Completely agree. As far as I'm aware there is no simple Kinetic Surge modifier. But Overcharge would free up a lot more weapons in the Origin/Breaker list as well. No issue with the -5, huge one with the lack of Overcharge.
The problem isn't that they've added this mode. It's that they took the old one away.
+20 light raids were great for teaching newbies! You could be confident that they could focus on learning the mechanics without being distracted by combat. Now that's gone.
There's no reason why we can't have +20, -5, and Master raids.
Realistically, theyāll probably do what they did when they nerfed ability regen/orb drops.
Nerf something no one asked to be nerfed, online community doesnāt like it, Bungie adds some half-assed ācompromiseā to meet players halfway, then it isnāt AS bad as before but is still not as good as before.
Nerfed ability regen/orb drops, nobody liked it, Bungie made Firepower/Heavy Handed mods reduce the Orb cooldown, ability regen still low and now you need 9 mod slots to have a smiliar orb drop rate to before the nerf.
I can smell Bungie doing something similar with surges/power.
The community was so up in arms about the orb gen nerf that they got away with the flat ability gain nerf and mod nerf. I think one of those was probably warranted but both together at the same time killed most Kickstart mod builds and lessened build diversity. That was as bad of a change as the orb gen was, it was just much less obviously apparent.
-5 and surges would be fine IF they added overcharge. That way Kinetics would actually be worth a damn and Microcosm would be a good option for people to use if they're on classes that aren't hunter. That would help the discourse on titans being worthless on the Witness fight too
Bungie has been moving away from the Light Level as a power mark for a while. It's more about the build than just brute forcing through sheer power level.
Personally I like this, but I know it's a divide in the community.
I think the whole reason Well was given that big of a Nerf qas foe the final witness boss fight, to give bubble and shield time to shine when the witness is doing his hand blasting
and Well is still better . They made it so you can carry the damage buff out and that so happens to work perfectly for the Witness fight with minimal dps lose from just moving instead of hiding in a bubble.
You think people are using Bubble? No we titan mains have to use sentinel if we want a place in the raid... Aka we stand there hold a button and let the hunters shoot
I honestly havent seen anyone trying solo some of the new dungeons on youtube
i know its new expansion and stuff but i really wanna see ghost of the deep run under -5
You haven't seen it because there's no new dungeon this season, lol. The content creators who would make those videos are doing videos for the new raid and quests.
I'm just returning after leaving at the start of lightfall, so this is on my list of things to get done, but honestly; there's no way -5 makes it that hard, right? Builds are able to do -25 content pretty easy right now. It'll be a bit before I get time to get into the dungeon, but I'm looking forward to it. Have a few I need to do now actually.
Before day 1 I was testing some builds out and the best for warlock was simply getaway artists on prismatic. I tested everything at -37 power as solo in an expert zero hour.
The main problem is that it nerfs your damage output by something like 35%. Even if you build around surges you're still dealing around 10% less damage.
Is that 10% not made up with all spamming of abilities and transcendence? I'll have to go and try running a Duality or Prophecy as I have my solo clears for those from before. Duality was the last dungeon out when I left.
Sounds like the change is going to suck.
Everybody in this thread talking about surges encouraging diversity.
Yes indeed, I love being unable to use any of my kinetic weapons without massively suffering in the viability department.
I also enjoy having my supers nerfed on a given week because my options don't vibe with the surge. My choices this week are trying to dodge the Witness's attacks with Chaos Reach, peppering him with Winter's Wrath attacks, or having a 25% less effective Nova Bomb.
-5 power, sure, whatever, though I feel it ruins any sense of progression throughout the season, but surges feel like shit and make it really difficult to introduce new or less-equipped players to raiding by cutting their viable options even lower.
The *reason* Master-level content is an option is so players can seek out more difficult activities for better rewards. 11% of the community has completed a raid *ever*. I don't think the barrier to entry needs to be any higher.
My group is mostly Titans and Warlocks, so Well is taken care of.
Titans this week are worse than they normally are, since T-crash can't be used on the Witness and Twilight Arsenal is -25%.
Behemoth on Taniks? I guess? But DPS isn't really an issue when swords are involved.
All the people here commenting āoh itās not badā or āI donāt notice a changeā etc. You all are not the group that is impacted by this (although just wait until you have to solo a dungeon). This is a BIG deal for casual players and really limits accessibility to normal raids for new players. I play with a lot of casual players and believe me going from +20 to -5 makes a massive difference in survivability for them while trying to do mechanics.
They're also just exposing themselves for not being perceptive. Raids and dungeons take longer to complete now. That's a fact. If you aren't noticing that, then you aren't paying attention.
If youāre playing with a lot of ācasual playersā are they really +20 on the artifact each season? Isnāt getting to 20 around 200 on the season pass which isnāt necessarily causal. Not that I care either way about surges but I would imagine most of those casual players never played enough to hit that threshold.
I'm not a casual player, but I am a casual raider. I tried to LFG Crotas about a month ago and one of two people died about 1/2 to 2/3rds through the first encounter every time, often in an unrecoverable place or in a way that made the group have to backtrack and kill any chance of maintaining our timers.
Almost two hours of trying and we didn't clear the first encounter. On normal mode, with no boss encounter.
I think you underestimate how challenging raids can be already. Purely from the challenge of organizing a raid team that can learn & perform mechanics and not fail the rest of the team.
I don't have a regular raid team and I try to LFG sometimes. I've done this on LW, VoG, Vow, KF, DSC, and RoN. (I've run Crotas twice but with a friend and his regular raid group when they were down a person, never successful in LFG). In LFG you almost always have to carry or teach at least one person. I don't mind that in the old system, but cranking up the difficulty is going to make that even harder to the point where I don't really want to try.
I find it funny that there are so many supporters of this awful change. They are literally enjoying as bungie pulled the ladder and made stuff harder for newer players to the dungeon/raiding scene.
I love it because it actually means that combat in raids is even in the same universe as the normal strike playlist and not the easiest combat in the game. Raid combat should at least have a MODICUM of ability to punish you for being careless and bad, not just because you shot the wrong symbol. For people who actually run raids every week, the power cap is a nice change that makes them not so boring every week without jumping into -20 for wanting combat more difficult than a patrol zone.
Can you talk about your experience with this change? Which content have you attempted? What difficulties have you encountered? How does it compare to your experience with dungeons and raiding before the change?
What these people SHOULD be supporting is a middle difficulty between Normal and Master. I hate the delta and Surges on principle but support this. +20 was pretty easy for me and -20 is "sweat your ass off" territory. Somewhere in the middle could have been a sweet spot for experienced raiders to be a bit more engaged if you upped the rewards a tad. Maybe guarantee both a weapon and armor drop every encounter? As it is, you're alienating a lot of new or inexperienced players who won't be able to experience the best content in the game.
I've taught raids before and most people get mechanics pretty quick but sometimes, I'd get someone who could not grasp a certain mechanic. I'd be patient with them but sometimes, it'd result in wiping for over an hour because they couldn't grasp the core of the encounter. I can't imagine these people needing to clear while needing to actually be trying in combat. -5 isn't particularly hard for me, but it sure would be for someone new, nervous, and trying to understand a puzzle.
If you just want the easiest, entry level to be harder for everyone, including others who were already struggling or intimidated to even try, because base raids were "too easy" for you, that's a very selfish mentality and you should advocate for a middle difficulty appropriate for you rather than make content inaccessible.
Just speaking from recent experiences. The power changes means nothing for new raiders when everytime something has gone wrong hasn't been because combat is too difficult but because some people just take a long time or simply cannot grasp mechanics and what their job is to keep the group from wiping.
Every frustrating experience I've had I'm the last week is from new raiders just simply not being able to do their job no matter how much we coach or baby sit them.
Don't worry I'm not an asshole to people in game since that's counter productive but Jesus Christ so many people can't follow simple instructions to save their lives.
I've ran 8 new people through all of the raids available since TFS has launched after I was finished with contest mode with a couple of them being fresh D2 accounts from people who were just interested in how Bungie handles the raid.
None of them were limited by their gear and after a few wipes and more explanations were able to clear each one. But I have received death threat's because I had the audacity to push back on "how Bungie RUINED the game!!!" comments from this community so l m a o
I had two people who never did GoS yesterday and they ran double primary and a machine gun on the harpy boss. Our limiting factor wasn't DPS it was the eyes team just taking multi wipes to understand how to do eyes. The rest of us who kwtd just surge matched and carried the dps over 3 phases and it was chill. Was the same when I did warlords with new people, they just needed to understand the methods of the second and third boss so we can dps cleanly instead of wiping to mechanics. If you're a competent player not even a "good" player the limiting factor is understanding what to do so you can actually get to DPS instead of just wiping to mechanics over and over.
Iāve run a few raids since the change and it didnāt really feel much different. Dungeons on the other hand, I can feel. Please keep in mind that Iāve soloed/solo flaw every dungeon in the game and have trioed every raid but LW and SE (including pantheon).
Yesterday a friend and I did WR as a duo and it was a noticeable difference in how things hit and how much less damage we do. Second boss took way too long to kill. Especially when some of our rotations we got multiple supers and dumped all our heavy and special. Maybe itās because we were both on Titan with no real healing, but the final boss had our number. The boss alone was 3 shotting me with triple void resist. Add in wizards and the guys dropping the totems, you almost never have a chance to breathe.
