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THAB 5/16/19: No Fun Allowed edition (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY @, Toronto, Saturday, May 18, 2019, 07:36 (1767 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Bouncing Sleeper Shots isn’t exactly easy to pull off correctly either


Except for on that one Hydra boss from the Black Armory. That's hilarious enough to be left alone, though, in my book.

But, you're right, and it's a direction I wish Bungie would explore. Make things unique and interesting, with neat mechanics that reward exploring the edges a bit more and actually learning stuff and improving skill, rather than "the number got bigger" and "this just does huge DPS." Being powerful on its own can be fun, but it's not nearly as fun as playing with something cool and interesting that gives the base mechanics of Destiny a neat twist.

I think some of these nerfs are required, though. The hardest encounters in the game are designed in such a way that I couldn't use Trinity Ghoul (near the top of my favorite exotics--it's just fun!), because I couldn't afford to lose out on the sheer DPS of Whisper or Sleeper. It's honestly why I don't think there are many fun boss encounters in Destiny--they're mostly just DPS checks with few actual combat challenges. You just have to not die and deal massive amounts of damage--it's not exactly interesting.

That’s a fair point, but how do these nerfs help? Trinity Ghoul isn’t going to be any more useful now. The encounters haven’t changed.


I disagree about Whisper being difficult to use. Plenty of bosses do nothing but stand there stupidly--see half of Gambit's bosses, the Ogre in Last Wish, the final boss in Scourge of the Past, Calus (granted, Whisper didn't exist when he was designed).

I’ll push back a tiny bit here, just because successfully chaining crits is not always that easy, even in some of those encounters. There is so much flinch with that thing, the reticule bounces like crazy. Plus even bosses like Calus or the Scourge guy have a habit of twitching just as I’m pulling the trigger :)

But even if I’m wrong about that, there’s an inherent trade-off with Whisper because it’s so specialized. It can absolutely wreck a Spider Tank, but it’s mostly useless in most other encounters. And I really like that trade-off. I like that when my team goes into Zero Hour, there’s a strategic discussion that happens where we decide if we want someone to bring Whisper to deal with the tanks. Because that can be super helpful, but it also means that player doesn’t have a heavy weapon to help with any of the other encounters in the mission. So the remaining 2 players need to choose their loadouts carefully, make sure that everyone has the right elemental damage covered, that the team has a plan for dealing with the super shanks and Captains, not to mention the boss himself. With these new changes, Whisper often won’t be so effective against the tanks, because you won’t have enough ammo. I’ve played through that whole mission without seeing a single purple brick several times.

I like specialization. I like having a mix of precision tools along side general all-purpose weapons. Precision tools like Whisper might be SUPER effective in very limited situations, but that’s great IMO. I gives it a reason to exist. Now it’s just another sniper rifle that takes up an exotic slot.


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