The grind is real. I do not regret my decision to have a primary character, with some alts that occasionally get to do things. It's taken a ton of the pain out of the current grind. Except for IB, I still grind IB. It's rarely worth it. =)

I find the Iron Banner significantly more fun than it used to be. I still don't get that Top Scorer part of the weekly bounty every event, but that's okay. I don't have to have it to get to rank 5.

I wasn't doing trials much at all during house of wolves. Etheric light was at a premium, and I had to specifically schedule events to pursue etheric light, so I could advance forward and "keep up" with friends like cruel who were swimming in etheric light. I found that I felt lucky to get more than 1-2 etheric light per week early on. Trials should never have given out so much etheric light IMO, it was incredibly unbalanced. However, that is what we have in challenge mode now -- trials gives out meh gear and challenge mode gives out loot like candy.

That said, I loved the concept of etheric light. I liked the variety you had, and the ability to reroll legendaries paired with this made a good custom loadout very possible. I got to level and use weapons I liked, in the way I liked them, and it was effective.

The grind is real. I do not regret my decision to have a primary character, with some alts that occasionally get to do things. It's taken a ton of the pain out of the current grind. Except for IB, I still grind IB. It's rarely worth it. =)

This entire conversation illustrates why I don't like the more granular system we have now.

I can't really add anything to this conversation, but for what it's worth, I totally agree with you. HoW was the pinnacle of Destiny's leveling system so far.

As much I as I really hate when people just complain about "the grind," it's actually part of why I don't play anymore. I did the Normal mode raid, and while I'd be interested in doing Hard Mode, I don't care enough to grind out gear for it. If the raid worked like PoE did, handing out something like Etheric light, I'd be able to deal with it more easily I think. While I'm sure the drops are probably decent enough that I could be hard mode ready after a few runs of the normal mode, the RNG is there and feels crappy enough that I just don't feel like dealing with it.

Hell, we were stuck not too long ago on the Totems, for 3 friggin' hours!

Entirely my fault. I apologize. It seems my presence alone is enough to doom a totem run. From now on, I'll try my best to only join KF from the Warpriest forwards. :p

How dare you claim it was your fault! It was mine--all mine!

It was neither of you, and you both know it.

Hell, we were stuck not too long ago on the Totems, for 3 friggin' hours!

Entirely my fault. I apologize. It seems my presence alone is enough to doom a totem run. From now on, I'll try my best to only join KF from the Warpriest forwards. :p

How dare you claim it was your fault! It was mine--all mine!

Hell, we were stuck not too long ago on the Totems, for 3 friggin' hours!

Entirely my fault. I apologize. It seems my presence alone is enough to doom a totem run. From now on, I'll try my best to only join KF from the Warpriest forwards. :p

Armor core from 32 and an Exotic shard put you at 33. Two 34 runs put you at 34, which you could do between two characters or take two weeks to accomplish on each character. Weapons didn't need to be 365 to do anything in the end game that wasn't Skolas, and even then you could get by just matching elements.

Being unable to beat the 34 is just user/internet error, if anything.

You're totally right about that last line - but it doesn't change the fact that I (and the group I was with) tried 34 maybe a dozen times, for hours at a time each time, with zero success.

I haven't had that problem with King's Fall. (Well, that's not fair. I HAVE had runs that lasted for hours and got nowhere. Hell, we were stuck not too long ago on the Totems, for 3 friggin' hours! But I have NOT had a dozen failed runs in a row on KF, and I certainly did with PoE.)

Again - it's clear that different types of endgames play differently. PoE requires EVERYONE to be paying attention, whereas Raids don't have this problem - you can lose one or two players in a section and still finish it. Maybe I should have played PoE with different people - I dunno. I just know that my first 34 clear came MONTHS after HoW dropped... while I had success in KF the second time through.

Being unable to beat the 34 is just user/internet error, if anything. I also have a really hard time believing you can easily beat Hard Oryx but struggled even a little on 34 PoE.

