Episode 34 – Spire of the Watcher

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The lights provide. This is even Tide radio. Hello and welcome back to Even Tide Radio. This is a fan made Destiny podcast where we have Romney discussions about a variety of different topics concerning the popular video game franchise.

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Having in depth discussions about the game from a variety of different perspectives. I'm your host Scotty and with me is my co host Rob. And today we are going to be talking about Spire of the Watcher, the new dungeon that came out because we still haven't really talked about it and we're also going to talk a little bit about revision zero near the end. So Robert, to get us started, what is your personal opinion on the current.

State of the season? This season as a whole has been pretty good in terms of story elements. And I know we talked about this over the last time, but the season as it's kind of winding down. There's still some kind of like a vet for the last two weeks, so we don't know what it is that hypothetically will wrap up the story and then transition to lightfall in some capacity. I'm excited for that. This season has had some pretty good story beats. It did. Kind of the classic Thing where I Feel Like it Front Loaded a lot of the stuff At The Beginning, and I Wish That It Had just kind of parsed It out a Little Bit more throughout The Season, because I notice A lot of people, like, in my Clan specifically, they Play a Bunch At the beginning Of The Season, and Then They're Already kind of burned out by the Time You Get to GM. Nightfalls, and some come back, but then Some don't, and they're just kind of like, well, I'll see you next season. And I don't necessarily know if slowing out like again kind of pacing out the rate at which the story elements come out rather than every week you have it every other week or something like that. I don't know if that would solve the problem because those people might just burn out regardless of story beats and wouldn't maybe even care to finish the story because they did everything they want to do at the beginning of the season. I don't know but it's just like, okay, we got a bunch of stuff at the beginning and then now the last couple of weeks there hasn't been any new story stuff and we're just kind of like running through like GMs and there's plenty of stuff to do. Like this week iron banner is going on. I think this season has been pretty good and I think the dungeon we didn't really talk about the dungeon a whole lot. I think the dungeon is pretty rad. It does the here's a gimmick or mechanic or thing and then it kind of carries through throughout the entire dungeon and there's little twists on it at certain counters, like, that's all nothing new. I think the mechanic itself is kind of interesting. I think the final boss is not great, but everything else is pretty cool. I've had a hell of a time trying to get some of the loot from it, even though it is like farmable beyond belief and I've just had really bad luck. But that's nothing out of the ordinary. But I think that the dungeon is pretty cool and the story behind it's kind of neat and it's more kind of warmind lore and all that fun stuff.

Yeah, that's true. So I'll play devil's advocate. So I'm not trying to stop you from enjoying this. There's nothing wrong with enjoying it. I'm just so tired of this trend where they're like, let's take one mechanic and just copy and paste that throughout the entire thing. I don't understand this trend because I just think it's so boring, especially when the mechanic itself is just tedious and you'll go from one encounter to the next and then the only thing that will change is like, do more of it. It gets a little old. It's the same problem as grasp of Avarice, in my opinion, but at least this one doesn't have the stupid bomb part.

In the bomb part.

Yeah, that was egregious. But still, my same fundamental issue is just the copy and paste the same mechanic. I don't like that format, personally.

I also fundamentally agree with you because by the time you get to the final, and I think in this particular dungeon, the way the mechanic is handled with respect to the boss, I don't like it. I farmed the Boss a couple of weeks ago with some clanmates because one of them why did we do it? One of them wanted something. And I was like, Well, I still need the scout rifle. And I was like, yeah, sure, why not? I'll run it. We did probably close to ten or so completions of the boss, and I didn't get the scout rifle. And I'm bitter about that because it's double drops and you think statistically it would have gotten anyway, neither here nor there. But that tedious part that you're talking about, which I completely agree is exacerbated by the way that room is laid out. And I think it's just there's too many enemies kind of going on with the for those of you who don't know spoilers, if you haven't played the dungeon yet, it's out long enough that I don't feel bad about this. But basically there's a buff that you get from Minotaurs called Arctician, which is kind of clever. And you basically have to shoot nodes that are opened up in kind of the order that they're in kind of a linear path and one of them starts off and that's like the power source. And as you shoot them, it sends the charge further and further and you complete the circuit by shooting all of the nodes in the order. And the kind of the gimmick to that is all the wires and cables that you have to follow are, like, loosely draped all over the place. Which I kind of have a more meta problem with because it's like, here you have this golden age spire that's like advanced engineering and then you just have the worst cable management ever. So that always kind of bothered me. I'm like, Why are their cables draped all over the place? But the rest of the thing looks so professionally done. But anyway, with that in mind, with the cables kind of loosely draped all over the place, you have to kind of unless you like, if you do it enough, you probably eventually will memorize where all of them are and this kind of takes it out of it. But when you're first trying to learn, you're trying to follow the cables and so your camera is, like, pointing down so you can follow it because sometimes it drapes up into the ceiling and then wraps around something and then goes down and it crosses with another cable. And sometimes it's, like, kind of underneath part of the bridge. You have to jump to another platform so you can kind of see it from a better angle. And that's all well and good. You do have the Arctician buff for like 35 or 40 seconds. And if you shoot it, it extends it by, like, five or 10 seconds or something. So as long as you keep shooting nodes, you keep the buff going. So there's a little bit of like a time element to it but with where all the nodes are with relation to each other, it's not that bad in terms of like it's not like you're just barely getting it in every time. And you have to like but when you're trying to first learn where everything is, there's so many enemies that bombard you. And on top of that, it's a lot of vex that explode. And I'm blanking on the harpies.

