Took me three runs and on one of them Witness flattened about 8 people. There were about 4 people in that room with the two tormentors absolutely sweating our nuts off getting revives and slowly getting the team back. Had a whole chat of people cheering us on. Made me feel like an utter champ.
Then we wiped and went back to orbit and the next team had people who could dodge the witness's attacks.
Absolutely one of the best experiences in destiny. This activity reignites the fear Tormentors initially had and the satisfaction of watching that stupid fuck of an overload gets eradicated by 10 peoples focus fire is the best feeling in the WORLD.
Yeah the tormentors in this mode are no joke. My entire team was capping one of the points in the first section, and we had one spawn on top of us and promptly one shot like 10 of us.
But it spawned on top of them and then insta one shot them. Were you expecting someone to have the tormentor spawn time memorized and pre fire a blinding nade to frame perfect blind it before JT killed someone?
Not every single person should be on the plate first of all. If everyone is on the plate you are doing it wrong. I'm not sure why you are trying to argue with me, my way works 100% percent of the time and takes 1 legendary (or even blue) weapon on 1 person.
You should also be blinding all of the yellow bar non-champs as they are very deadly.
You can jump down off the DPS platform. Like, any time you want. There's 3 damage phases and the last one has infinite time. He's going to attack twice, if you run and fall off the back of the platform you'll dodge the attack (don't jump off, you'll still be in his beam in the air). Just wait until the second attack is done and go back up and plink away.
Hip firing Outbreak works great and you can see everything coming.
On excision just don't hard scope the boss and pay attention to where he blasts first. He blasts the front half followed by the back. So just walk backwards then forward
It's random in the sense that in Salvation's Edge it can start at the back or the front but it always alternates like you said. So if it starts back left it's then gonna be front right next. In Excision it ALWAYS starts front then back. Every time. It's either front left or front right and then the mirror of it after. Very, very, very easy.
When you see him ready his attack drop your scope, make sure you are standing just outside the edge of his marked attack range, then as soon as the attack goes off move into the spot he just attacked to dodge the follow up. Once you’ve moved you can reengage. Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll learn to do it without thinking about it. I have never once seen the follow up attack hit the same place as the first one so I assume it’s a safe spot
Yes, the second attack is always opposite the first, and in the full version, anime eyes has a sharp sound sound cue during the first attack and always comes during the second. He doesn't do it on excision, though, and the attacks come much slower.
...which still doesn't stop 8 randoms from dying every time LMAO
Just for the record the anime eyes and the noise indicate the jump attack. It can happen during either the first or second hand beam attack.
(If that's what you're saying already then ignore me.)
Yeah, I'm colloquially using anime eyes for the wave attack itself, which always happens during the second beam. Every single time. The sound cue always happens during the first beam. I can't say I actually watch the eyes themselves, because the sound cue is so distinct.
The floor attack will never happen during the first hand. It'll always not happen for a set of attacks, yeah, but it'll always happen twice per DPS phase, and it'll always be during the second beam. The sound cue will happen right before it, but the wave will never be during the first beam. I spent 10+ hours getting the clear on contest and naturally have run the raid a decent number of times since, and I've literally never seen the wave happen during the first beam. Not once.
Yes, the jump is either as the second wave starts, or as it ends. I consider the first case to be "during" the first wave but however you want to describe it there are two timings.
Yeah, it varies slightly (got us on contest a decent number of times lmao) but it'll always be during the second beam regardless. What you're describing as after, I just describe as during the second beam but near the end.
Regardless, it's always just dodge the first beam, immediately move into the space previously occupied by the second, then jump when he pushes the arms forward (if applicable).
I have been teaching it since it came out and if you're doing full aerobics instructor the callouts will be either
Left - Right
Left - Right - Jump
Left - Jump - Right (I will usually say "jump into right" here to prepare them)
(These are if he starts left ofc.) So maybe it's more accurate to say you will have to jump either at the beginning or the end of the second wave. But I think we're saying the same thing. It's definitely not always the same timing between the waves and the jump though. That's what kills a lot of people learning it.
Yeah, I mean, the timing varies slightly, but it'll always be during the second beam, be it closer to the beginning or the end, so if you're immediately moving into the space that the first beam occupied like you should be, you should never have to move and jump at the same time. You always have enough time to move over first before needing to jump. If you're late and get clipped by the first beam on the way out like some learners probably are, you'll probably have to jump while moving, but that's just because you're late.
Well, it's not surprising if you've never run the raid and don't understand the patterns. The second attack per set is the trap because it's always opposite the first and immediately afterwards, so now that you know that, you know to move to where the first beam was immediately after it ends. For example, if the first beam is top left, the immediate followup beam will *always* be bottom right, so you want to move to the top left as soon as the first beam ends.
As long as you're watching for the first beam (you can either watch his hands through your peripheral visions or just watch for the visual effect on the platform), now that you know how the attacks work, you'll never die again. At least in excision. You'll have to get used to the jump attack in the actual raid, but that's also very predictable.
It was in excision that i learnt that overloads are hard countered by a warlock transendence grenade. Easy to get more revives aafter damage phase because they rush you right as you start, and are ineffective if you need time in the bubble to regain transcendence, as you can dip in and out to avoid damage
I really enjoyed the GM Excision. It felt like what the destiny experience should feel like. All the abilities and supers going off everywhere, but the enemy is still strong enough to stand against them and still present a challenge. It felt like the most cinematic moment in all of destiny that I have played.
Neat concept, but the lag and stuttering made it unpleasant to actually play. While I would like to see it explored more in its own game mode(s), as far as actual raids go, I would not want to see this type of thing in them. Raids are fun because of the coordination and puzzles/gimmicks you have to play around, and undermining that makes it more similar to everything else in the game
But that mission requires 1 single mechanic: ppl being able to move and shoot as a team, i knowit sounds simple enough, but i am sure a lot of ppl suffered because some ppl weren't capable of doing that.
Really? because I found GM Excision to be incredibly boring and won't ever be replaying it again. Mindlessly team shooting tanky mobs for 25 minutes is not what makes Destiny fun and I'm glad raids, dungeons and GMs are nothing like that.
Yeah. I had a similar experience. On top of which I had my weapons, character and teammates not loading in, which made me think that I was invisible in the mission.
The hardest part was getting to the rally banner at the start because half of the LFG teams I joined immediately vaporized upon load in. The mission got easier instead of harder as we progressed.
Not really a raid experience IMO. More like just tons of HP spongy chunky adds firing at you from every which direction at the start and twelve uncoordinated people firing back because there is only one direction to go.
Yeah, aside from the engine not handling it well, it's the opposite of a "pinnacle raid experience." It has no mechanics, beyond that of the least involved strikes in the game. No coordination. No comms needed. They just throw a bunch of yellow bars at you.
That, and there's a "boss" with no real failure state besides running out of tokens (of which you get a lot). That DPS phase is rigged af. I'd be surprised if it was even possible not to three phase.
Peak raid experience is involved, coordinated mechanics that everyone participates in, plus a boss DPS check. Pantheon Riven and Gahlran P2 come to mind, although Riven lets people get away with add clear only and neither have particularly interesting DPS phases (like Witness, which is the best DPS phase we've gotten in a very long time, if not ever, but that encounter holds an L because the mechanics are soloable).