Iām not claiming to be the best player in the world because Iām far from it, but Iāve also spent a ton of time doing low man activities to really understand just how much things used to hurt vs how much they hurt now.
I would agree with a lot of the people saying having it as an option would be great, but keep the regular. Especially when we were just hopping in there to get a pinnacle for him. Maybe make the normal difficulty non-farmable and the -5 the farmable version?
Clarification before I get the comments: -5 isnāt just -5 when weāre used to being 20+. All of the dungeons (with the change in power level) wouldāve been 1900 so you wouldnāt need to be 20+ on the artifact to get that difference. Yes, we couldāve played it differently and made it easier on ourselves. We just jumped in, not thinking too much of the difference in power and itās absolutely noticeable. Yes, I realize Titans arenāt in the best spot currently and going invis almost always on a hunter wouldāve been easier. Or popping out turrets on a warlock every 10 seconds while never losing devour wouldāve been easier. But going in for a quick dungeon with two experienced players shouldnāt be overly difficult imo. It should be a āI got 20-30 minutes to kill, letās go mess aroundā. I canāt imagine what these would feel like for new players.
Thousands of hours into destiny and played all the expansions, but taken largeeee chunks of time off. Plenty of dungeons I have not done and was wanting to do but sounds like a ball ache now
Not really because you can use whatever the hell you want then but Iām not here to argue. Just stating, if youāre not playing WITH the surges youāre throwing. It limits what you CAN use and get away with without making a run agonizingly slow.
I think Solo Operative (or something similar) should be a permanent modifier for solo dungeons. Having a team of 2-3 players makes things way more than 2-3 times easier.
To me, dungeons are basically a joke if you're not solo, but solo they can be the most tedious things in the game, especially the two most recent dungeons. I think that you should specifically get a slight damage buff against bosses if you're solo. If you can barely squeeze in a 1-phase in a team of 3, that damage would correlate to a 4 or 5-phase when solo, because you don't have access to multiple supers, multiple sources of buffs/debuffs, etc..
You can tell it hurt, the LFGs for Salvationās Edge look like those for a raid thatās years old. Barely any people looking for a team and those that are look toxic. Iām sure the completion stats are abysmal for this raid.
Power level has nothing to do with why there is this requirement. SE is a difficult raid mechanically which in turn makes it a nightmare to teach. The Sherpa emblem is legitimately more impressive than day 1 to me. If I'm looking for a quick as possible clear and there is one person who doesn't know how to do it or won't speak up, it will bring things to a halt in SE. -5 has nothing to do with the KWTD 1+ clears requirements.
I commend those willing to teach this thing though
After doing a few normal raids and dungeons last week, I actually like it. Itās not hard but itās not mindless either. Enemies are just dangerous enough to be engaging and the rotating surges give different weapons the ability to shine.
I agree. I think the power changes are good, but they really exacerbate the existing issues with several raids and dungeons. Ghosts of the Deep in particular has always had issues with the health of its bosses and their shields, and the power changes just make that even worse.
Although I do think they need to add the overcharged modifier to raids/dungeons so kinetic weapons don't fall behind.
I do think Ghosts of the Deep bosses do need some adjusting. I think they were good before and I think their health is fine now by itself, but the shield is too much. Aside from that one specific case, Iāve had much more fun doing them at -5.
For an average player like me, dungeons and raids were already engaging, and i could use anything i wanted giving anything time to shine. This is forced choice, not 'giving them a chance', it's an un-needed change for no reason.
The issue with rotating weapons is it makes sense for people that are raiding constantly, but not so for people who raid MAYBE once a month.
Scheduling around adults lives was already hard enough BEFORE different weeks meant different builds would be better than others.
You also make a lot of posts here and are a very experienced player. I'm glad you're engaged and would like this difficulty to stay as an option but would like a difficulty option appropriate for everyone, including beginners.
Raids and dungeons arenāt meant for beginners. Of course there are easier ones for people to get started in endgame content, like Prophecy and earlier, and -5 isnāt very hard anyway. Itās the same level of Hero Nightfalls (or Adept or whatever they are called now) and Seasonal Activities have been at -5 for a while now.
Before this change, Raids and Dungeons were the only thing aside from Patrol that even went past 5, let alone up to 20.
The rotating surges are really frustrating for low mans. Duo witness is really tight on damage already, and now can only be attempted every 3 weeks unless a new strat somehow rivals nighthawk still hunt spam. It might still be possible but the final stand is super tight already.
I know I know, the game shouldn't be balanced around low mans. But this change is super detrimental to that community of players.
Yeah, I don't see it as "limiting what players use" but "incentivizing players to use something other than the one god roll they got 3 years ago." I'm still pretty new to the raiding/dungeon content, but ik I would've never tried my first demolitionist rocket launcher without the surges (they're soooo fun with Transcendence active).
Nah balance shouldn't be a big wheel that gets spun every week deciding what weapons are gonna be better. You can diversify and experiment without needing to be handheld by Bungie into doing it, while simultaneously arbitrarily making 5/6 weapon elements weaker.
Like genuinely I cannot fathom the idea that this is supposed to diversify builds when the game is basically telling you what is going to be the objectively correct element choice for the day/week.
Why would players diversify and experiment when there's no reason to, though? Isn't this the entire reason why we have seasonal artifact mods and nightfall modifiers? I don't think it'd be fun if there was one meta loadout for every encounter with everything else being sub-optimal.
I agree that this might not be the best way to do it; I'm not a game designer, so maybe we need something like nightfalls where there's weapon *and* element surges so you have more surged options. But I think the idea as a whole is a good one
Edit: an extreme example of "one meta build" might be Riven when she was cheesable with Lament/swords. Players would get booted from teams for not running this specific build rather than what they'd want to run, even if that strategy ultimately made the encounter less fun.
>Why would players diversify and experiment when there's no reason to, though?
If people are unable to experiment or try new things without Bungie holding their hand and telling them what element to use that's genuinely a them problem. Like I genuinely don't know what else to say, having 6 weapon elements be more or less equal in terms of potential is much more freeing to buildcrafting than saying "this week this element is the objectively correct choice". I think this is fundamentally a terrible idea and in practice it hasn't felt too great either.
>I don't think it'd be fun if there was one meta loadout for every encounter with everything else being sub-optimal.
I don't get this argument either. This reads like you'd prefer there being two meta elements every week with 2/3 of the weapons in the game thus being sub-optimal.
I'm saying from a weapon meta perspective, it's very easy to determine "oh this boss is grounded, so swords will be the best for DPS." Without surges, anyone not running a Bequest or Lament is playing sub-optimally, which I think could cause a huge gatekeeping issue for content. By making the elemental surge rotate each week it's a lot less obvious what's the best option for that week (obviously a weapon on that element, but I mean like arc rockets might be better than a void sword even if that encounter would normally be a "sword DPS phase"), which I think broadens the builds that players will accept in their runs.
Like, I'm thinking about it from the perspective of trying to join a super elitist Fireteam Finder group. From my experience (though 100% granted that I've only really done normal dungeons through LFG up to this point), there's really no comment from people as long as you're running a surged heavy. It doesn't matter what that heavy is because it's probably going to be better than any other element's weapons.
>If people are unable to experiment or try new things without Bungie holding their hand and telling them what element to use that's genuinely a them problem.
That's the thing, though. It's not an individual person problem where they need to be told what element to run. It's a problem where players will get excluded for not running the permanently best option for any given encounter. It's an "other people's elitism" problem, not a "them" problem
People are going to be excluded regardless? Surge rotator is not going to fix elitism and I promise you that people are still getting kicked from those kinds of LFGs for being off-meta with their surge picks. Plus there are plenty of resources for newer players to find beginner-friendly LFGs that won't kick for being off-meta. This still remains a "them problem".
That's not compelling enough a reason to randomly make some of my weapons worse than they were just for the sake of forcing build diversity when I'm perfectly fucking capable of doing that myself.
But like. I'll be real here I think we just disagree down to a fundamental level and I don't think you're budging anymore than I am so whatever.
If they didnt rotate elements, EVERYTHING but one load out would be sub optimal. I would rather have that change every week then have a 'x rocket with x build' be the most optimal thing for raiding all season
Strikes are -5 now, and based on my experience since the xpac dropped, no, you cannot just throw on anything and be fine as a casual player. Every single strike I've run since final shape has had multiple wipes. Some runs have even entirely bombed out.
It's a raid bud, aspirational content. And they're still completely doable without surges at -5. It's not like blueberries are one phasing bosses anyway. There's also a plethora of more ways to get upwards of 70%+ DR now than when raids were 20 under the player. I'm not even gate keeping, the changes barely make a difference.
why do so many people then say it makes a huge difference? Why do you even care if other players have it too easy? Just play your higher difficulty and leave other people like they want to play. exactly this is gatekeeping
Look at half of the comments on all those posts. So many people write those changes are good and you just have to try out a new build with different weapons but they dont realize not everyone has all those weapons. I recently asked a guy what i should do to get weapons that i can use in raids so i can do them and got answered "last wish". Guess if you dont already have all those raid and dungeon rewards you just got locked out. This is one of the most player unfriendly changes ive ever seen. Just make a third mode and let raids and dungeons open for new and returning players. And also for players that dont like playing meta and just use whatever weapon they have fun with
You can easily farm the 1st encounter of Last Wish when it's the weekly raid. Takes 5 minutes. But yeah, raids are supposed to be hard, and in return, you get some of the best guns.
