Destiny 2

[Billy Idol]

I don't understand the purpose of powerlevel in this game. Can someone explain it to me?

It seems that all activities scale with my lvl: I go into a strike with recommended powerlevel of 140, but all enemies are 296 like myself.

Same in the nightfall, rec lvl of 240...all enemies scale with my lvl.

So why should I even care to up my powerlevel, when there is no advantage/effect!

 

[London Geezer]

Of course there is. If you do the nightfall with a lower level character you’d see the difference big time, proportionally to how low the character is. And vice versa if you’re much higher.

 

[iroboto]

I don't understand the purpose of powerlevel in this game. Can someone explain it to me?

It seems that all activities scale with my lvl: I go into a strike with recommended powerlevel of 140, but all enemies are 296 like myself.

Same in the nightfall, rec lvl of 240...all enemies scale with my lvl.

So why should I even care to up my powerlevel, when there is no advantage/effect!

So power level just dictates whether or not you will suffer from increased damage to you, and decreased damage to the opponent.
If you are below power level, for every point below the required power level, you will suffer %X increased damage towards you, and %Y decreased damage against the target.

Otherwise in all other scenarios, the damage dealt and received will be 100% if you meet the power level requirements.
Damage is indicated by the characteristics of the gun (impact, and velocity, etc)

You're unlikely to run into power level issues with Destiny 2. Except maybe Trials of the Nine.
These issues cropped up more in Destiny 1 when they started introducing higher level content.

 

[Billy Idol]

But this is what I mean: as soon as you hit the recommended powerlevel, there is no reason to increase it for this particular activity.

240 rec powerlevel: no reason to have 260, 270 or 305...all the same, right?!

(Of course when u are lower, you get punished, I know this. )

The highest activity is now at a rec lvl of 270.

What is the point in leveling up beyond 270?

 

[Rangers]

I'm pretty sure being above level helps some, but it's diminishing returns.

But as long as I've played Destiny, I still dont really know the deal.

But if you do the raid at 300 instead of 280, it'll be somewhat easier I think. You'll deal more damage and/or take less. The difference is capped somehow though. No matter how high you level it will never be a complete cakewalk.

Think back to D1 and going back to early cosmodrome enemies on patrol. They're definitely easy, but they still pose some threat no matter how overleveled you are.

I remember their being a cap on how much damage you could do to low level enemies, no matter how high your own level was, although I forget the details.

 

[iroboto]

I'm pretty sure being above level helps some, but it's diminishing returns.

But as long as I've played Destiny, I still dont really know the deal.

But if you do the raid at 300 instead of 280, it'll be somewhat easier I think. You'll deal more damage and/or take less. The difference is capped somehow though. No matter how high you level it will never be a complete cakewalk.

Think back to D1 and going back to early cosmodrome enemies on patrol. They're definitely easy, but they still pose some threat no matter how overleveled you are.

I remember their being a cap on how much damage you could do to low level enemies, no matter how high your own level was, although I forget the details.

Your end game gear has way more stats, which is why you are unlikely to die in lower level areas. There aren't enough mobs to deal damage to reduce your health when you're running gear with 4+ points worth of stats. If I recall correctly, gear in the beginning of the game are mainly 1-2 points of stats. By end game, each piece is providing about 4. If you give yourself 0 resilience, you'll have a health pool similar to the start of the game.

 

[iroboto]

But this is what I mean: as soon as you hit the recommended powerlevel, there is no reason to increase it for this particular activity.

240 rec powerlevel: no reason to have 260, 270 or 305...all the same, right?!

(Of course when u are lower, you get punished, I know this. )

The highest activity is now at a rec lvl of 270.

What is the point in leveling up beyond 270?

Because not all mobs are the same power level for the zone. It can say recommended power level 270, but not all mobs are level 270. Just that most mobs are, bosses are still going to be significantly _higher_ in power level, so if you are low on level, it's going to take a long time for you to DPS that down, vs guys who in the 300+ power level zone. Most raids are timed, if you are too low on level and can't dps the boss down because it takes all of you to clear some mini bosses, you can look at power levels as being the issue of why you're running out of time.

 

[Billy Idol]

Thanks for explaining!

 

[Rangers]

Your end game gear has way more stats, which is why you are unlikely to die in lower level areas. There aren't enough mobs to deal damage to reduce your health when you're running gear with 4+ points worth of stats. If I recall correctly, gear in the beginning of the game are mainly 1-2 points of stats. By end game, each piece is providing about 4. If you give yourself 0 resilience, you'll have a health pool similar to the start of the game.

I dont think that's it. Increasing level gap does give you advantages, unrelated to armor, but it's still capped. IIRC it's more to do with reduced damage coming in. I need to google reddit for the details, though. Anyways it's always confused me.