That the supplicants.

Supplicants. Thank you. Yeah, that's from, like, Vogue old school. I couldn't remember the name. But there's Supplicants constantly dashing at you, blowing up and sometimes multiple of them at a time. And you've got hobgoblins. And then the Minotaurs spawn periodically as well. And then on top of that, the boss is a giant, effectively wide one. The final boss. It's the same boss from Garden of Salvation. The final boss, which some people had complaints about that. And I don't really care if they recycle a design boss because it's supposed to be the particular vex from the Black Garden. So from an aesthetic standpoint, it makes sense that there'd be another one that kind of looks like a giant chicken wyvern thing. Like, whatever, that's fine. That never bothers me. We've been reusing bosses literally since day one of D one, so who cares?

Me neither. As long as it's not like gameplay, like copy and paste.

Right?

I don't see a problem with it.

Yeah, exactly. So it's tedious and it's frustrating when you're trying to follow the path and then a Supplicant comes and just blows you up and kills you. And then once you get res, then you have to go find the Minotaur again and revive yourself. And I know the whole thing is like, well then just don't die and do better management of killing enemies. But it just kind of sucks the fun out of it when you're trying to learn the locations and you're constantly doing this juggling act that just feels very tedious and it just feels like too much and it gets a little old after a while. And by the time after the 10th or so run that I was farming it, I was pretty confident where all the nodes were and I could do it a lot more efficiently. But it wasn't fun to learn. Like some of the other dungeons and encounters have been in other end game things. So it's definitely down there in terms of boss mechanics. Again, once you get it down, you can do it pretty quickly. We were consistently like two phasing it the boss, we had a good kind of farming sequence down and it was fun doing kind of a clan night sort of thing. But when it came time for learning it, I think compared to duality, which is the other dungeon that we got this year, that one, it's a lot more like out in the open. Again, you're still going back to what you were saying the whole where you're just iterating on the same mechanic over and over again. I will still kind of voice my frustration with duality, where in that you have to shoot the bell to stop her and extend the mechanic, which goes against what you've been doing the entire dungeon. So I would say that that's also bad design where it's like, oh, we're going to change it up, but it's like this whole time you've been learning that you're not supposed to shoot the bell because it takes you back and then it doesn't do that anyway.

Yeah, okay, I see what you're saying there.

Yeah. So I've always kind of had a problem with duality for that reason, but with this, yeah, it's not fun to learn and it feels tedious. Even once you have it down, it's still like there's times where you just too many supplicants bombard you or the boss who's walking around the room kind of chasing after you. He's pretty vicious and does quite a bit of damage. And there was a lot of times where I died and I just was like, this is frustrating. So it's not the best dungeon. It's pretty good. I think my biggest gripe, and this is probably going to be a lot of hate from it, I'm not big on the text mechanica aesthetic. Cowboy yeehaw. Yeah, I think the weapons yeah, the weapons are cool. But adding cowboy hats to all the characters, I don't like it. I don't want to say I hate it, but every piece of armor that I've gotten from that, I've deleted. I haven't transmogged anything from it. I don't care for it. It doesn't do anything for me.

It starts crossing over into that suspension of disbelief meta territory where it's like, does this really fit with the aesthetic? And they're like, deliberately going against.

The.

Canon of the story. I guess in a sense, no other character in Destiny wears a cowboy head.

Right.

And I understand how that could throw some people off. Kind of, like breaks your immersion a little bit.

Yeah. Well, it's like that one eververse set where the hunter has, like, slacks and a sweater.

Anniversary.

Yeah. And every time I see it, I just well, no, the 30th anniversary is the snowboard pants and hoodie, which is also bad.

I know what you're talking about now. Yeah. That was like a year or so before.

Yeah. Those types of armor designs bother me so much. It sounds like I'm just, like, pissing on the game right now. And I'm not trying to, but some of the aesthetic choices that have been made with the designs, it's gotten real. Like you said, it's kind of that immersion breaking. And I know it's like space magic and whatever. You take cloth and it can be defensive armor against demonic entities that have traveled across space and time to take out a giant white golf ball in the sky. However you want to interpret the whole world of Destiny is kind of up to you. But yeah, seeing like, slacks or cowboy hats, it's just like, what is happening? Yeah.