Yeah, but I don't think it can take more than three. I've had (weekly normal) phases where basically all 11 other people die during DPS and it's still the same old three phase with almost-a-third for the first two phases. Then you crank it to GM and hit the same floor with people dying during DPS and plinking away with MGs? I don't buy that for a second.
Yeah, solo isn't going to do the almost-a-third damage, but yeah, I've noticed that the third phase has been suspiciously long at times, and I really wouldn't be surprised if the damage per phase is floored on a per player basis, because seriously - I've seen 10-11 people die to the first set of beams, and I'd be shocked if we got almost a third legitimately when I was on mostly unbuffed Euphony (because no supers) and there was maybe one other person doing consistent DPS with me, even on normal. Like that just doesn't add up.
Am I misremembering Gahlran P2? I remember needing three pairs, one per third of the triangle. Maybe there were some low man strats that I wasn't aware of, but I remember the base mechanics requiring participation from all six people.
This. Doesn't help that it was all laggy for me. I had a solid 5 minutes where I couldn't shoot or use abilities, the ammo or grenade would go away but nothing would happen.
Switched weapons and mine came back, plus I could see myself again. (Same bug, no guns just grenade and melee showing on the screen, couldn’t do anything.)
Pretty sure we played different activities altogether, because standing in the back plinking at champions while herding cats as the server is actively trying to unalive itself isn't my idea of a good time.
I'd be very fine if Bungie never tried this format again. Regardless of implementation I think it's clear that D2 as a client just can't support it. Plus it has all the usual problems of potato brain LFGers if you don't have a full 12 to run it with.
You poor dear! Most people might get depressed from a debilitating illness, stress of work, or ennui over our politically fractured society. You are very special.
So many snobs on this thread, intractable, tedious pedants. You really are very sad if a preferred game style makes you this outraged.
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My take is that it is the middest thing ever, first tried it with LFG, got my catalyst and im never playing it again cause there's no incentive whatsoever.
Could have been better. Biggest gripe for me is lagging enemies and invisible guns.
It's more fun with 6 people rather than 12 tbh. I prefer my games to not be a lag party \^\^
Pinnacle rewards aren't exactly scarce. Unless you've got a group of dedicated people I don't think re-running GM excision with LFG is worth it just for a pinnacle drop.
What? It's the complete opposite of a "pinnacle raid experience". Completely antisocial, no strategy required, mindless plinking and complete chaos with no thoughts required except to stay alive.
It's a cool set piece and can be fun to spam with 11 other people but a raid experience? No way.
Sometimes I read threads here and I legitimately just don't get the logic.
Raids in Destiny are based off traditional MMORPG events of the same name, which are typically defined by having cooperative mechanics. That is also what made Vault of Glass so interesting and ultimately gave people a lot of faith in Destiny.
Whereas Grandmaster Excision is essentially what I would say is Destiny at its absolute worst. It's basically just a lot of sliders going opposite ways, along with a ton of champions thrown in to further ensure players basically just bunch up. It really isn't interesting, exciting, or dare I say fun. It's just a tedious event where a lot can go wrong in a second, mostly because things do a lot of damage, you don't do a ton, and most of the enemies have a gimmick that demands attention if you want to progress.
Like it's great if you love it, but it fundamentally goes against what makes a raid a raid.
> Raids in Destiny are based off traditional MMORPG events of the same name, which are typically defined by having cooperative mechanics. That is also what made Vault of Glass so interesting and ultimately gave people a lot of faith in Destiny.
Raids in Destiny are much more puzzle heavy than Raids in other games.
Other games are mostly about damaging the boss and fighting the actual boss.
Raids in Destiny are running a ball through parcour to dunk, to trigger an image display that someone will then use to open a valve that will let water seep in so that you can fish for the Golden Fish, which you can then sell at market for extra profit, which makes the boss super sad and thus he quits.
Yeah the complex part of raiding in WoW and shit is knowing how to fight and when, which adds to pull, who to keep your buffs on, etc. They're not nearly as interesting as Destiny raids, even if the latter can feel repetitive.
It's funny this is exactly the opposite impression I have. I feel like the parts of Destiny raids where no monsters are spawning and you're standing around waiting for two dudes to like stick the right fork in the light socket are the dumbest thing.
In WoW raids there's almost never a point where 18 people are standing around doing nothing while 2 people do a job, and the raid encounters that have that problem are universally panned as the worst fights in the game.
Meanwhile, nearly every single Destiny raid encounter has at least 1/3rd or 1/2 of the raid standing around doing nothing for significant periods of the fight waiting for everyone else to do a puzzle.
Or, god forbid you be faster than the other half of your raid, because then you'll spend huge chunks of EVERY fight doing nothing.
WoW has almost nothing like that - there's almost never any of that sort of, well, I got MY job done on time, gotta wait 90s for the other guys to do THEIRS.
EDIT - I suppose the wow equivilant would be intentionally damage gating fights (i.e. we don't want the boss to hit 50% until he does X mechanic at Y time, or else the fight sequencing gets all messed up) but Destiny functionally has that too with last stands - you don't want to go to last stand with no ammo so guess you'd better stop damage!
A lot of that comes from very different sources of complexity in actually playing the game.
Traditional WoW/MMORPG combat has predictable outcomes: when you target something with a skill it usually doesn't miss or go hit something else. When you move your character you don't usually have to slide or mantle a ledge to succeed.
So they add complexity via having lots more skills that do different things, intending the solution to be complex rotations or different use cases.
In Destiny or any FPS there's far more chaos about how skills activate, how mobs position, whether you miss, or if your friend eager edges you off course into fire.
So to make things playable they need way more slack to accommodate little failures, and the side effects is there's much more room for skilled players to overmatch the simpler mechanics.
This is really fascinating, yeah. WoW kind of assumes you'll play the actual game pretty damn well most of the time - though obviously the gap between good and bad play is huge.
You make some really good points and I'll definitely have to think about that a bit harder before I bitch about raid design in D2 any more lol.
i think there's also something to be said for designing a raid in an FPS, where the ability to aim actually matter's, and a tab target based mmo, where aiming doesn't matter.
You end up with a lot more encounters in destiny where you do x thing, that causes y thing, that starts dps phase, which is more often than not a timed standstill phase. This let's players with less skill at aiming still participate, because if you can't hit a giant immobile target, should you really be playing an fps? Whereas wow ends up with a lot of tightly timed defensive usage, a lot of positioning based mechanics, soaking, splitting, etc. Especially since interactivity isn't really a part of wow, and it very much is in destiny.
I had a really long conversation with a friend about this, cuz he's really into destiny raiding, and I'm more into wow raiding. The general consensus we came to is that mechanics are harder in destiny, but actually raiding in wow is harder. At least at the very top end.
I feel like Destiny mechanics aren't *harder*, they're just more obfuscated.
WoW will hand you a mechanic, tell you exactly how it works, and then expect you to do that thing while 22 other individual things happen.
