Deep stone crypt review and thoughts

Well, it took a couple weeks but I managed to get a team together to finally run the Deep Stone Crypt raid. I didn’t go in blind, I watched the day one raid race, which was very exciting, and I’ve seen many friends and content creators run it since (and heard all the very fun debates about day one difficulty).

But now I’ve done it myself, and I am inspired to talk about it because it…may actually be my favorite Destiny 2 raid of them all. What Bungie has done here, a combination of environment, aesthetics, mechanics, story and loot, is something I can’t remember seeing across nearly any other Destiny raid, and I do believe this deserves to be mentioned alongside some of the all-time greats, Vault of Glass, King’s Fall, Last Wish and so on.

So, why does Deep Stone Crypt work so well?

I’ll go big and wide at first. Conceptually, the idea of this raid is just incredibly good, a tour through the Deep Stone Crypt, one of the most mysterious places in Destiny history, but a journey that contains a number of just massive surprises along the way, namely the core structure of it, which is ascending to a giant space station (not really something you’d imagine would happen when heading to a “crypt”), then watching that space station crash down the Europa as you do battle with the final boss in the wreckage.

PROMOTEDJapan BRANDVOICE | Paid Program

How Japan Is Using The World’s Most Powerful Supercomputer To Accelerate Personalized Medicine

 Google Cloud BRANDVOICE | Paid Program

What Is True Resilience? (Hint: It’s Not About Managing Risk)

 Grads of Life BRANDVOICE | Paid Program

How Businesses Should Address Systemic Racism

The pacing here is top notch. From the initial sparrow run to find the crypt, to the mechanic-introduction of the security system, then to Atraks, which for all intents and purposes is almost the final boss herself, and one of the few occasions in Destiny where a miniboss outshines the final one.

There are the quiet moments, the beautiful spacewalk sequence with the instantly iconic Deep Stone Lullaby track playing after the chaos of Atraks as you do a jumping puzzle (that I did not die on 15 times so don’t ask). And then the loud moments, the utter chaos of the nuclear core sequence as the station crashes to the planet and fire burns through the window. It’s beauty and insanity in alternating doses.

If there’s anything I don’t like about Deep Stone Crypt, it’s the final boss, both in the choice of who it was, Tankis, then Shank-Taniks, for the millionth time, and the environment, which is far from the beauty of the Clovis Bray facilities or deep space and is instead…a giant pile of garbage with the boss throwing said garbage at you. Outside of the mechanics, this feels little more impressive than a strike arena.

After the raid was beaten for the first time, I went down to see Clovis Bray’s giant exo head, and both that room and that villain felt more like the aesthetic of the final raid boss I would have expected from the Crypt. As soon as I read the lore and heard a copy of Clovis was being stored there, the idea of a super-mecha Clovis boss wouldn’t leave my mind, and Taniks/Shank-Taniks just does not live up to that. Again, even Atraks feels like it would have made a better final encounter.

The Atraks encounter is a curious one, a prime example of the difference between raiding on day one and on day 14. I am overleveled for the raid and knew all the mechanics instantly. So what took some teams 6-12 hours in contest mode, if they ever beat it at all, took my team maybe 20 minutes? I think the only time we even wiped was when I accidentally jumped in an open space elevator tube and killed myself and screwed everything up (that’s a safety hazard Clovis!). I think this speaks to perhaps the need for contest mode as an optional challenge with additional rewards as yes, frankly, this was…kind of easy. At least in terms of the combat.

But even after all of this, I think the thing Bungie got the most right about the raid overall is the loot and its loot system.

The Armor – Is aspirational from its looks alone, I have never wanted a set this much in pretty much any D2 raid. It’s 100% not a reskin, and now has bonus slots for raid-specific mods too. The only issue here is that it can still drop obnoxiously low when it should probably be 60 minimum.

The Weapons – Same thing here. Not just new raid weapons, but weapons with raid-only perks that elevate them above normal weapons and again, make them aspirational. A direct answer to fan feedback and implemented well between the 4-5 new perks they added here and here only.

The Cosmetics – Another answer to fan requests not to sell raid-themed stuff in Eververse, with ways to earn the sparrow and ghost through challenges.