Where's it rank for you?

I knew you were going to ask that.

I love asking ranking questions.

I know, I know. You're probably going to roll your eyes. I think I still, like, grasp the most most out of all of them because I think it's an excellent it's a wonderfully designed dungeon for teaching dungeons and endgame. And when I was, like, playing with my neighbor and some easy it's easy to teach. And they had a blast because it was the first time that they'd ever done anything like endgame before. And they got like, gallahorn and they were so excited about that. And I think I had the most fun doing that in a dungeon than I've had in a very long time doing any other dungeon. But I also have to ignore that in terms of ranking because I think it's definitely objectively not the best one. But then I look at every dungeon and I have some kind of problem with every single one of them, and I play them to either get a specific weapon or for Pinnacles. But I'll get excited if someone wants to do, like, a King's Fall or valid the Disciple, even though I've already done everything in there and I've gotten everything. I'll still do that dungeon because I enjoy or raid because I do it the dungeons. I don't have that same urge unless there's something that I explicitly am trying to get out of it. The only reason I farmed the hell out of duality is because I wanted to get the epicurean and fixed odds red borders completed. But I don't really like any of the other weapons from that. I just really like epicurean and fixed odds. I think they're both really cool weapons and I wanted to be able to craft them so I farmed the hell out of them so I could get that. But I didn't enjoy playing duality for hours on end. It wasn't like that dungeon. I don't know.

Think on it.

I know, but I'm thinking like Pit of heresy. I'd like kind of but then I don't like the ogre maze. Okay, what's the first dungeon?

Shattered throne.

Shattered throne.

I can never the opening encounter is.

Always like the opening encounter and I just hate annoyed. Well, I don't hate, I just get annoyed by the ogre boss when you're trying to run around him and he's just blasting you with the eye thing and it doesn't hurt you, but I have no movement because it's just blasting me into the wall. I don't know, I find that so like irritating. But I like duel and caru. I think that's one of the more interesting final boss encounters. So then there's Pit of Heresy and then both duality. I feel like the mechanics are jank in that and I don't enjoy the you have to stand in darkness and I know you're supposed to pay attention to around your screen if you're in the darker light.

Prophecy, you mean.

I'm sorry, prophecy? Not duality and prophecy. There's times where I feel like it's just kind of jank and doesn't work and I've never really cared for the weapons or the armor from that. And I hate Rainbow Road. That's the thing about prophecy that I'm not a fan of. Rainbow road is so tedious and the 45 2nd cooldown Timer does not need to exist. That I don't like that dungeon. And then there's Grasp of Avarice and that middle encounter with the bomb is sucky. But I really like the sparrow part of that.

Me too. Yeah, I will confess that much at least. Yeah, I guess you're I mean, they're all like good and bad for their own different reasons. For myself, I would say I think pitta heresy is my favorite. I think overall I understand not liking the ogre encounter, but just for example, I would take the ogre encounter any day over the stupid bomb thing in Grasp. Yeah, I mean there are much better gimmick encounters than the other dungeons. Like Prophecies and Grasps, like sparrow sections I think are fun. Despite the Timer and prophecy, I still think they're pretty cool. But I like Pit of heresy, I think most in part because it follows the Raid layer structure, which was first encounter was like a mechanic, then the next encounter was like a different mechanic and then there was like a gimmick and then the final boss was like everything combined.

Yes, and I will secede to that argument and I think we've talked about this before. I do agree. I think Pitif heresy does that best.

Yeah, I like that formula more than here's the light and dark moat mechanic do that 17 times until you're done sort of ranking. So if I had to rank them, I would say pitt heresy is number one. I'm going to say duality is number two.

Okay.

Because I like the diversity of mechanics in that one. I think every encounter is at least a little different and interesting. It's not perfect, but I enjoy that one. I am a sucker for the Leviathan stuff. I know a lot of people aren't, but for me, the Leviathan stuff was like my first Raid experience. So that whole aesthetic is always going to be like nostalgic for me. So I'm sure that is part of my bias as to why I like that 1 second most. Then I would say prophecy. I don't love it, but I honestly end up finding myself playing it a lot.

As much as I hate like the.

Hexahedron one and stuff, it's kind of like a turn off your brain kind of dungeon. It's not like aggressively infuriating like some other encounters per se. It's just kind of boring. And I would say Shattered Throne because I just don't think it's aged well. I mean, for the first dungeon it's good, but I just think the other ones have just improved and reiterated on that game mode better since the first one came out. And then I just don't really like grasp at all.

Okay.

As you know, I won't get into that.

Yeah, no, I mean it's glorified gambit. I get it.

I don't know where would you put Spire?