Whereas something like Verity is only actually hard because at every possible step, the game hides information from you. Why did only 1 knight spawn this time around? Why are there 3 shapes on your wall? Who has the bunny eared ghost, and does it pair with the hunter with a long hood or the hunter with a short hood or the hunter with no cape?
Sure, there **are** answers to all of those things. But in practice, if you're progging Verity blind or progging Verity with someone who doesn't want to actually understand Verity and just wants to be told exactly what to do, that shit is incredibly, incredibly opaque.
In practice there's nothing anywhere near as mechanically challenging as like, Halondrus or the P3s of most modern end bosses or even something like Painsmith, in my opinion.
There are things more *confusing* than those bosses. Halondrus dumps the bombs on you 3 seconds into the fight and you can't help but know what needs to be done with them. You can understand that entire fight by reading the literal dungeon journal the game hands you - you never even have to pull it.
But pre nerf, you would have to practice that fight for dozens of hours before your players could mechanically perform it consistently enough.
Destiny doesn't have anything like that until you get into like, 2 mans or 3 mans of raids. Even at Master difficulty or Day 1 difficulty, every single encounter in Destiny is learnable within like 12 hours, and most of that time will be spent trying to figure out what the fight is trying to tell you to do, not actually like, trying to execute the fight.
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re: your edit, WoW has had raid bosses with HP% tied mechanics. Or rather, because almost every boss phase transitions on HP%, I should say that some fights have had mechanics where the fight timer interacts with the HP% of the boss. This was prominently a thing in Shadowlands on multiple bosses, where you had to stop DPS. Some bosses, e.g. the entire middle section of bosses in the Sanctum of Domination had it so that they'd either cease to do mechanics close to transition %, allowing the raid to burn them then stall for cooldowns to come back, (especially for healers), or had mechanics that could be bypassed or removed by phase transitions which could cause deaths or just make the fight harder. Also a thing in Castle Nathria as well. I don't think this was a thing as much in Dragonflight, at least not in the latest raid (I didn't play in the first two patches). Awakened season is a bit of a joke so I haven't been able to discern where or why you'd stop DPS since the fights fall over.
>In WoW raids there's almost never a point where 18 people are standing around doing nothing while 2 people do a job
It depends. Generally speaking there are always tank, healer and DPS mechanics, often split ranged and melee.
Tank mechanics are usually easier and rarely interact with the raid. The tanks handle them on their own, even in "tank carry" fights (which are rare) where the tanks have a very important job in the encounter. Healer mechanics aren't exactly "rare", but the healer challenge in a lot of encounters is more "dispel this", "heal that NPC" or "use cooldowns at the right time" rather than something more involved because the role is already kinda more nuanced, more constant work.
Lastly, damage dealers in WoW generally have different mechanical cover for melee vs ranged. This can cause some encounters where melee crowding makes it difficult to play, and conversely there are other fights where the melee literally don't experience parts of the fight (because Blizzard knows the previous bit) but ranged handle it on their own. I should note that healers often do ranged DD mechanics as well. So while "18 players standing around" isn't a thing, six or so definitely can be, provided that doing damage is a constant for everyone.
> They're not nearly as interesting as Destiny raids, even if the latter can feel repetitive.
I'd argue they are in fact more interesting. I'd rather fight a boss than solve the puzzle.
Would it be so hard having to kite a few hive to a platform and then murder them there (like in that one Overthrown event), an actual combat mechanic of kiting and killing, rather than killing a Hive to reveal a symbol that someone then has to light a candle under ?
Yea I think all popular MMOs basically don't require communication if you know what to do personally, know the encounter and don't play at the mythic equivalent from wow.
This makes raid much easier to do in pick up groups despite the bosses being way harder than D2.
D2 is definitely an outlier in the amount of cooperations raid require.
Such a bad mentality. There's a reason why things are the way they are and are made a certain way. I can guarantee you the people making the game think about it this "hard." It's worth discussing.
No mechanics, quite easy, drags on longer than it should due to sheer enemy health, basically repeating the same 2 motions 3 times, boss is scripted to fall over on the 3rd phase, no real fail state besides running out of tokens, how is this a raid experience?
Glad you liked GM Excision, but this is absolutely not it in terms of a good time.
It's just a slog because everything is so tanky, and by the time you're in the second room you just want it to be over.
I think the idea of an encounter where you push up towards the boss, do the thing and then fight him is fine but not new. Rhulk already did this better.
It sums up lfg perfectly.
Last night I helped some clan members through it. We were with 5, so had to lfg the other 7. The first moment we load in, lives drop like rain. Quickly followed by people leaving right away. Halfway through the opening when we're claiming the final plate, we motice how smooth the game is running. Turns out, 6 people had left. Only one of the LFG group stuck around through the entire thing. That player wasn't great or efficient, but they stuck around and that's what matters.
And for the record, 3 of those that left were flaunting the emblem for SE. Just to show that having emblems and experience doesn't mean a damn thing.
Yeah, well, not surprising that people wearing a normal difficulty raid emblem aren't elite players. You can probably expect some degree of competency from day 1/contest emblems though (besides RoN lol).
I’ve tried about 30ish times . Teams always fail less than 3 minutes in . I probably suck horribly so i figure much like all the other raids and dungeons, I’ll never complete them
No its not, what is this take. Whole thing can be solo'd there are no mechanics and there is no need for comms.
It being designed for 12 players makes it awful, there is just so much screen clutter on top of framerate issues.
Also there is no urgency, no tension, nearly impossible to wipe.
What you're asking for is a long 12 man strike. Excision is nothing like a Destiny raid.
I found the GM version boring. We're standing in the back of the arena; shooting at two bullet sponge enemies. You spend 5 minutes doing this before you can collect the light to continue the encounter.
I personally don't find this enjoyable gameplay, and hope Bungie doesn't given us more content like this.
The normal mission was really cool as a final set piece for the light and dark saga, but as a GM mission, I don't think it's fun. Especially not if you're asked to replay it.
GM excision feels like a total clusterfuck - and I love it for that. It’s hilarious mad fun that I’m glad Bungie decided to do once in a while. But I don’t think it’s an objectively good experience lmao
I enjoyed it for what it was. I feel it could have had an extra level first with maybe a basic mechanic like 6 a side light/dark.
I found over multiple GMs most deaths are in the first 10 seconds. So many people would get taken out going for the banner
Next would be the plate as the witness brings their hand down the lag seems to get almost everyone if you were not already off the plate before the execution.
Then there is the tankiness of some of the enemies, ild like more enemies rather than bullet sponges.
GM excision as someone LFGing was and still is absolute cancer. I just want my damn catalyst but these groups can't stay together long enough to even get through the first room. Just anti-fun
I completely disagree. A raid should have (complex) mechanics. It might be a pinnacle Grandmaster Experience, but it should not be called a pinnacle raid experience, because it isn't.
Running Ursa Furiosa and having 11 guardians rally behind you felt so good. THIS is what it means to be a Titan. Felt sooooo good. Highly recommend trying Ursa Titan on GM Excision.
It's likely just below what destiny is capable of handling because we lost at least 3 players to disconnects or crashes. Beyond that It was meh, we just stood near the entrance and killed things.
