New Gear and Exotics for Destiny's April Update detailed by Bungie

Image source: Bungie.net

Earlier last week Bungie announced that there would be an update scheduled for April 12^th, 2016. They also mentioned other dates where more information about the April update would be revealed in parts via their Twitch stream and those dates were:

March 23^rd, 2016 – New Challenges – Completed

March 30^th, 2016 – New Rewards - Completed

April 6^th, 2016 – Sandbox and Crucible Updates - Completed

Well Bungie had their second livestream today March 30th, 2016 where they outlined new gear and items including new armor and weapons that will be added to the April update.

Some of the changes outlined this time around were:

Extra Vault Space: I deliberately decided to start off with this as it has become a personal problem for me which I’m sure many other Destiny players face as well. While the vault space was in fact increased in The Taken King expansion, things still seem to get crowded in the weapons/Armor vault spaces especially if you are a hoarder and have both Year 1 AND Year 2 gear in there. Add to that the new armor, weapons, exotics and other items with the April update and we have a serious problem. Fortunately for us Bungie had the foresight to predict this and as such have increased the total vault sizes yet again to 108 slots for weapons and armor.

INFUSING: Another BIG change that stood out to me was infusing items no longer happens in increments (THANK GOD) but rather now you get the FULL value for the item you are using to infuse with. So for example if you have a 200 Light Level gun and you are infusing that with a 300 Light level gun you will end up with a 300 Light Level gun as your final product, not something in between. This, thankfully reduces the grind time and having to store a whole bunch of infusion bait. There might be another reason that Bungie made this change but we will get to that later.

Sterling Treasure Chests: These are items you will receive ingame that contain NEW armor and materials which will be available post April update. These boxes contain the new Desolate (Taken looking) armor that was showcased in last week’s livestream as well as this week. They also contain reputation boosters, which are new, for vanguard, house of judgement and crucible. Players will get a Sterling Treasure Chest once every week in the Postmaster, once a week at Variks and once every week at Lord Shaxx.

Chroma: This is a nifty cosmetic feature that lets you change the way your armor and guns look slightly using 4 different colors White, Red, Blue and Yellow. The new guns and armor released with the April update will already have a ‘bubble’ or perk that contains a certain color causing your gear to glow, BUT you can re-roll this color to your choosing and use CHROMA and all it costs to re-roll is a bit of Glimmer. You can ONLY get Chroma from the Sterling Treasure Chests as well as dismantling the gear obtained in the chest.

Light Level 335: This was something that was mentioned in the last livestream for the April update but Bungie noted all the ways that you can go about achieving this new Max Light Level of 335. One obvious way is the King’s Fall hard mode which was mentioned last time, will drop Light Level 335 gear. Other ways to get Light Level 335 gear include: Court of Oryx(artifact only), Iron Banner, Trials,  Exotic Engrams have a chance to decrypt at Light Level 335,  Strikes (Unique items only), and obviously the new Challenge of Elders game mode in Prison of Elders.

New Taken Ship: Yes, a TAKEN ship which looks cool but looks like a re-skin of one of the ships you obtained from doing Vault of Glass. This would be MUCH cooler if it was a completely new ship design altogether instead of just a re-skin.

Taken Ghost: Again it’s probably just a re-skin but looks cool none the less.

Taken Sword: Yes, there is even a TAKEN SWORD added to the April Update although I am not sure if the sword will be Legendary or Exotic yet or if there are multiple versions as well one for each type of BURN just like the previous swords. The one showcased in the livestream was a Taken Void Sword.

Exotics: Some more Year 1 exotics will be joining the fray starting April with the likes of Patience and Time, Lord of the wolves, universal remote and much more which was highlighted on their Instagram page.

Eververse:  New emotes which looks absolutely awesome and fun to use as well as a Taken Specific emote which requires you to obtain ALL the pieces of the new Desolate gear first.

Micro transactions: Last but not least somewhat of a controversial reveal from Bungie was adding certain items to the marketplace. Remember those Sterling Treasure Chests I mentioned, where you can earn a couple each week. Well if for some reason you are not satisfied with the weekly amount ingame you can actually just buy them from the Eververse vendor for silver. The Desolate gear that you get in these Treasure Chests are still Light Level 3 and require you to infuse them to reach higher levels so it’s not too BIG a deal ‘yet’ because you still have to do ingame activities to get infusion gear for higher Light Levels.

