Under-Lighted Missions (Destiny)

by squidnh3, Thursday, September 17, 2015, 14:47 (3167 days ago)

So, I had been a little disappointing that there was no longer a "Hard" option for the story missions, as I usually like to struggle a bit and have to get creative when playing them for the first time. So, I was finally a high enough light level (~210) to attempt the daily story mission (240 light) last night. I figured that would be a pretty good challenge.

Things went pretty badly. I managed to make my way to the final battle room after about 45 minutes, at which point the more aggressive enemies/boss spawned in and I got slaughtered almost instantly. I tried a few more times to see if I could find a spot to safely approach the fight, but didn't get anywhere, and then I was luckily disconnected from the Destiny servers, preventing myself from any further self-inflicted torture.

So, if you are trying to get up to Raid level for tomorrow (not sure what it is, speculation is 280?), at 30 light short you are going to have a tough time.

Other lessons:

At some point during the mission, I was running out of special ammo, so I tried switching to Icebreaker. Icebreaker (high-impact) was doing a lot more damage than the 200-light sniper (low impact) I was using, even at 170. This highlights how (I think?) the new light system works: all damage is based on the light average of your gear and the stats of the weapons, not the individual weapon levels. With the increase in items that matter to your stats (average of 9 items), you may be able to afford to use a powerful Y1 weapon. If you average 280 light, using one 170 Y1 weapon decreases your average to 268, just a 4% decrease (which I think somebody noted before the expansion came out, but it makes more sense now that I've seen it in action). However, the 4% number may be misleading, as your damage is dependent on the relative light level between you and your opponent, so if the 12 point drop gets you to a high enough difference, you may be doing 100% less damage.

Please correct me if I'm totally wrong.