Had another exciting couple of runs through the Trials of Osiris last night with Cyber and Cody. Our first run (as a group of 3 Striker Titans) was going great until the very end. We made it to 8 wins without using our Mercy buff, then went up against 2 brutally tough teams in a row and lost both games. We turned in our tickets, swapped characters (this time running with 2 sunsingers and a bladedancer) and went back in. Our 2nd run was exhausting: game after game against highly skilled teams, many going to 5-3 or 5-4 scores. But we plowed through and finished with 7 straight wins to earn our passage to the lighthouse. I was equal parts drained and exhilarated by the end.

A few highlights:

Comeback of the night

We started this game by losing 3 straight rounds, but battled back to score a 5-4 win. Lots of great back-and-forth skirmishes in this one.

David(s) vs Goliath

This was another close game (we end up winning 5-4), but what makes this one stand out is the dynamic of our enemy team. 2 so-so players and 1 unstoppable monster (he was on a 10 kill streak by round 3). We had to focus as much as possible on shutting him down without ignoring his 2 teammates.

Nail in the Coffin

Our final game of the night was a fairly decisive victory, but was not without its share of close calls. Some sweet bladedancer-on-bladedancer action, plus Cyber and Cody's dual self-res to save the heavy round.

To celebrate, the 3 of us went to the Lighthouse, claimed our loot (solar Messenger... YAY!) and spent some time exploring. We managed to get into a few areas I had never seen before, so I grabbed a bunch of screenshots. Hope you like them!

If anyone wants the 1920x1080 versions of these screenshots, I've posted them here.

Our final game of the night was a fairly decisive victory, but was not without its share of close calls. Some sweet bladedancer-on-bladedancer action, plus Cyber and Cody's dual self-res to save the heavy round.

I always see enemy teams self res at the end of the round whenever someone is going to do it. I had a lot of success last night doing it DURING the round. Nobody expects it, and if someone is camping your orb, you can res, take them out, and turn the tide quickly. We always expect a self res at the end of a round, and are usually ready for it. Sometimes being surprising is better than trying to salvage a round without using it.

There were definitely some unusual and interesting team compositions during this ticket… for instance a titan running pocket infinity. He would have owned, had we not been shutting their team down. Since you can get new special after every round (if you win), I am actually surprised nobody has tried this before. High risk for sure, but potentially a good payoff, especially on smaller maps.

I don't remember who it is. Might be Squid or unoudid. Works damn good. As for my self revives, I just do them as soon as I think I won't die and a teammate isn't near me. End of round self revives are generally not going to work, for the reason you said.

I know, I know, there are always exceptions, but here is one:

Given the high use of Thorn and other DOT abilities, I have on two occasions self revived and immediately started dancing. I could do this because the round had initially ended with all players dead, my revive gave us the win without me having to fire a shot.

But I agree that in general it's most effective to do it mid round. Unless of course you're lucky enough to get what I had last night, wherein I self revived at the end of the round while their only remaining player was either in menu or in the bathroom. He didn't move for a solid 3 seconds.

I’ve been trying to avoid looking at Lighthouse stuff so that I could experience it myself whenever I get there someday, but those are some nice shots.

Congrats on getting there (again), it’s a really impressive achievement. But I’ve gotta be honest—and I feel a bit self-conscious admitting this—seeing my friends get to the Lighthouse “with ease” (aka, more than once and on a regular basis) also makes me feel like utter and complete shit. I played a fair amount of Trials this weekend and our best run was just heartbreaking at the end. I swing dramatically between feeling like we really can get to the Lighthouse and feeling like I’m never, ever, not in in a thousand years going to get there. Right now I’m in the latter. So that’s why I looked at the pictures. :-\

Trials: Both the best and worst of Destiny for me.

But I agree that in general it's most effective to do it mid round. Unless of course you're lucky enough to get what I had last night, wherein I self revived at the end of the round while their only remaining player was either in menu or in the bathroom. He didn't move for a solid 3 seconds.