The problem is that Bungie is messing with micro transactions in a way that is no longer purely cosmetic in nature. The gear while only level 3 still has other perks and stats like any other Legendary gear found in game. So while this might not be a big deal yet once Bungie starts going down this slippery slope of micro transactions it could potentially lead to selling items that CAN be then considered pay to win. Hence why I said Bungie might have had an ulterior motive for changing the infusion system to full value instead of increments.

Even though I disagree with the route Bungie have taken, I don’t think it’s a game breaker ‘yet’ but Bungie is definitely pushing the boundaries of micro transactions and trying to gauge the reaction of its player base.

So while most of this update was positive, there was still that lingering negative aspect of micro transactions to sour the mood, which I’m hoping is the extent of Bungie’s micro transaction announcement. The game still looks like it has a lot to offer with the new April Update for both new and returning players and I am definitely looking forward to it.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on Bungie's new reveals for the April update in the comments section below.

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Destiny Weekly Reset March 29th, 2016

Let’s start off with the weekly Nightfall for this week which is the Undying Mind Strike.

The perks for this week’s Nightfall include:

Epic: As with any Nightfall, Enemies are heavily shielded and highly aggressive enemies appear in great numbers.

Arc Burn: Arc Damage from any source is greatly increased. Something like the Zhalo would be extremely effective here. Even a 1000 Yard Stare with Arc burn will make this week’s Nightfall that much easier.

Small Arms: Primary Weapon damage is favored. This is also a really good perk as the Zhalo is both an Exotic Weapon with ARC Burn AND is also a Primary Weapon as it is an Auto Rifle. If you don’t have the Zhalo then something like the Hung Jury will also be almost as good.

Juggler: No Ammo drops for your equipped weapon. This can be somewhat of a hindrance especially for your primary weapon BUT can also make it easier to get Special ammo and ESPECIALLY heavy ammo drops. So switching to something like the sword as your heavy weapon can be helpful for this Nightfall.

Exposure: Guardian shields are increased but do not replenish. This can also be troublesome, but all it means is playing a bit more passively than you usually would and it might mean taking longer to complete the Nightfall.

The Undying Mind Strike isn’t the toughest Strike in the world but there are a few things you need to watch out for especially on Nightfall. The majority of enemies, if not all of the enemies, are Vex but the Nightfall variation can sometimes have Taken foes as well. With that said the most troublesome of the lot are definitely the Minotaurs and Hobgoblins. The Minotaurs hit hard and are extremely aggressive on Nightfall as they will often teleport toward you very quickly and then proceed to melee you in the face. A few of those and you would be dead in no time. The same goes for the Hobgoblines, if there are only 1 or 2 you can potentially dodge their sniper shots or take them out from cover but this strike has a few of them spawning at once in some cases which can prove extremely difficult, hence it is important to take your time and play patiently especially considering the Exposure perk for this week’s Nightfall.

The boss itself is a huge Hydra and a good sniper like a 1000 Yard stare or black spindle would be the weapon of choice along some heavy weapons. It is easy enough to shoot the boss from cover when there are no adds around but stay exposed for too long and his shots hurt as well so you will find yourself dead extremely quickly if you are not paying attention.

Like I mentioned not the hardest nightfall by any means but certainly a few things to look out for. This Nightfall will also have an increased chance to drop a Strike specific Hand Cannon called Imago Loop which is an extremely good hand cannon provided you get the right perks.

As far as PvP goes there is no weekly Crucible activity since this week Lord Saladin is back with Iron Banner and the rewards that go with it. This week the offerings are the Chest piece, gauntlets(x2), hand cannon and machine gun.

Lord Shaxx and Petra will also have new bounties for the week so remember to check them out as well.

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How to get the Tlaloc in Destiny Taken King

First of all WHAT is a Tlaloc?

The Tlaloc is an Exotic Scout rifle that can only be obtained and equipped by Warlocks. This Exotic Scout Rifle was made available via The Taken King expansion.

What makes the Tlaloc special?

