u/Thopterthallid

The one true loadout.

My favorite PvP moments in Souls games in the past have never been the times I've tried to get into the dueling scene. It's always when there's way more going on than you can possibly account for.

Like Anor Londo in Dark Souls 3. My friend and I being invaded by an Aldrich Faithful and a Red Sunbro. A Blue Sentinel comes to the rescue while a Moundmaker comes and is just out for everyone's blood with some DLC spell nobody has seen yet. Pop the seed of a giant tree and suddenly the whole zone turns to absolute anarchy. Or accidentally summoning a Mad Phantom disguised as a cooperator. Or invading into a world with 5 other players all wearing the ring that disguises them as the host and not knowing who the hell is allied with who. Or hiding in a corner in the with a chamelon spell in the Smoldering Lake and feeding invader after invader to the giant worm and raking in millions of souls.

I've never thought that PvP mechanics were FromSouls games' strong suit. There was always the issue with gank squads fighting invaders with top of the meta PvP builds and the poor pair of friends trying to play co-op for the first time getting caught in the middle. Elden Ring duels always seem to boil down to two dudes stacking buffs for 30 seconds before every fight like a Dragon Ball Z episode.

I'm really hoping that Duskbloods recaptures the magic of the mixed covenant faction warfare that seemed to go on in Dark Souls 3. The silent alliances, the chaos of some big fuck ass monster joining in, the moundmakers just trying to be everyone's problem.

I know that this is probably both a hot take and a sore spot for folks here, but I really want to write down my experiences as a new player who only started playing after the notice of the updates coming to an end.

For transparency, I'm not an entirely new player. I bought the game at launch but could never quite break into it. I played Curse of Osiris, tried again with Forsaken, tried again with Shadowkeep, but never played much if any after that. According to my seasonal archive, I had a couple previous season passes but never finished any of them. The main reasons I kept bouncing off were:

1: Not enough content. It sounds ridiculous, but I genuinely thought that the game lacked content. Obviously the content was there, but I didn't understand how to access it or that it existed at all. To me, Destiny was doing a campaign and then grinding strikes and seasonal activities forever. I had no idea about dungeons, crawls, exotic quests, or anything like that. I was playing during the time everyone was discovering Whisper of the Worm and I just had no idea. My understanding of the game was that Nightfalls were the endgame.

2: Aggressive and cryptic FOMO. Coming off of my lack of understanding the mechanics and content of the game, I was dealing with FOMO. Specifically FOMO that I didn't understand. I felt like I was missing things that I didn't even know about. I learned that quite important story beats were happening between expansions. You can understand how disorienting it is to kill Uldren only to have him being everyone's best friend and close ally one expansion later. It was around this time that I just decided to give up on Destiny. It was just too enigmatic and cryptic to enjoy as a casual player.

So not a new player in the most literal sense, but the game is so different now and I've just not played much that I may as well be.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and nothing I'd heard of Destiny had made want to touch it with a ten foot pole. My friends were all getting back into it however. Between the heavy discounts on Steam and the admittedly cool Praxic Blade, I caved and tried one more time.

I've played more Destiny in the last month than I have in the entirety of it's lifetime. Knowing that the game is "complete" removes the shadow of FOMO. I can just tackle the content however I want and at my own pace. I'm not constantly feeling like I have to grind time limited activities to get gear that I don't even understand why I want. The season pass has no time limit. It's just a delightful little track of rewards for me that will never stop giving me bright engrams. I came to terms with the story just being something I'll have to piece together as I play. But I'm having a wonderful time.

I know that came at a huge cost for the rest of you, but I hope my story can be a little silver lining. Destiny is accessible again.

I'm mainly a PvE player, but sometimes do PvP stuff when I need certain drops. I'd love to have a trusty and easy to use PvP weapon to hopefully make the Crucible/Iron Banner grind a little easier.

I know the best PvP weapons ask you do perform slides or reloads or ammo pickups before they actually reach their full potential, but I'm looking for something stupid and easy.

• Something with primary ammo.
• Something that doesn't require setup to perform well (IE: I just wanna click heads with something easy and punchy.)
• Something easy to acquire that's not going to have me grinding all week. (IE: If it's got a mandatory god roll, I'd rather it be something I can easily shape or buy in bulk from engrams)
• Rarity or slot doesn't really matter, but if its an exotic I don't want to go chasing a catalyst that's going to take me 8 hours to grind kills for. Would prefer something with an easy catalyst or a catalyst that's not really mandatory.

Not looking for the best, just looking for something good and easy.