You also increase the damage you do against enemies as you outlevel them, but at some point it becomes capped. I remember that.

It's actually a pretty interesting/good system IMO. It basically walks a fine line of giving you an advantage over low level content, while still making that content able to threaten you..

Although in general in RPG's I prefer non scaling enemies. Destny might be another story as it might get boring that way.

I am pretty sure the raid is easier at 305 than 280. Although partly it's not easier because the hard part is mechanics, not taking/giving damage as much.

 

[Rangers]

A guy got to (randomly) play some D2 with Phil Spencer! Cool story bro.

They pretended they didn't know it was him until they asked if he was playing on a Xbox One X...

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FDestinyTheGame%252Fcomments%252F73w199%252F

 

[Rangers]

In raid news well, beat the gauntlets with an LFG. It was late, some were tired so they disbanded right after though.

So now I have beat Gauntlets, pools, and Dogs separately, but never all 3 back to back. Let alone Calus, which I guess I better start studying in videos so I wont be totally lost when I make it. which kinda sucks cause I'll have to "spoil" it, but I guess I dont care.

I notice fewer raiding on LFG too. Xbox LFG is popping though I guess.

Got a chest key that gave me a 293 legendary engram, pathetic. The loot in this raid is pretty bad. I guess it's better than the alternative though, too much loot like the end of D1.

After this weeks milestone i should be 305...except maybe not cause to be 305 every slot must be, and that might be a bit difficult, cause there's bound to be one trouble spot.

I am scared though of not even beating the raid before prestige, which is a double whammy if you're not familiar with regular raid when people are doing prestige. I honestly dont know if I'll even do prestige mode.

I'm increasingly conflicted about the raid in Destiny. I think it needs to be easier.

 

[London Geezer]

I'll definitely be 305 on my titan and my warlock today.
Still haven't finished the raid - got to Callus at the weekend but now it's reset - but I got the raid sword (It stares back or whatever it's called) which I LOVE. And also the Raid auto rifle which I'm still not 10% sure about - I think I still prefer the Origin story and especially Uriel's gift.

 

[orangpelupa]

I'll definitely be 305 on my titan and my warlock today.
Still haven't finished the raid - got to Callus at the weekend but now it's reset - but I got the raid sword (It stares back or whatever it's called) which I LOVE. And also the Raid auto rifle which I'm still not 10% sure about - I think I still prefer the Origin story and especially Uriel's gift.

Wanna nightfall?

 

[Billy Idol]

I finally got the Titan Synthoceps...most fun build ever: melee titan. Lol, pure fun.
I have fun using the Last Hope with my melee build in PVE. But MIDA set works best due to speed bonus.

I am still wrestling with my setup though: Not sure if sweet business or cold heart is the fastest boss killer. I honestly believe that I am not good enough tracker to use the cold heart right: Hard to follow targets and keep the exponential dmg bonus. I realised that the pule grenade of the titan are maybe my strongest boss dps weapons...lol, not sure why but these grenades do insane amount of damage! Maybe a bug, or is this intended? I prefer my sentinel build though

I will never get the Mannanan or the Nameless Midnight though
The so called RNG based loot in this game is everything but RNG based (lol, stupid game dev, don't know how RNG works).

What is your titan build london boy? Is Origin story really so good? I like it a lot, but not sure why it is supposed to be god tier?

 

[Rangers]

Looks like I wont make 305 this week, all milestones done and still two slots not 305, arms and cloak.

Unless the raid loot actually comes through for me.

Nightfall was a bear this week.

 

[Billy Idol]

Go damn it...got two power weapons from power gear
hoped to upgrade some bad gear. Well, next week...and I still have the nightfall.

 

[Rangers]

I feel like I've already discovered the best PVP loadout (everybody has). Mida+Uriels. Nothing else really seems to come close. Maybe Mida+Omolon sidearm, which is just a probably slightly not as good variation (Sidearm melts better up close but gives up range).

Given I dont have any other 200 scout or nameless midnight.

It's made crucible kinda boring in conjunction with other factors. Half the fun of D1 was trying different loadouts. For example, in D1 Mida+sidearm was my go too, but if I wanted to go crazy outside my style I could have gone Hand Cannon+Icebreaker. I loved pulses in D1 too, even if they weren't the best, they were competitive and so fun.

You can try a AR+SMG (Everybody has had that idea, too), but it's just not as good.

It doesn't feel there's any variety like that in D2. The loadouts are pretty similar, no heavy weapon really matters. I tried a sniper, get slaughtered. All the other feel like a worse rocket launcher, they only kill medium to close, but they do it worse than rockets.

In a way the two primary system decreased variety.

Also, swords are annoying as hell. I absolutely despise "that guy" who sneaks around with a sword getting 50 cheap kills the entire freaking game, never running out of ammo either. Despise swords!