The Exotic – Not revealed beforehand, still has that “Anarchy-like” drop feel we didn’t get with Divinity due to the quest. We’ll see if drop rates are too low over time I guess, and I think the weapon itself could use a bit of buffing.

The Spoils – Now this is where Bungie didn’t just hit a home run, but a grand slam. By allowing spoils and therefore drops to be farmable in DSC, they have created a raid that isn’t just fun, but can be run essentially infinitely, farmed for actual drops for the very first time. This is a massive development for the game, an evolution of the Prophecy farm last season, and should be standard going forward. All the stuff I just listed here should be standard.

So in short, my only real issue with the raid is Taniks, but everything else is just so damn amazing it doesn’t really matter. This is very close to what I could consider a perfect raid, and it easily has the best loot system I’ve seen in any raid because of the changes that have been made as a direct result of fan feedback. Good work, Bungie.

So uh, anyone up for a run? I need that scout rifle, badly.

Here is the entire quest guide I wrote complete with photos! WITH TRIALS OF OSIRIS CARRIES AND RECOVERIES

I am going to keep digging to see if there are any other recent technologies that have gone live as of this week, so that’s about it. There are two new “elemental well” mods live, which include one that lets you create them from your mega, but I don’t think we’re going to need a ton of them to gauge whether the new system is any decent or not.

For now, I am headed out to search on some fields, and I will be moving out to do some Nightfalls tomorrow. Keep tuned for further reports from the war front. Um, incorrect Battlefields.

Destiny 2 of Bungie trials of osiris boost

This week presents New Seasonal Tasks with more challenging material, so as to render the competition about taking out as many parts of the Evernew hammer as possible. Apparently, the number of unlocks that a player will go through in a week is going to be reduced to a measly three unlocks. As such, it is extremely likely that it would eat up a considerable majority of the player’s time. While you had auto-completed two of the three rank-up challenges since they are retroactive, you only need to finish the earlier mini-story search to complete one of the remaining rank-up challenges. I’m working on getting to 5 Weaponizer Hammer upgrades so that I can start farming Weaponized weapons with two final perks.

The Dead Man’s Tale is a journey in Destiny 2 that you can start and finish.

In this brief, fictional states New Nevada and New California endorse the Texas case to reverse the election.

If you are loving Salvager’s Salvos- find out how to speed it up and try out the best bonuses and mods.Here is a new Nightfall live, and so far as we it is not known if CDF Rep has Dropped SABER, as he is the Weapons Dealer instead. In addition to the “Bottom Dollar” Hand Cannon Warlords, it is “Palindrome Week” in the Nightfall, when many relish praying for a fresh Hand Cannon besides “Bottom Dollar” and the “Gambit” Hand Cannon weekend. Both the latest weekly competitions are pretty simple and enjoyable. Take Gambit mode in the Cosmodrome, play a Crucible mode, complete a whole lot of Strike and Crucible sets and collectibles, and try out the new strike and Crucible events.

Bungie has agreed to delete the Dead Man’s Rope, The Repopulation, and The Exotic Dead’s tale live, and put them in a “Discontinued” set. This was previously found in the game, but it is now officially apparent, so I see no point avoiding including it in this text. The gun damages and reloads easily, and most importantly, it would be close to how Hawkmoon was in random rolls. In other terms, we can farm it for random rolls, instead of only using it like last season. Another distinction between this gun and Hawkmoon, however, is that it feeds the goal more harm. We are not sure whether this is already live at this stage.

The latest knowledge is that at least one phase in this is live. There is a particular place in the Nightfall where not too far in, you get a danger evacuation sign, with the alert itself being an acknowledgment of distress. I’m concentrating on what comes next. Some users have already started to collect the enjoyable micro activity current quests.

Here is the entire quest guide I wrote complete with photos!

I am going to keep digging to see if there are any other recent technologies that have gone live as of this week, so that’s about it. There are two new “elemental well” mods live, which include one that lets you create them from your mega, but I don’t think we’re going to need a ton of them to gauge whether the new system is any decent or not.

For now, I am headed out to search on some fields, and I will be moving out to do some Nightfalls tomorrow. Keep tuned for further reports from the war front. Um, incorrect Battlefields.