Published on: Aug 19, 2015 @ 12:58
Bungie’s Year 2 reveal stream was insanely informative, and if you missed it, this article outlines the most important information.
[divider]
Character
Level determines access to certain gear and equipment – not just quests. In this way, you can’t simply equip the best stuff right off the bat. You have to earn the right by leveling up. Most Y2 Legendary gear requires max level.
Defense/Attack have an equivalent but arbitrary new value that is averaged to constitute your total “Light” score. A blue item in the weapon slot in a sea of Legendary gear will bring your total light down, even if your armor is all on the same level.
As you can see from the screenshots, even class items and Ghost shells will provide useful benefits.
Intellect/Discipline/Strength have a helpful loadout that tells you exactly how much time in seconds each ability requires before it’s ready for use again.
[divider]
Bounties & Quests
There are tons of new bounties, designed to be done “while you’re doing what you want to do”, so you won’t have to go out of your way to do something with only a little bit of benefit.
Pull up your ghost to bring up the bounties you have currently active via “Tracked Items”. Bungie confirms you can turn in your Bounties anytime, anywhere, simply by pressing “complete” on the bounty screen.
Part of your daily ritual when you log into Destiny will be deciding what progress you can make when you login on the many new quests that TTK will be offering. You can hold up to 32 Quests, and they’ll provide concrete rewards that you can count on. For example, Remnants of Darkness will offer a “Heavy Weapon Upgrade.”
[divider]
Level 25 Boost
Spark of Light is given to every person that buys a copy of the Taken King, and it will immediately boost you to level 25. You’ll be equipped with level 25-appropriate gear, and you’ll be able to take on TTK missions immediately. This is optional, but will help get new players involved ASAP, or even an alternate character that you just started.
[divider]
Speaker
Material Exchange remains, though no Etheric Light appears to be in the loadout. The Speaker also sells rare quality Ghost shells, with abilities and Defense of its own. Class item perks will be focused on abilities that help you level and advance. Ghost perks will be collection-oriented, including new talents that allow you to “detect” helpful resources.
[divider]
Ship/Emblem/Shader Collection
Emblem Collection sorts your emblems into different categories, such as those from the HoW, TTK, The Dark Below, and even Faction emblems. At any point, you can requisition one of these to fill your inventory for use. Collect ‘em all!
Certain emblems appear to be gated. “Complete the Bladedancer Subclass Quest to unlock!” is written alongside a new Bladedancer-themed emblem.
[divider]
Factions
All Year 1 Reputation gains carry forward, so don’t worry about grinding out rep when you pledge allegiance to a new faction. When you do pledge allegiance, you’ll still be able to earn Crucible & Vanguard reputation as well.
Factions contain their own Material Exchange. You can “donate” excess materials for free rep towards a given faction.
Factions also have rank-based quests. When you reach a certain rank, you may be tasked to complete a challenge for glory and rewards! We’re not sure if this will be retroactive, but this would obviously be beneficial for those of us who have grinded out reputation throughout TDB and HoW.
New perks for armor that expand their roles beyond ammunition boosters. Reactive/Proactive perks that boost stats after taking damage from an elemental source can be found on Chest Armor, and we assume a wide variety of similar perks exist on other pieces. This will incentivize collecting Armor for every situation, in a very RPG-friendly move.
Retooled faction packages promise better rewards as well. You are guaranteed something Legendary, with a higher chance at getting a rare shader. Once you’ve acquired one of these, you won’t get duplicates in future packages.
[divider]
Crucible
Existing Vanguard and Crucible marks will be converted to reputation packages that you can cash in for an early chance at new TTK rewards.
Destiny’s PvP is getting the ‘questification’ treatment, too. PvP quests start as early as level five and “Carry you throughout your Destiny journey”, adding a sense of progression to a previously fragmented experience.
If you complete all 5 weekly Crucible bounties, you’ll get access to the final, most difficult bounty, which rewards Nightfall-quality gifts for completion. They are RNG-dictated, but we are assured they will be “sweet. period. every week.” With the new RNG algorithm that GI touted, we’re hoping this means faster and more efficient collecting.
