Tower Vendors & Faction Rep - What am I missing? (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 26, 2015, 10:57 (3381 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I was looking through my vault yesterday, and I noticed I have 15 Vanguard commendations. I asked myself "When am I ever going to use these?" I starting thinking back through my memory, and was surprised to realize that I don't think I've ever purchased a weapon from a Vender (other than an Iron Banner scout rifle a couple months ago).

This got me to thinking about the Vendors in the Tower; did Bungie miss the mark with these shops & factions? Or am I missing out by not using them?

In my experience, there is very rarely any reason to buy from the vendors. In the early game (1-20) you get all the gear you need from drops and as mission rewards. Buying new armor and weapons at that point is all but worthless, since you don't keep any single piece of gear for more than a few missions. Everything gets upgraded and replaced too quickly.

During the 20-26 grind, I did find it necessary to buy a few pieces of armor to boost my light level. I could have purchased weapons at that point, but it never seemed wise to me; better to spend my marks on armor so I can level up and do higher level missions which will give me better weapons as rewards, right?

Now that all 3 of my character have reached end-game content (raids, nightfalls, etc) I can't see any reason to buy from the vendors ever again. I already get legendary and exotic weapons faster than I can upgrade them, simply by running the weekly content. As such, the tower feels like a pretty hollow place for me. I go from the Vault to the bounty station and back to orbit, with the occasional trip to the weapons vendor to buy heavy ammo synths.

On a related note, I wonder if anyone here could explain the appeal of building faction rep? Once again, I see very little point to it. The various factions don't seem to sell gear that is particularly unique or special. Plus, the fact that they only deal with Crucible marks is a big deterrent for me, since I rarely play the crucible.

Am I way off here? Is there more to the vendors than I realize? Or are they actually as useless as I think they are?

I have found the Vanguard and Crucible weapon vendors very useful. In Destiny's first "season" I used the heck out of the Crucible variant of the Fair and Square pulse rifle. It had a low rate of fire, a high impact, great stability, and Third Eye which I really like during Crucible matches. For my Hunter I picked up Vanguard variant of The Devil You Know pretty early on and used that until Xur sold The Last Word for the first time. Later I purchased up the Aries Nemesis X4, a powerful slow firing Crucible Scout Rifle with Firefly and love it. For the second, Dark Below, season I traded out Fair and Square for its rough equivalent Three Little Words and have replaced the Aries Nemesis X4 with the Vanguard Badger CCL. For me it has been important to have good legendaries in each slot so I could vary my play styles by swapping with Exotic I used. Crucible Pulse Rifle + Invective + The Swarm has been my go to setup for serious Crucible play for months now.

That said, the Gunsmith is almost entirely useless. Yeah, people flock to him for blue Fusion Rifles for Pocket Infinity... but he should really have a purpose beyond that. First thought would be reforging the perks on any standard weapon but as some have pointed out that might lead to specific weapon setups ruling all. Maybe that wouldn't be too bad? It's not like some guns aren't already king of the hill, after all. Maybe he could accelerate weapon leveling for a price? Or offer Raid weapons in exchange for raid materials in order to help stabilize and make up for bad RNG luck?

As for the three factions... yeah, their gear has always seemed a bit lackluster to me. Maybe they could be better differentiated somehow with stats and perks? Focusing on specific play styles like grenade users or sharpshooters or fast annoying shotgun jerks? :p And yes, their only taking Crucible Marks is a shame since it unbalances the number of vendors taking Crucible vs Vanguard marks.