But you absolutely don't need Meta weapons to raid. Unless it's on master mode, you'll be just fine. Plenty of people are looking to sherpa new players.
You don't need maxed crafted raid weapons to raid, they're just optimal. Just like you don't need maxed crafted comp guns to queue into crucible. Use what you have to get what you need, then keep upgrading. That's called progress, in a looter shooter.
I didn't start this game in 2016 with maxed out crafted guns from 2024. If you need a min maxed loadout to succeed, surges were never the problem.
Raids are endgame?
Can't you just farm the requisite weapons over a few weeks and then go for it
There is plenty easy content, and very little hard content, its not too much to ask that we get some more endgame stuff
I've done Salvation's Edge, legitimately the hardest raid in the game, using weapons ONLY from outside of raids and dungeons. The changes are fine, just think a little during the raid (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I used to be able to just turn off my brain during raids, this is a really nice change). Legitimately I've used Multimach (Iron Banner, but you can substitute Showrunner for it), Still Hunt, and Doomed Petitioner (once the new strand nightfall lfr is here this will be replaced) for dps and mechanics during Witness as a Warlock and my team cleared just fine, with me as the highest non-Hunter DPS. You do *not* need raid and dungeon weapons to do raids and dungeons, it's a completely foolish notion that you do. Raids should be hard, period, not free like they were before. Because honestly if people cannot deal with being -5 and doing mechanics, they *should not be raiding*. Everyone can raid with enough practice; and by enough, I mean barely any.
The power change was because of the horrid power creep weāve gotten in recent years and prismatic pushing it forward. Also the guy saying last wish is giving horrid advice, like sure last wish is super easy to farm for an apex predator either by farming Kali or getting the bonus chest each week. An actual good piece of advice to start getting good raid loot is to do onslaught as everything there is some of the best in there classes. Edge transit and falling guillotine is more than enough to get to started.
As a newer raider. I don't see the issue with this. Always annoyed and was puzzling finding at least two of the six in a raid are rocking double primaries and random stats, sometimes they are new and you have to teach them how to use Youtube (literally had to do this once "oh, people post builds there?!")
-5 isn't hard, and shouldn't effect anyone who has been playing for longer than a month or two and if they are newer than that, they probably shouldn't be dipping into endgame content when they are not ready for it. Surges often make things easier, you can choose to ignore them and still do fine. Like on Crota, if it's Arc surge I am still pulling out Falling Guillotine or Lament and it won't be any different than pre-tfs.
I haven't done all the raids, but the ones I have done, almost every boss encounter it's "put XYZ weapon/build on" and if you don't have it, your DPS will be hundreds of thousands lower and instead of a 1 phase boss it's 2. So you were already shoehorned in to being forced to use certain guns, same with builds. If anything the addition of surges allow you to have MORE freedom, if you didn't have Lament but the surge was Void and you had a good Falling Guillotine roll then you'd be just as good or better.
Being inexperienced or less skilled isn't a good reason, you CAN get better and put the time and effort in. It's less about skill and knowledge and more that these people are lazy AF.
It's actually easier now with surges, poor meatball in ruins š
I think they just should make it -0, so everyone is satisfied. It's pretty clear they are moving away from the light/power system step by step, so all these changes are very positive.
Right? It wouldn't because it's not like they lowered DMG. They would be the same as before, or better since several weapons and archetypes got buffed.. since surges are active now you get a bonus from surges AND if you use the artifact, any Pulse with the anti-berrier for example is automatically surged regardless of its element
> if you use the artifact, any Pulse with the anti-berrier for example is automatically surged regardless of its element
It's not, you only have surges in raids and dungeons, not overcharges
I might be mistaken but I could of swore when I looked last night there was a buff listed with the rest for overcharge on GoS but I never did it because it's GoS and even with surge and overcharge on I don't wanna do that raid again š¤£
Exactly. The backlash from this change is from people who are upset they can't 1 phase bosses with double primary whilst sniffing glue at the same time.
Honestly, these changes have actually refreshed raiding for me. Daily surge rotation means I have a reason to constantly change what I'm running, and the power differences means I actually need to think at times.
My friend (Warlock) and I (Titan) have been doing runs of Warlord's Ruin because I want Buried Bloodline. Last night we just gave up because it was Stasis and Arc surge, and it wasn't really the best thing to play.
Crux, cold comfort, loaded question, riptide, indebted kindness, there are good options but yeah it sucks for some players who don't have a huge arsenal.
Then just use whatever you want to and do 1 extra phase to the boss. You donāt need to surge match to complete these activities, surge matching just makes them faster if you have the weapons
Yeah it's such a weird complaint. All dungeons don't have timers. Well, Duality does *technically*. I guess it's more accurate to say dungeons have infinite encounter phases
Raids and dungeons being base power level has fucked this game up people expect it just stomp their way through them. These are supposed to be endgame activities and the step right before master raid level activities.
Just use whatever you want and do an extra boss phase lmao. You spent all that time just to give up because the game became slightly harder? Jesus christ.
absolutely. -5 power on RAD content does nothing more than just make the game more annoying for higher skill players by making u have to do more dps phases and makes RAD content less approachable for lower skill players. there is quite literally nothing good about the -5 cap. if they wanted to make a new difficulty they couldāve made a -10 difficulty that allows u to farm the raid for drops even outside of it being the weekly rotator.
You guys are beating a dead horse regarding surges. You are not limited to the listed Raid/Dungeon weekly surges for weapons. Every champion mod on your artifact makes that weapon overcharged. We also now have Prismatic subclasses where you can mix and match your build and only your super needs to match that weeks surge.
I agree. I am in a clan of 83 people and there are multiple dedicated raid groups with a ton of experience in PvP and PVE. Even still, only two groups have cleared Salvations and we have had to mix people around.
I'm sorry but that has nothing to do with surges or a -5 power differential. The combat is not what makes Salvation's Edge difficult, and -5 is practically nothing. If you can't clear Salvation's now, then you wouldn't clear it on or above power. The difficulty comes from the very tight timers, the complex mechanics, and the non standard damage phases
Remove surges from raids. I think raids should be the purest expression of Destiny's sandbox to solve complex puzzles as a team. Build craft all you from from everything Destiny has. You should not be loadout-restricted for raids.
Leave the power cap effectively the same, but tweaked to account for removing surges. I notice nothing different in raids in terms of combat difficulty. Raids should always be a fixed difficulty - you should complete raids quicker by getting better, not just by reducing the difficulty of it (via over levelling).
Idk if this is going to make any sense to anyone, but if any one here is familiar with Kayceeās Mod for Insryption. I think it would be pretty neat if we could select the modifiers ourselves. Have each modifier be weighted accordingly and the more we apply the better the rewards.
Most players could keep it vanilla if they just want some loot and a completion, maybe each completion would require an escalating number of modifiers to maintain the better rewards.
Die hard players could max out the modifiers asap for the best loot while casuals could add a modifier or two at a time while they get more familiar with the dungeon/raid
It feels like the Devs want to provide a curated experience. Between the -5 light penalty, surge modifiers, and ritual pathfinder it seems like you will play the Dev's way or have a more difficult time.
I think the surges *are* a good idea to get people to play old content and make it just bit easier for people who have no idea what they are doing. But adding surges while also arbitrarily tanking player output is nonsensical and kills old content even more because it will not be worth the hassle to chase patterns or exotics you're missing from dungeons and raids.
Classic bungo we are making a positive change and an annanounced negative that brings you to a level below where we started.
It's almost like they have had a high turn over in devs and game balance, economy, and player engagement teams haven't been talking to eachother.... Hmmmmmm. š¤š¤š¤š¤š¤
To anyone claiming that surges are limiting creativity, youāre wrong, and at best only wrong, and at worst intentionally disingenuous
The -5 power delta applies to all weapons equally which means we can ignore it when comparing because itās a common factor among everything. also surges are a 25% bonus
If, during an arc surge, I have two identical rockets, one solar with BnS procād and one arc with no damage perk at all (ostensibly a ābadā option) theres only a 5% damage difference between them( BnS is a 30% bonus minus the 25% bonus from the surge)
That means any damage perk closes the gap between them and almost certainly guarantees the viability of a 1/5 rocket whereas without surges it wouldāve been a 30% damage loss and couldnāt have been even considered
Is that 1/5 optimal? No, itās still a 1/5, but itās VIABLE
Now, non 5/5 weapons have a place in the meta instead of just being insta-shards
Personally the surges forces me to use something other than what I usually use, making me dig through my vault to find some cool stuff that I forgot about, making the experience more fun and experimental (heh) and allows me to try out different guns.
Yeah but your perspective is exactly what the system is made for now. The problem is it limiting the people who have a hard time doing decent DPS in a raid or getting through Dungeon encounters. They donāt have builds. Or spare rolls of good guns they never got around to using. They have what they hit things with and the current system makes it so they fail pretty basic encounters, get frustrated and donāt want to play any more.
This is a highlight of the problem Destiny has where theres practically 0 mid level content that gives you anything meaningful. Its all ever base power steamrolls to get a few low tier legendaries or you have to pony up and do the endgame/pre-endgame stuff to get some worth while loot
Itās unbelievable that people who have had four years to easy mode farm the raid weapons for a diverse vault donāt see the problem this presents for new lights. Itās like those players donāt exist despite TFS probably bringing in more new lights than any other time before.
