Find your weapons & armor - Companion's Little Helper. *IMG* (Destiny)

by SteelGaribaldi , Sol system, Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 22:51 (3537 days ago)

Toward the end of the Beta, one part of Destiny became cumbersome and annoying for me: finding the right weapon. It was on my Warlock, or on my Hunter, or on my Titan, or in the vault. I would try to find a weapon with the right Damage Type, Level, Attack, or Upgrade perks - I had the Companion open on my phone, B-net open on my computer, and the character screen open in Destiny. I'd try to remember which armor had the upgrade that increases reload speed on auto rifles, and then I would squint at the little bars for Impact and Rate of Fire on those 3 screens trying to find the right auto rifle. ... I grew frustrated. I wanted more data in front of me, in an easy to compare format.

When the Beta was over (and I couldn't play Destiny anymore), I built a spreadsheet. (I'm an engineer, it's what we do. (We also abuse parentheses.))

The Companion's Little Helper has the stats for my weapons and armor across all 3 characters and the vault. I built it in Numbers so that I could fiddle with it on my iPad during my lunch break. (Versions for Google Docs and Excel in OneDrive.) Make a copy for your personal use.

I'll give an example of how I expect to use this, then describe / show the parts of the spreadsheet.

Companion's Little Helper in action

It's September 15, I'm at work, I get a message from a buddy. He tells me we're going to attempt a raid tonight, and he thinks we can finish it this time. I know that I need Arc damage for the Fallen shields and Solar damage for the Hive shields, and I know I've got armor that reduces grenade cooldown. But where are those weapons? And have I earned that armor upgrade?

I grab my iPad and spend part of my lunch break looking in the Little Helper for weapons and armor I can use in this raid. I've been spending time on my Warlock lately, so I think he'll be the best character to take into this raid. I look at Warlock armor first.

• I find a Warlock helmet (Chroma Vow) with an earned upgrade that reduces melee cool down times when doing grenade damage. It's in my Warlock's gear.
  
• I find Warlock gauntlets (Chroma Vow I) with an earned upgrade that increases the reload speed of Auto Rifles. They're in my Warlock's gear.
  
• I find a Warlock chest (Chroma Vow) with an earned upgrade that increases the ammo carried for Auto Rifles. It's in my Warlock's gear.
  
• I look at my Auto Rifles and find the Cydonia-AR3. It has high attack and an earned upgrade "Zoomed fire is slower & more powerful." It's in my Warlock's gear.
  
• I find a Nox Revus III Fusion Rifle that does Arc damage. It's in my Hunter's gear.
  
• I find a Jester SA/3 Rocket Launcher with an unearned upgrade that reduces grenade cool down times. Maybe I can earn that upgrade tonight. It's in my Warlock's gear.
  
• I find a Gozen-C sniper rifle that does Arc damage. It's in my Warlock's gear.
  
• I find a Sargon-C machine gun that does Void damage. I don't think we need Void damage, but it won't hurt to have it on my character. It's in my Hunter's gear.

Looks like my Warlock armor is pretty good, so I decide to play my Warlock in this raid.

• I'm still on my break at work, so I open the Companion on my phone, and look at those 2 weapons which aren't already in my Warlock's gear.
  
• The Sargon-C machine gun is equipped on my Hunter, so I use the Companion to equip a different machine gun. That will allow me to take my Hunter straight to the vault in the Tower, and dump the Sargon-C into the Vault without having to de-equip anything in game.
  
• The Nox Revus III on my Hunter isn't equipped, so I can dump that in the vault immediately.
  
• I've also confirmed that the Little Helper was up to date, and there were no awesome weapons missing from the Little Helper.
  
• I update the Location of those weapons in the spreadsheet while at work. (I know that I won't update the Little Helper when I get home and move things in game. I'm lazy and forgetful - if I do it now, I won't forget later.)
  
• I finish lunch and go back to work.
  
• When I get home, I start Destiny and log into my Hunter first. I put Sargon-C and Nox Revus III in the Vault.
  
• I change to my Warlock and get those weapons out of the Vault.
  
• I meet up with my friends. We complete the raid. There is much dancing.

Weapons

Each class of weapon (Primary, Special, Heavy) has a tab of stats and info, letting me easily compare weapons. The yellow triangles on the column headers are comments on each cell, tool tips with more info about the column.