It has a perk that is very unique. The perk is called ‘Overflow – This weapon has better handling, rate of fire and stability while the wielder’s Super is charged’ I know what you are thinking, that this can’t possibly be THAT good AND why would you want to hold on to your Super anyways? BUT let me tell you that the difference with Overflow and without Overflow is SUBSTANTIAL. Add to that the Grenadier perk that comes with the weapon which reduces the cooldown of your grenade after each kill. This gun becomes a must have for PvE or even PvP. I definitely find that this gun suits Sunsinger warlocks as they have dual grenades and tend to save their Super for a rez anyways but can also be used with the other two subclasses quite well.

So, How to get the Tlaloc in The Taken King?

Step 1 –

In order to get the quest for the Exotic Scout rifle you will need to rank up with the Gunsmith to Rank 3 on your Warlock. You rank up with the gunsmith by ‘testing’ weapons for him each week. You can only test a maximum of 5 weapons a week for 250 experience each weapon. The other way to get gunsmith experience is by finding an ingame item (maximum of 4 items that start with DVALIN) that drops from random kills in the game. This means that to get to Rank 3 could take you at least 3 weeks because of the weekly limit and reset. The gunsmith resets on Wednesdays so plan accordingly.

Step 2 –

Now as soon as you reach Rank 3 with your Warlock you will receive a quest from the gunsmith to obtain the Tlaloc Exotic Scout Rifle. The gunsmith will hand out a quest called ‘Back in the Saddle’ which is a fairly straightforward quest similar to the one you received at Rank 2 for the Legendary fusion rifle Susanoo. Speaking of the Susanoo, you HAVE to complete that quest in order to receive the Tlaloc quest at Rank 3, so if you reach Rank 3 with the gunsmith with your warlock and do NOT receive the ‘Back in the Saddle’ quest that may be the reason why. Therefore it is important to do the ‘Back in the Saddle’ quest at Rank 2 for the Susanoo FIRST. If you need help on how to get the Susanoo fusion rifle then click here: How to get the Susanoo in Destiny.

Once you have the ‘Back in the Saddle’ quest for Rank 3 all you need to do is get 100 kills with any Scout rifle, while having a Primary weapons Telemetry active. You can buy a Primary-weapon telemetry for 250 glimmer from the gunsmith. It is a consumable that increases your Scout Rifle experience gained while active and lasts 30 minutes. Now you don’t actually need to buy a Telemetry if you have a Warlock bond that has a similar perk which is ‘increase Scout Rifle reputation gains’ and the Warlock bond perk doesn’t expire after 30 minutes although 30 minutes is more than enough time to get the required number of kills. The easiest way to do this is to load an easy story mission that has lots of enemies running at you OR earth patrol and then make your way around shooting everything in sight. Now I just got this quest on my Warlock and I know for a fact that using a Warlock bond instead of a Telemetry works just fine.

Step 3 –

Once you have the required number of kills with a Telemetry active OR a Warlock bond with a similar perk, then you have to talk to the gunsmith in the Tower again. Once you talk to him he will give you another task to complete.

Step 4 –

This is the continuation of the ‘Back in the Saddle’ quest and now Banshee-44, the gunsmith, wants you to dismantle weapons in order to gather weapons parts to make the gun. He needs 10 weapon parts in total. **Just a reminder that ONLY dismantling rare or Legendary SCOUT Rifles will count towards the weapon parts Banshee- 44 needs.**

Dismantling a Rare Scout rifle gives you 2 weapon parts towards the quest and dismantling a legendary scout rifle gives you 5 weapons parts towards the quest. YEAR 1 scout rifles also DO count, in case you have some lying around in your vault. This part was a bit tricky for me as I didn’t have many scout rifles lying around, so if you plan on doing this quest keep a few rare or legendary scout rifles that you plan on dismantling anyways, handy for this quest.

But again this part of the quest is relatively easy and straightforward to do and once you have the 10 required parts (check the quest objectives to make sure you have 10/10) then go and talk to Banshee-44, the gunsmith again.

Step 5 –

The final step is to talk to Banshee-44, the gunsmith for one final time where he will finally give you your Exotic Scout Rifle Tlaloc.