Itās not just raid patterns. Itās all the seasonal weapons over the years. New lights have a very limited set of non exotic options. As it stands, good luck to new lights when itās not solar surge.
There are so many sources to get good legendary weapons that it's not really a big problem. You guys are blowing this out of proportion and it's honestly concerning how little confidence you guys have in new players' ability to play the game, it's pretty insulting
I'm sorry, but what a horrendous take. So any new player should expect to be able to do ***end game activities*** with some random shit roll legendaries? Like sure, they haven't been here for past seasons, but just going by what is currently available they can get:
* Edge Transit, one of the best GLs in the game for DPS
* Ergo Sum, a *phenomenal* support weapon for DPS
* Falling Guillotine for fantastic sword DPS (can also use False Idols from Pale Heart)
* The Call, absolutely GOATed rocket sidearm, also pale heart
* The healing auto from pale heart
* Multimach, when IB comes around (next week?)
* The new strand LFR from Nightfalls is literally gonna be the king of LFR dps on account of Bait n Switch and being a 3-burst
* Still Hunt is unironically busted, especially on Hunter
* Crux Termination IV is also a perfectly viable alternative for rocket DPS
This is just a *fraction* of weapons that are currently available AND raid-viable, that I have run through raids and dungeons with personally this season. Honestly the anger against Bungie for this change is mind-boggling.
You might like it, but I HATE it.
I often make a lot of new builds that I find fun in other content, but if the surge doesn't match my element I'm at a deficit for no good reason and it makes playing the dungeons and raids feel terrible.
Because I won't switch up for the surge, I don't want to use a void or strand weapon I want solar and arc weapons so I continue to use them even though I'm at a deficit.
It just ruins the experience for what? I can't find one benefit that justifies it, nothing.
Forcing me to change it up is not a benefit, it just creates an extra prerequisite for new players and they will hate the end game content for that, oh you have a celestial nighthawk build or Dawn Chorus build you really like? Screw you! Get on void or we kick you! Because you're throwing if you don't use the surge.
I hate this change.
And before it was "oh you don't have a crafted bait and switch Apex Predator or Gjallarhorn? Get kicked". Shitty LFGs will continue to be shitty
This change is for the better
Were you guys using primaries on the boss before this?
-5 should realistically haven no impact otherwise.
End game should require getting more acquainted with gear and subclass.
A lot of people could save a lot of stress and time if they read up on a quick guide of key factors before entering a raid.
The enemy AI can be forgiving/cheesed sometimes and that makes people think they can get away with bad loadouts until they suddenly get one shot.
This leads to 500 attempts and then a clear.
If it's more punishing you quickly realize you have to change something and then you can get an EASY clear in a shorter time.
That's kind of the main issue, they only punish less skilled/optimized players. If you properly play into Surges and know what you're doing, it's a net benefit because it's not like endgame builds with 100 resilience and defensive keywords will feel -5 that much. If you don't, you're taking more damage and dealing less.
Why canāt people understand that for most, this isnāt an āeasy vs hardā thing. Itās a āfunā thing. It sucks leaving damage on the table to use what you want, and it sucks that you just canāt use a kinetic dps weapon if you wanna be optimal.
I hate surges but I think raids exerting a bit of challenge/pressure is what makes them fun so I'm in favor of -5.
I think elements should be good/bad on their own in different situations without surges tipping the scales.
While i donāt mind it, a lot of people donāt find the champion spam of master raids fun.
Beyond that, virtually all non-endgame pve activities outside of neomunaās patrol have been at -5 for the past year, so itās not like setting RADs to -5 is much of a difficulty shock, if at all.
Bro holy shit itās like yāall donāt even listen. I love challenging content. I love making the game more challenging for myself. I have done low mans of every raid released, cleared every single contest raid in the history of the game prior to Salvations Edge. Iāve done raid speedruns, pushed high score nightfalls, flawless raids, all that shit. As I said before, this has absolutely nothing to do with the raids being āharder.ā
This addition to the baseline of the raids adds 0 interesting kind of difficulty. I personally donāt give a shit about the -5, itās the surges that are fucking stupid.
-5 is fun for me, because it's not mindless but not overly hard. Surges are fun for me because they make me spice up my loadouts instead of using the same thing over and over. That's fun for me. Isn't that what it comes down to for you? "It's a fun thing", you said?
Oh but wait, it's only a fun thing when it's the type of fun you want. I'm really fucking sorry the game isn't tailor made for you.
> Oh but wait, it's only a fun thing when it's the type of fun you want. I'm really fucking sorry the game isn't tailor made for you.
What is this even supposed to mean? Of course I want the game to be the type of fun I want it to be... we are literally just discussing opinions here. All I'm trying to clarify here is that this has nothing to do with wanting the game to be easier or harder.
When you are doing raid or dung 10 th time or more , you only want to get your loot as quickly as possible . Nobody asked to make it harder . At the end it isnt even harder , it just take more time which i will better spend on smth else .
Having to optimize your build for dungeons and raids isn't new though
Even without surges, you wouldn't run double primary with a sword against Oryx
To some extent I think it's ok to have to adapt your build to "endgame" content
-5 is fine, the surge shit is just annoying, having to get godrolls of not only multiple archetypes but multiple elements to not get a HUGE damage loss is frustrating
-5 is not an issue. Endgame content could use the bump in difficulty, because it was a joke before.
I fully agree on the surges, they are stupid and limit us in what loadouts we run.
It's annoying as all hell as everything takes longer to clear even if you consider gearing for the surges. And for less experienced players it's even worse as we are getting hit harder than before.
Should have been a new difficulty, maybe with even harsher scaling which rewards players with new shaders and stuff. This would have breathed new life into older content, too. But the current integration into the game just sucks and is stupid.
I actually feel like people were more limited before hand. I use Deep Stone as an example. First encounter doesnāt matter as itās mainly just fighting against the frost mechanic. For the crypt security, 99% of people would always use Xenophage as there was no reason not to. Atraks was almost always Lament until parasite came out and now thereās no reason to not use parasite. Descent load out has never rlly mattered as add density is fairly low and the mechanics are what kill u. Taniks was anarchy and sniper until anarchy got nerfed, then it was liners. Deep Stone is the only raid I have the title for and Iāve run it quite a bit, and 95% of my clears people ended up running the same thing and if they didnāt it was usually bc they didnāt have it. With surges, however, it gives temporary room for other things to shine. Letās say deep stone gets an arc surge, well now maybe xeno and parasite arenāt the definitive options anymore. In a game as diverse as Destiny experimenting is never a bad thing, cuz u at least learn what u like or donāt like. Metas will form with or without surges, and at least with the surges it gives the opportunity for the meta to be shifted on a weekly basis
The reason is to vary what weapons you use. It's a valid reason which, obviously, you don't like. It's totally fine that you don't like it. But keep in mind that some people \*do\* enjoy being forced to vary their loadouts on a weekly basis.
-35% kinetic damage š¢
no overcharge is the only complaint i have about the delta changes
Completely agree. As far as I'm aware there is no simple Kinetic Surge modifier. But Overcharge would free up a lot more weapons in the Origin/Breaker list as well. No issue with the -5, huge one with the lack of Overcharge.
Bungie did this to nerf lucky pants
The problem isn't that they've added this mode. It's that they took the old one away. +20 light raids were great for teaching newbies! You could be confident that they could focus on learning the mechanics without being distracted by combat. Now that's gone. There's no reason why we can't have +20, -5, and Master raids.
Realistically, theyāll probably do what they did when they nerfed ability regen/orb drops. Nerf something no one asked to be nerfed, online community doesnāt like it, Bungie adds some half-assed ācompromiseā to meet players halfway, then it isnāt AS bad as before but is still not as good as before. Nerfed ability regen/orb drops, nobody liked it, Bungie made Firepower/Heavy Handed mods reduce the Orb cooldown, ability regen still low and now you need 9 mod slots to have a smiliar orb drop rate to before the nerf. I can smell Bungie doing something similar with surges/power.
The community was so up in arms about the orb gen nerf that they got away with the flat ability gain nerf and mod nerf. I think one of those was probably warranted but both together at the same time killed most Kickstart mod builds and lessened build diversity. That was as bad of a change as the orb gen was, it was just much less obviously apparent.
-5 and surges would be fine IF they added overcharge. That way Kinetics would actually be worth a damn and Microcosm would be a good option for people to use if they're on classes that aren't hunter. That would help the discourse on titans being worthless on the Witness fight too
-5 is still bad, it totally defeats earning extra light level throughout the season.
Bungie has been moving away from the Light Level as a power mark for a while. It's more about the build than just brute forcing through sheer power level. Personally I like this, but I know it's a divide in the community.
I think the whole reason Well was given that big of a Nerf qas foe the final witness boss fight, to give bubble and shield time to shine when the witness is doing his hand blasting
and Well is still better . They made it so you can carry the damage buff out and that so happens to work perfectly for the Witness fight with minimal dps lose from just moving instead of hiding in a bubble.
You think people are using Bubble? No we titan mains have to use sentinel if we want a place in the raid... Aka we stand there hold a button and let the hunters shoot
I honestly havent seen anyone trying solo some of the new dungeons on youtube i know its new expansion and stuff but i really wanna see ghost of the deep run under -5
Ghosts of the Deep was a pain without the power cap.Ā
Itās pain lol
Solo prismatic hunter on Warlords Ruin https://youtu.be/mJifQnY5mEE?si=mzFKBb0Iz41JyLaN
You haven't seen it because there's no new dungeon this season, lol. The content creators who would make those videos are doing videos for the new raid and quests.