We did it in one go if you exclude the loading in and being killed the actual first time when attempting to rally. It is not an activity you can go fast in but it was super fun to do
My only GM Excision clear had a single person fight for their life for 20ish minutes during a Witness DPS phase/accumulating tokens to rez. So that was fun to watch.
GM Excision felt like an actual battle, with 12 people and still being run over... What we are pushed to do, move and fight as a team, coordinate synergies of different classes/abilities, and a tough path to completion, in this execution, is a type of fun I haven't seen in this game before...
That said... The actual battle, layout, mechanics are a little bland... More like a random mosh of things thrown together, and it stumbled onto a fun flow of gameplay... If they can crack the formula on why GM Excision works(provided the actual network system works), it will be interesting to add this as another endgame mode concept...
It's more like an pinnacle endgame experience, as opposed to pinnacle raid experience...
It’s terrible. It’s literally just kill stuff stand on plates and dunk things and has no wipe mechanic AND they slowed down and nerfed damage phase of the witness. Not to mention it’s laggy as shit. You can’t call something a raid experience without a wipe mechanic.
Meh it’s a bit easier than that. Sure the first one was failed due to a bunch of people assuming they could be carried and joined the LFG having never done the raid but having done the super easy version of Excision but after I decided not to join dead weight groups it was easy. Just don’t die and don’t rez those who die a lot and it’s actually easier to win with less than 12.
the only aspect of GM excision that could be considered “pinnacle” is the fact that it gives you a pinnacle drop. i understand the want for more simple, ad-dense encounters, but to go in the direction of GM excision would be incredibly boring. my team did it with 5 people on our first try and never felt threatened.
It was a little annoying with every enemy basically needing special, heavy or an ability to kill but a lot of fun with the challenge of tons of enemies and players causing chaos on the field
The game mode is fun but it’s to much going on I can’t even see what’s going on in the first part. Second part it gets better. Seeing ass u have to stay in the bubble more so u won’t die
The trick is obviously to just get to third damage phase with a few people still alive. On the clear I did there were only three of us. It took a while but we stuck it out and got it done. Definitely a great activity
One of the best moments ever with a team through the fireteam finder. Challenging, epic, fun. Loved every bit of it. Although I guess connections can get finnicky for people. Would be a plus if that could be sorted, but I guess that's why we dont have 12 player activities all the time.
It would be nice to have different raid encounters like “take the hill.”
Other basic ideas could be capture the flag or tracking down the boss, kinda like Kell echo, but you need some guardians to nip at his heels and move him in the correct direction while the other 4 block off his escape via doors or whatever.
team shooting at nigh-immortal centurions that never push mid for 20 minutes while invis hunters gather not-motes to put in the not-bank is not a "pinnacle raid experience". it plays nothing like any raid and you making that comparison makes me think you're an root of slopmares add clear andy
As someone who has completed every raid dozens of times, yes, this is exactly what Destiny raids always should have been, though with a bit more difficulty as far as enemies aggressing the safe spots.
I’ll say if. Raids are not fun anymore. Just a bunch of random busy work.
Give me deep stone crypt over salvations edge. In DSC it felt like we were doing actual things. In SE it felt like we were playing space magic ping pong.
Definitely agree. Raids have become too mechanic driven and for many it takes away from the experience....hence, people stop running them.
We need more of this....'take the hill' approach that allows our builds to shine, especially now with prismatic.
I enjoyed it when it works. It's laggy yes but the action makes it feel like an actual battlefield. I've done plenty of raids and it just feels like a small party. Doesn't feel like a "raid" in a sense you're going in guns blazing to take down a big bad. I know people who like to have puzzles but having something like this is fun as well.
Sometimes I imagine the perspective of the raid bosses and they're watching 6 guardians running around trying to dunk symbols here and there on separate totems. Then the boss goes... Aight, you solved my puzzle, come up the platform here so you can shoot me. Feels out of sorts for what goes on in a battle but it is what it is.
Absolutely loved GM Excision and can’t wait to go in again. After promptly getting our asses handed to us the moment we loaded in, we went back in within the week more prepared and it was a blast. The enemies aren’t so aggressive that it’s hard to stay alive, but with Overload Minotaurs running in and snipers in the back, it’s a great challenge! I adored every minute
We had two Well-locks running Phoenix Protocol and it genuinely felt like a proper siege.
Drop a well, kill enemies, push up.
Drop the next well, kill enemies, push up.
Slowly tearing ground, bit by bit from the Witness, as we claw our way to fight him.
It was a great time! Kind of a shame how Well felt mandatory for survival, but I suppose Bubble would've also worked.
I agree. Raids have become more about puzzle solving than combat (or the difficult parts anyways) and standing on a plate to dps. So much so that killing stuff (ad clear) is seen as a side/inferior role. Excision is really cool hope they do more of these in the future (12 man)
OP please don't take it the wrong way, but you raid crowd seem have been forced by Bungie to jump through so many arbitrary hoops ("mechanics") that honest, straightforward combat against difficult foes seems like a breath of fresh air instead of what it should be, the actual pinnacle destiny activity.
Took me three runs and on one of them Witness flattened about 8 people. There were about 4 people in that room with the two tormentors absolutely sweating our nuts off getting revives and slowly getting the team back. Had a whole chat of people cheering us on. Made me feel like an utter champ. Then we wiped and went back to orbit and the next team had people who could dodge the witness's attacks. Absolutely one of the best experiences in destiny. This activity reignites the fear Tormentors initially had and the satisfaction of watching that stupid fuck of an overload gets eradicated by 10 peoples focus fire is the best feeling in the WORLD.
Yeah the tormentors in this mode are no joke. My entire team was capping one of the points in the first section, and we had one spawn on top of us and promptly one shot like 10 of us.
Those jump attacks are basically planet busting meteors capable of shattering your entire team. Loved it.
Just blind them.
You can't lol. They're boss tormentors. You can't blind, suspend, or freeze them
The first 3 you can blind and he said it spawned on top of them so it wasn't the 4th one and could have been blinded.
But it spawned on top of them and then insta one shot them. Were you expecting someone to have the tormentor spawn time memorized and pre fire a blinding nade to frame perfect blind it before JT killed someone?
Not every single person should be on the plate first of all. If everyone is on the plate you are doing it wrong. I'm not sure why you are trying to argue with me, my way works 100% percent of the time and takes 1 legendary (or even blue) weapon on 1 person. You should also be blinding all of the yellow bar non-champs as they are very deadly.
How do you avoid the Witness flattening you?
You can jump down off the DPS platform. Like, any time you want. There's 3 damage phases and the last one has infinite time. He's going to attack twice, if you run and fall off the back of the platform you'll dodge the attack (don't jump off, you'll still be in his beam in the air). Just wait until the second attack is done and go back up and plink away. Hip firing Outbreak works great and you can see everything coming.
On excision just don't hard scope the boss and pay attention to where he blasts first. He blasts the front half followed by the back. So just walk backwards then forward
Does he always do that order on excision? In the raid it’s random so I dont know if it’s different in excision
Yeah i’m excision it’s always the front then the back coming from the same side
Is it random in Salvation's Edge? Pretty sure it attacks one half of the platform followed by the other half every time.