Step 6 –

Enjoy wrecking your opponents with your newly acquired Exotic Scout Rifle.

As a final note I would like to say that this Scout rifle isn’t the greatest scout rifle in The Taken King or anything like that as there are definitely other options out there like the MIDA for PvP and the Hung Jury for PvE. I would however recommend that you at least upgrade the gun fully and try it out to see how well you do with it in both PvP and PvE as this might become your new favorite primary exotic weapon.

That brings me to my next point you can ONLY use this Scout rifle as a Warlock regardless of the Warlock subclass, which also means that you can ONLY get the quest for this gun from the gunsmith AS a Warlock. If you reach Rank 3 with the gunsmith as, say a hunter or Titan, you will receive a similar quest but for different weapons, an Exotic Hand Canon and an Exotic Auto Rifle respectively, I believe. Just something to keep in mind when trying to Rank up with the gunsmith

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Xur is Here! - March 25th, 2016

This week XUR is located in the Tower Hangar. He is on the right side at the bottom of the stairs. When you spawn at the Tower, head right towards the Tower Hangar. Once you are at the first set of stairs, turn right at the bottom and you should see our wonderful/creepy exotics salesman right away.

This week XUR’s inventory contains:

Empyrean Bellicose (13 SC) – Exotic Titan Helmet where the main perk is “Aiming weapons while airborne holds you in place. With full Super, Orbs recharge melee.” This is a decent exotic helmet for PvE if you like jumping in the air and shooting things but not so great for PvP as this could make you and easy target for snipers or even regular shots. A fun exotic to use in PvE and definitely worth the try, but if you are low on strange coins you could pass on this one.

Crest of Alpha Lupi (13 SC) – Exotic Chest for Hunters where the main perk is “Keeper of the Pack – Revive fallen teammates and be revived faster. Supers generate an extra Orb.” Not the greatest PvE exotic for hunters but can still be really useful, there are just better possible exotics depending on the subclass you are playing, but definitely a SOLID PvP exotic especially for matches that have revive in it such as Salvage or Skirmish.

Alchemist’s Raiment (13 SC) – Exotic Chest for Warlocks where the main perk is “Iron To Gold – Chance to gain Glimmer on Primary Ammo pickup. Orbs collected when your Super is full, recharge your grenades and melee.” This is a pretty decent Exotic overall especially for PvE and can obviously be used when you are low on glimmer. This chest piece can be paired extremely well with Warlock Sunsingers who use revive and the Tlaloc as their main primary weapon as you would have 2 of your grenades often especially if you are saving your Super for a revive.

Xur is also selling:

Invective (17 SC) – This is an Exotic Shotgun with Solar burn. What makes this shotgun special is the perk “Invective - This weapon regenerates ammo over time” Couple that with full auto and final round and you have pretty awesome Shotgun for both PvE and especially PvP as you could use this shotgun without picking up Special Ammo. This gun is also really good for missions or Nightfalls with Solar burn such as the Black Spindle mission.

Legacy Engram – Primary Weapon Engram (31 SC) – This week Xur is selling Primary Weapons Engram and could be really useful if you do not have many Year 2 Primary exotics unlocked OR if you are looking for a specific Year 1 weapon like the Thorn. They are extremely expensive at 31 Strange Coins so I would only suggest buying these if you have tons of strange coins to spare or are simply looking to complete your collection of Exotics. For getting Year 2 exotics you are probably better off spending the same amount of Strange Coins on Three of Coins as that is likely to net you more exotics for your Strange Coins.

This week all the exotics are decent but I think the Hunters Edge the win ever so slightly as that exotic is quite useful for PvP especially in Trials where every second counts.

Below is a video showing you exactly where to go when you first spawn in the Tower if my instructions at the top were a bit unclear. The video also shows the various items XUR is selling this week so you can have a look at those as well.

Overall a decent week for XUR but I am hoping he sells the Red Death next as it is an exotic I am still missing from my collection.

Let me know if XUR bought you something you really wanted this week or if you are waiting from him to bring a specific exotic in the comments section below.