That final boss is frustrating to learn to me, but it's a quick dungeon. I feel like especially between the first and second encounters, like you literally you're you go up, you open a window and then you jump onto a platform and you're at the second encounter and the pacing is so quick on it, but I enjoy it. I'm trying to separate the loot that I've enjoyed getting from them versus the encounters themselves and some of them that I've played over and over again because I'm trying to get a certain thing. I probably would put duality at the top now that I say that because it's like that one. As much as I didn't care for it, I didn't mind farming it as much as I did. Kaido is kind of a cool fight in and of itself and it goes pretty quick. The Galron fight that you do, the middle one is the only one that it just feels like no matter I agree.

The middle one is the weakest one.

Yeah. Because no matter how well you execute it, it still takes the same amount of time because you have to do all three of those and you can't really expedite it any faster. Yeah, you can kind of speed up certain parts of it, but it's still fundamentally taking you two people have to go run and do that thing and come back and then dunk and you kill a boss and then you have to go do it again two more times. There's not much diversity in terms of it. I think Shattered Throne is up there with me because like you said, it hasn't probably aged the best but it's also the only one that doesn't feel like it's got some gimmick that you do all the way and pit of heresy to a certain degree like you said iterates instead of just like the same thing over and over again. Like Shattered Throne, you're doing different things throughout. Like the first is you're trying to find symbols around a giant map, and then the second thing is you're killing an enemy and getting orbs and then dunking them so you can damage them. And I guess you're kind of doing it at the end as well. But that final boss is just so interesting where you're killing the giant three knights and then dueling. Car is kind of a cool design.

And that's one of the ones where if you're really good at it, you can speed through it so you feel rewarded for being good at it.

Yeah, and actually, I did that solo this season. That was the first dungeon I've ever sold. And I know people have been sold dungeons for years now, literally, but I finally was like, I want to see if I can do one on my own. And I was able to. I almost went flawless and then I got booped off right before the final boss. I was like, that sucks. But it wouldn't have mattered because I died like three times at Duel in Caru because you can't plant a flag and so I had no ammo. So the first run I was trying to use primary to burn down the knights because I was trying to preserve my heavy for the actual boss. So I died a couple of times so I could actually get ammo, but I was able to solo it, so I enjoyed it. So I have kind of some fun with that. I probably put prophecy at the bottom because Rainbow Road is just so interesting to me.

Between that and the hexahedron, I really don't like that encounter either.

Yeah. And if you're going to make the argument of like, grasp is just glorified gambit, so is that totally.

But that's what made Grasp even worse is because it came after prophecy, right? They already did this. I don't know, it's the same thing, I guess. I mean, Grasp did it better in the sense that prophecy, like you said, has some pretty jank mechanics with like, the light and dark thing and that's how many times I've shot a night and been like, what I thought that was.

I will say the aesthetic is so bizarre and neat in Prophecy that I do have to give it props. Like the weird sandy desert.

Yeah, it's very cool looking.

Yeah, it definitely has weird transitions. And the weird spiraling thing that always reminds me of the Ocarina of time dungeon where the hallway kind of spirals and spins. There's some cool stuff in there and the music, hands down, the music is probably one of the best in that one. Again, there's elements of every single one of them that I'm not a fan of, and then there's other elements from like, either the weapons cool or the aesthetics cool. So it's like, I don't mind doing them if I'm going to do kind of an event or an activity with the clan buddies at night, there's almost every raid I would rather do before I would prefer to do, like, prophecy or something.

So I have another question for you.

Sure.

One thing that I always like in raids and dungeons and stuff, one thing that's very cool about endgame activities, something that people don't always think about is there's usually like a moment or two in there that's like a cool spectacle moment that the first time you played it or whatever, you're like, whoa, that's sick. Like in Grasp of Avarice, when you first get through the Loot cave and you look out at the cosmodrome or whatever, and the traveler theme starts playing from Destiny, one that is mine. For Grasp, prophecy has got a couple of moments, like you said, like the spinning occurrence time hallway, and maybe when you get the wasteland for the first time, or even when you come out to the Rainbow Road section or whatever era, was there a spectacle like, wow, moment for you in Spire of the Watcher.

