It's Now Or Never

So the past two weeks have been...stressful...to say the least.  The annual tradition of the release of Destiny’s Moments of Triumph came and this year they brought a little something new to the table.

In addition to the usual checklist of activities for players to complete, this year Bungie decided to give something else for everyone to grind for:  Light Level 400 armor. At first I thought ‘how hard can it be to get it? What are they gonna make us do?’ Those questions were quickly met with a swift and terrible answer.  You see, not only did we have the Moments of Triumph to complete which felt a bit shorter and rather empty this year as compared to previous years, but to get the armor pieces to Light Level 400 required a laundry list to things to do.  I’ll get to that list in a minute.

The Moments of Triumph

The first three years of Destiny, it was always something of a treat for me to see what the Moments of Triumph were going to be for that year and this year was no different.  I didn’t really know what to expect considering the sparse content for the game and my lengthy hiatuses from the game itself.  What I was met with was as equally a let down as Destiny 2 has been for the most part:

General

• Bringer of Light:  Finish Destiny 2’s base campaign

• Follower of Osiris:  Finish Curse of Osiris campaign

• Awaken the Warmind:  Finish Warmind campaign

• Show Me the Way:  Obtain Sagira’s ghost shell

• Fleeting Memories:  Collet all 45 Latent memories

• Check Out My Arsenal:  Obtain 25 Exotic Weapons or Armor

• The Very Best:  Reach Vanguard Rank 50 in Season 3

Ok, I thought, this list isn’t so bad so far as I’ve already done everything in that section so what’s next?  I would quickly wish I hadn’t asked.

Activities

• The Hero We Deserve:  Complete 25 Public Events on Heroic Difficulty

• Treasure Hunter:  Collect All Region Chests

• I Will Smash You:  Defeat 100 opponents in the Crucible (because we gotta stick that fucking obligatory Crucible requirement in here somewhere, right?)

• Adventurous:  Complete 20 adventures

• Hive Extermination:  Complete Tier 7 in Escalation Protocol

• Valor Fabled:  Reach Fabled in Valor ranking in Season 3

• The Emperor:  Defeat Calus in the Leviathan Raid

• Prove Your Worth:  Complete Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars Raid Lairs

Reading the one for Escalation Protocol and the ones for the raid made my heart sink and made me sick at the same time because I knew that I’d never get those done being in the clan that I was in.  I had my work cut out for me on that one. Then there was the final section that was specific to the Solstice of Heroes event.

Solstice of Heroes Event

• Running Errands:  Complete 25 Bounties

• In My Element:  Collect 250 Elemental Orbs

• Remember Who You Are:  Complete each Mission Redux at least once.

• Fashion Hero:  Upgrade the full Solstice of Heroes Armor Set to Legendary quality

• Above and Beyond:  Masterwork any Solstice of Heroes Armor.

Alrighty then, cue the caffeine IV and the speed metal montage because this is a lot to do.  Once the event finally got underway on July 31st the pressure to get things done started and the race was on!  We landed at the tower and were greeted with beautiful banners and ticker tape falling everywhere and the solstice statue.

Interacting with the statue took us to a new space where Ikora spoke to us about what was really happening the day The Red Legion attacked the city.  After her brief monologue we interacted with another statue and were whisked away to the first of five Redux missions for the event: Homecoming. We were surprised to be already on board Ghaul’s ship when the mission started and we quickly found that this mission, along with the other four Redux missions, was a much truncated version of the original.  Ultimately though, the Redux missions would all prove to be both disappointing and tedious. After quickly steamrolling everything in the mission, we were taken back to the tower and given the base level set of Solstice Armor.

Donning our “new” gear, we’re brought down to Light Level 240 and are tasked with completing a list of 3 requirements for each piece of gear in order to raise the entire set to the next tier (Light Level 340).  This was when I made a new discovery.  I like to avoid spoilers for events like this as much as I can, so I was surprised to find that there was a new Exotic ship waiting for you if you could accomplish a rather complex task:  get one character of each class to the 400 Legendary Gear set.

Going into full on panic mode, I quickly grabbed my notebook and did a Google search for a guide on what I was going to have to do to get all this armor upgraded.  I came upon this guide from Polygon and wrote out three pages of lists, one for each class.

There are notes scribbled all over the pages as the event has progressed along side my successes (more on that below).

I also discovered that there were Chroma ornaments similar to the ones in Destiny for each piece of Solstice gear (you can see my table on the Titan sheet where I was crossing them off as I would acquire them) so I wrote that down too.  Considering my 52 games for the year was shot to hell thanks to work, I figured I might as well just go all in on this event and see how far I could get.  As I would accomplish tasks, I would cross them out with my pencil and move on to the next, feverishly working toward not only getting the ship, but trying to level each set of gear up as I went.

Linchpin

During the first week I decided that if I was going to get anywhere in this event and in future Destiny expansions, I was going to have to find another clan.  I decided to join Claire's clan after a little bit of internal and external debate.  It just makes more sense to merge with a clan that's more active and has more members.  Once I left, Matty came too.  The others are eventually planning on joining too, which is good, we'll need all the help we can get in The Dreaming City.  Ever since I joined my new clan, completing the Moments of Triumph that I feared would never be finished has become a reality.  At the end of the first week, Claire once again came to my rescue by pretty much dragging me through The Leviathan.  For the most part I was useful, just very confused as to what was going on at certain parts and where I was supposed to go.  I've consulted a map of The Leviathan before actually running the raid and since running it and (with some info from Claire) I understand the confusing underbelly a little more.

Princes of the Universe

As I've progressed through the 2 weeks since the event, every time I succeeded at something I immediately made a note on what it was, who I accomplished it with and the date.

• First Leviathan Raid Clear 8/11/2018.  Me, Matty, Derrick, Dani, Claire and Michelle.  The Flying Shotguns.

• Escalation Protocol Completed 8/12/2018 (thanks to learning a trick from Michelle and Claire, I know how to get more than 3 clan members in the same instance.  I'll definitely be using that a lot in the future.)

• Hunter to Tier 3 armor 8/13/2018 (this was the day that I got my third and final character to the 400 Armor Set tier and acquired the Exotic lawn dart ship.  Matty wants to get it too, but I do keep reminding him how miserable I've been through this entire thing.)

• Whisper of the Worm acquired 8/18/2018.  Me, Dire jka1234 with 9 seconds left!

10,000 Fists

This event has been brutal for me to say the least.  I've considered walking away from the Destiny franchise several times a day, deleting it off my PS4 and selling the disc, quitting gaming entirely.  It's been a road to get to the top, and, at the time of this writing all of my characters are on tier 3 of the armor and only one of them is nearly complete - the Warlock.  I need to do a Prestige Leviathan clear and he will be complete.  If I can't get the others completed before the event is over - and it's not likely that will happen - I'll just cut my losses and go on.  The last remaining Moment of Triumph that I need is to complete both of the raid lairs, and after experiencing the grueling battle at the end of The Spire of Stars a couple nights ago, I think I'll be ok if I don't get that one.

If anything, after all the misery, this event has reignited my fire for wanting to help others complete all these triumphs and events.  I'm pretty confident now that I've run through Leviathan and done a bit of research that I can successfully lead a team through.  I'm also confident that I can help other people get Whisper of the Worm now that I know a few different strategies and can (mostly) run the obstacle course flawlessly.  I'm burned out, but I'm ready for more.