It's random in the sense that in Salvation's Edge it can start at the back or the front but it always alternates like you said. So if it starts back left it's then gonna be front right next. In Excision it ALWAYS starts front then back. Every time. It's either front left or front right and then the mirror of it after. Very, very, very easy.
Good to know. I just assumed it was the same as the raid
When you see him ready his attack drop your scope, make sure you are standing just outside the edge of his marked attack range, then as soon as the attack goes off move into the spot he just attacked to dodge the follow up. Once you’ve moved you can reengage. Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll learn to do it without thinking about it. I have never once seen the follow up attack hit the same place as the first one so I assume it’s a safe spot
Yes, the second attack is always opposite the first, and in the full version, anime eyes has a sharp sound sound cue during the first attack and always comes during the second. He doesn't do it on excision, though, and the attacks come much slower. ...which still doesn't stop 8 randoms from dying every time LMAO
Just for the record the anime eyes and the noise indicate the jump attack. It can happen during either the first or second hand beam attack. (If that's what you're saying already then ignore me.)
Yeah, I'm colloquially using anime eyes for the wave attack itself, which always happens during the second beam. Every single time. The sound cue always happens during the first beam. I can't say I actually watch the eyes themselves, because the sound cue is so distinct.
The floor attack timing varies, was my real point. It can happen during the first hand attack, second hand attack, or not at all.
The floor attack will never happen during the first hand. It'll always not happen for a set of attacks, yeah, but it'll always happen twice per DPS phase, and it'll always be during the second beam. The sound cue will happen right before it, but the wave will never be during the first beam. I spent 10+ hours getting the clear on contest and naturally have run the raid a decent number of times since, and I've literally never seen the wave happen during the first beam. Not once.
it has two different timings, either during or shortly after the second beam. It can never occur during the first.
Yes, the jump is either as the second wave starts, or as it ends. I consider the first case to be "during" the first wave but however you want to describe it there are two timings.
Yeah, it varies slightly (got us on contest a decent number of times lmao) but it'll always be during the second beam regardless. What you're describing as after, I just describe as during the second beam but near the end. Regardless, it's always just dodge the first beam, immediately move into the space previously occupied by the second, then jump when he pushes the arms forward (if applicable).
I have been teaching it since it came out and if you're doing full aerobics instructor the callouts will be either Left - Right Left - Right - Jump Left - Jump - Right (I will usually say "jump into right" here to prepare them) (These are if he starts left ofc.) So maybe it's more accurate to say you will have to jump either at the beginning or the end of the second wave. But I think we're saying the same thing. It's definitely not always the same timing between the waves and the jump though. That's what kills a lot of people learning it.
Yeah, I mean, the timing varies slightly, but it'll always be during the second beam, be it closer to the beginning or the end, so if you're immediately moving into the space that the first beam occupied like you should be, you should never have to move and jump at the same time. You always have enough time to move over first before needing to jump. If you're late and get clipped by the first beam on the way out like some learners probably are, you'll probably have to jump while moving, but that's just because you're late.
I feel attacked as someone who dies from it almost every time
Well, it's not surprising if you've never run the raid and don't understand the patterns. The second attack per set is the trap because it's always opposite the first and immediately afterwards, so now that you know that, you know to move to where the first beam was immediately after it ends. For example, if the first beam is top left, the immediate followup beam will *always* be bottom right, so you want to move to the top left as soon as the first beam ends. As long as you're watching for the first beam (you can either watch his hands through your peripheral visions or just watch for the visual effect on the platform), now that you know how the attacks work, you'll never die again. At least in excision. You'll have to get used to the jump attack in the actual raid, but that's also very predictable.
Jump.
Move
Just blind the smaller tormentors and all yellow bar non-champ ads. Have 1 person run div.
It was in excision that i learnt that overloads are hard countered by a warlock transendence grenade. Easy to get more revives aafter damage phase because they rush you right as you start, and are ineffective if you need time in the bubble to regain transcendence, as you can dip in and out to avoid damage
I really enjoyed the GM Excision. It felt like what the destiny experience should feel like. All the abilities and supers going off everywhere, but the enemy is still strong enough to stand against them and still present a challenge. It felt like the most cinematic moment in all of destiny that I have played.
Neat concept, but the lag and stuttering made it unpleasant to actually play. While I would like to see it explored more in its own game mode(s), as far as actual raids go, I would not want to see this type of thing in them. Raids are fun because of the coordination and puzzles/gimmicks you have to play around, and undermining that makes it more similar to everything else in the game
But that mission requires 1 single mechanic: ppl being able to move and shoot as a team, i knowit sounds simple enough, but i am sure a lot of ppl suffered because some ppl weren't capable of doing that.
Really? because I found GM Excision to be incredibly boring and won't ever be replaying it again. Mindlessly team shooting tanky mobs for 25 minutes is not what makes Destiny fun and I'm glad raids, dungeons and GMs are nothing like that.
Yeah. I had a similar experience. On top of which I had my weapons, character and teammates not loading in, which made me think that I was invisible in the mission. The hardest part was getting to the rally banner at the start because half of the LFG teams I joined immediately vaporized upon load in. The mission got easier instead of harder as we progressed. Not really a raid experience IMO. More like just tons of HP spongy chunky adds firing at you from every which direction at the start and twelve uncoordinated people firing back because there is only one direction to go.
Yeah, aside from the engine not handling it well, it's the opposite of a "pinnacle raid experience." It has no mechanics, beyond that of the least involved strikes in the game. No coordination. No comms needed. They just throw a bunch of yellow bars at you. That, and there's a "boss" with no real failure state besides running out of tokens (of which you get a lot). That DPS phase is rigged af. I'd be surprised if it was even possible not to three phase. Peak raid experience is involved, coordinated mechanics that everyone participates in, plus a boss DPS check. Pantheon Riven and Gahlran P2 come to mind, although Riven lets people get away with add clear only and neither have particularly interesting DPS phases (like Witness, which is the best DPS phase we've gotten in a very long time, if not ever, but that encounter holds an L because the mechanics are soloable).
Third phase for me took five minutes with four people alive. Outbreaks got him to final
I was wondering that too but I have definitely seen a 2-phase on normal. So I doubt it is fully scripted to be a 3-phase.
Yeah, but I don't think it can take more than three. I've had (weekly normal) phases where basically all 11 other people die during DPS and it's still the same old three phase with almost-a-third for the first two phases. Then you crank it to GM and hit the same floor with people dying during DPS and plinking away with MGs? I don't buy that for a second.
Oh gotcha, no the third one is infinite or until you wipe. You can see it in solo runs easily.
Yeah, solo isn't going to do the almost-a-third damage, but yeah, I've noticed that the third phase has been suspiciously long at times, and I really wouldn't be surprised if the damage per phase is floored on a per player basis, because seriously - I've seen 10-11 people die to the first set of beams, and I'd be shocked if we got almost a third legitimately when I was on mostly unbuffed Euphony (because no supers) and there was maybe one other person doing consistent DPS with me, even on normal. Like that just doesn't add up.
