Changing the way you play (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Thursday, June 07, 2018, 11:53 (2150 days ago) @ cheapLEY

This isn't really related to 'renown', per se - but I'm putting it here because your comments nicely encapsulate some of my feelings over the past few days. (I'm enjoying the Renown system, too! I'd love to have it integrated like the Nightfall Challenge card, to be used or not used as players saw fit.)

What this made me think of was the last piece of the Nascent Dawn quest, which I finished yesterday. You get a catalyst for the Polaris Lance, and part of the activation of it requires 50 "Perfect Fifth" kills.

This is described in other threads here, but for folks who haven't seen this yet, the Exotic perk of the Polaris Lance is a delayed explosive round that shows up after 4 precision shots. (Four quick precision shots, I should say; there's a definite time limit between shots, and if you exceed it, the count starts over.) The Catalyst requirement is 50 kills with that fifth shot... but only the BURN of that shot, that continues over time. If you kill your enemy with the shot itself (or the explosion from the shot), it doesn't count. So you have to pick enemies with enough health to survive the explosion... but not enough to survive the DOT from the burn.

Luckily, someone on Reddit determined that a Cabal Legionary with full health has the exact amount of health needed, so the suggestion is to go into the Castellum, in the Leviathan, and farm Cabal Legionaries (which will spawn infinitely there). (Side warning: it was also discovered that if you happen to be wearing Raid pants, the damage buff from them will screw up the equation; you'll kill the Legionary with the explosion. So wear regular pants.)

Okay: so with Catalysts, you can either ignore them, and let them trigger organically... or you can do what most of us do, and focus on completing them once we get them. :) So I decided to try farming for these kills, because getting them anywhere else sounded exhausting.

First thing I realized was... it's not anywhere near as easy as people made it sound. ;) There are a LOT of Cabal, and they're ALL shooting at you, and throwing grenades at you, and if you're not a crack shot who can simply swing your gun around and hit your target under pressure every time, you're going to have to be pretty dang careful or you're going to die a LOT. :)

This is where I discovered the time limit for the explosive round; I started by being careful, and lining up my precision shots (because I thought, wrongly, that they had to be four CONSECUTIVE precision shots - they don't, they just have to be close enough together that they trigger the perfect fifth). And then, once I realized you could be sloppier, I started to have trouble because I'd get the four precision shots... but then I wouldn't be able to find an unharmed Legionary in time, because I'd been shooting pretty indiscriminately. (Another suggestion had been to use a pair of Phalanxes for your precision shots; you can take 2 shots at the open shield that count, do that twice (different phalanxes; if you wait for him to stand up straight again, you lose the streak), and THEN shoot a Legionary... but I found that when I was in there alone, there were ONLY two Phalanxes, and they weren't always available for shots. Often they were behind other Cabal, or facing the wrong way to hit the center, or a host of other issues. So I'd shoot ANYTHING for the precisions... but then when I was lookign for a fifth target, I'd be faced with 20 injured Cabal. Oops!)

Long story already long - it took me a while to work out a pattern that actually provided the environment I needed to complete the challenge. (I ended up using the Cabal that spawn above and behind you when you are at the top of the stairs for the final shot, and the multitude in the pit for the first 4. Lots of dodging!)

This is NOT the way I normally play Destiny. It was much faster, and I needed to be much more careful about where I was hitting my enemies. It was super-slow at the start, and didn't get better until I found a pattern that worked for me. (The Reddit thread is full of people thanking the guy who suggested the Castellum, saying "I finished the challenge in 20 minutes", or "It only took me half an hour!" I laugh at all those people. ;) )

HOWEVER (and this, finally, is the point of this post):

When I was finished, I did a strike, and I used the Lance. And holy crap, that Perfect Fifth was proc'ing all the friggin' time!

I GOT BETTER BY TRYING SOMETHING I WOULDN'T HAVE DONE ON MY OWN, BUT THAT BUNGIE MADE ME DO IN SEARCH OF SOMETHING I WANTED, AND IT MADE THE GAME MORE FUN.

I mean... yeah, I know that's the argument... but rarely has it hit home as strongly as it did last night. :)