So I know Tassi has to write articles everyday and all of that, but when he writes these “things that need buffs” articles, I can often tell that he has never even tried out the thing he is talking about. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/10/31/destiny-2-needs-to-buff-up-these-new-total-dud-exotics/?sh=714f161015a1

In this article he talks about the Rain of Fire boots and that they are in dire need of a buff. My fav build of the season uses them, and I think they are lethal personally if you try them out and figure out what they do.

He talks about them being useless because they bring increased arial effectiveness when using a Fusion rifle or a Linear Fusion Rifle. That is true, it does suck, but it is only half of what the exotic does. The other thing is that it makes you radiant after any Fusion Rifle Kill regardless of what subclass you are using.

My fav is an arc warlock + arc buddy + Adept Plug One(Arc) + Queenbreaker(Arc) + Piece of Mind with Harmony (sub in any Harmony weapon of your choice for the effect). With this build all I need is a fusion/linear kill to get radiant and amplified, then my follow up fusion shots create blinding explosions with more damage, and my Harmony primary is a melting machine. Super easy to get this train rolling.

Sometimes you have to get in there and experiment. Not everything is equip Chest piece, throw storm grenade and win.

Still salty about storm grenades? Yup.

There are a bunch of exotics that are actually quite good that don’t get a lot of play. Rain of Fire is one of those. Another good example is those reflecting titan boots. For most players they aren’t that great, but in the hands of a good player they are really tough to play against.

I was watching True Vanguard yesterday play Trials with Wraith and every team was running Arbalest and Drang across the board.

It is nasty out there.

I must say that I don’t like the most recent sandbox changes. Many of the buffs especially to sidearms(which I love) were unnecessary. It’s led to a real campy, Laney, meta that is slow and not as fun.

I really notice the Arial nerfs when using Travellers Chosen on my Dawnblade. It used to shred. But now anytime I get the drop on someone I pray to the rng gods that I land shots.

So here’s a good example of what I am talking about when it comes to Arial Effectiveness. I am using Malfeasance which has an AE in the 60s. I am also wearing the wings that supposedly increase AE by a good amount. Watch the end of the clip where the titan tanks 2 glaive shots, then takes no damage at all from a whole Malfeasance clip. I do miss my first shot, but those last four or five are ridiculous that they don’t even land.

https://stadia.google.com/capture/0b8e0f23-3516-4e48-b4d0-0e0ef1f73bbd

The only way I can explain what happened there was lag.

And this one shows that you can’t stand on a window sill, they aren’t really there, but they sure as hell block shots. Because if it wasn’t the sill that lost me this duel, then once again they have gone way too far with the AE nerf.

https://stadia.google.com/capture/f748515c-6fa7-4298-b917-b2d602360eb0

But AA issues aside it is still a good pick. You can always get your 1 rocket kill or whatever, but I feel like I can get a lot more accomplished with the 6 shots it gives you. Forerunner didn’t actually change with the balance patch. Mercules pointed out that under the hood it is actually a 180 hand Cannon archetype. So I think people are just running it because they are hearing sidearms are great right now.

But that being said, Forerunner has always been good.

1: Storm Grenades

2: Storm Grenades

3: Witherhoard, no wait, Storm Grenades

I have been using a build over the last 2 seasons, and with the changes to the Elemental Well Mod “Font of Might” I have been using it as my main. Not sure if this is already common knowledge, but I jotted down some numbers from a test I ran, because I was curious of how things work specifically. First off the mods:

• Font Of Might (25% dmg buff for 10 seconds with elemental weapon matching the picked up well)
• Elemental Light (Gives 2 stack of charged with light for a well picked up matching your subclass)
• High Energy Fire (a 20% dmg buff, until stacks are gone, stack removed with each kill)

You can use whatever you want to generate wells obviously. I was running a Solar Hunter and Using Tarrabah. I was calculating crit dmg while turning the various mods on and off:

• No mods: 1162 dmg
• High Energy Fire: 1946 dmg (+17% (huh?))
• Font of Might: 2027dmg (+22%)
• High Energy Fire + Font of Might : 2433(+46%)

So they totally do stack!!!!

If you haven’t already keep this in mind for your builds, because it is really powerful. Elemental Wells are no joke now with this. Tarrabah as an example is an absolute monster with this combo in effect.
I am curious now to try this combo with the new stacking DMG mod for Fusion Rifles and rolling Merciless. Might be nutty.