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New Challenges for April Update detailed by Bungie

Earlier this week Bungie announced that there would be an update scheduled for April 12^th, 2016. They also mentioned other dates where more information about the April update would be revealed in parts via their Twitch stream and those dates were:

March 23^rd, 2016 – New Challenges

March 30^th, 2016 – New Rewards

April 6th, 2016 - New Live Updates

Well Bungie had the first of their livestreams yesterday on March 23^rd, 2016 where they outlined a number of New Challenges as well as other changes to come in April. 

One of the biggest changes announced was an increase to Max Light Level from the previous light level of 320 to 335. It’s not the biggest increase in the world but I was previously struggling to even make it past 315 let alone reach 320 so this update will definitely be interesting.

Along with the increase in Max Light Level comes the increased difficulty in Prison of Elders, Court of Oryx, Heroic Strikes, Nightfall Strikes, and King’s Fall Raid. However, to compensate the players for this increased difficulty there will also be new rewards for all the previously mentioned modes as well as Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris.

Another change I was extremely happy to see was an Updated Prison of Elders. There will be eight new bosses added to a Level 41 version of Prison of Elders alongside Taken enemies. It looks like there will be updated rewards in terms of armor as well for completing weekly challenges. There is also a new score tracking system for the new Prison of Elders game mode and as such provides increased incentive for players to bring their A game each week.

Additional updates detailed was the new ‘Blighted Chalice Strike’ on the Dreadnaught with a new Taken boss encounter. There also seems to be another strike called ‘Winter’s Run’ which seems to be a Taken variation of the Archon Priest Strike to be included in the April update.

Lastly Kingsfall Normal drops will be increased to light level 320 and Kingsfall Hard drops increased to light level 330 and Court of Oryx Artifact drops increased to Light level 335.

The above changes to Destiny Taken King in April are certainly a pleasant welcome and even though I’m not sure how I feel about the Max Light Level increase I’m sure it’s ALSO a pleasant welcome for many of the veterans of the Destiny community.

I am especially looking forward to the New Rewards stream which will be hosted by Bungie on March 30^th, 2016 as there could possibly be new armor and weapons to obtain in Destiny, maybe even a new Exotic weapon or two. Not to say that there is currently a lack of exotics to obtain but it would be awesome if they either added a completely new Exotic weapon for example OR bought back an exotic from Year 1 which doesn’t already have a Year 2 version like the Thorn or Gjallarhorn. One can always dream I suppose.

In the meantime a good idea would be to stock up on Treasure Keys for the Queen’s Chest from PoE as they could come in handy for the April update.

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Xur is Here! – March 18th, 2016

This week XUR is located in the North Tower near where the speaker is located. You head towards the entrance of the Speaker’s room but keep going PAST the entrance all the way to the end and XUR will be on your left side. You should be able to see him right away on your way to the speaker anyways.

This week XUR’s inventory contains:

Insurmountable Skullfort (13 SC) – Exotic Helmet for the Titan where the main perk is ‘Impoved Transfusion – Kills with Storm Fist immediately trigger health regeneration. Respawn with full melee energy. Gain a second melee charge.’ Pretty useful exotic if you like going around punching things. Not the greatest Titan exotic in the world in my opinion, unless of course you’re a fan of punching everything, then this is the exotic for you. Unfortunately XUR already sold this very same exotic the previous week so if you missed it last week then you’re in luck, if not, then not a great XUR week for Titans.

Radiant Dance Machines (13 SC) – Boots for the Hunter and its major perk is that you move more quickly while aiming your weapon. Cool I guess….At least they look funky so there’s that. Again not the greatest Hunter exotic in the world as there are certainly much better hunter exotics depending on your subclass. I will note however that there are a few situations where these boots can come in handy especially if paired with a Mida and IT’S increased agility.

Obsidian Mind (13 SC) – Helmet for the warlock and its major perk is that 'Nova Bomb kills recharge your NEXT nova bomb'. This is actually a really good exotic for the warlock Voidwalker subclass. If you pair this exotic with max Intelligence, you can get your super pretty quickly in a repetitive cycle, making this helmet a strong candidate for PvE.

So it looks like this week’s winners are possibly warlocks, with mediocre exotics for both the Titan AND the Hunter.