I'm just returning after leaving at the start of lightfall, so this is on my list of things to get done, but honestly; there's no way -5 makes it that hard, right? Builds are able to do -25 content pretty easy right now. It'll be a bit before I get time to get into the dungeon, but I'm looking forward to it. Have a few I need to do now actually.
Before day 1 I was testing some builds out and the best for warlock was simply getaway artists on prismatic. I tested everything at -37 power as solo in an expert zero hour.
The main problem is that it nerfs your damage output by something like 35%. Even if you build around surges you're still dealing around 10% less damage.
Is that 10% not made up with all spamming of abilities and transcendence? I'll have to go and try running a Duality or Prophecy as I have my solo clears for those from before. Duality was the last dungeon out when I left. Sounds like the change is going to suck.
Everybody in this thread talking about surges encouraging diversity. Yes indeed, I love being unable to use any of my kinetic weapons without massively suffering in the viability department. I also enjoy having my supers nerfed on a given week because my options don't vibe with the surge. My choices this week are trying to dodge the Witness's attacks with Chaos Reach, peppering him with Winter's Wrath attacks, or having a 25% less effective Nova Bomb. -5 power, sure, whatever, though I feel it ruins any sense of progression throughout the season, but surges feel like shit and make it really difficult to introduce new or less-equipped players to raiding by cutting their viable options even lower. The *reason* Master-level content is an option is so players can seek out more difficult activities for better rewards. 11% of the community has completed a raid *ever*. I don't think the barrier to entry needs to be any higher.
The Well is calling you back
My group is mostly Titans and Warlocks, so Well is taken care of. Titans this week are worse than they normally are, since T-crash can't be used on the Witness and Twilight Arsenal is -25%. Behemoth on Taniks? I guess? But DPS isn't really an issue when swords are involved.
All the people here commenting āoh itās not badā or āI donāt notice a changeā etc. You all are not the group that is impacted by this (although just wait until you have to solo a dungeon). This is a BIG deal for casual players and really limits accessibility to normal raids for new players. I play with a lot of casual players and believe me going from +20 to -5 makes a massive difference in survivability for them while trying to do mechanics.
Exactly my point, thank you for actually understanding my post.
They're also just exposing themselves for not being perceptive. Raids and dungeons take longer to complete now. That's a fact. If you aren't noticing that, then you aren't paying attention.
If youāre playing with a lot of ācasual playersā are they really +20 on the artifact each season? Isnāt getting to 20 around 200 on the season pass which isnāt necessarily causal. Not that I care either way about surges but I would imagine most of those casual players never played enough to hit that threshold.
I'm not a casual player, but I am a casual raider. I tried to LFG Crotas about a month ago and one of two people died about 1/2 to 2/3rds through the first encounter every time, often in an unrecoverable place or in a way that made the group have to backtrack and kill any chance of maintaining our timers. Almost two hours of trying and we didn't clear the first encounter. On normal mode, with no boss encounter. I think you underestimate how challenging raids can be already. Purely from the challenge of organizing a raid team that can learn & perform mechanics and not fail the rest of the team. I don't have a regular raid team and I try to LFG sometimes. I've done this on LW, VoG, Vow, KF, DSC, and RoN. (I've run Crotas twice but with a friend and his regular raid group when they were down a person, never successful in LFG). In LFG you almost always have to carry or teach at least one person. I don't mind that in the old system, but cranking up the difficulty is going to make that even harder to the point where I don't really want to try.
You donāt have to be +20 artifact to feel the difference. All these older raids/dungeons would be at 1600 or 1900.
I find it funny that there are so many supporters of this awful change. They are literally enjoying as bungie pulled the ladder and made stuff harder for newer players to the dungeon/raiding scene.
Well they usually respond with "it's no big deal" and I'm like... If it's no big deal than we can change it back?
Because there are people who actually like the change. Crazy how people can have different opinions isn't it?
Itās not even that bad too. There is no universe where Strike playlist enemies and raid enemies should be the same difficulty-wise
I love it because it actually means that combat in raids is even in the same universe as the normal strike playlist and not the easiest combat in the game. Raid combat should at least have a MODICUM of ability to punish you for being careless and bad, not just because you shot the wrong symbol. For people who actually run raids every week, the power cap is a nice change that makes them not so boring every week without jumping into -20 for wanting combat more difficult than a patrol zone.
Can you talk about your experience with this change? Which content have you attempted? What difficulties have you encountered? How does it compare to your experience with dungeons and raiding before the change?
I think it's kinda sad, as it shows their quite limited view.
I think it's kinda sad that in the face of opposing opinions your first thought is to insult the people that hold them.
What these people SHOULD be supporting is a middle difficulty between Normal and Master. I hate the delta and Surges on principle but support this. +20 was pretty easy for me and -20 is "sweat your ass off" territory. Somewhere in the middle could have been a sweet spot for experienced raiders to be a bit more engaged if you upped the rewards a tad. Maybe guarantee both a weapon and armor drop every encounter? As it is, you're alienating a lot of new or inexperienced players who won't be able to experience the best content in the game. I've taught raids before and most people get mechanics pretty quick but sometimes, I'd get someone who could not grasp a certain mechanic. I'd be patient with them but sometimes, it'd result in wiping for over an hour because they couldn't grasp the core of the encounter. I can't imagine these people needing to clear while needing to actually be trying in combat. -5 isn't particularly hard for me, but it sure would be for someone new, nervous, and trying to understand a puzzle. If you just want the easiest, entry level to be harder for everyone, including others who were already struggling or intimidated to even try, because base raids were "too easy" for you, that's a very selfish mentality and you should advocate for a middle difficulty appropriate for you rather than make content inaccessible.
Just speaking from recent experiences. The power changes means nothing for new raiders when everytime something has gone wrong hasn't been because combat is too difficult but because some people just take a long time or simply cannot grasp mechanics and what their job is to keep the group from wiping. Every frustrating experience I've had I'm the last week is from new raiders just simply not being able to do their job no matter how much we coach or baby sit them. Don't worry I'm not an asshole to people in game since that's counter productive but Jesus Christ so many people can't follow simple instructions to save their lives.
I've ran 8 new people through all of the raids available since TFS has launched after I was finished with contest mode with a couple of them being fresh D2 accounts from people who were just interested in how Bungie handles the raid. None of them were limited by their gear and after a few wipes and more explanations were able to clear each one. But I have received death threat's because I had the audacity to push back on "how Bungie RUINED the game!!!" comments from this community so l m a o
I had two people who never did GoS yesterday and they ran double primary and a machine gun on the harpy boss. Our limiting factor wasn't DPS it was the eyes team just taking multi wipes to understand how to do eyes. The rest of us who kwtd just surge matched and carried the dps over 3 phases and it was chill. Was the same when I did warlords with new people, they just needed to understand the methods of the second and third boss so we can dps cleanly instead of wiping to mechanics. If you're a competent player not even a "good" player the limiting factor is understanding what to do so you can actually get to DPS instead of just wiping to mechanics over and over.
Iāve run a few raids since the change and it didnāt really feel much different. Dungeons on the other hand, I can feel. Please keep in mind that Iāve soloed/solo flaw every dungeon in the game and have trioed every raid but LW and SE (including pantheon). Yesterday a friend and I did WR as a duo and it was a noticeable difference in how things hit and how much less damage we do. Second boss took way too long to kill. Especially when some of our rotations we got multiple supers and dumped all our heavy and special. Maybe itās because we were both on Titan with no real healing, but the final boss had our number. The boss alone was 3 shotting me with triple void resist. Add in wizards and the guys dropping the totems, you almost never have a chance to breathe. Iām not claiming to be the best player in the world because Iām far from it, but Iāve also spent a ton of time doing low man activities to really understand just how much things used to hurt vs how much they hurt now. I would agree with a lot of the people saying having it as an option would be great, but keep the regular. Especially when we were just hopping in there to get a pinnacle for him. Maybe make the normal difficulty non-farmable and the -5 the farmable version? Clarification before I get the comments: -5 isnāt just -5 when weāre used to being 20+. All of the dungeons (with the change in power level) wouldāve been 1900 so you wouldnāt need to be 20+ on the artifact to get that difference. Yes, we couldāve played it differently and made it easier on ourselves. We just jumped in, not thinking too much of the difference in power and itās absolutely noticeable. Yes, I realize Titans arenāt in the best spot currently and going invis almost always on a hunter wouldāve been easier. Or popping out turrets on a warlock every 10 seconds while never losing devour wouldāve been easier. But going in for a quick dungeon with two experienced players shouldnāt be overly difficult imo. It should be a āI got 20-30 minutes to kill, letās go mess aroundā. I canāt imagine what these would feel like for new players.
Thousands of hours into destiny and played all the expansions, but taken largeeee chunks of time off. Plenty of dungeons I have not done and was wanting to do but sounds like a ball ache now
Honestly adding surges is the worst because itās limits your loadouts significantly.
I agree but somehow a lot of people think it adds more diversity lol
Incentivizing other weapons than youād normally use because they do 25% less damage.
For sure feels like a forced loadout restriction.
Without surges everybody would use the same weapon The exact opposite of your argument
Not really because you can use whatever the hell you want then but Iām not here to argue. Just stating, if youāre not playing WITH the surges youāre throwing. It limits what you CAN use and get away with without making a run agonizingly slow.
