When Destiny 2 first launched, it only appeared to be a small upgrade from Destiny. A bit after release, Bungie decided they wanted to change a few things, adding Masterwork weapons and armor. However, it still felt like a never ending grind that didn’t even require you to complete the Raid.
With the massive update Forsaken brought, most of us were interested to see how it all played out. Well.… it’s not so good. Turns out Bungie wanted to combine what Destiny and Destiny 2 were, into the almost complete disaster known as Forsaken.
Infusion
This is by far the worst change they’ve done with this update. Before, players only had to infuse with Glimmer. Then if you wanted to make your weapons and armor a Masterwork item, you needed to obtain enough Masterwork Cores to do so.
It was annoying enough to have to get Masterwork Cores to upgrade a weapon (as they dropped every so often), but you could only change the effect of the upgrade with Cores. Now, not only do you need Cores to make a weapon/armor a Masterwork and change it’s effects, but now you need them for regular infusion.
You can buy the Cores from Spider in The Tangled Shore, but they cost 10 Legendary Shards for two. After your first purchase, the cost doubles every time. You can also buy Legendary Shards, but the cost changes every day. Spider sells planetary resources in exchange for Glimmer, but their cost and what resources he carries, change daily as well. Each planet does have three small bounties you can grab from the vendor and upon completion you’ll receive 10 of that planets resource.
These bounties can be crucial to you actually being able to infuse your gear, because on top of the need of Masterwork Cores, you’ll also need at least 25 planetary resources. Just running around on any planet can net you what you need, but it can take an exceedingly long period of time, especially if you have several items that require the same materials. You’ll get one when you find the resource in the open and two for every chest you open, including chests from Public Events. Finishing a patrol, Lost Sector or Challenge will also net you a couple of resources.
There are silver linings. If you have a double of an armor piece, you only need Glimmer to infuse and you can use any weapon within the same weapon slot as the piece you’re trying to infuse.
Weapons and Armor
Weapons
Aside from the whole infusion craziness, your weapons and armor are also rearranged a little differently. Kinetic weapons are still in your primary slot and take primary ammo. Although, a few primaries do take secondary ammo. Your secondary weapons might not always take Secondary Ammo, some need Primary. All heavies still require the same ammo. It’s an odd system.
Bungie also reverted back to the original Destiny’s weapon slotting. Sniper rifles and shotguns are no longer in the Heavy slot.Shotguns and snipers were not only removed from the Heavy slot, but have also been added to the pool of Primary and Secondary slots. Yes, you can indeed use dual shotguns and sniper rifles if you choose.
When it comes to the Crucible this can be an extremely irritating issue, because it was more balanced with shotguns in the Heavy. It kept players off of relying on them as a main source of getting kills.
For those who are not aware of another senseless change, your pre-Forsaken weapons are pretty much useless. The new Forsaken weapons have two perks, instead of one. For instance, the Agrona PR4 (see below) is from before this expansion. It has Dragonfly as its only perk. Meanwhile, the Ether Doctor (also below) has Quickdraw and Pulse Monitor. Bungie also removed the mods from the old weapons, since the mod system is completely different. So unless you really love your old weapon, there’s no point in keeping it.
Armor
Unfortunately, the armor ended up with the same outcome as the weapons. Everything you owned before Forsaken is trash.
They’ve also been stripped of their mods and don’t have any perks. New armor has two perks, and they are all random. You could get faster Kinetic reload speed (or other various enhancements to weapons), class ability cooldowns, scavenger for certain weapon types (like sidearms), scavenger for ammo types (like Primary) or mobility, resilience and recovery increases.
Just like the weapons, you need Glimmer, Legendary Shards, Masterwork Cores and a planetary resources to infuse.
New Supers
You obtain the new Supers for each Guardian just as you obtained them before, but with a twist. You have to collect Visions of Light in order for the quest to pop up on your map. It’s not difficult to gather the Visions of Light, you get them from killing named enemies, finishing patrols, doing Public Events, Lost Sectors and pretty much anything you can do on a planet.
These Supers branch off of your original one and once you complete the mission on that Guardian, it unlocks the Super for that subclass. You also get a new unlock for your melee and get additional perks as well. For instance, the Warlocks Stormcaller subclass has Ionic Trace, which has a chance to create Ionic Traces that grant energy to all you abilities upon defeating enemies.
Of course it’s up to you how you wish to tailor your playstyle, but giving these new Supers a try might be worth your while.
Mods/Tier
Mods
All the mods you bought from the gunsmith, are now unusable. If you had any in your inventory, the description on it tells you to dismantle them as they are no longer useful. You should get quite a bit of Mod Components from doing so, which will help you acquire mods for your new gear.