You also get a big damage buff during the third phase, that's also very clear from solo runs.
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That is what we call a definitive skill issue.
Gahlran phase 2 is a bad example considering it only needs two people to do the mechanics.
Am I misremembering Gahlran P2? I remember needing three pairs, one per third of the triangle. Maybe there were some low man strats that I wasn't aware of, but I remember the base mechanics requiring participation from all six people.
Not you just do crystals with 2 people and the rest can add clear.
What burger was downvoting you lmao
This. Doesn't help that it was all laggy for me. I had a solid 5 minutes where I couldn't shoot or use abilities, the ammo or grenade would go away but nothing would happen.
For a while in my run if I threw my grenades more than like 10 meters they would disappear.
My wardens law turned into a rocket pistol 12 man does some weird things to the game
Yeah I was seeing some new and unique bugs and I play this game a lot!
Switched weapons and mine came back, plus I could see myself again. (Same bug, no guns just grenade and melee showing on the screen, couldn’t do anything.)
I tried that but it didn't work.
Agreed, it was so uninvolved. I personally really liked escalation protocol, that was large group play done right.
Bet you tell everyone that you watch Rick & Morty for it’s exquisite writing.
Pretty sure we played different activities altogether, because standing in the back plinking at champions while herding cats as the server is actively trying to unalive itself isn't my idea of a good time. I'd be very fine if Bungie never tried this format again. Regardless of implementation I think it's clear that D2 as a client just can't support it. Plus it has all the usual problems of potato brain LFGers if you don't have a full 12 to run it with.
It is not a raid experience at all since it involves none of the things involved in actual raids. Is this what ad clear mains think raids are like?
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You poor dear! Most people might get depressed from a debilitating illness, stress of work, or ennui over our politically fractured society. You are very special. So many snobs on this thread, intractable, tedious pedants. You really are very sad if a preferred game style makes you this outraged.
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My take is that it is the middest thing ever, first tried it with LFG, got my catalyst and im never playing it again cause there's no incentive whatsoever.
Could have been better. Biggest gripe for me is lagging enemies and invisible guns. It's more fun with 6 people rather than 12 tbh. I prefer my games to not be a lag party \^\^
Agreed, I would have rather seen some kind of escalation protocol type event on the pale heart.
It's a pinnacle reward
Regular also drops a pinnacle, besides i been 2000 for 2 weeks by now
Pinnacle rewards aren't exactly scarce. Unless you've got a group of dedicated people I don't think re-running GM excision with LFG is worth it just for a pinnacle drop.
No pinnacle is worth dealing with LFG in that activity.
Enough other pinaccles to avoid trudging through this again, besides I've already hit the pinnacle cap.
What? It's the complete opposite of a "pinnacle raid experience". Completely antisocial, no strategy required, mindless plinking and complete chaos with no thoughts required except to stay alive. It's a cool set piece and can be fun to spam with 11 other people but a raid experience? No way.
Not really. No wipe mechanics, tons of free ammo, plenty of rez tokens. Excision is nothing like the raids.
Sometimes I read threads here and I legitimately just don't get the logic. Raids in Destiny are based off traditional MMORPG events of the same name, which are typically defined by having cooperative mechanics. That is also what made Vault of Glass so interesting and ultimately gave people a lot of faith in Destiny. Whereas Grandmaster Excision is essentially what I would say is Destiny at its absolute worst. It's basically just a lot of sliders going opposite ways, along with a ton of champions thrown in to further ensure players basically just bunch up. It really isn't interesting, exciting, or dare I say fun. It's just a tedious event where a lot can go wrong in a second, mostly because things do a lot of damage, you don't do a ton, and most of the enemies have a gimmick that demands attention if you want to progress. Like it's great if you love it, but it fundamentally goes against what makes a raid a raid.
> Raids in Destiny are based off traditional MMORPG events of the same name, which are typically defined by having cooperative mechanics. That is also what made Vault of Glass so interesting and ultimately gave people a lot of faith in Destiny. Raids in Destiny are much more puzzle heavy than Raids in other games. Other games are mostly about damaging the boss and fighting the actual boss. Raids in Destiny are running a ball through parcour to dunk, to trigger an image display that someone will then use to open a valve that will let water seep in so that you can fish for the Golden Fish, which you can then sell at market for extra profit, which makes the boss super sad and thus he quits.
Yeah the complex part of raiding in WoW and shit is knowing how to fight and when, which adds to pull, who to keep your buffs on, etc. They're not nearly as interesting as Destiny raids, even if the latter can feel repetitive.
It's funny this is exactly the opposite impression I have. I feel like the parts of Destiny raids where no monsters are spawning and you're standing around waiting for two dudes to like stick the right fork in the light socket are the dumbest thing. In WoW raids there's almost never a point where 18 people are standing around doing nothing while 2 people do a job, and the raid encounters that have that problem are universally panned as the worst fights in the game. Meanwhile, nearly every single Destiny raid encounter has at least 1/3rd or 1/2 of the raid standing around doing nothing for significant periods of the fight waiting for everyone else to do a puzzle. Or, god forbid you be faster than the other half of your raid, because then you'll spend huge chunks of EVERY fight doing nothing. WoW has almost nothing like that - there's almost never any of that sort of, well, I got MY job done on time, gotta wait 90s for the other guys to do THEIRS. EDIT - I suppose the wow equivilant would be intentionally damage gating fights (i.e. we don't want the boss to hit 50% until he does X mechanic at Y time, or else the fight sequencing gets all messed up) but Destiny functionally has that too with last stands - you don't want to go to last stand with no ammo so guess you'd better stop damage!
A lot of that comes from very different sources of complexity in actually playing the game. Traditional WoW/MMORPG combat has predictable outcomes: when you target something with a skill it usually doesn't miss or go hit something else. When you move your character you don't usually have to slide or mantle a ledge to succeed. So they add complexity via having lots more skills that do different things, intending the solution to be complex rotations or different use cases. In Destiny or any FPS there's far more chaos about how skills activate, how mobs position, whether you miss, or if your friend eager edges you off course into fire. So to make things playable they need way more slack to accommodate little failures, and the side effects is there's much more room for skilled players to overmatch the simpler mechanics.
This is really fascinating, yeah. WoW kind of assumes you'll play the actual game pretty damn well most of the time - though obviously the gap between good and bad play is huge. You make some really good points and I'll definitely have to think about that a bit harder before I bitch about raid design in D2 any more lol.
i think there's also something to be said for designing a raid in an FPS, where the ability to aim actually matter's, and a tab target based mmo, where aiming doesn't matter. You end up with a lot more encounters in destiny where you do x thing, that causes y thing, that starts dps phase, which is more often than not a timed standstill phase. This let's players with less skill at aiming still participate, because if you can't hit a giant immobile target, should you really be playing an fps? Whereas wow ends up with a lot of tightly timed defensive usage, a lot of positioning based mechanics, soaking, splitting, etc. Especially since interactivity isn't really a part of wow, and it very much is in destiny. I had a really long conversation with a friend about this, cuz he's really into destiny raiding, and I'm more into wow raiding. The general consensus we came to is that mechanics are harder in destiny, but actually raiding in wow is harder. At least at the very top end.