Trying to think if there's one for duality as well. I think there's that part kind of just before you get to Kaidal where you step out and there's this big kind of open area inside the Leviathan and it kind of reminds you of how big and massive it is. And I think that that's kind of a cool. I would say that that's probably that for that for me. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, couple Leviathan is massive and it feels like you could take the entire game and just have it be the Leviathan in just different capacity in different areas and it would never feel the same. I mean, it's all kind of like industrial equipment for the Cabal, but it's still just like cool. But for spire. I like that when you start off, you're in Mars and it's one of those kind of like time rift areas and you see a spire off in the distance and you take the ramp all the way down. Although I hate those ramps because f ever trying to do flawless runs for that because of the ramps and things like that. But the exploration and that, you get all the way to the top of the spire as, like, the middle encounter. And so you're kind of like, oh, is this the end? But then you realize, like, no. Then you dive down into the spire into kind of the depths to do the final boss. So I think the exploration of the spire itself is pretty cool because it feels like this going back to I mentioned that I think the game to me is the least interesting when it leans heavy into I think the game, to me is the least interesting or most uninteresting when it leans into the space magic element, when you go into the hive city, or even, like, the dreadnought, where it's like, okay. In contrast to I think the game is the most interesting when it's the kind of post apocalyptic design which that's kind of the game that I yeah, what made me interested in the aesthetic of the game in the first place, which you get that a lot in D One. But then as soon as taking King comes out, like, obviously you get to the dreadnought and it goes into that kind of, like, hive aesthetic a lot more, where this whole thing feels almost fantastical and like fantasy almost. Whereas you're exploring the ruins of this cosmodrome or you go to the moon, which is cool because it's science fiction, but then it's also like an abandoned base and you find freshed and dead bodies all over the place. Or you go to Venus and you find out it's this old academy, but it's like, all in shattered ruins and all these aliens and monsters have kind of, like, taken it over. One of my favorite levels from D One is the one where you go down into the vault in Venus and right when you open the door, there's those two skeletons and it looks like they strangled each other. And it's like, what the hell happened here? To kind of compare that to I think that's what's kind of cool about Fallout. I like that video game series. And some of the coolest parts of that is when you explore the vaults and you get all these kind of interesting backstories and all that stuff. And maybe that's my desire to enjoy the kind of the post apocalyptic aesthetic. That's why I like spire, because it's this giant office building, almost, that's just, like, completely abandoned. And it's like, what was this place? I think when it leans into that is when the game is the most interesting to me. In contrast to going to Sabathun's, where everything kind of looks like a dreaming city. Yeah, well, Dreaming City is cool because it's almost a perfect blend. Of the two. And in a way, that's what I kind of also liked about The Tangled Shore is because it had a little bit of this it's like cobbled together science fiction, post apocalyptic design, but it is a little bit of magical fantasy as well. And so I think that's why Forsaken kind of blurred those lines beautifully, right. Like we talked about, it's like an old Western revenge plot also mixed with space magic. And it's like, oh, this is kind of cool. You were literally kind of jumping between the two of them. So it works. But I think Spire was really neat because here's this like there's like a rift in a time portal and then this this Spire that wasn't there before is now accessible and you have to go explore it. And yeah, it's kind of, again, going into that post apocalyptic aesthetic which I enjoy more. And that golden Age technology stuff. So I really do enjoy that quite a bit.

Yeah, one thing I really liked about Spy the Watcher is kind of like the concept of, I guess the structure of progression in terms of geographically where you're going.

I like the idea that you climb.

The tower and everything. That's kind of a cool idea. And I've always liked the warmind aesthetic as well. Yeah, I'm surprised that you don't like the space magic stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just that surprised me. I didn't know that.

I guess maybe I misspoke it's. Not that I don't like it.

If you had to pick like one or the other.

Yeah, I know. I'm always like the d one guy. But what drew me into this franchise in the first place was the Golden Age science fiction, post apocalyptic aesthetic with elements of like that's why I still think I don't want to open this can of worms, why I kind of like the concept of the original D One vanilla story where you're exploring these old ruins. There's this black heart portal that Golden Age scientists like found and the Cabal have found and they don't know really what it is. And so, again, it kind of blurs out lines because you're not on Mars, but you are on Mars and it's in this weird, haunted, evil garden where there's this heart but it all stemmed from during the Golden Age. These scientists found this technology and they didn't really know what to do with it. And that's why I think Beyond Light has a really cool aesthetic because you're going to this frozen wasteland and you find out all these scientists were basically open this portal to bring all these vex in so that they can take them and study them and ultimately create the exos from them. That's cool. Taking a little bit of that fantasy space magic element but then bringing it into a tangible science fiction way and then ultimately that leading to there was collapse and that's why humanity has crumbled. So I think when the game finds that perfect balance of all of those is when it's at its best and when it's the least. That's why I want to say least interesting to me is when it goes full on just like one or the other. One or the other, yeah. And even when it leans way too hard into just did a nuke go off here or was there some cataclysmic event that we don't really know what happened? And I think again, when the game blurs all those lines is when it's at its best. And so, yeah, going to Sabathun's like Throne world where everything kind of looks like it's from Dark Souls, like it looks really pretty, but it's all like it has this kind of fresh coat of paint and it's like I thought the whole point of destiny was supposed to be like after all these horrible cataclysmic things happen. And that's why it kind of like going to Earth and going to the Edz was such a cool thing. Like exploring these ruins and what happens after hundreds of years of decay and when all these aliens have tried to kind of take over and you have to fight them back. That's the most interesting to me.

Okay, yeah, that's perfectly valid. What did you think of.

The story.

Elements of Spire the Watcher, for lack of a better word? Because I guess all the dungeons have some sort of story, some more than others. Like Shattered Throne is literally like a plot point within the whole Dreaming City storyline.