Primary (big version):

Special:

Heavy:

Columns:

• ?: The location of the weapon: is it in the vault or on a Guardian? Which Guardian?
  
• Type: Which kind of weapon?
  • Primary: Auto Rifle, Scout Rifle, Pulse Rifle, Hand Cannon
    
  • Special: Sniper, Shotgun, Fusion Rifle
    
  • Heavy: Machine Gun, Rocket Launcher
• L: The Level Required to use this weapon. Can I use this soon? If I can't use it, the cell is red. (I update my current level in the top cell on the Primary tab.)
  
• A: Attack. Will this damage high ranking enemies? See [Datto's Attack vs. Impact video](http://youtu.be/nJQxNrXpzfI?list=UUkmAjbIecTIjTQctolYeuDw "Destiny Beta: Attack vs. Impact - Weapon Damage Explained"), he explains Attack and Impact well.
  
• Tier: How cool is it? The cells change color to match the tier. (Basic is White, Common is Green, Rare is Blue, Legendary is Purple, Exotic is Orange)
  
• Type: The Damage types, Kinetic, Arc, Solar, and Void. The cells change color to match the Damage Type. (Kinetic is White, Arc is Blue, Solar is Yellow, and Void is Purple)
  
• DpS: Measure of damage done over time; Rate * Impact. (Damage per Second, but I don't know how much damage in each second. I do know that Bigger Is Better.)
  
• Stats: Rate of Fire, Impact, Range, Stability, Reload, and Magazine. (These exact numbers are in the web code for the stats card.)
  
• Ammo: How much ammo that weapon can carry, as seen in the lower left corner when the weapon isn't active.
  
• Upgrades: What other perks do I get? (Lots of columns: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3, 4, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6, 7. These 7 basic weapon upgrade slots are based (mostly) upon the image of the Bad JuJu Pulse Rifle that INSANEdrive posted.)

Armor

Each Guardian (Warlock, Hunter, Titan) has a tab of stats and info. The categories for the top 4 pieces of armor are added together, letting you see the totals for that combination of armor. This combination of Warlock armor provides 146 Defense and 62 Discipline.

Warlock (big version):

Titan:

Hunter:

• ?: The location of the Armor: is it in the vault or on the guardian?
  
• Type: Helmet, Gauntlets, Chest, Leg
  
• L: The Level Required to use this weapon. Can I use this soon? If I can't use it, the cell is red.
  
• D: Defense, the measure of protection.
  
• Tier: How cool is it? The cells change color to match the tier. (Basic is White, Common is Green, Rare is Blue, Legendary is Purple, Exotic is Orange)
  
• Light - Increases Level beyond 20, increasing damage to higher-level enemies.
  
• Intellect - Reduces cooldown on Super. (Increases the speed Super will recharge when not killing things.)
  
• Discipline - Reduces cooldown on grenades.
  
• Strength - Reduces cooldown of special melee. (Storm Fist, Energy Drain, Throwing Knife, etc. Standard melee is always available.)
  
• Upgrades: What other perks do I get? (Lots of columns: 1.1, 1.2, 2, 3, 4, 5.1, 5.2, 6, 7.1, 7.2. These 7 basic armor upgrade slots are based (mostly) upon the image of the Insurmountable SkullFort that INSANEdrive posted.)

Guardians of the ... Solar System

That's what I've been doing with my free time since July 27 at 6pm. I can't play Destiny now, but I can get ready for the gear meta-game.

Meta-game? In the Beta, my guardian had 10 slots for each weapon and armor type, and the Vault had 20 slots for weapons and 20 slots for armor. That's 50 weapons slots and 60 armor slots available with your first guardian.

I might be able to keep track of 10-15 Primary Weapons. Maybe.

But, when you have all 3 guardians going, that will be 110 weapon slots and 140 armor slots. That's 30-40 Primary Weapons spread across 4 locations. That's too much to juggle between my head and the Companion, so I'm upgrading my gear game with a spreadsheet.

When I'm level 15 or 20, and half my gear isn't changing every other level, I'll be using this to give myself an edge in Strikes and Raids.

***

Thanks to Datto for his video on the Armor attributes, and his video on Weapon Damage Types (Solar, Arc, Void).

This labeled image of Bad Juju should explain the numbering of the upgrade columns.