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Is Crota Hard Mode ultimately worth the trouble? (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Wednesday, January 28, 2015, 09:59 (3348 days ago)

I love Raids in Destiny; I love the challenge, the frustration, and the ultimate feeling of empowerment that comes from mastering such difficult encounters. I'm looking forward to beating Crota's End on hard mode for the personal sense of accomplishment. But Speedracer said something during the Crota battle last night that stuck with me:

"I don't know if we can run this weekly".

I had joined the group late; they had already been stuck on the hard-mode Crota battle for a few hours when I got online. We tried a couple strategies (the "center window", "under the boomer tower") and time and again we were thwarted by seemingly random occurrences. I could be wrong, but this battle doesn't feel like something that can be mastered. It feels like you can perform the same actions 5 times in a row and get completely different results each time. That's not "challenging", it's frustrating as hell.

Aside from the many glitches that seem to occur during the final battle, I believe the big problem is Crota himself. He is just too wildly unpredictable. His aggro & behaviors are all over the map. Sometimes you can stand 30 feet away and he'll just stare at you. Other times if you get within 50 feet he'll charge and take out your entire group with 1 swing.

The Vault of Glass had its share of glitches as well, but virtually every glitch could be countered or avoided. Only 1 person got teleported? Open the portal and send backup. Bumping the relic holder causes his shield to drop? Don't bump the relic holder. But with Crota, I feel like I'm just throwing heavy ammo synths in the trash every time we go up against him. Too many random elements that can't be countered or avoided, all of which are instant team-wipes. Sword vanished? You're fucked. Thrawl killed you through a solid wall? You're fucked. Crota suddenly develops split-personality disorder? You get the idea.

All of this might be worth struggling with if the payouts were really fantastic. But so far, everything I'm hearing is that none of the rewards are particularly worthwhile. General feedback seems to be that the weapons are ok, but nothing is as good as Fatebringer or even Vision of Confluence. And the Necrocasm looks underwhelming at best.

All that being said, I hope some drastic changes are made to clean up this mess of an encounter. As it stands right now, Hard Mode Crota's End is something I'm looking to finish once and than never touch ever again.


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