Well, yeah. And I think I think well, to kind of go back, I think dreaming City is also kind of a cool thing where it's like you have this kind of this temple from the Awoken or the city and it's been taken and you're kind of jumping between these dimensions and that's again, kind of that cool blurred line where it's space magicky. But it's also like here you're getting into the science fictiony realm of this is some race of people that have been in a rift in space time and it's kind of a neat, cool thing. So Spire the Watcher, I'm a little weak on the story, but it's basically like after all of these time riffs keep happening, there's one that appears on Mars and that Spire wasn't there before and it's home to I don't remember the name of the it's not a warmind or is it a warmind submind or something? Yeah, it's like a submind and it was the one that was used for making predictions on it was so advanced in terms of computation ability that it was able to make predictions about the future and that was kind of like it was used for defense. And so it sounds like the Vex are trying to steal it. And what it does to ultimately escape is it puts its consciousness into a bow that's nearby and that's like the exotic that you can unlock at the end or get to drop. Is it's like a submind's conscience in the bow? And that's why it's got like an advanced targeting system that generates those rings or whatever? I haven't gotten it, but that's kind of from what I understand. So I think the kind of story elements behind it are kind of neat. And again, this is a perfect season for it. And it makes sense just like duality. It makes sense that it was during season of the Haunted with all the element, the ghost elements and shadows and.

Shades and all that stuff.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I guess we kind of talked about this last episode. Anything with the Vex in terms of story is always going to just be kind of boring to me.

Yeah.

Like, same thing with Garden of Salvation. I just feel like any activity involving the Vex is always pretty surface level. It doesn't always have to be like some super complex plot like Shattered Throne. And I guess it's kind of fun to combine Warmind and Vex stuff because that's, I think something that's traditionally not been done a whole lot in the context of the story. I don't think Rasputin, the Vex really have had a whole lot of interaction.

Right.

And I think it's been the Hive and the Cabal. I think most, if anything else.

Probably the Fallen to the Fallen, I'm sure.

Tried to rate it, whatever the shut mind is.

I don't know.

I get this stuff confused on Earth.

Yeah, I think that was a lot of kind of the original D One story. Right. I think that's the story of the Warmind mission is your goal and saber as well. Yeah, exactly. Like, they're trying to get into the bunkers. I think every race except for the Vex have tried to get in there. You hit like the taken Hive Cabal, which is interesting. Yeah.

Considering they're like the robot people.

Yeah. One, it's specifically the group of Vex from the Black Garden that are trying to get in.

Oh, yes, that's right. Someone smarter than me will know what that division is called because they're all like different clans.

Yeah, exactly.

Once I worship the darkness.

Exactly. So that's again, kind of cool to and that's why it works, that they would look like the enemies from the Garden of Salvation Raid. I think in terms of like a backdrop, I think the Black Garden is such a cool location, and I think as much as everyone kind of hates the Garden of Salvation Raid, and I don't hate it, but I'm definitely up there in terms of, like, it's not my favorite. I think the aesthetic of the Raid is really cool. And I still like that season that we during season of the Undying. I like that six man activity where we got to go into the Black Garden and do something, where it's just like it's a cool locale. It's cool to kind of continue to kind of interconnect elements because when you finally go to the Black Garden for the last mission of D One Vanilla and you see how massive it is, and you explore just this tiny little section and it does effectively make you feel small of like, what is this place? Why is it so massive? And it definitely kind of leaves you high and dry wanting to know more. And it sucks that it took how many years until we finally got to go back there. Although I guess, you know, in taking King, there's like a mission or two where you go there, but anyway but it's the same place. It's cool to go back, it's cool to kind of learn more about the Vex that specifically inhabit there and what their motivations are. But I know we talk about this. Like you said, the Vex have always been kind of the weakest enemy in terms of really presenting a looming threat, other than they're just this endless wave of robots that can travel through time, which, I guess, in terms of trying to be an ever present threat. At least they have that effect where it's like kind of like the hive always seem like they are going to be the end all, be all final enemy. Because it seems like just the design of their species is just like unending. Well, that's in their name, right? They're just like a hive of nasty bugs and an infestation that you'll never completely get rid of. The Vex kind of have that same feeling where it's just like these endless wave of robots that will never, ever be stopped. And so it at least has an intimidation factor in that sense. But you are right in that there's not like a single mind that has the same kind of like mysteriousness as Sabathun or Oryx.

I think it's cool also that they tie in like the Mars time rift from which is cool because it's nice to not throw that away because it was kind of an important plot point.

Yes.

Or seemed like a pretty major thing to happen. So that was kind of cool that they brought that back and made it a relevant thing. What do you think about the loop pool for this one?

So I've already voiced my opinions about the Cadbain armor, sure, but I guess weapons specifically, so I hate that two of the weapons are seven Serif weapons, especially now that they've announced that they're going to literally get rid of the warbine cell mods.