Xur is also selling:

Zhalo Supercell (Exotic Auto Rifle) – I cannot tell you how long I have been waiting to get my hands on this auto rifle and I don’t even use auto rifles as my primary. There are certain situations where the Zhalo’s exotic perk ‘Arc projectiles have the chance to chain lightning when enemies are close together’ would be absolutely devastating in PvE. On top of having that perk, once the gun is fully maxed, its final perk is called: Bolts from The Blue – Double kills with this weapons charge a small amount of Super energy and return ammo to the magazine’ Bad Juju anyone? So not only does this gun assist you in getting double kills by chaining lightning but WHEN you get them you recharge your SUPER faster AND get bonus ammo to the magazine? Where do I sign up? So, if you don’t have this gun I definitely suggest picking one up as it can be really useful in certain situations even if you don’t use auto rifles all that often, especially missions or nightfall’s with ARC burn.

Legacy Engram (Heavy Weapons) – This week’s legacy engram is a Heavy Weapons engram and probably not worth spending your Strange Coins on unless you have tons to spare and are looking to complete your Year 1 collection. Getting a Gjallarhorn, if like me you never managed to get one in Year 1, would still be pretty cool. If for some reason you don’t have many year 2 heavy exotics buying this could also be beneficial as there are 4 Year 1 exotics which you could ALSO unlock for Year 2 and they are Dragon’s Breath, Truth, Thunderlord and Super Good Advice.

Below is a video showing you exactly where to go when you first spawn in the Tower if my instructions at the top were a bit unclear. The video also shows the various items XUR is selling this week so you can have a look at those as well.

Overall not a great week for XUR, but at least he FINALLY sold the Exotic Auto Rifle – Zhalo Supercell and that itself, more than makes up for his other lackluster exotics this week.

Let me know if XUR bought you something you really wanted this week or if you are waiting from him to bring a specific exotic in the comments section below.

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How to get a Legendary Sword in Destiny Taken King

Ok so with the release of the Taken King expansion Bungie included 6 different swords (3 Legendary and 3 Exotic) that you can obtain and equip in your heavy weapons slot. Aside from being extremely fun to use, these swords are also preferred in certain situations or missions because of the amount of damage they do especially to captains and majors. The sword entices the player to utilize a high risk - high reward strategy, which like I mentioned, is not only extremely fun but also highly practical in some situations.


**EDIT** There is now a 4th Legendary Sword you can obtain called the Dreadfang which was released in the April Update of Taken King. If you want to know how to get the Dreadfang, there is a separate post about it here.

SO, How exactly do you get a Legendary Sword in Destiny Taken King?

Step 1 – 

This step is sometimes forgotten or people just don’t know but you HAVE to be Level 40 to even get the quest for the sword.

Step 2 –

You have to complete the new Taken King story questline until the very last mission.

Step 3 –

You have to complete the ‘Dread Patrol’ mission which is handed out by Cayde AFTER you complete the last mission of the Taken King Story. Think of it it as one extra mission that you need to do after the main story.

Step 4 –

You FIRST have to talk to Lord Shaxx who then tells you to speak to Eris Morn

Step 5 –

When you talk to Eris Morn she hands you a quest called “A Broken Will”

Step 6 –

Complete all the requirements in order to complete “A Broken Will” which includes collecting:

25 Hadium Flakes
10 Motes of Light
25 Spinmetal / Hadium Filaments / Relic Iron ***

***NOTE that you do NOT need to get 25 of EACH of the last three materials from the planets; you just need 25 materials of the type of sword you wish to get. So it’s 25 Spinmetal OR 25 Hadium Filaments OR 25 Relic Iron. Spinmetal is for an ARC SWORD, Hadium Filaments is for a SOLAR  SWORD and lastly Relic Iron is for a VOID SWORD.

Step 7 –

Once you have gathered all the required materials mentioned above you then have to speak to Lord Shaxx who will then give you a Legendary Sword of your choosing.

Note that just because you pick ONE Legendary sword as a reward for quest completion, doesn’t mean you can’t get the others. After you get your initial sword you can THEN BUY the other two Legendary swords but it is going to cost 25 of the respective material AS WELL AS 25 Legendary Marks. In this way you can obtain ALL THREE LEGENDARY SWORDS ON A SINGLE CHARACTER.