It’s not super expensive to apply the new mods, only 5,000 Glimmer and you can purchase the new mods from Banshee-44 for 10 Mod Components each. The mods change everyday, so if you see one that has a stat you like, buy as many as you can.
Tier
Bungie introduced Tier with the new gear, which slightly improves the stat on that piece. It’s random how high the Tier is when you initially get the weapon/armor and what stat will be increased. For example, I have a Ten Paces which started out with Tier 3 and the stat increases it’s stability. I also have a Scatterhorn Bond that dropped at Tier 4 which increases my resistance to Solar damage.
Tiers on armor give you protection to an element type. So the higher the Tier, the better the resistance. You can put on a full set of armor that protects you from one type, like Solar damage. Or your pieces can be mixed, some having Solar, Void or Arc damage protection. This should make it easier to complete activities that have elemental burn.
Armor is a bit more costly when upgrading a Tier. If you’ve got a Tier 1 armor piece, it’ll cost you 2,500 Glimmer and one Legendary Shard for the next Tier. Meanwhile, Tier 1 weapons only take Glimmer to get to Tier 2. There is a reason for this. Armor only has five Tiers to upgrade, so they’re more expensive to make Masterwork.
Unlike armor, weapons can be upgraded to Tier 10 and cost a little less to finish. I currently have a Tier 5 weapon and I’ll only be spending two Legendary Shards and two Masterwork Cores to upgrade. An armor piece needs 2,500 Glimmer, ten Legendary Shards and five Masterwork Cores to get from Tier 4 to 5.
Bounties
While bounties were far a few between before Forsaken, there is now an influx of them. Every vendor across the system has a bounty for you, ranging from finishing a few patrols to taking down named enemies.
The newest bounty giver is Tess Everess. When you get a Bright Engram it usually gives you a Eververse Bounty Note. You then use those to obtain the bounty. She has two types, one that only cost a single Note and the other that costs three Notes. The single Note bounty pays out 20 Bright Dust, while the three Note pays out 70 Bright Dust. It can take awhile to get enough Bright Engrams to grab all of her weekly bounties. Tess also carries a Rise to the Challenge bounty (only costs 250 Glimmer) and when completed, you’ll receive a Prismatic Facet used in the Prismatic Matrix.
Hawthorn has also been given bounties, both weekly and daily ones. They help you gain Clan XP, but you can still complete the Nightfall, the Raid, get a Crucible win and now a Gambit win, to get Clan XP and an Engram. You still gain XP from doing Heroic Strikes, but not from activities you can find on the planets.
Drifter, the new man in the Tower who manages Gambit, has only daily bounties.
Spider, the other recently added vendor, has plenty of bounties. Most of them are Wanted Bounties that require a short trip to a planet to find and kill a named enemy, usually in the Lost Sectors. These bounties are weekly, so you don’t really have to do them right away. However, he does carry daily bounties that all deal with completing an objective within the Tangled Shore. They don’t cost much, only 250 Glimmer, and finishing them gives you 3000 Glimmer. They’re really easy and Glimmer is a must have.
Milestones
The neat list that used to contain all your weekly milestones, is now scattered. They now reside on the planet or activity on the Destinations map. Crucible, Strike and Gambit milestones can only be seen when entering those sections. It’s an inconvenience, since it was easier to see what you had to do to get Powerful Engrams before Forsaken.
This adjustment was most likely due to the addition of daily quests, as it would look cluttered on your screen.
Story
While it was rather saddening to see Cayde‑6 fight for his life, only for it to end in tragedy, that was about as much of the story as you get. The rest consists of artificial length, forcing you to do several Challenges on the Tangled Shore, just to get to the end.
All in all, missions that actually had anything to do with getting to Prince Uldren probably totaled four. Needless to say, I was not impressed with how little story we received. Of course, every person can feel different and perceive it however they choose.
Bottom Line
While Destiny 2 before Forsaken was merely a version and a half of Destiny, it was slightly entertaining. The grind wasn’t too much to handle, and let’s face it, sometimes you want to play other games. Especially when your busy and you schedule can only allow a few hours a day to enjoy them.
With Forsaken, the grind is real, ridiculously real. Getting all the daily bounties finished and getting enough materials to infuse the gear you want to use (unless you like the random roles of the higher gear) is ultimately time consuming. Bungie literally defined the word “grind” with this update. It’s all arbitrary nonsense meant to keep you playing for a mere few light levels.
If you enjoy a constant grind with little give back after a certain point, then make sure to buy the Forsaken expansion.