So that's kind of whoa, wait, I didn't know that. Wait, when did they announce that?

That is part of one of the previews that they've come out with. Which one is it? It's the build crafting evolved, I think the loadout mod customizations and more from January 18. They did that nerf a while back to war mine cells and no one's really done anything with them. So they're just getting get rid of them. Wow. As an example of mods that aren't coming along for the ride are warmin cells. These are the relic of a different time and already been nerfed in the past. They had a good run, but these mods will be depreciated or depreciated and no longer available starting in season 20 to make way for new options to consider when crafting your preferred combat style.

What's the point? Why get rid of them?

Because they probably just looked at the numbers and after they nerfed them, nobody was using them. And I think part of the problem.

Of just keeping it in the game.

Though, probably just size. You should read this article. It's pretty cool because they're talking about all the mod customization that's coming and how they're going to get rid of elements to armor and they're going to kind of condense down like charge with light mods and elemental well mods. They're going to kind of blend them together. They're going to get rid of the requirement to have champion mods as like things you have to put on your arm. It's just once you unlock them in the artifacts, they're going to be just always on. So if there's anti barrier pulse, every time you put a pulse on it's just going to have anti barrier built into it, assuming you've unlocked that artifact slot. But they are going to go back to limiting how many artifact slots you can unlock because obviously if you had all of them unlocked all the time, it would be kind of broken. Especially the ones that they typically put in the class item where it's just like if you had access to all of those, it'd be pretty crazy. So they're balancing it out that way, but they're making it free to reset your artifact so that there's no setback to it. Read this because they show what the new user interface is going to look like and they kind of explain how the loadouts are going to work, the pre made loadouts that you can save and just some of the other stuff that's going to go kind of into everything. So check it out. So they're getting rid of warmin cells. So that makes two of the weapons, the 7th stair of carbine and revolver, which nobody's using. One hundred and eighty s. And so because warmin cells are going away, those two weapons in my mind are kind of worthless. And I know some people like target lock and auto rifles, blah, blah, blah, it's fine. I don't like those two weapons and it sucks because they're in there kind of spoiling the loop pool. And I've literally gotten everything else except for the scout rifle, the long arm. And that's the only thing that I want to get from there. And I've run the first encounter more times than I'd like to admit because you can farm the first encounter pretty quickly if you've got two guys that know what you're doing. You can each take a side while you kind of wrap it around the building and turn everything on really quickly. I have not gotten a long arm and I've also done the final encounter more times than I'd like to admit. I've got the sidearm is pretty cool. The liminal vigil like desperado for a sidearm is pretty neat. The Lmg is kind of cool. I've gotten a couple of Welder flights, which is the grenade launcher that shoots like two grenades, which is kind of neat. But the aesthetic on him is really cool. I like that we have some more legendary text mechanica weapons. Kind of like we got the shotgun during the 30th anniversary, so the weapons aesthetic is pretty cool. Not a fan of the armor. Okay. And I hate that. Two of the weapons in there are kind of the loopholes diluted with two weapons that no one wants and are going to use. And they didn't even make them craftable like the epicurean and fixed odds were in the duality dungeon. And that's another kind of complaint about that, is they sort of diluted that loop pool by adding two weapons that aesthetically don't make sense and have no business being in the loop pool for that because it doesn't match anything else. And then it just kind of also dilutes it. So I think that's kind of a loss. But other than that, I think the rest of the weapons are really neat looking. I'd really like to get a long arm to have an opinion about it because it looks cool. And I like the lever action rifle design, obviously. DMC is cool.

Is it one of those hip fire grip?

Sort of. I haven't really toyed with the Tex mechanica specific trait or origin trait, but I think it's like if you get shots from the hip, it makes your aim down sight shots more accurate or like you reload fast or something like that. So it's kind of a DMT lightish, sort of, so to speak. And yeah, some people really like it. I have no opinion because I haven't gotten one yet and I'd like to and I'm kind of sick of farming it. So we'll see. Maybe next season.

Yeah, I don't think I have any of them.

They do look cool.

I do like kind of a combination between the Rasputin and the cowboy aesthetic.

Yes.

Do you like the text mechanica weapon aesthetic?

On some things, I'm not good with the last word, but I really like the way it looks. Dmt is cool as kind of like the Henry repeater lever action style. There's also Huckleberry, which is okay. They all look cool. The only one that I think is just a total bizarre is the heavy grenade launcher that I can't even think of the name of. And no one ever remembers that that's a text mechanical weapon.

Why can't I think of it?

Because no one uses it. I don't even have it in Dim because I probably dismantled it.

You said it's an exotic.

Yeah, it's from year one.

Oh, the prospector.

