Long Live The King, part 5
Your only existence shall be that which I weave for you out of sorrow and woe.
Yesterday was definitely a moment of triumph for me in Destiny even if it’s not listed among the moments that Bungie has concocted. Last year when the existence of Black Spindle was discovered, my circle of fellow Destiny players would wait for the days when Lost to Light was the Daily Heroic. Once it arrived, we would spend hours punishing ourselves by trying the mission again and again and again and again until we met with success. It was through a LOT of trial, error and tears that we discovered every single thing about the mission:
You cannot have a party wipe on the way to the door leading to Taniks’ ship. If you do, you have to start the mission over.
If someone dies during the initial run from the room where Crota’s Soul was held, they will be rezzed once you reach the first room with the locked door.
The countdown for clearing out the ship doesn’t start until you enter the first room in the ship that’s infested with Taken.
Following these rules, we would try over and over until we were met with victory and a shiny new Light Level 310 Exotic sniper rifle. I, however, was not among those skilled or fortunate enough to complete the mission upon it’s initial discovery and ultimately was one of the reasons for my departure from the game for a few months (besides having done every other thing in the game and finally getting my hands on Fallout 4). Until yesterday.
Upon waking up and logging in, I looked at the Director to see what today’s fresh hell awaited me for the Daily Heroic. Lost to Light! I began to salivate at the thought of facing the ship full of Taken, which quickly gave way to panic and a knot of rage in the pit of my stomach. Fuck it I thought, I’m not going to bother to try that shit ever again. You’re why I left the game for a few months. Well, part of why anyway. I decided to post it to Facebook that today was your day to try to get the gun if you felt squirrely, then I went about completing my daily bounties to try to level up the Taken armor that I had finally acquired a full set of for my main Warlock. While playing, one of my fellow Destiny players messaged me and asked if I wanted help to try to get the gun. If anyone had been in the room with me to see the expression on my face, they wouldn’t have asked a second time. I let out a loud, disgusted sigh and continued with my bounties, ignoring the message. I thought about running that dreadful mission in my mind and whether or not this would be the time that I would be met with success or if I would be adding another tally mark in the ‘Failure’ column. ‘Why the fuck am I even thinking of trying?’ I thought to myself. ‘It’s not like I’m going to make it. I suck way too hard at this game, I won’t succeed this time. I’m a fool for even thinking that I might.’
After several long minutes I finally replied to his message: ‘Yeah we can try in a few minutes.’ I finished the bounties I was working on, peed, made another cup of coffee and prepared myself for another failed attempt. ‘Send me a party invite when you’re ready’ and then I sat there and waited. After a few minutes, I got the invite and found that the party chat was already full of others eager to try to get the gun. Holy crap I thought to myself. Two of my fellow gamers had decided to take it upon themselves to take those of us who didn’t have the gun through the mission, one at a time, to try to increase our chances of success. Upon hearing this, a small spark of hope lit within my gut. Maybe, just maybe, today is gonna be the day! I was to be 2nd in line to run the mission, so I sat quietly and listened to party chat and continued to finish my bounties and mull over the events of the discovery from the day before. Worthless piece of shit, I thought to myself, over and over. Suddenly, as the first person and the two who were going to shepherd everyone neared the end of the mission, one of the shepherds decided that he’d been playing the game long enough that day and just logged off. Well what in the actual fuck? I thought, and the spark of hope was summarily extinguished. Well, it was a good idea while it lasted. I resigned myself to the idea that nothing of any import was going to get done in game today and just continued silently stewing while working on bounties.
“Wraith, you wanna jump in with us and try to get the gun?” My heart skipped a beat and my mouth went completely dry. Filled with hopelessness, I let out a sigh and replied “Yeah.” You’re going to fail kept running over and over in my mind as I joined the others. We separated ourselves into a different party chat so as not to be interrupted or distracted by the others. Hopefully they don’t think ill of us for leaving, but, it is what it is. Like riding a bike, we start the mission and get all the way through to the last room of the ship, and, just like I figured, we failed. I put my controller down on the coffee table and was ready to give up then and there. “Let’s try again” he said as we started the mission over. After a bit of equipment change (switching exotic swords for the Dragon’s Breath rocket launchers) we went at it a 2nd time. Fighting our way through to the final room of the ship, this time we managed to get there with one more minute than we had the first attempt. I felt slightly hopeful upon seeing that, but still feared the worst. Not paying attention to the others actions, and trying to focus on adds and not dying, I think I did a good job. I used my super to keep the adds to a minimum and set the boss on fire with a few well placed Dragon’s Breath rounds. Time ticked away as we whittled away at the adds and the boss’s health. Less than a minute was left and I could feel the sweat forming on my hands. Suddenly, at 20 seconds left on the timer, the icon for Black Spindle appeared on the right side of my screen. A string of expletives erupted from my lips over the party chat which were met with much laughter. We had finally done it! Black Spindle was mine at last. I sat back in my chair and relaxed and let out another sigh. This moment was proof that sometimes I just really need to ignore that deafening voice of doubt in the back of my mind and just fucking do the thing!
I was happy that I finally had the rifle, but somewhat disappointed that it was Light Level 280, not 310. Eh, I’ll just infuse it until it’s a higher level no matter how long it takes.
So what was different this time? What helped me to succeed? Well:
Knowledgeable co-op partners that knew what to do once we got to the final room.
King’s Fall Raid weapons that give damage bonuses against the Taken.
Dragon’s Breath rocket launcher.
Slightly higher Light Level. Back when this gun was discovered, I think the Light Level cap was 300/310 (?) and currently it is 335. My character that I ran the mission with is 320 at the moment.
All I can say in closing is thank the gods that I never have to try to get that gun for myself ever again. I will, however, help others try to get it if they want to put themselves through that kind of hell (just like the exotic sword quests).