The Sword that Lord Shaxx gives you has 220 Attack and you HAVE to be level 30 to even use it, so if you are planning on giving one to your secondary character just make sure your secondary character is at least level 30. You can also infuse the sword to have a higher attack value so as to not bring your overall light level down when equipping it.

How many Legendary Swords are there in Destiny?

There are ONLY a total of 3 Legendary Swords that you can get in Destiny Taken King. They are:

***EDIT** Again as mentioned above there are 3 Legendary sword you can get through this questline which were FIRST released with The Taken King, but a fourth Legendary Sword was added to The Taken King via the April Update.

Sol Edge – This Legendary Sword does Solar damage and can be used to block Void and Arc attacks but is weak against Solar attacks. This sword requires Helium Filaments in order to be obtained.

Void Edge – This Legendary Sword does Void damage and can be used to block Solar and Arc attacks but is weak against Void attacks. This sword requires Relic Iron in order to be obtained.

Arc Edge – This Legendary Sword does Arc damage and can be used to block Solar and Void attacks but is weak against Arc attacks. This sword requires Spinmetal in order to be obtained.

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How to get the Susanoo in Destiny Taken King

First of all WHAT is Susanoo?

Susanoo is a Legendary fusion rifle that can only be obtained and equipped by Warlocks. This fusion rifle was made available via The Taken King expansion.

What makes the Susanoo special?

It has a perk that is very unique. The perk is call ‘Elemental Transfusion’ and it sounds fancy but all it means is that causing damage with a certain subclass type will enable the weapon (Susanoo) to also cause the same damage type as the subclass. The fusion rifle comes standard with solar burn, but say for example you are using a Void subclass and manage to kill and enemy using a void grenade, the fusion rifle will now output void burn damage.  Pretty interesting perk and could come in handy for missions with special burns and such.

So, How to get the Susanoo in The Taken King?

Step 1 –

In order to get the quest for the fusion rifle you will need to rank up with the gunsmith to Rank 2 on your Warlock. You rank up with the gunsmith by ‘testing’ weapons for him each week. You can only test a maximum of 5 weapons a week for 250 experience each weapon. The other way to get gunsmith experience is by finding an ingame item (maximum of 4 items that start with DVALIN) that drops from random kills in the game. This means that to get to Rank 2 will take you at least 2 weeks because of the weekly limit and rest. The gunsmith resets on Wednesdays so plan accordingly.

Step 2 –

Now as soon as you reach Rank 2 with your Warlock you will receive a quest from the gunsmith to obtain the Susanoo fusion rifle.

The gunsmith hands out a quest called ‘Back in the Saddle’ which is a fairly straightforward quest.

All this step requires you to do is get 75 kills with any fusion rifle, while having a special weapons Telemetry active. You can buy a special-weapon telemetry for 250 glimmer from the gunsmith. It is a consumable that increases your fusion rifle experience gained while active and lasts 30 minutes. Now you don’t actually need to buy a Telemetry if you have a Warlock bond that has a similar perk which is ‘increase fusion rifle reputation gains’ and the Warlock bond perk doesn’t expire after 30 minutes although 30 minutes is more than enough time to get the required number of kills. The easiest way to do this is to load an easy story mission that has lots of enemies running at you OR earth patrol and then make your way around shooting everything in sight. Now I just got this quest on my Warlock and I know for a fact that using a Warlock bond instead of Telemetry works just fine.

Step 3 – 

Once you have the required number of kills with a Telemetry active OR a Warlock bond with a similar perk, then you have to talk to the gunsmith in the Tower again. Once you talk to him he will give you another task to complete.

Step 4 –

This is the continuation of the ‘Back in the Saddle’ quest and now Banshee-44, the gunsmith, wants you to dismantle weapons in order to gather weapons parts to make the gun. He needs 10 weapon parts in total. **Just a reminder that ONLY dismantling rare or Legendary FUSION RIFLES will count towards the weapon parts Banshee- 44 needs.**
Dismantling a rare fusion rifle gives you 2 weapon parts towards the quest and dismantling a legendary fusion rifle gives you 5 weapons parts towards the quest. YEAR 1 fusion rifles also DO count, in case you have some lying around in your vault. This part was a bit tricky for me as I didn’t have many fusion rifles lying around so if you plan on doing this quest keep a few rare or legendary fusion rifles that you plan on dismantling anyways, handy for this quest.