Edit: The End+Antiope+Knucklehead Radar is a fun non-Mida loadout I just used to some success.

Really there's no worthwhile hunter/BD exotics, Lucky Raspberry is not that great. If I'm not using Mida I'd probably just run Knuck Radar by default.

 

[Billy Idol]

I perform best with SMGs...can't make sidearms work. I have the new monarchy one and mini tool. The Antiope doesn't work so well for me though...

Autorifles are good as well, origin story. Need to try Scathelocke or whats it called.

YT says Nightshade is good, will try it out.

 

[Billy Idol]

The most fun is to run around with the sniper shotgun from new monarch and kill everyone from afar

But Curtain Call is way easier to multikill with.

 

[Rangers]

SMG's are kinda hard for me, they're so jittery and i tend to "clutch" them and miss 500 shots at a guy 8 feet away...

I'll play them for variety, but for now Uriels and Sidearms are better for me for a "secondary". For some reason I can often aim "pull the trigger" guns like sidearms better than "stream" ones like Submachine guns.

I got the raid launcher tonight, supposedly that's the best RL for PVP. Stat wise it has a lot more blast radius than Curtain Call but a lot less velocity so it should even out, but supposedly the raid launcher is better.

Did Dogs+Pools with a pretty flakey raid group, so that was positive given I wasn't expecting much. Will try to pick up on gauntlets tmrw. Still haven't even SEEN Callus yet. Although someone in the group was saying Callus is stupid easy, I have a hard time believing that given more LFG posts are from groups stuck on Callus than anywhere else seemingly.

Lotta bad luck in LFG for me. Kinda like I thought WOTM was really hard til I got in a good group. Here I am counting my progress in checkpoints and I bet one good group and we blow through the whole raid.

Still lack arms and cloak, keep getting 300 heavy's and 300 everything I already have. I guess smart loot is not really a thing. Which I prefer anyway TBH. Not like it matters one wit except for bragging rights.

For dogs BTW if you're a hunter or a Titan use pulse/voidwall grenades and a cluster launcher. So easy to do massive dog DPS. You gotta be careful not to kill em if your group isn't trying to one phase. Again, Datto showed cluster launchers almost kill dogs in 2 rockets with a 60 stack, without any grenade. Even with a 36 stack it's super easy to kill a dog with these.

YT says Nightshade is good, will try it out.

For crucible I imagine it' the best pulse (although some might prefer Lincoln Green) but it's not Meta. It's not going to stand with AR's or Mida,, it just doesn't. It's maybe decent in crucible.

For me though it's the only kinetic legendary I put a +5 kinetic mod on and 305'd it. Why? It's just a lot of fun, and very versatile in PVE, because you can run it with say either a scout or a sidearm/SMG and cover all your bases. Like this past nightfall I used it with The End, I could kill thrall with it but still do mostly long range work when The End was out of ammo, etc. Very versatile like pulses are supposed to be. I dont really love AR's in PVE that matters (AKA the Raid) for whatever reason, so again it pairs well with anything in PVE. I just like the gun.

What's everybody's raid loadouts? For me, currently:

Middle sections: Doesn't really matter.

Pools: Nightshade and sidearm, currently Drang, and Merciless. Nightshade is solid all around as above, and Drang can reach out to most adds around the plate and packs a heavy punch such that you can take out bathers with it in a no-heavy pinch. Merciless is great for crushing bathers and lamp DPS (or whatever they're called, hanging purple things) phase. Some people like RL here, but IMO it's just too risky to blow yourself up. Oh, and it's mostly Drang just because it's my highest sidearm at 302.

Dogs: Again, Nightshade, Drang, and mainly the key, Curtain Call (or raid launcher, any cluster RL). Kinetic/energy doesn't really matter.

Gauntlets: Probably Nightshade and the End, and Merciless again. Not 100% certain on this one. Merciless for sure, it's solar so it melts the majors at plates. For Kinetic/Energy probably run two long rangers nightshade/the end, simply because I used to run Drang here too, but I got stuck with no kinetic ammo once, and it was actually hard to hit the far arrows with a sidearm! But I'm not locked down yet because a sidearm is nicer for hot and heavy close ads. But my guess is I'll stick with Nightshade/The End.

Also I think I'm about to commit to Xbox LFG. It' s simple being right on the console. It's fantastically popular too, there are literally dozens of posts every few seconds for Destiny 2.

It's really a fantastic addition to Xbox for casuals. People like my friend who have no idea what a website LFG is and will never, ever use one (I tried to explain it to him in the past for Destiny when he complained hs raid group split up so he couldn't raid, he kinda just blew it off). Well, I see him using Xbox LFG for Gears 4 horde stuff, on his own he figured it out. Having it right there on the console is absolutely huge for the 95% of masses.