The prospector, yeah. There you go. Yeah, exactly. And then, of course, the Chaperone is, like, such a cool. Again, the lever action aesthetic I think is the coolest. I know Chaperone has a lot of hate from a lot of folks but just in terms of, like, again, kind of bizarre, neat, Western science fictiony bizarre stuff. I always think the text mechanic aesthetic is really cool in weapons now that we've finally seen it in armor the Yeehaw stuff is a little goofy in my mind. The Last Word is so embedded in the DNA of Destiny's lore in stark contrast to Thorn. And I think that's why there's such a cool kind of contrast to each other. And even with Lumina now being, like, kind of this weird blend of that addition as well in terms of those exotics. And I think The Last Word sort of being this old cowboys six shooter, eight shooter in this case that you fire from the hip and do, like, the quick with the hammer. Such a cool aesthetic for this game. And it's so, like, been saying the word aesthetic a lot. I think that's, like, the theme of this episode. I think it's badass and awesome and I think some of the other weapons that they made have been really cool and it's neat to see kind of just more designs of that manifest in terms of, like, a grenade launcher and a sidearm and they all look cool and they're all fun to use. The Lmg is pretty rad too. Yeah.

So off topic question, but I realized we didn't talk about this yet. Has Revision Zero been keeping you occupied over the course of the season?

Yes, I'm actually glad that you brought that up. I am in love with the Revision Zero. I've already put, like, 2000 kills on it and leveled it up because I've been using it a lot in the Heist battlegrounds and just like, I kind of got on a kick and I did the Serif Shield. Mission. I did, like, a solo legendary run, flawless. And I use that a bunch because it's just useful because it's got good range and decent damage and it's fun to fire up and I love getting a bunch of headshots. Gives it like, four sniper shots and it's really cool and I love that week by week you've been unlocking different catalysts for it and it's just fun to use. And each week it gets a better version of the Hunter's trance and all the stats just get a little bit better each time. I think it's such a cool exotic and feels so unique and it's been really fun to craft and I like, every time you get one of the new trances it also changes the actual look. Going back to aesthetic, it changes the aesthetic of the gun where it gets like the under mount and the side thing and just slightly gives it a longer barrel and it's so ridiculously long that it's like off the screen. I've been really digging it and it's one of the cooler, exotics I think we've gotten in a long time. It's fun to use in Pve. I've used it in PvP. I've gotten a couple of headshots with it, with the sniper, and that felt really satisfying to do in PvP, so I really like it. I think it's a cool pulse rifle and I'm glad that it's a part of the arsenal now.

Yeah, the whole customization aspect I think is very neat. So that's cool. What do you think of the mission, by the way?

I am assuming that it's going to go away at the end of the season, and I'm bummed out about it because, as everyone in my clan calls it, it's like kind of a deep stone crypt light where it teaches you a little bit about the mechanics. I think the spacewalk part is pretty cool. I really like that. The backdrop of it is Earth, and you can see the Traveler cool skybox. I like the mission itself. I really like the part where you surrender weapons and the Fallen let you on their catch and then you immediately just transmit the weapons back and then kill them all.

Brutal.

It's a war crime, probably kind of is, but it's a cool mission. I think my favorite part of it is probably just before that kind of first mini boss encounter where you take him down to that hive guy, down to a third health, and then the three what are those called? The big fallen tank things. I'm blanking on the name right now, which the walkers. The walkers. Yeah. I can't think of what they're called, but there's three of them that appear in that room and it's pretty hectic and crazy. It's a fun fight that's not just a boss with health, but you actually have to prioritize who you target and kind of management of the Marauders will try to sneak up behind you and see if they're kind of always be paying attention. Doing it solo was actually a lot of fun and felt very rewarding. I've been enjoying it. I am not annoyed that they want you to play it so many times because it gets repetitive and you know what to do after the third or fourth time. But it's challenging enough and interesting enough that I've enjoyed it and I'll be sad to see it go if it leaves. And I went through the effort to unlock the dog, the robot dog, and I hope that he stays in the helm because that was like definitely the best part of it. And every time I go to the helm, I make sure to point to pet him and it's the execute good boy protocol or whatever. And then the best was that the twob that came out after that came out and they showed the proof of concept and they have you petting like a guardian because they were just basically showing that at any angle you could execute the emote basically to pet the dog. But before they had the dog created, they just have a guardian on its hands and knees. And so you're like, petting a guardian and people are like, this is like nightmare fuel. So it's awesome. I think it's really cool. It's a fun mission. Again, it's a clever way to reuse some deep stone crypt assets and the cool space station walk. And again, science fiction part of it, I love. Really cool. This big, kind of abandoned, empty space station that are inhabited by aliens and it's rad. I think it's good.

Well, that's about all the time we have today for this discussion. But thank you, Rob, for hopping on and chatting with me, as always. And thank you guys for listening to our little discussion as part of the Watcher and a little bit about Revision Zero. Tune in next time where we are going to be talking about the state of lightfall and the state of the game and stuff like that. So thank you guys again and we'll see you see you next time.

You can put this voice recording away.

And go on with your life, because you and I both know you'd have me yapping in your ear for the.

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