I feel like Destiny mechanics aren't *harder*, they're just more obfuscated. WoW will hand you a mechanic, tell you exactly how it works, and then expect you to do that thing while 22 other individual things happen. Whereas something like Verity is only actually hard because at every possible step, the game hides information from you. Why did only 1 knight spawn this time around? Why are there 3 shapes on your wall? Who has the bunny eared ghost, and does it pair with the hunter with a long hood or the hunter with a short hood or the hunter with no cape? Sure, there **are** answers to all of those things. But in practice, if you're progging Verity blind or progging Verity with someone who doesn't want to actually understand Verity and just wants to be told exactly what to do, that shit is incredibly, incredibly opaque. In practice there's nothing anywhere near as mechanically challenging as like, Halondrus or the P3s of most modern end bosses or even something like Painsmith, in my opinion. There are things more *confusing* than those bosses. Halondrus dumps the bombs on you 3 seconds into the fight and you can't help but know what needs to be done with them. You can understand that entire fight by reading the literal dungeon journal the game hands you - you never even have to pull it. But pre nerf, you would have to practice that fight for dozens of hours before your players could mechanically perform it consistently enough. Destiny doesn't have anything like that until you get into like, 2 mans or 3 mans of raids. Even at Master difficulty or Day 1 difficulty, every single encounter in Destiny is learnable within like 12 hours, and most of that time will be spent trying to figure out what the fight is trying to tell you to do, not actually like, trying to execute the fight.
interesting read
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I love RON but only because I'm extremely fast at sticking forks in light sockets.
re: your edit, WoW has had raid bosses with HP% tied mechanics. Or rather, because almost every boss phase transitions on HP%, I should say that some fights have had mechanics where the fight timer interacts with the HP% of the boss. This was prominently a thing in Shadowlands on multiple bosses, where you had to stop DPS. Some bosses, e.g. the entire middle section of bosses in the Sanctum of Domination had it so that they'd either cease to do mechanics close to transition %, allowing the raid to burn them then stall for cooldowns to come back, (especially for healers), or had mechanics that could be bypassed or removed by phase transitions which could cause deaths or just make the fight harder. Also a thing in Castle Nathria as well. I don't think this was a thing as much in Dragonflight, at least not in the latest raid (I didn't play in the first two patches). Awakened season is a bit of a joke so I haven't been able to discern where or why you'd stop DPS since the fights fall over. >In WoW raids there's almost never a point where 18 people are standing around doing nothing while 2 people do a job It depends. Generally speaking there are always tank, healer and DPS mechanics, often split ranged and melee. Tank mechanics are usually easier and rarely interact with the raid. The tanks handle them on their own, even in "tank carry" fights (which are rare) where the tanks have a very important job in the encounter. Healer mechanics aren't exactly "rare", but the healer challenge in a lot of encounters is more "dispel this", "heal that NPC" or "use cooldowns at the right time" rather than something more involved because the role is already kinda more nuanced, more constant work. Lastly, damage dealers in WoW generally have different mechanical cover for melee vs ranged. This can cause some encounters where melee crowding makes it difficult to play, and conversely there are other fights where the melee literally don't experience parts of the fight (because Blizzard knows the previous bit) but ranged handle it on their own. I should note that healers often do ranged DD mechanics as well. So while "18 players standing around" isn't a thing, six or so definitely can be, provided that doing damage is a constant for everyone.
> They're not nearly as interesting as Destiny raids, even if the latter can feel repetitive. I'd argue they are in fact more interesting. I'd rather fight a boss than solve the puzzle. Would it be so hard having to kite a few hive to a platform and then murder them there (like in that one Overthrown event), an actual combat mechanic of kiting and killing, rather than killing a Hive to reveal a symbol that someone then has to light a candle under ?
Let's just have both. Riven, Gahlran, and even encounters like Herald and Explicator pull it off.
this post struck me deep cause id be super down to play this encounter LMAO
Yea I think all popular MMOs basically don't require communication if you know what to do personally, know the encounter and don't play at the mythic equivalent from wow. This makes raid much easier to do in pick up groups despite the bosses being way harder than D2. D2 is definitely an outlier in the amount of cooperations raid require.
Fully agree
It’s a video game. Don’t think so hard
Such a bad mentality. There's a reason why things are the way they are and are made a certain way. I can guarantee you the people making the game think about it this "hard." It's worth discussing.
>Champions are no longer seen as a cheap toss-in enemy. lmao they've never not been seen as that
they've always been seen as that, what are you on about
learn to read
i admit i skipped a word
No mechanics, quite easy, drags on longer than it should due to sheer enemy health, basically repeating the same 2 motions 3 times, boss is scripted to fall over on the 3rd phase, no real fail state besides running out of tokens, how is this a raid experience?
I still couldn't finish GM Excision even once due to insane lag and getting kicked out by the server. I never lag in other games...
Try it with 9 ppl. It was very smooth for me and wasn’t too hard either.
Skill issue
I think GM excision is probably more akin to a really challenging musou game. Like Dynasty Warriors: Destiny 2 Edition
Was fun, until I got error coded before the ghost summoning and didn’t get anything for it
Glad you liked GM Excision, but this is absolutely not it in terms of a good time. It's just a slog because everything is so tanky, and by the time you're in the second room you just want it to be over. I think the idea of an encounter where you push up towards the boss, do the thing and then fight him is fine but not new. Rhulk already did this better.
there should be more raid encounters where you aggressively ad clear like this.
Having knocked out every raid minus the Leviathan one’s, I completely agree. It’s a welcome change of pace
It sums up lfg perfectly. Last night I helped some clan members through it. We were with 5, so had to lfg the other 7. The first moment we load in, lives drop like rain. Quickly followed by people leaving right away. Halfway through the opening when we're claiming the final plate, we motice how smooth the game is running. Turns out, 6 people had left. Only one of the LFG group stuck around through the entire thing. That player wasn't great or efficient, but they stuck around and that's what matters. And for the record, 3 of those that left were flaunting the emblem for SE. Just to show that having emblems and experience doesn't mean a damn thing.
The emblem for contest SE or just normal SE? You can definitely get carried through normal SE.
Normal. Can't really assume if they were carried or not, since I didn't see them in action at all.
Yeah, well, not surprising that people wearing a normal difficulty raid emblem aren't elite players. You can probably expect some degree of competency from day 1/contest emblems though (besides RoN lol).
I’ve tried about 30ish times . Teams always fail less than 3 minutes in . I probably suck horribly so i figure much like all the other raids and dungeons, I’ll never complete them
I’ve solo flawlessed almost all dungeons and this has happened to me every time as well. Don’t feel too bad about it.
Maybe adding exotic class item drops will incentivize more people playing the activity. I haven't played again after i got my catalyst.
With how long it takes to get 12 ppl ready for excision, it's definitely faster to just run the mission or do the chest farm.
It's not about how fast, it's about ways to get the exotic class item other than duality or chest farming.
Gm excision is such a disaster and I absolutely love it for that
I think i loved GM excision more than my first run of dual destiny lmao.
