Destiny: Pulse/Shotgun Meta

So currently in Destiny you need a HRF pulse and a shotgun, or an Eyasluna type handcannon to have the best advantage that you can. Of course you can succeed with other weapons, but these give you the best advantage. But before we go into depth lets talk about how the heck we got to this type of meta.

At the transfer of year 1 to year 2 we saw handcannons get nerfed, and pulse rifles got buffed (essentially). This was the time of Red Death, Hawksaw, and Nirwen's Mercy. After this, Pulse rifles got a nerf and Doctrine of Passing (and similar archetypes) took their place (I believe this was around Christmas last year). This was about the time where legendary handcannons became popular as well. After Doctrine had been nerfed multiple times we saw the resurgence of Hawksaw and Grasp of Malok (again), sometime around the April update. Since then Rise of Iron has introduced guns like Clever Dragon, and Blind Perdition which are pretty much Hawksaw and GoM, just better.

So, in this brief history all we see are nerfs. Obviously this is a little problematic since it just slows the game down with every nerf. Back in year 1 Pulse Rifles were a little better than they are now, and they were by far the worst class of guns out there. They were complete garbage. So I guess you can judge by that how far we have fallen. 

Since the game has become so painfully slow we move to special weapons. Snipers had their hay-day for a while before they were nerfed into the ground (zoom nerfs, equip nerfs, flinch nerfs). For the record, I think the flinch is now in a good spot but I'm not a fan of the other two nerfs. The major problem with snipers in Destiny is that its far easier to rush a sniper with a shotgun because of movement abilities and small maps then to quick scope a rushing shotgunner. I'm not saying snipers are bad, they still 1-shot, they are just outclassed by shotguns and Pulse/Scout rifles (especially if they have HCR). 

Shotguns are in a great place right now, I think. The reason there are few ways to combat shotguns is because jump is really powerful in Destiny, and the maps are quite small. I have found that even blink, though it was nerfed a bunch, it is still viable with a shotgun because you can blink right overtop of someone. It takes more time to have to look up then to look down. Now, of course a player should be punished for running straight at another player who is shooting him. Shotgun warriors should not be able to do what they do. Players should have to be smart about their engagements with a shotgun. This is where primaries need some love. I would love to see a buff to primaries where they slow down a target if they land multiple shots on said target. That would be super dope. 

Fusions are fine, I don't really use fusions, some people do, some people are really good with them. They take some practice. Plan C is pretty good against shotguns. That's all I have with fusions.

I'm confident that shotguns will NOT be nerfed. Bungie knows that the game is already slow as it is, and if they nerf shotguns into the ground Fusions will probably take their place as the best close range OHK weapon. And no one wants to see the day where fusions are literally the best option. I kid. I think Bungie will give us more ways to combat shotguns, and perhaps punish players who main a shotgun. I'm looking at you juggertitan. 

~Ducky

Merry Christmas, Guardian

Destiny: Crucible Matchmaking

This topic has been huge over the last month and as of a week or so ago Bungie has given us CBMM. Now lets do some review, for pretty much all of year 1 the crucible was connection based, we still had lag yes, in fact there are videos from year 1 showing how bad the lag was. So definitely not a perfect system, then Christmas of year two, about a year ago they changed it to skill based, and the lag was worse. Now since then matchmaking has been revised many times, to the point where bungie had said that it was basically connection again (a few weeks ago).

Of course, we didn't really feel like it was connection based because the connections were still fairly bad and the lobbies were still very sweaty. Now that things have been made primarily connection based we are still experiencing and evaluating what the crucible is like. My theory is that bungie first of all, heard the cries, and second of all, realized that the population had dropped so much that SBMM was more of a hinderance than a help. 

Iron Banner year 2: w/ NLB+Sidearm

Now lets talk about what the crucible is like now, of course everyone will be experiencing different things, some positive some negative. Most of my experiences of the new matchmaking was from Iron banner last week. I solo queued the entire week, and was pleasantly surprised. There were very few red bars and the lobbies did feel a bit easier, nothing ground breaking, but still.

I think that this benefits the crowd that is generally above average. If average is somewhere around .8-.9k/d then the 1.3/1.4k/d will probably benefit the most. I sit somewhere around 1.1 k/d and for a week and a half I have been consistently sitting around 1.4-2.0. But this is probably hardest on the bottom 50-60% as the lobbies will be much more difficult. Most of the matches I played in there was 3-4 players who rocked +2k/d  while everyone else was below .8. many sitting around .3 - .4. So like SBMM, there are problems with CBMM, but we all new this when we asked for it. The main thing, that we have to keep reiterating is the fact that laggy crucible is unplayable. That is the fact. I can't kill a guy who is teleporting this way and that.

And as for the top 1%, I was matched up against a top %1 player who was solo queuing and his team lost pretty badly because the matchmaking overcompensated for his skill. It took the best player and the 5 worst players and made a team in order to try and keep the teams fair. But of course the team that has all of its players from the top %10/20 wins, there isn't anything that one guy can do.

So all in all, it benefits some players more than others, but it does benefit EVERY player because there is less lag, you can't get rid of ALL lag, but at least its an improvement. I think this is a step in the right direction. The next thing to improve in this area is ranked and unranked playlists, which I have been lobbying for since the whole problem of SBMM began.

Sidenote: my personal favourite thing about this change is the fact that when you have a really good game, the matchmaking doesn't try and compensate for that anymore. I would always be scared after having a good game because I knew the next 3-4 games were going to be awful.

Thanks for giving this a read.

~Ducky