Fun wise? Yeah, this raid is much much better. But "progression" wise it is hilariously worse, and it isn't really debatable.

I think I only earned like 3 pieces of Etheric Light during the House of Wolves. To me the new system seems more accessible because you have Iron Banner, SRL, Crimson Doubles, Trials of Osiris which can all drop high-level gear up to 320. Anything between 300-320 feels more like etheric light to me than strictly 320 level because items normally drop at less than 300.

I'm with you here. I don't play Trials at all, so Etheric Light was really only available in Prison of Elders. (I suppose there were people who got it as Nightfall drops, but I never did.)

I didn't have high enough light levels to beat level 34 PoE (never mind Skolas himself!), so I rarely got any. I think I only got Etheric Light consistently when they added it to Iron Banner packages.

Contrast that with TTK, where you are GUARANTEED 320 drops if you play the challenge mode of the raid. Warpriest GUARANTEES you a 320 Heavy or Special weapon (or both!), and you can run it 3 times during that week. Golgoroth GUARANTEES you a 320 armor piece, and again, you can run it 3 times during its week. Oryx GUARANTEES you a 320 primary or a 320 helmet (though running ths successfully requires a much better team than either of the other two challenges).

At one point, I ran the Oryx Challenge 6 times in a 3 week period (ran it on a Tuesday x3, then ran it 3 weeks later on the same Tuesday, x3) and ended up with 6 320 primary weapons (and a bunch 310+ stuff at the same time). That's a lot of infusion fodder, in a 3 week period. :) During HoW, I had to wait at least a month between Iron Banners to even ATTEMPT multiple Etheric Light drops.

You're using the word "Guarantee" a lot, and with a lot of emphasis. While the points you're making when you use that word are technically true, they come with caveats that weaken the argument.

Foremost: RNG. Are you guaranteed a 320 item from completing challenge mode? Yes. Is that item going to be the class of item you want? Maybe. Maybe not. I've run Oryx Challenge 6 times, hoping and hoping for a harrowed helmet to drop so I can finally get the raid shader. No dice.

I'm not saying that the Prison of Elders was a good or fun activity (Hint: it's not), but as a method of getting 6 pieces of gear up to max level per week, it felt like far more of a guarantee then anything in TTK.

And this is before I start ranting about the Infusion system.

Agree 100%

This may be true if you care about hitting 320.

Hence the first sentence in my post. Who cares about being above 300 if you aren't chasing 320?

Because 315 compared to 300 makes a huge difference in the hard mode raid?

That is what chasing 320 is for.

The hard mode is for chasing 320? If that is what you mean then I disagree, cause I want to play and beat hard mode just for the challenge.

This entire conversation illustrates why I don't like the more granular system we have now. In HoW, you wanted to be level 34 to take on level 34 PoE. And you could reach level 34 before attempting 34 PoE.

Now, something as simple as asking "what level do I need to be in order to play the heroic raid" yields a convoluted answer. And the follow-up question "how to I get myself up to heroic raid level?" yields an even more convoluted answer. It's all just a bunch of unnecessary clutter, IMO. Normal King's fall should be "level 30". Heroic King's fall should be "Level 32". And you should be able to reach level 32 by beating the previous activity a few times, rather than playing 3/4 of the heroic activity over and over until you get just the right drops to bring you up to 32.

Agree 100%

This may be true if you care about hitting 320.

Hence the first sentence in my post. Who cares about being above 300 if you aren't chasing 320?

Because 315 compared to 300 makes a huge difference in the hard mode raid?

That is what chasing 320 is for.

The hard mode is for chasing 320? If that is what you mean then I disagree, cause I want to play and beat hard mode just for the challenge.

Me, too. I just want to be leveled high enough to not struggle too much in hard mode.

If I were as highly skilled as Cruel and had ever had the experience of swimming in etheric light like he did, I might feel differently and have different goals.