New perks on Ghost shells in Shaxx’s inventory similar to those we saw in Faction armor, with perks that Increase Strength/Increase Intellect. PvP gear also has some Crucible-specific perks, such as extra rewards for picking a certain class in PvP
The aforementioned Legendary Marks will be tied to your account. If you earn them on one character, you can spend them on another. Legendary Marks will be earned from PvE & PvP playlists.
Bungie will also be removing the weekly cap on grinding this precious new currency; there will be no limit to how many Legendary Marks you can earn in a week. However, you still have a 200 “wallet size” that limits how many you can hold at a given time.
Shaxx’s robotic counterpart, Arcite, will have weapon-specific Crucible bounties. These include getting a certain amount of kills with a given weapon type in a single match in the Crucible, to again encourage variety.
[divider]
Exotic Collections
Terminals in the Hall of Guardians will house your Exotic Blueprints. It’s a record of having found one any of Destiny’s Exotics in Year 1 or Year 2. This collection has two pages, for weapons and armor.
You can also upgrade your Exotics for Legendary Marks. You’ll be able to take certain (not all) Year 1 Exotics into Year 2 with upgraded perks, and in some cases, new and different stat spreads and extra talents.
Leaving Exotics Behind?
Even though you can’t completely upgrade all of your Exotics, they probably will still be useful because of Light. For example, if you’ve got max Defense armor and 2 max Attack weapons, you’re going to have a lot of Light because of that. So even though your Ghallarhorn might be stuck as 160 Attack, it should still be powerful because your overall Light will be high due to your other maxed gear – and Light affects damage output.
To list two examples of Exotics that you can upgrade, the Light Beyond Nemesis helm will be sporting Intellect/Discipline when upgraded, and will offer the perk “Heavy Lifting” which increases the Super Energy gained from killing an enemy. The new and improved SUROS Regime can now select “Spinning Up” in lieu of Focus Fire, for increased fire rate as the trigger is held down.
We also saw that there will be Exotic class items introduced in Year 2 — though what sort of abilities these will have we can’t say with any certainty! It’s unknown if there will be more than the Exotic Collector’s class items that we’ve already seen.
Necrochasm has also been updated!
[divider]
Cryptarch
While essentially unchanged, the miser of the Destiny world will now be selling Legendary Engrams. These have no chance of turning into shards, and even possess a small chance of turning into an Exotic!
[divider]
Gunsmith
Banshee will provide “Field Test Weapons”. You lease these for free, and each has its own built-in weapon bounty. Complete these for reputation with the Gunsmith. When you hit a certain rank, you can place a foundry order with whatever packages Banshee has available in that given week. On Armsday (Wednesday), you’ll get your package with a random roll. Banshee’s stock will rotate, so keep an eye out for the specific weapon from the specific foundry that you want – but be ready for RNG to break your heart with the roll.
[divider]
Infusion
A new “Infusion” system allows you to use a more powerful weapon to take a less powerful weapon to a higher Attack/Armor value. However, it consumes the more powerful weapon completely in doing so. This means there are MULTIPLE tiers of weapon quality/strength, and you can use powerful stuff you don’t like to buff the weaker stuff you do. Bungie hopes this will again create variety in the endgame.
Infusion will only be available for Y2 gear.
Reforge?
No verbal mention of Reforging, which leads us to believe that it will be contained to Year 1 HoW weapons. We briefly saw that his equipped HoW weapons were available to be Reforged.
[divider]
Vault
And with some self-satisfied casualness, Bungie has outright doubled our Vault space and then some. You’ll get 72 slots for Weapons, 72 slots for Armor, and 36 for Miscellaneous. This doesn’t take into account the new kiosks for your Exotic/Emblem/Shader collections.
New dance emotes at the end suggest that we may have a little personality coming our with with TTK. Also, there’s a Sword on the Hunter’s back!