A quick test with: Tarabbah + Ravenous Beast + High Energy Fire + Font of Might

https://stadia.google.com/capture/1f9be45b-5973-41c8-a935-f46575260825

Another tip, when playing with this: Consider keeping those weapon drops with Osmosis that you might have been thinking were trash rolls. They might not be. Osmosis can be an S-tier perk for builds with this combo

Been trying a lot of different stuff with Elemental Wells to get them doing cool stuff, but TBH, I think they need a little bit of a buff. The weapon DMG+ mod can be cool, but the fact it only last 4 seconds is really silly considering work you have to do to generate them. I feel the timer for that mod should be like 10 seconds or something.

The super gen+ one seems fine to me, but only really works well if you are running a high intellect build.

There also need to be a bunch more mods that do stuff when you pick up a well, because right now you have 3 options: super gen, weapon dmg+ and charged with light.

It’s funny that charged with light is actually the best option to go with. Charged with Light to High Energy Fire is more practical than the weapon dmg buff because of it’s timer.

Regarding Iron Banner. There is a phenomena I encounter all the time and I am sure all you guys have as well. I call it “Control Cowardice”. “Guys, play the god damn objective and we might win this”:

That match was literally me taking back B from the other team solo over and over. Where was my team? Hiding? No idea.

Whenever this happens(totally often), I start singing the lyrics to this Dropkick Murphy’s song:

CoolGuy just did an updated review on something I’ve been talking about for awhile now. Been my PVP main pretty much all season: Devil’s Ruin.

It’s dope. Try it if you haven’t:

One thing he glosses over in his talk about it being one of the best “duelling weapons” is that the charged shot can be charged and shot off regardless of the state of the magazine(it reloads before it fires). 2+v1 situations, this is excellent because you can engage with regular sidearm shots for 1 then charge the shot while ducking in and out to hit another. Really really useful once you get the hang of it.

On a similar tip, I was cleaning my vault last night and going through all the drops I have got and stashed this season. Found a few things that I think could be really killer. Was in the mood to yank out a Fusion Rifle, and I found this:

Haven’t really tried it out yet in PVP yet, but I ran around with it a little last night, and I am stoked. The masterwork on it is range BTW. This very much looks and feels like my old Ashraven’s Flight from D1. This is totally a duelling Fusion, and with the Shotgun nerfs coming, these might really have a chance to shine. Backup Plan swap to hip fire shot is pretty nasty.

Tarrabah is Cool Guy’s #3 for best weapon to use with Mantle. Just saying, it’s really wild with all those buffs.

It goes like this:

1. Get kills with Tarrabah > + super energy, escalating chance to drop an elemental well.
2. Elemental Well Pickup > +20% dmg for 4 seconds, Charged with Light x2.
3. Charged with Light > High Energy Fire for +20% until enemies die
4. When Super Charged > +20% for 4 seconds for every Tarrabah kill, each kill resetting the timer.
5. Ravenous Beast > well it just shreds.

And all of that is constantly stacking as you shred through enemies in a cycle. Wouldn’t use it in GM content or anything because it requires you to run and gun. In Battlegrounds though, it is just silly. Anything with high enemy density. If Tarrabah could be Master worked with a Catalyst (who cares what it even did), the orbs of power alone would allow you to use Taking Charge to make this even nuttier. And as an avid Tarrabah user, if there was a catalyst, it would only need to add one simple perk: Deeper Pockets.

Anyone who has spent time with it for real, knows why.

Take it from a Neutral Party:

This is a PVP review, but in PVE these weapons are nutz as well and you can really feel battle harmony working for a lot longer. Mix it with Charged with Light and Elemental Wells, and it is non stop.

So I was trying out this build TV talks about in this video.

I tweaked it a little because I really enjoy top-tree Dawnblade, so I went with:

1. Top Tree Dawn
2. Mantle of Battle Harmony
3. Surprise Attack + Taking Charge
4. Sturm + Drang (Solar, Rampage)

He’s right that it is nutty. When you get that super bar filled, you can go on some pretty serious kill streaks. My Drang is master-worked, so orbs drop on a double kill. That means it is not crazy hard to get wild ramped up dmg:

1. Get Drang Kill – Activates Rampage, Activates Mantle DMG Buff, Sturm Power Shot +1
2. Get another Drang Kill – Drops Orb for Charged with Light, Rampage+1, continues mantle buff, Sturm Power Shot +1
3. Quick Weapon Swap and back: Drang has Rampage x2, Charged Magazine x5, and the mantle buff

It’s true that I was getting 70 dmg on Drang precision hits once it really ramps up. It is wild. Hard to get going, but feels great.