Oh, that was golden. He was just STANDING there and I’m shouting into my mic, “Fin! RES! NOW!” I think Earendil caught him (almost literally) with his pants down.

I’ve been trying to avoid looking at Lighthouse stuff so that I could experience it myself whenever I get there someday, but those are some nice shots.

Congrats on getting there (again), it’s a really impressive achievement. But I’ve gotta be honest—and I feel a bit self-conscious admitting this—seeing my friends get to the Lighthouse “with ease” (aka, more than once and on a regular basis) also makes me feel like utter and complete shit. I played a fair amount of Trials this weekend and our best run was just heartbreaking at the end. I swing dramatically between feeling like we really can get to the Lighthouse and feeling like I’m never, ever, not in in a thousand years going to get there. Right now I’m in the latter. So that’s why I looked at the pictures. :-\

Trials: Both the best and worst of Destiny for me.

Don't feel too bad. NOBODY gets to the lighthouse "with ease". It is by far the most difficult thing in Destiny because you're at the mercy of your human opponents' skill levels, and there are no checkpoints, period.

Perhaps the worst part is that it's only going to get more difficult. The first few weeks of trials, you had a much bigger pool of potential opponents to face off against. As the weeks go by, more and more of the less-skilled get discouraged and stop playing, resulting in the average trials player's skill level increasing. I anticipate that eventually it'll be nigh impossible for even an above-average player to go flawless as a result.

Dispite Mig's objections I still firmly believe that Bungie should have opened the lighthouse area to everyone, regardless of skill level. Keeping one of only three new non-pvp environments in your DLC locked behind Trials is idiotic.

I expect to be visiting the lighthouse, come September, to pickup my titan's new flaming Mjölnir, but it may just be in a cutscene.

Perhaps the worst part is that it's only going to get more difficult. The first few weeks of trials, you had a much bigger pool of potential opponents to face off against. As the weeks go by, more and more of the less-skilled get discouraged and stop playing, resulting in the average trials player's skill level increasing. I anticipate that eventually it'll be nigh impossible for even an above-average player to go flawless as a result.

I'm with Beorn where I'm not entirely sure whether I will ever get to the lighthouse.

And I've literally been WITH Beorn not getting to the light house... maybe that's the trick, don't be on a team with Beorn or myself :)

just curious, or does that actually make it worse?

Oh, that was golden. He was just STANDING there and I’m shouting into my mic, “Fin! RES! NOW!” I think Earendil caught him (almost literally) with his pants down.

lol yeah. I slid up to you and as soon as I started the res I spotted him standing there looking at me... I squinted, ready to embrace the spray of bullets as I finished the res, but.... he didn't move.

I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard that if your orb is close to a teammate's orb, self-reviving will revive both of you at the same time. I don't know the range, but it could be pretty useful if true - the two of you could overwhelm a single guardian on orb-watching duty.

Check out 8:10 of Cruel's "David(s) vs Goliath" video. That was without a quick-revive armour, so I can see how you could perceive them as ressing simultaneously with one equipped.

I played a fair amount of Trials this weekend and our best run was just heartbreaking at the end. I swing dramatically between feeling like we really can get to the Lighthouse and feeling like I’m never, ever, not in in a thousand years going to get there. Right now I’m in the latter. So that’s why I looked at the pictures. :-\

Ouch. Yes, a near miss like that can feel pretty demoralizing. But on the bright side, the fact that you can get that close tells me that you absolutely can and will make it to the lighthouse if you stick with it. Everyone I know who has made it there has also completed many 8-1 cards in the process.

I find a huge part of succeeding in ToO is finding the right teammates to run with. I don't just mean "find your most skilled friends" so much as finding teammates that fit together and bring out each other's strengths. It can take quite a while to find that special combination of teammates, but when you do you'll know it :)

I have found that Friday nights are the worst. However saturday and sunday night seem to have am easier pool of players.