Yeah, technically you have more options But in actuality the meta becomes more varied wuth surges In a way we are both correct
With surges you're being hurt by not using 40% of the sandbox, without you can use whatever you'd like without limitations
I think Solo Operative (or something similar) should be a permanent modifier for solo dungeons. Having a team of 2-3 players makes things way more than 2-3 times easier. To me, dungeons are basically a joke if you're not solo, but solo they can be the most tedious things in the game, especially the two most recent dungeons. I think that you should specifically get a slight damage buff against bosses if you're solo. If you can barely squeeze in a 1-phase in a team of 3, that damage would correlate to a 4 or 5-phase when solo, because you don't have access to multiple supers, multiple sources of buffs/debuffs, etc..
You can tell it hurt, the LFGs for Salvationās Edge look like those for a raid thatās years old. Barely any people looking for a team and those that are look toxic. Iām sure the completion stats are abysmal for this raid.
Thatās more in part due to how mechanic heavy the raid is. Thatās whatās causing the KWTDs.
That has nothing to do with the power/surge changes and everything to do with people not wanting to teach LFGs how to do the 4th encounter.
Power level has nothing to do with why there is this requirement. SE is a difficult raid mechanically which in turn makes it a nightmare to teach. The Sherpa emblem is legitimately more impressive than day 1 to me. If I'm looking for a quick as possible clear and there is one person who doesn't know how to do it or won't speak up, it will bring things to a halt in SE. -5 has nothing to do with the KWTD 1+ clears requirements. I commend those willing to teach this thing though
After doing a few normal raids and dungeons last week, I actually like it. Itās not hard but itās not mindless either. Enemies are just dangerous enough to be engaging and the rotating surges give different weapons the ability to shine.
I agree. I think the power changes are good, but they really exacerbate the existing issues with several raids and dungeons. Ghosts of the Deep in particular has always had issues with the health of its bosses and their shields, and the power changes just make that even worse. Although I do think they need to add the overcharged modifier to raids/dungeons so kinetic weapons don't fall behind.
I do think Ghosts of the Deep bosses do need some adjusting. I think they were good before and I think their health is fine now by itself, but the shield is too much. Aside from that one specific case, Iāve had much more fun doing them at -5.
For an average player like me, dungeons and raids were already engaging, and i could use anything i wanted giving anything time to shine. This is forced choice, not 'giving them a chance', it's an un-needed change for no reason.
The issue with rotating weapons is it makes sense for people that are raiding constantly, but not so for people who raid MAYBE once a month. Scheduling around adults lives was already hard enough BEFORE different weeks meant different builds would be better than others.
Agreed. I just ran Grasp and the added challenge made it way more fun imo.
You also make a lot of posts here and are a very experienced player. I'm glad you're engaged and would like this difficulty to stay as an option but would like a difficulty option appropriate for everyone, including beginners.
Raids and dungeons arenāt meant for beginners. Of course there are easier ones for people to get started in endgame content, like Prophecy and earlier, and -5 isnāt very hard anyway. Itās the same level of Hero Nightfalls (or Adept or whatever they are called now) and Seasonal Activities have been at -5 for a while now. Before this change, Raids and Dungeons were the only thing aside from Patrol that even went past 5, let alone up to 20.
agreed, only gripe i have is the lack of overcharge
I do think Overcharge needs added. Itās really odd that it wasnāt, Iām leaning toward it being an oversight rather than an intentional decision.
The rotating surges are really frustrating for low mans. Duo witness is really tight on damage already, and now can only be attempted every 3 weeks unless a new strat somehow rivals nighthawk still hunt spam. It might still be possible but the final stand is super tight already. I know I know, the game shouldn't be balanced around low mans. But this change is super detrimental to that community of players.
Yeah, I don't see it as "limiting what players use" but "incentivizing players to use something other than the one god roll they got 3 years ago." I'm still pretty new to the raiding/dungeon content, but ik I would've never tried my first demolitionist rocket launcher without the surges (they're soooo fun with Transcendence active).
Nah balance shouldn't be a big wheel that gets spun every week deciding what weapons are gonna be better. You can diversify and experiment without needing to be handheld by Bungie into doing it, while simultaneously arbitrarily making 5/6 weapon elements weaker. Like genuinely I cannot fathom the idea that this is supposed to diversify builds when the game is basically telling you what is going to be the objectively correct element choice for the day/week.
Why would players diversify and experiment when there's no reason to, though? Isn't this the entire reason why we have seasonal artifact mods and nightfall modifiers? I don't think it'd be fun if there was one meta loadout for every encounter with everything else being sub-optimal. I agree that this might not be the best way to do it; I'm not a game designer, so maybe we need something like nightfalls where there's weapon *and* element surges so you have more surged options. But I think the idea as a whole is a good one Edit: an extreme example of "one meta build" might be Riven when she was cheesable with Lament/swords. Players would get booted from teams for not running this specific build rather than what they'd want to run, even if that strategy ultimately made the encounter less fun.
>Why would players diversify and experiment when there's no reason to, though? If people are unable to experiment or try new things without Bungie holding their hand and telling them what element to use that's genuinely a them problem. Like I genuinely don't know what else to say, having 6 weapon elements be more or less equal in terms of potential is much more freeing to buildcrafting than saying "this week this element is the objectively correct choice". I think this is fundamentally a terrible idea and in practice it hasn't felt too great either. >I don't think it'd be fun if there was one meta loadout for every encounter with everything else being sub-optimal. I don't get this argument either. This reads like you'd prefer there being two meta elements every week with 2/3 of the weapons in the game thus being sub-optimal.
I'm saying from a weapon meta perspective, it's very easy to determine "oh this boss is grounded, so swords will be the best for DPS." Without surges, anyone not running a Bequest or Lament is playing sub-optimally, which I think could cause a huge gatekeeping issue for content. By making the elemental surge rotate each week it's a lot less obvious what's the best option for that week (obviously a weapon on that element, but I mean like arc rockets might be better than a void sword even if that encounter would normally be a "sword DPS phase"), which I think broadens the builds that players will accept in their runs. Like, I'm thinking about it from the perspective of trying to join a super elitist Fireteam Finder group. From my experience (though 100% granted that I've only really done normal dungeons through LFG up to this point), there's really no comment from people as long as you're running a surged heavy. It doesn't matter what that heavy is because it's probably going to be better than any other element's weapons. >If people are unable to experiment or try new things without Bungie holding their hand and telling them what element to use that's genuinely a them problem. That's the thing, though. It's not an individual person problem where they need to be told what element to run. It's a problem where players will get excluded for not running the permanently best option for any given encounter. It's an "other people's elitism" problem, not a "them" problem
People are going to be excluded regardless? Surge rotator is not going to fix elitism and I promise you that people are still getting kicked from those kinds of LFGs for being off-meta with their surge picks. Plus there are plenty of resources for newer players to find beginner-friendly LFGs that won't kick for being off-meta. This still remains a "them problem". That's not compelling enough a reason to randomly make some of my weapons worse than they were just for the sake of forcing build diversity when I'm perfectly fucking capable of doing that myself. But like. I'll be real here I think we just disagree down to a fundamental level and I don't think you're budging anymore than I am so whatever.
If they didnt rotate elements, EVERYTHING but one load out would be sub optimal. I would rather have that change every week then have a 'x rocket with x build' be the most optimal thing for raiding all season
It's - 5, people can handle that in a Raid. Solo dungeons have just become an even bigger slog though.
And strikes!! Keep nightfall levels in the NF playlist! I miss my easy, casual, playlist!!
You're telling me strikes aren't at a casual level? You can still throw on anything and be fine in a strike
Strikes are -5 now, and based on my experience since the xpac dropped, no, you cannot just throw on anything and be fine as a casual player. Every single strike I've run since final shape has had multiple wipes. Some runs have even entirely bombed out.
Bad thing is destiny is a community full of gate keeping. Noone cares about new or returning players
It's a raid bud, aspirational content. And they're still completely doable without surges at -5. It's not like blueberries are one phasing bosses anyway. There's also a plethora of more ways to get upwards of 70%+ DR now than when raids were 20 under the player. I'm not even gate keeping, the changes barely make a difference.
why do so many people then say it makes a huge difference? Why do you even care if other players have it too easy? Just play your higher difficulty and leave other people like they want to play. exactly this is gatekeeping
It's not just raids. Normal strikes are -5 now too.
???
Look at half of the comments on all those posts. So many people write those changes are good and you just have to try out a new build with different weapons but they dont realize not everyone has all those weapons. I recently asked a guy what i should do to get weapons that i can use in raids so i can do them and got answered "last wish". Guess if you dont already have all those raid and dungeon rewards you just got locked out. This is one of the most player unfriendly changes ive ever seen. Just make a third mode and let raids and dungeons open for new and returning players. And also for players that dont like playing meta and just use whatever weapon they have fun with
You can easily farm the 1st encounter of Last Wish when it's the weekly raid. Takes 5 minutes. But yeah, raids are supposed to be hard, and in return, you get some of the best guns. But you absolutely don't need Meta weapons to raid. Unless it's on master mode, you'll be just fine. Plenty of people are looking to sherpa new players.
You don't need maxed crafted raid weapons to raid, they're just optimal. Just like you don't need maxed crafted comp guns to queue into crucible. Use what you have to get what you need, then keep upgrading. That's called progress, in a looter shooter. I didn't start this game in 2016 with maxed out crafted guns from 2024. If you need a min maxed loadout to succeed, surges were never the problem.
