vanguard quest with rifled barrel/rangefinder?  You lose a little ROF for a bit more range with the Conspiracy Theory - statistically, rifled barrel > hammer forged, but not by much, like four or five points.  The impact is the same.  They are both very consistent one hitter quitters in the crucible, I don't really plan on using this for PVE - I like faster rate of fire, mid impact shotguns for PVE, preferably with full auto and high stability.  



Anyways, Last Ditch is a little more forgiving because of the slightly higher rate of fire.  If the first shot doesn't kill them, it's hard to get a quick follow up shot to finish them off with a Conspiracy Theory, not that it's a lot easier with the Last Ditch, but it is a little easier.  But then again, if the first shot doesn't kill them, well, that's what hunter and warlock melees are for.  



I'd say if you've got the Vanguard quest CT-D and you like it, you don't really need to buy the Last Ditch from Dead Orbit.  Or if you're primarily a PVE dude, there are better shotguns for PVE IMO - the New Monarchy one is nice.  But if you need a good crucible shotgun, that Last Ditch is a good'un.



 

I'll take all the help we can get.  I'd love to get the pulse rifle, but right this minute I wanna clear the damn raid before anything else.

Tower hanger, all the way in the back in the bar. Nothing new, but overall pretty solid.

Armamentarium - if you have a titan, or you're ever thinking about making one, you should own this.


Ahamkara Grasps - probably best exotic overall for nightstalkers, two smokes are always good.


Voidfang - primarily a PVP thing, spawning with a grenade always. It does this regardless of subclass as well. Improved axiom bolt is meh, and there are probably better things to use for PVE.


Mida - lives up to its name well. Good for everything in the game, not really stellar at any one thing, but it's a fantastic, top tier weapon overall. Great first exotic, arguably one of the better exotic primaries in the game. Buy, buy, buy if you don't have it.


Legacy boots.

Blasting through a strike is cool provided everyone else is aware that you're doing that shit.

In a three man fireteam playing with regs where we're talking to each other, sure, no prob. Randos doing that is annoying.

 
I'm an Xbox kid, sorry man.


I should be on around 7pm this evening.

I'll be on in a couple hours to run heroic strikes.



Need.  Moar.  Light.  Plz.  Desperately.  Will do unspeakable things for moar light, and I'll let you take pictures and videos while I do it.

We ran it last night up to Aksis, but a severe light deficiency ruined me.



There are some Fallen majors that have to be dealt with in the last couple of encounters, and if you don't have the light level and/or a lot of heavy and help from teammates, they will definitely fuck you up.



 

At 359-360 light, the cannon totin' Fallen Captain majors during the Aksis fight would tear through me.  One time, I didn't have any heavy, and I saw the one spawn in the middle.  I thought to myself, I've got this handy full auto/crowd control Patch-A that's been pretty good to me, I'll go down there and show that captain what's up.



Uh, no.  That didn't happen.  I just started holding down the trigger to fire at him and that dude turned and one shot the shit out of me.  I went down like a sack of potatoes, ISIS didn't have any comments about how that captain brutalized me.  It was at this time, while watching the death screen and waiting for someone to come get me, that I learned that those captains are 380 light, and I was a 360ish or so.



I'll be hitting strikes and the crucible trying to find some light somewhere.

The numbers projected by the monitors in the server farm are in a binary code...this tool converts that to decimal, and marks it on the map of the canister room so you know exactly where to stand.




 
 

Mid 360s is about all I can muster at this moment as well.  The grind from 365 or so and up is so real.  

I wandered around a little throughout the day doing bounties and stuff, thinking about the past couple Wrath of the Machine attempts I've made, and I have some opinions and thoughts about the raid and fireteams and such.  I'm not trying to be a jerk, just offering my two cents that I think will help fire teams overall be better, stronger and more versatile.  This will probably be a little long winded, but it's just my views and opinions as a dude who's no-lifed the shit out of this game.



Heavy ammo.  Use that shit.  Most of us are under leveled for Wrath of the Machine at this moment, and packs of Fallen splicers and/or shielded major captains are serious trouble.  In the raid, please bring plenty of heavy ammo synths with you, and should you see something that needs to die in a hurry, don't be shy about dumping a rocket for it.  Saving heavy for boss damage, rainy days or whatever doesn't matter if the team gets overrun and killed by ads before they ever get to the boss DPS phase.  If you aren't using Raze Lighter or something as a dedicated captain killer, please use whatever other heavy you've got and don't be stingy with it.  This is mostly a function of us being below the recommended light level for the encounter, so I feel we've got to use whatever advantages we can get to survive.



Communicate.  There's a lot going on at any given time, call something out when you see it.  When you die, what killed you?  Is it still alive and is it a serious threat - i.e., were you weak and got finished off by a dreg, or did you get steamrolled by a captain who's at full health/full shields?  Where's your orb at?  Were you doing something, do you have a Siva bomb that needs to be thrown at something, were you toting parts for the Siege Machine, were you going to get a cannon to kill a servitor?  Is your body in a safe spot to res?  How much time to you have to res?  If you're still alive, do you need help on your side?  Do you need cover while you use an ammo synth?  



Do you see something going on during the fight that can kill us all?  Say something about it.



Yes, I'm talking about the braintrust last night that somehow determined it was a good idea to not say anything about the monitors at Vosik, just to see if everyone else was paying attention to them as well.  With all due respect, the reasoning behind that is some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard playing this game.  Seriously, that is weapons-grade stupid.  If there was ever a reason to kick someone from a fireteam, that'd be it.  But I digress.



Warlocks, please consider using something else besides Sunsinger and Fireborn.  I mained warlock for a long time, I used and abused self res as well, and I understand it has its clutch moments, but none of those moments are really in Wrath of the Machine, IMO.  Maybe if your job is to rush the Siege Machine and kill the captain so the ramp drops, that's about it.  Consider that if you die to any of the wipe mechanics in the raid, of which there are many, you can't res with Fireborn anyways.  These things are a team effort, so you should consider your super as a team-enhancing thing, which fireborn radiance is not.  Sitting on your super until you die is not generating orbs for your team, and you're not killing stuff and progressing in the boss fights (progressing in the sense of clearing ads and preparing for a damage phase).  You're not enhancing damage dealt or damage resilience like ward of dawn can, you're not blowing up packs of stuff like hammers, nova bomb or stormtrance can, you're not slowing/debuffing bosses or packs of ads like shadowshot can.  



"But self res!" I know, and this is stating the obvious, but stop dying.  Seriously.  There are nine sub classes in this game, and eight of them get by just fine without being able to resurrect themselves.  I promise, play a different class in high end PVE, it may be rough starting out, but ultimately it will make you a better player and you will contribute more to your team overall.

At the time, I was just desperate for a clear and not really thinking things through.  It didn't help that it was like 1AM as well.



In fact, maybe for rushing the captain on the zamboni and burning him down, self res could be handy.  The guys on the ground moving the parts along have their hands full as it is, having one person focus on getting that ramp down seemed to help.  To be honest, I figured we were gonna end up spending more time than we did there, but we cleared that section pretty quickly.