That being said I do think you are right. It can be VERY discouraging to keep trying to get to the lighthouse and failing by 1 loss, or even worse, not getting past 4 or 5. The worst part is there is little to NO incentive to try if you dont think youll make it. There are no weapon drops. The shaders/emblems arent great. The armor is mediocre at best. and you cant exchange the coins for anything but more boons.

Perhaps the worst part is that it's only going to get more difficult. The first few weeks of trials, you had a much bigger pool of potential opponents to face off against. As the weeks go by, more and more of the less-skilled get discouraged and stop playing, resulting in the average trials player's skill level increasing. I anticipate that eventually it'll be nigh impossible for even an above-average player to go flawless as a result.

I'm with Beorn where I'm not entirely sure whether I will ever get to the lighthouse.

And I've literally been WITH Beorn not getting to the light house... maybe that's the trick, don't be on a team with Beorn or myself :)

Yep. Last time I joined a fire team with Beorn we got attacked by a pair of bears...

You're right - perfect example. But it looks like you can hold down "X" (or "[]") during the self-res animation - I'll have to remember this...

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The shaders/emblems arent great.

How dare you. Aaru's passage or whatever is fantastic.

I have found that Friday nights are the worst. However saturday and sunday night seem to have am easier pool of players.

That being said I do think you are right. It can be VERY discouraging to keep trying to get to the lighthouse and failing by 1 loss, or even worse, not getting past 4 or 5. The worst part is there is little to NO incentive to try if you dont think youll make it. There are no weapon drops. The shaders/emblems arent great. The armor is mediocre at best. and you cant exchange the coins for anything but more boons.

There are the packages that you get from wins, which can hold Exotic weapons and other fun stuff. The Exile armor is great (legs come with two perks, including Heavy Ammo), the shader (Aaru's Passage) is awesome on any class, and you get item drops for winning matches, and Tokens for losses.

You can't lose! Unless you do, in which case you're only missing out on elemental primaries, of which most combinations are inferior to those found in Raids...

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The worst part is there is little to NO incentive to try if you dont think youll make it.

First of all, you can get decent rewards without going all the way to the top; I got a Mida Multitool from the 5-win package. But overall, you're totally right: ToO saves the big rewards for the top winners. But I think that's a key part of what makes ToO something special and different. Every other PvP mode in Destiny rewards players no matter what. Winning in crucible or Iron Banner speeds up your progress a little, but you can lose every single game and still earn great rewards. And that's cool. I'm glad most of the game works that way.

But Trials of Osiris is a truly competitive mode. Everything is riding on your ability to win. The top level rewards from ToO are by far the best in the game, and rightfully so. Going flawless is Destiny's greatest challenge. It's the intensity of the competition and the prizes at stake that make winning so thrilling.

I think ToO is clearly a mode that has limited appeal. Not everyone finds that kind of pressure fun. But I also think anything that makes ToO more forgiving would dilute what it is.

If anything, I think it's a shame that there isn't a PvE equivalent. It should be level 35 PoE, but that activity feels more cheap than challenging (with the exception of a couple of the bosses), and the rewards pretty much suck. There's definitely a void there that needs to be filled.

Congrats on getting there (again), it’s a really impressive achievement. But I’ve gotta be honest—and I feel a bit self-conscious admitting this—seeing my friends get to the Lighthouse “with ease” (aka, more than once and on a regular basis) also makes me feel like utter and complete shit.

I don't put any time into PvP. I guess I don't deserve to be awesome.

I don't remember who it is. Might be Squid or unoudid. Works damn good. As for my self revives, I just do them as soon as I think I won't die and a teammate isn't near me. End of round self revives are generally not going to work, for the reason you said.

I've run Pocket Infinity quite a bit, it's still one of my go-to weapons in Crucible. I haven't used it the past 2 or 3 Trials though since I've been finding more success sniping. Pocket Infinity is great for melting radiance Warlocks, and I've caught a Golden Gunslinger off guard once or twice. However, its Achilles heel is blink-shotgun: it's just impossible to get the timing right.