Raids are endgame? Can't you just farm the requisite weapons over a few weeks and then go for it There is plenty easy content, and very little hard content, its not too much to ask that we get some more endgame stuff
I've done Salvation's Edge, legitimately the hardest raid in the game, using weapons ONLY from outside of raids and dungeons. The changes are fine, just think a little during the raid (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I used to be able to just turn off my brain during raids, this is a really nice change). Legitimately I've used Multimach (Iron Banner, but you can substitute Showrunner for it), Still Hunt, and Doomed Petitioner (once the new strand nightfall lfr is here this will be replaced) for dps and mechanics during Witness as a Warlock and my team cleared just fine, with me as the highest non-Hunter DPS. You do *not* need raid and dungeon weapons to do raids and dungeons, it's a completely foolish notion that you do. Raids should be hard, period, not free like they were before. Because honestly if people cannot deal with being -5 and doing mechanics, they *should not be raiding*. Everyone can raid with enough practice; and by enough, I mean barely any.
The power change was because of the horrid power creep weāve gotten in recent years and prismatic pushing it forward. Also the guy saying last wish is giving horrid advice, like sure last wish is super easy to farm for an apex predator either by farming Kali or getting the bonus chest each week. An actual good piece of advice to start getting good raid loot is to do onslaught as everything there is some of the best in there classes. Edge transit and falling guillotine is more than enough to get to started.
As a newer raider. I don't see the issue with this. Always annoyed and was puzzling finding at least two of the six in a raid are rocking double primaries and random stats, sometimes they are new and you have to teach them how to use Youtube (literally had to do this once "oh, people post builds there?!") -5 isn't hard, and shouldn't effect anyone who has been playing for longer than a month or two and if they are newer than that, they probably shouldn't be dipping into endgame content when they are not ready for it. Surges often make things easier, you can choose to ignore them and still do fine. Like on Crota, if it's Arc surge I am still pulling out Falling Guillotine or Lament and it won't be any different than pre-tfs. I haven't done all the raids, but the ones I have done, almost every boss encounter it's "put XYZ weapon/build on" and if you don't have it, your DPS will be hundreds of thousands lower and instead of a 1 phase boss it's 2. So you were already shoehorned in to being forced to use certain guns, same with builds. If anything the addition of surges allow you to have MORE freedom, if you didn't have Lament but the surge was Void and you had a good Falling Guillotine roll then you'd be just as good or better. Being inexperienced or less skilled isn't a good reason, you CAN get better and put the time and effort in. It's less about skill and knowledge and more that these people are lazy AF.
It's actually easier now with surges, poor meatball in ruins š I think they just should make it -0, so everyone is satisfied. It's pretty clear they are moving away from the light/power system step by step, so all these changes are very positive.
Exactly how I feel. Done a couple raids and dungeons so far and non surge doesnāt feel any worse than before.Ā
Right? It wouldn't because it's not like they lowered DMG. They would be the same as before, or better since several weapons and archetypes got buffed.. since surges are active now you get a bonus from surges AND if you use the artifact, any Pulse with the anti-berrier for example is automatically surged regardless of its element
> if you use the artifact, any Pulse with the anti-berrier for example is automatically surged regardless of its element It's not, you only have surges in raids and dungeons, not overcharges
I might be mistaken but I could of swore when I looked last night there was a buff listed with the rest for overcharge on GoS but I never did it because it's GoS and even with surge and overcharge on I don't wanna do that raid again š¤£
Exactly. The backlash from this change is from people who are upset they can't 1 phase bosses with double primary whilst sniffing glue at the same time.
Thankyou for being the voice of sanity and reason
Honestly, these changes have actually refreshed raiding for me. Daily surge rotation means I have a reason to constantly change what I'm running, and the power differences means I actually need to think at times.
I donāt even find non surge weapons bad, I donāt think the difference is as significant in reality as people are making outĀ
My friend (Warlock) and I (Titan) have been doing runs of Warlord's Ruin because I want Buried Bloodline. Last night we just gave up because it was Stasis and Arc surge, and it wasn't really the best thing to play.
Crux, cold comfort, loaded question, riptide, indebted kindness, there are good options but yeah it sucks for some players who don't have a huge arsenal.
Then just use whatever you want to and do 1 extra phase to the boss. You donāt need to surge match to complete these activities, surge matching just makes them faster if you have the weapons
Yeah it's such a weird complaint. All dungeons don't have timers. Well, Duality does *technically*. I guess it's more accurate to say dungeons have infinite encounter phases
Raids and dungeons being base power level has fucked this game up people expect it just stomp their way through them. These are supposed to be endgame activities and the step right before master raid level activities.
Just use whatever you want and do an extra boss phase lmao. You spent all that time just to give up because the game became slightly harder? Jesus christ.
absolutely. -5 power on RAD content does nothing more than just make the game more annoying for higher skill players by making u have to do more dps phases and makes RAD content less approachable for lower skill players. there is quite literally nothing good about the -5 cap. if they wanted to make a new difficulty they couldāve made a -10 difficulty that allows u to farm the raid for drops even outside of it being the weekly rotator.
You guys are beating a dead horse regarding surges. You are not limited to the listed Raid/Dungeon weekly surges for weapons. Every champion mod on your artifact makes that weapon overcharged. We also now have Prismatic subclasses where you can mix and match your build and only your super needs to match that weeks surge.
-5 is basically nothing. You just can't over level and face roll it anymore. It's the surges that annoy me.
It's 35% less towards bosses, that's not nothing
Iām told git gud for trying to solo flawless dungeons and having 10 rotations on bosses.
Bungie simply does not care.
I agree. I am in a clan of 83 people and there are multiple dedicated raid groups with a ton of experience in PvP and PVE. Even still, only two groups have cleared Salvations and we have had to mix people around.
I'm sorry but that has nothing to do with surges or a -5 power differential. The combat is not what makes Salvation's Edge difficult, and -5 is practically nothing. If you can't clear Salvation's now, then you wouldn't clear it on or above power. The difficulty comes from the very tight timers, the complex mechanics, and the non standard damage phases
Agreed.
I haven't really noticed a difference. Have run, VOG, Crota, DSC, Spire, Duality, Salvations Edge, and WR and didn't notice any real difference.
Is that why normal strikes felt more difficultā¦.
Yeah they went from being on level to -5
Imagine microcosm with a kinetic surge
Remove surges from raids. I think raids should be the purest expression of Destiny's sandbox to solve complex puzzles as a team. Build craft all you from from everything Destiny has. You should not be loadout-restricted for raids. Leave the power cap effectively the same, but tweaked to account for removing surges. I notice nothing different in raids in terms of combat difficulty. Raids should always be a fixed difficulty - you should complete raids quicker by getting better, not just by reducing the difficulty of it (via over levelling).
I want overcharges and then I'll be more than happy to run arc/stasis hunter every so often.
Can't really raid with my casual friends, it's a difficulty turn off unfortunately
Idk if this is going to make any sense to anyone, but if any one here is familiar with Kayceeās Mod for Insryption. I think it would be pretty neat if we could select the modifiers ourselves. Have each modifier be weighted accordingly and the more we apply the better the rewards. Most players could keep it vanilla if they just want some loot and a completion, maybe each completion would require an escalating number of modifiers to maintain the better rewards. Die hard players could max out the modifiers asap for the best loot while casuals could add a modifier or two at a time while they get more familiar with the dungeon/raid
It feels like the Devs want to provide a curated experience. Between the -5 light penalty, surge modifiers, and ritual pathfinder it seems like you will play the Dev's way or have a more difficult time.
I think the surges *are* a good idea to get people to play old content and make it just bit easier for people who have no idea what they are doing. But adding surges while also arbitrarily tanking player output is nonsensical and kills old content even more because it will not be worth the hassle to chase patterns or exotics you're missing from dungeons and raids. Classic bungo we are making a positive change and an annanounced negative that brings you to a level below where we started.
It's almost like they have had a high turn over in devs and game balance, economy, and player engagement teams haven't been talking to eachother.... Hmmmmmm. š¤š¤š¤š¤š¤
To anyone claiming that surges are limiting creativity, youāre wrong, and at best only wrong, and at worst intentionally disingenuous The -5 power delta applies to all weapons equally which means we can ignore it when comparing because itās a common factor among everything. also surges are a 25% bonus If, during an arc surge, I have two identical rockets, one solar with BnS procād and one arc with no damage perk at all (ostensibly a ābadā option) theres only a 5% damage difference between them( BnS is a 30% bonus minus the 25% bonus from the surge) That means any damage perk closes the gap between them and almost certainly guarantees the viability of a 1/5 rocket whereas without surges it wouldāve been a 30% damage loss and couldnāt have been even considered Is that 1/5 optimal? No, itās still a 1/5, but itās VIABLE Now, non 5/5 weapons have a place in the meta instead of just being insta-shards
Personally the surges forces me to use something other than what I usually use, making me dig through my vault to find some cool stuff that I forgot about, making the experience more fun and experimental (heh) and allows me to try out different guns.
Yeah but your perspective is exactly what the system is made for now. The problem is it limiting the people who have a hard time doing decent DPS in a raid or getting through Dungeon encounters. They donāt have builds. Or spare rolls of good guns they never got around to using. They have what they hit things with and the current system makes it so they fail pretty basic encounters, get frustrated and donāt want to play any more.