But again this part of the quest is relatively easy and straightforward to do and once you have the 10 required parts (check the quest objectives to make sure you have 10/10) then go and talk to Banshee-44, the gunsmith again.

Step 5 –

The final step is to talk to Banshee-44, the gunsmith for one final time where he will finally give you your Legendary fusion rifle Susanoo.

Step 6 –

Enjoy disintegrating things with your newly acquired fusion rifle Susanoo.

As a final note I would like to say that this fusion rifle isn’t the greatest fusion rifle in The Taken King or anything like that, It’s not a BAD fusion rifle by any means, but there are definitely better options out there. One of the reason getting this quest done is important is because it is a mandatory step in acquiring the class specific exotic weapon quest from the gunsmith at Rank 3.

That brings me to my next point you can ONLY use this fusion rifle as a Warlock regardless of the Warlock subclass, which also means that you can ONLY get the quest for this gun from the gunsmith AS a Warlock. If you reach Rank 2 with the gunsmith as, say a Hunter or Titan, you will receive a similar quest but for different weapons, a sniper and a shotgun respectively, I believe. Just something to keep in mind when trying to Rank up with the gunsmith.

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Xur is Here! – Mar 11th, 2016

This week XUR is located in the Tower Hangar. He is in the basement area at the very back. When you spawn at the Tower, go right to the Tower Hangar and head down the  first set of stairs. Once you are past the first set of stairs, turn left and head down 2 more stairs into the basement and XUR will be located and the very back, on your left, in the corner.

This week XUR’s inventory contains:

An Insurmountable Skullfort (13 SC) – Exotic Helmet for the Titan where the main perk is that ‘Improved Transfusion – Kills with Storm Fist immediately trigger health regeneration. Respawn with full melee energy. Gain a second melee charge.' Not the greatest Titan exotic in the world in my opinion, unless of course you’re a fan of punching everything, then this is the exotic for you.

Achlyophage Symbiote (13 SC) – Exotic Helmet for the Hunter where the main perk is ‘Last Man Standing - Golden Gun gains one additional shot per use. I can see this helmet being really useful for PvP and some PvE encounters. Again, not the greatest hunter exotic in the world but pretty decent especially for Gunslingers.

Heart of the Praxic Fire (13 SC) – Exotic Chest for the warlock and its major perk is ‘Praise The sun – Further decreases all ability cooldowns while Radiance is active. Greatly increased Agility.' This might actually be the BEST exotic for Sunsinger Warlocks.. If you pair this exotic with max Discipline, you can throw more than a few extra grenades during Radiance with this exotic equipped, making this chest a strong candidate for both PvE AND PvP.

So it looks like this week’s winners are the warlocks (again) with decent exotics for both the Titan AND the Hunter but one of the BEST exotics for Warlocks. No exotic weapon this week unfortunately but can’t complain since XUR JUST sold the Hawkmoon last week.

Xur is also selling:

Exotic Engrams Helmet (19 SC) – Again buy one if you really want to, or have tons of coins to spare but spending the same amount on three of coins is more likely to net you more exotics.

Legacy Engram (Helmets) – This week’s legacy engram is an exotic helmet engram and probably not worth spending you coins on unless you have tons to spare and are looking to complete your year 1 collection. Getting a helmet you are missing in BOTH year 1 AND year 2 would be optimal but at 31 SC, you are probably better off saving your strange coins for something else.

If you already have most of these exotics or nothing really appeals to you, spending your Strange Coins on Three of Coins is still probably your best bet.

Below is a video showing you exactly where to go when you first spawn in the Tower if my instructions at the top were a bit unclear. The video also shows the various items XUR is selling this week so you can have a look at those as well.

Overall a decent week for XUR even though he ended up selling a lot of Helmets this week. I am STILL waiting for him to sell something like the RED DEATH or ZHALO, both of which I am missing still.

Let me know if XUR bought you something you really wanted this week or if you are waiting from him to bring a specific exotic in the comments section below.

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