Congrats on getting there (again), it’s a really impressive achievement. But I’ve gotta be honest—and I feel a bit self-conscious admitting this—seeing my friends get to the Lighthouse “with ease” (aka, more than once and on a regular basis) also makes me feel like utter and complete shit.

I don't put any time into PvP. I guess I don't deserve to be awesome.

This is why so many people (myself included) feel that PvE players got completely shafted with House of Wolves in terms of top-level activities and rewards. On the one hand, Destiny's PvP side was due for some love, but it's too bad that the PvE crowd doesn't have something equally as awesome (with their own top notch rewards packages and perhaps their own secret social space).

Personally speaking, I never really played much of Destiny's PvP. I put some time in to the past 4 Iron Banner events, but that's about it. When Trials of Osiris came along, I found that the unique nature of the elimination game mode fixed a lot of the problems I have with standard crucible. It also scratched the competitive itch that had been completely missing from Destiny until now.

So I feel like Trials is a fantastic addition to the game, but it only works for a small portion of the player base. Destiny needs a PvE equivalent.

Don't feel too bad. NOBODY gets to the lighthouse "with ease".

I'll second this. Of my 4 Lighthouse runs, the first 3 only came after multiple hours of failed attempts. I've also been a part of several agonizing failed runs, including an 8-0 w/ Mercy intact followed by two close losses. During the run I made with Zero and Speedracer last week, we all agreed it was the most difficult run we had made, with virtually every match at least 5-3 or closer. The closest thing to an easy run was this past weekend, where Zero and Speedracer and I made it on the first try, but we got super lucky and spawned on the high side of the map in nearly every match. The only loss we had was actually a rematch against a team we had just beat easily, except we were on the low side that time, and lost 5-3.

At the end of the day, in order to make it to the Lighthouse, you are going to have to pull off something crazy in at least one or two matches (and you will have to rely on your teammates to do the same). That's the hardest thing to deal with, is when it feels like you have things in hands and then all of the sudden the other team turns the tables on you, and you have to figure out some way to respond on the fly. Normal Crucible does no prepare you for this, although playing Rumble can help you deal with the speed at which you need to make successful decisions in crazy or unusual situations.

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On the one hand, Destiny's PvP side was due for some love, but it's too bad that the PvE crowd doesn't have something equally as awesome (with their own top notch rewards packages and perhaps their own secret social space).

We totally got a hole in the ground filled with gold and a really neat bathtub.

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Isn't the "fake" difficulty. It's not the awful Lightswitch weeks or the inevitable Trickle modifier. It's not even that sometimes Skolas will just stand on top of a mine and stop you from getting near it.

The thing that annoys me the most is the poor reward pool.

Every single time you go Flawless in ToO you get an elemental primary, and they're really good primaries. I've beat Skolas 7 times and I've only seen 2 elemental primaries drop in 21 chances. And when they do, they're not even particularly good.

Yeah, every single of my zero times I've been to the Lighthouse I got a great reward! :p

Every single time you go Flawless in ToO you get an elemental primary, and they're really good primaries. I've beat Skolas 7 times and I've only seen 2 elemental primaries drop in 21 chances. And when they do, they're not even particularly good.

Wow, I did not know this!

IMO, 6 Dreg Pride and the Auto rifle from POE are better than the guns from Trials except The Messenger, which is a top 3 PvP gun for me, but isn't all that awesome for PvE.

Unless all you do is play PvP, then yes, the Trials guns are much better. But then who cares about elements?

The perks on the ToO weapons do seem to be better suited for PvP, but after using them in PvE I absolutely love them.