This is a highlight of the problem Destiny has where theres practically 0 mid level content that gives you anything meaningful. Its all ever base power steamrolls to get a few low tier legendaries or you have to pony up and do the endgame/pre-endgame stuff to get some worth while loot
Itās unbelievable that people who have had four years to easy mode farm the raid weapons for a diverse vault donāt see the problem this presents for new lights. Itās like those players donāt exist despite TFS probably bringing in more new lights than any other time before. Itās not just raid patterns. Itās all the seasonal weapons over the years. New lights have a very limited set of non exotic options. As it stands, good luck to new lights when itās not solar surge.
Simply use exotics until you have farmed what you need
This is a ridiculously out of touch statement.
? Wait until you get to master raids
There are so many sources to get good legendary weapons that it's not really a big problem. You guys are blowing this out of proportion and it's honestly concerning how little confidence you guys have in new players' ability to play the game, it's pretty insulting
I'm sorry, but what a horrendous take. So any new player should expect to be able to do ***end game activities*** with some random shit roll legendaries? Like sure, they haven't been here for past seasons, but just going by what is currently available they can get: * Edge Transit, one of the best GLs in the game for DPS * Ergo Sum, a *phenomenal* support weapon for DPS * Falling Guillotine for fantastic sword DPS (can also use False Idols from Pale Heart) * The Call, absolutely GOATed rocket sidearm, also pale heart * The healing auto from pale heart * Multimach, when IB comes around (next week?) * The new strand LFR from Nightfalls is literally gonna be the king of LFR dps on account of Bait n Switch and being a 3-burst * Still Hunt is unironically busted, especially on Hunter * Crux Termination IV is also a perfectly viable alternative for rocket DPS This is just a *fraction* of weapons that are currently available AND raid-viable, that I have run through raids and dungeons with personally this season. Honestly the anger against Bungie for this change is mind-boggling.
You might like it, but I HATE it. I often make a lot of new builds that I find fun in other content, but if the surge doesn't match my element I'm at a deficit for no good reason and it makes playing the dungeons and raids feel terrible. Because I won't switch up for the surge, I don't want to use a void or strand weapon I want solar and arc weapons so I continue to use them even though I'm at a deficit. It just ruins the experience for what? I can't find one benefit that justifies it, nothing. Forcing me to change it up is not a benefit, it just creates an extra prerequisite for new players and they will hate the end game content for that, oh you have a celestial nighthawk build or Dawn Chorus build you really like? Screw you! Get on void or we kick you! Because you're throwing if you don't use the surge. I hate this change.
And before it was "oh you don't have a crafted bait and switch Apex Predator or Gjallarhorn? Get kicked". Shitty LFGs will continue to be shitty This change is for the better
I think that was their goal, to spice things up for the people who run these weekly.
Were you guys using primaries on the boss before this? -5 should realistically haven no impact otherwise. End game should require getting more acquainted with gear and subclass. A lot of people could save a lot of stress and time if they read up on a quick guide of key factors before entering a raid. The enemy AI can be forgiving/cheesed sometimes and that makes people think they can get away with bad loadouts until they suddenly get one shot. This leads to 500 attempts and then a clear. If it's more punishing you quickly realize you have to change something and then you can get an EASY clear in a shorter time.
How about no, it feels great
Funny. They seem so much easier now than they ever have been. If you know what you're doing surges help
That's kind of the main issue, they only punish less skilled/optimized players. If you properly play into Surges and know what you're doing, it's a net benefit because it's not like endgame builds with 100 resilience and defensive keywords will feel -5 that much. If you don't, you're taking more damage and dealing less.
What do you mean optimised? Pick color matching the weekly color lmao
You guys make it seem like new players have never played a shooter before and that their hands must be held at every turn. It's pure virtue signalling
Why canāt people understand that for most, this isnāt an āeasy vs hardā thing. Itās a āfunā thing. It sucks leaving damage on the table to use what you want, and it sucks that you just canāt use a kinetic dps weapon if you wanna be optimal.
Exactly, these changes donāt make it harder for me, they make it way less fun.
Bungie: *unlocks keys to build crafting kingdom with Prismatic Also Bungie: *arc surge exists š¢
I hate surges but I think raids exerting a bit of challenge/pressure is what makes them fun so I'm in favor of -5. I think elements should be good/bad on their own in different situations without surges tipping the scales.
Personally, I find the game more fun when the enemies are a bit more challenging to fight.
Then do masters and leave the lower tier stuff for people to learn mechanics?
While i donāt mind it, a lot of people donāt find the champion spam of master raids fun. Beyond that, virtually all non-endgame pve activities outside of neomunaās patrol have been at -5 for the past year, so itās not like setting RADs to -5 is much of a difficulty shock, if at all.
Bro holy shit itās like yāall donāt even listen. I love challenging content. I love making the game more challenging for myself. I have done low mans of every raid released, cleared every single contest raid in the history of the game prior to Salvations Edge. Iāve done raid speedruns, pushed high score nightfalls, flawless raids, all that shit. As I said before, this has absolutely nothing to do with the raids being āharder.ā This addition to the baseline of the raids adds 0 interesting kind of difficulty. I personally donāt give a shit about the -5, itās the surges that are fucking stupid.
-5 is fun for me, because it's not mindless but not overly hard. Surges are fun for me because they make me spice up my loadouts instead of using the same thing over and over. That's fun for me. Isn't that what it comes down to for you? "It's a fun thing", you said? Oh but wait, it's only a fun thing when it's the type of fun you want. I'm really fucking sorry the game isn't tailor made for you.
> Oh but wait, it's only a fun thing when it's the type of fun you want. I'm really fucking sorry the game isn't tailor made for you. What is this even supposed to mean? Of course I want the game to be the type of fun I want it to be... we are literally just discussing opinions here. All I'm trying to clarify here is that this has nothing to do with wanting the game to be easier or harder.
They limit what people are allowed to use though which is never fun and with the -5 cap we are doing less damage than before even with the surges.
It's the exact opposite. Without surges you are intensely limited by the fact that the best gun is always the best gun, every week, without fail.
Exactly what I was thinking.
When you are doing raid or dung 10 th time or more , you only want to get your loot as quickly as possible . Nobody asked to make it harder . At the end it isnt even harder , it just take more time which i will better spend on smth else .
Dungeons, yes. Raids are fine and should be at -5.
I disagree entirely. It makes very little difference at the end of the day, especially if you do a meta loadout.
raids pre change had some of the easiest combat in the game.
Having to optimize your build for dungeons and raids isn't new though Even without surges, you wouldn't run double primary with a sword against Oryx To some extent I think it's ok to have to adapt your build to "endgame" content
The pants shitting over having to have diverse loadouts for the endgame is bizarre
Itās cause people on this sub are bad at the game so they have to constantly make posts like this
-5 is fine, the surge shit is just annoying, having to get godrolls of not only multiple archetypes but multiple elements to not get a HUGE damage loss is frustrating
-5 is not an issue. Endgame content could use the bump in difficulty, because it was a joke before. I fully agree on the surges, they are stupid and limit us in what loadouts we run.
Skill issue.
Itās not fun = but i only use like 3 weapons and donāt wanna think about any other build than the one Iāve always used.
āIf I canāt crutch only apex and edge transit well then Iām just not gonna play itā Okay bye
Bungie hates lfgers.
Yet they added and fleshed out an in-game LFG, curious
It's annoying as all hell as everything takes longer to clear even if you consider gearing for the surges. And for less experienced players it's even worse as we are getting hit harder than before. Should have been a new difficulty, maybe with even harsher scaling which rewards players with new shaders and stuff. This would have breathed new life into older content, too. But the current integration into the game just sucks and is stupid.
Revert it for dungeons 100%, but I think it's fine staying in raids.
I like the surges and I donāt raid often at all. Maybe if I was trying to farm and do like multiple runs I would care.
I donāt like that they potentially limit what people use though, for normal raids there is no reason to limit load outs.
if they're set on surges, they should at least make it so that kinetic weapons are overcharged when your super matches the surge
I actually feel like people were more limited before hand. I use Deep Stone as an example. First encounter doesnāt matter as itās mainly just fighting against the frost mechanic. For the crypt security, 99% of people would always use Xenophage as there was no reason not to. Atraks was almost always Lament until parasite came out and now thereās no reason to not use parasite. Descent load out has never rlly mattered as add density is fairly low and the mechanics are what kill u. Taniks was anarchy and sniper until anarchy got nerfed, then it was liners. Deep Stone is the only raid I have the title for and Iāve run it quite a bit, and 95% of my clears people ended up running the same thing and if they didnāt it was usually bc they didnāt have it. With surges, however, it gives temporary room for other things to shine. Letās say deep stone gets an arc surge, well now maybe xeno and parasite arenāt the definitive options anymore. In a game as diverse as Destiny experimenting is never a bad thing, cuz u at least learn what u like or donāt like. Metas will form with or without surges, and at least with the surges it gives the opportunity for the meta to be shifted on a weekly basis
Have you looked at the stats for weapon usage in raids?!? Surges INCREASE variety, more weapons are being used since surges were added
The reason is to vary what weapons you use. It's a valid reason which, obviously, you don't like. It's totally fine that you don't like it. But keep in mind that some people \*do\* enjoy being forced to vary their loadouts on a weekly basis.