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The drop rates could be tuned a little, from what I've seen some people got a little, others got a decent haul. The whole argument about light level and how the gear should drop equal to the raid is valid, but if they keep the same damage model for trials as they used I dont think there is as big a gap as some claim. The biggest gap I saw all week was a 307 against my 290 warlock and it still took 3 bursts with apple or nirwens to bring him down. Heck I ran a 115 strangers rifle for shits and giggles one match and managed a couple kills. Maybe I don't pay enough attention and notice the gap but it never felt oppressive, forcing me to run only my highest light level gear to compete.

The whole idea of power mattering in Iron Banner and Trials I have never liked. If power matters too much, people will just always go in at max level. If power doesn't matter all that much, then what's what's the point? It's just kind of a stupid idea.

Glad you had a good time :)

For me, IB didn't go so well this week. Not to sound hyperbolic, but I actually thought it was a bit of a train wreck this time around. Keep in mind that I spent the majority of my IB time this week playing Solo, which will obviously affect things. Still, I've always been able to go into IB solo and have a good time in the past.

* Matchmaking was abnormally bad for me in terms of team balancing. 15 wins and 26 losses. Keep in mind that all but 3 of those wins came during the 2 nights that I played with friends. Almost all of my games with randoms ended in losses, and not close ones. I don't mind losing a close, exciting game. But get matched into blowout after blowout is no fun, especially when I'm often the only player on my team doing remotely well.

* Since I went days at a time without scoring a win, my only way to progress my IB rank was by completing bounties. With only 3 daily bounties at a time, I'd be maxed out after 2 or 3 games. I could play another 2 hours and make little-to-no progress.

* Drops were far worse than they used to be. During the HoW days, a week of Iron Banner would give me 2 or 3 IB weapons plus a half-dozen other legendaries. This week, I got 1 legendary weapon drop in 46 games. It was the IB Pulse rifle.

* Buying IB gear with marks seems like a bad idea to me, given that playing IB yields very few marks (you can get 75 by doing all the weekly bounties). I don't understand the logic of forcing players out of the Iron Banner to earn currency to buy Iron Banner rewards. At least with glimmer we could trade materials or store glimmer items and cash them in as needed.

* Sunbreakers... oooooh sunbreakers. They just about ruined every single game I played. They were everywhere, chaining supers off each other. The number of times I got smashed by a hammer, and respawned only to get smashed by another hammer from the same player... maddening.

I don't mean to be a debby-downer... but IB this week really bummed me out. I usually love it, so it was disappointing to have such a rough time with it this time around. I'm glad others had some fun with it, but I doubt I'll play it again in the future unless they make some changes.

No drops except an under-statted warlock bond and the stuff I bought from Saladin, all of which will require a bunch of time to infuse to be worthwhile.

After perusing reddit and here it seems like everybody wants to voice their negative thoughts about iron banner and how it was a huge step backwards. Granted there always will be moments in a competitive activity that make me blurt out expletives and curse a guy who most likely outplayed me, Banner this time felt less grindy. The introduction of the weekly bounties was an nice way to give us the boots and class item for free in terms of legendary marks. They also provided a nice boost to exp on alt characters, I got my warlock to 5 in 14 matches yesterday as each paid out 1490 exp.

The drop rates could be tuned a little, from what I've seen some people got a little, others got a decent haul. The whole argument about light level and how the gear should drop equal to the raid is valid, but if they keep the same damage model for trials as they used I dont think there is as big a gap as some claim. The biggest gap I saw all week was a 307 against my 290 warlock and it still took 3 bursts with apple or nirwens to bring him down. Heck I ran a 115 strangers rifle for shits and giggles one match and managed a couple kills. Maybe I don't pay enough attention and notice the gap but it never felt oppressive, forcing me to run only my highest light level gear to compete.

Hammer bros seemed daunting at the beginning, causing me to shit my pants and cower in a corner till the flaming hammer dropped, hopefully respawning me to a better location. But as the week progressed, our group found ways to effectively take them down with or no loss. We only encountered a couple of the shadow shot people but there again it didn't take long to figure out how to stop them effectively.

The map rotation seemed very different night to night, yes the new maps were very heavily featured and the only original map I ever saw was rusted lands, it seemed like 2-3 maps were on each nights rotation with a filler map thrown in. I liked it, I have not played much crucible since before HOW, so I got to learn how each map played out and didnt have to be constantly learning new maps. Frontier is by far my favorite new map, really brings up old halo map feels.

By far the best moment all week was playing a couple games with junior and trying not to swear, hardest thing on the planet. Oh and the sidearm totally makes me feel like James Bond.

I played about 80 games all on my Titan and I'll play some more tonight. As far as drops go, I got 3 IB Pulse rifles, 4 IB Titan Marks, 2 legendary engrams for normal stuff. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either.

I started early in the week while the exp boosts are nil, so that's why it took me longer to move up. But if you hold those weekly bounties till late in the week, the do offer some serious boosts. It took me till my 70th or so game to get the high score for one of them.

The level difference only matters slightly. I noticed that I'd get more assists or nearly finish a guy off only to have him bolt with that sliver of health.

Hammers are no worse than GG's. You hear the ding, and run. Just run. Or hittem with a suppresion nade or lure em in your bubble :) Worked well for me. I actually had a great time in my bubble this go around. Sword works great.

I do think the 280 light is crap though. Should be 300 minimum. Otherwise, what's the point?