I've got adept (elemental) versions of all the primaries, and they've quickly become my favorite set of PvE weapons. The Scholar has a low ammo count but it hits like a truck, has outlaw for fast reloads, and does bonus damage after reloads. I can kill level 20 minataurs in 3 hits with mine (it has void damage). The mesanger's headseaker perk makes it great for PvE as well as PvP. Jewel of Osiris is practically identical to Fatebringer in terms of handling and base damage, so it's no slouch. I had a couple arc versions that I sharded (redundant since I have 3 Fatebringers) but I now have solar and void versions which are great. The Summoner feels a bit underpowered, but so do all Auto Rifles. But it's probably my favorite AR at the moment.

The ToO weapons don't have anything on par with Fatebringer, but as a collection I'd say they're the best set of primaries in the game right now.

Right, but when you do, you get a gun. When you succeed against Skolas you get nothing half of the time, a bounty occasionally, and a gun very rarely.

But definitely the hand cannon and auto rifle are much better than the Trials version of the primaries for the normal game, and it's not close.

Scout rifle yes, Messenger yes.

The scout rifle's basically only worthwhile if it's a void one though, since it's completely outclassed by the other two raid ones. And even then, Word of Crota, in my opinion, beats it at every point. This is because the only time you really want a void gun is on vex missions, and explosive rounds do a massive damage bonus to vex.

But, I will concede that it is better than the Wolves' Leash which is shit.

But the Jewel of Osiris, as much as I love 3rd eye, always goes in the back pocket when I can use VoC. And if I didn't have that, the solar PoE handcannon with a larger mag and decent perks would be my choice. If it's void, again, I'd take WoC. If it's arc, obviously fatebringer.

The auto rifle has crowd control and field scout, which blows The Summoner out of the water. It's also top of the line for all elements since our elemental auto rifles are complete shit. Summoner, if you don't have the PoE gun, is still good only because the other guns are awful.

And honestly, The adept Messenger is also outclassed unless in void in my opinion. Fang, Fatebringer, and Oversoul beat it in normal play (though you will still catch me using my arc Messenger sometimes), and for solar, vision of confluence is basically unbeatable.

Anyway, I'm just saying they're not good, if, like Ragashingo, you've got a large enough collection of elemental primaries.

All of that said, Tomorrow's Answer is the best non exotic rocket launcher in the game out of the box, the machine gun is amazing for no field scout and technically Eye of Sol is fantastic, though I don't like to use it. It's just that the elemental primaries from this expansion aren't that good, IMO. They're almost always on the bench for me.

But I don't like Vision of Confluence, and I'm not crazy about Fang of Ir Yut, either. I know they're both great guns, but they fall into an akward "in between" zone for me. When I'm using a scout rifle, I either want it to hit hard, or spam bullets like crazy. Ghallion's Demise with outlaw & firefly is one of my favorites, while the NX Shadow with full auto and explosive rounds is great on the other end of the spectrum. I find VC and FoIY just don't fit my playstyles.

Of the PoE weapons, the only one I actually like is Wolves Leash II, specifically for the Fallen Captain stun perk. Most other guns with that perk have such a slow rate of fire that the chances of ever stunning a captain are low. But the WL II has a high RoF and great range, so you can spam captains before they get close and blind them. I have a Solar version that I'm using for now, but I'm hoping for an arc version.

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But only because Triple Tap is fun. It's probably still not as good as VoC but I enjoy it.

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...I agree. VoC and FoIY are good, not great. I'd not use them if it weren't for their elemental attributes. And large clip size, which matters in some cases.

Scout rifles seem to have now becomes the gun that auto-rifles could have been with the addition of auto-fire. Getting a scout that hits hard is much more rare nowadays. (Sure would like an elemental scholar!) My Gheleon's Demise and A.1F-19x are both much more to my liking than the other, more common, scout rifles. They hit hard, are relatively stable, and reward a patient hand. I think the best hand cannons, with their fantastic range, have eclipsed this class of scout rifles into obscurity. So much so that I use hand cannons as often as I use scout rifles now, even though I prefer the way a scout generally handles over a hand cannon.