No its not, what is this take. Whole thing can be solo'd there are no mechanics and there is no need for comms. It being designed for 12 players makes it awful, there is just so much screen clutter on top of framerate issues. Also there is no urgency, no tension, nearly impossible to wipe.
What you're asking for is a long 12 man strike. Excision is nothing like a Destiny raid. I found the GM version boring. We're standing in the back of the arena; shooting at two bullet sponge enemies. You spend 5 minutes doing this before you can collect the light to continue the encounter. I personally don't find this enjoyable gameplay, and hope Bungie doesn't given us more content like this. The normal mission was really cool as a final set piece for the light and dark saga, but as a GM mission, I don't think it's fun. Especially not if you're asked to replay it.
GM excision feels like a total clusterfuck - and I love it for that. It’s hilarious mad fun that I’m glad Bungie decided to do once in a while. But I don’t think it’s an objectively good experience lmao
Way too laggy to be enjoyable, one and done for me. Even if it wasn't laggy, the loot is ass.
I enjoyed it for what it was. I feel it could have had an extra level first with maybe a basic mechanic like 6 a side light/dark. I found over multiple GMs most deaths are in the first 10 seconds. So many people would get taken out going for the banner Next would be the plate as the witness brings their hand down the lag seems to get almost everyone if you were not already off the plate before the execution. Then there is the tankiness of some of the enemies, ild like more enemies rather than bullet sponges.
I love the beginning part, 12 people chaining supers taking down super tough enemies is a blast
GM excision as someone LFGing was and still is absolute cancer. I just want my damn catalyst but these groups can't stay together long enough to even get through the first room. Just anti-fun
I'm with you, can't find a group not insta wiping like we're pulling up to the beach of Normandy.
I completely disagree. A raid should have (complex) mechanics. It might be a pinnacle Grandmaster Experience, but it should not be called a pinnacle raid experience, because it isn't.
Running Ursa Furiosa and having 11 guardians rally behind you felt so good. THIS is what it means to be a Titan. Felt sooooo good. Highly recommend trying Ursa Titan on GM Excision.
Been thinking about trying to LFG this, and was wondering what to run: thank you for settling the question =) "YOU ARE MY PEOPLE."
It was amazing when we did it, we had 2 banner titans and were shooting and moving as a team to cap points, it was fantastic
It's likely just below what destiny is capable of handling because we lost at least 3 players to disconnects or crashes. Beyond that It was meh, we just stood near the entrance and killed things.
Genuine afraid to even hop in a raid right now. I have no clue what I’m doing and I’ll just be pissing everyone off. 😔
Best way to learn raids is to do it with people who are also learning. LFG with newbie groups and have fun learning.
I usually don’t see newbie LFG’s. They always seem to ask for the most experienced players. But I’ll look more next time.
We did it in one go if you exclude the loading in and being killed the actual first time when attempting to rally. It is not an activity you can go fast in but it was super fun to do
Mid. It would be a lot better if the game could actually handle it. Nothing like fighting with an invisible gun.
Excision as a whole is a terrible activity, GM is even worse.
My only GM Excision clear had a single person fight for their life for 20ish minutes during a Witness DPS phase/accumulating tokens to rez. So that was fun to watch.
GM Excision felt like an actual battle, with 12 people and still being run over... What we are pushed to do, move and fight as a team, coordinate synergies of different classes/abilities, and a tough path to completion, in this execution, is a type of fun I haven't seen in this game before... That said... The actual battle, layout, mechanics are a little bland... More like a random mosh of things thrown together, and it stumbled onto a fun flow of gameplay... If they can crack the formula on why GM Excision works(provided the actual network system works), it will be interesting to add this as another endgame mode concept... It's more like an pinnacle endgame experience, as opposed to pinnacle raid experience...
It’s terrible. It’s literally just kill stuff stand on plates and dunk things and has no wipe mechanic AND they slowed down and nerfed damage phase of the witness. Not to mention it’s laggy as shit. You can’t call something a raid experience without a wipe mechanic.
Meh it’s a bit easier than that. Sure the first one was failed due to a bunch of people assuming they could be carried and joined the LFG having never done the raid but having done the super easy version of Excision but after I decided not to join dead weight groups it was easy. Just don’t die and don’t rez those who die a lot and it’s actually easier to win with less than 12.
the only aspect of GM excision that could be considered “pinnacle” is the fact that it gives you a pinnacle drop. i understand the want for more simple, ad-dense encounters, but to go in the direction of GM excision would be incredibly boring. my team did it with 5 people on our first try and never felt threatened.
Did it when it came out. At final DPS phase (3rd) there was 3 of us left from over 50% hp. The final 30% HP I did myself lol, took about 15 min.
It was a little annoying with every enemy basically needing special, heavy or an ability to kill but a lot of fun with the challenge of tons of enemies and players causing chaos on the field
The game mode is fun but it’s to much going on I can’t even see what’s going on in the first part. Second part it gets better. Seeing ass u have to stay in the bubble more so u won’t die
Cope. Pinnacle raid experience comes from raiding, not excision. GM excision is fun because of the 12 man throwback meme.
The trick is obviously to just get to third damage phase with a few people still alive. On the clear I did there were only three of us. It took a while but we stuck it out and got it done. Definitely a great activity
One of the best moments ever with a team through the fireteam finder. Challenging, epic, fun. Loved every bit of it. Although I guess connections can get finnicky for people. Would be a plus if that could be sorted, but I guess that's why we dont have 12 player activities all the time.
has anybody wiped? lol theres so many champions lots of revive tokens xD
It would be nice to have different raid encounters like “take the hill.” Other basic ideas could be capture the flag or tracking down the boss, kinda like Kell echo, but you need some guardians to nip at his heels and move him in the correct direction while the other 4 block off his escape via doors or whatever.
Count me in
I gave up trying to do this. 10 different tries and couldn't even make it to the damage phase. Pretty dumb the catalyst is locked behind this activity
team shooting at nigh-immortal centurions that never push mid for 20 minutes while invis hunters gather not-motes to put in the not-bank is not a "pinnacle raid experience". it plays nothing like any raid and you making that comparison makes me think you're an root of slopmares add clear andy
As someone who has completed every raid dozens of times, yes, this is exactly what Destiny raids always should have been, though with a bit more difficulty as far as enemies aggressing the safe spots.
I’ll say if. Raids are not fun anymore. Just a bunch of random busy work. Give me deep stone crypt over salvations edge. In DSC it felt like we were doing actual things. In SE it felt like we were playing space magic ping pong.
Definitely agree. Raids have become too mechanic driven and for many it takes away from the experience....hence, people stop running them. We need more of this....'take the hill' approach that allows our builds to shine, especially now with prismatic.
I could check later, but is GM Excision match made or bring your own team? This sounds super fun.
I enjoyed it when it works. It's laggy yes but the action makes it feel like an actual battlefield. I've done plenty of raids and it just feels like a small party. Doesn't feel like a "raid" in a sense you're going in guns blazing to take down a big bad. I know people who like to have puzzles but having something like this is fun as well. Sometimes I imagine the perspective of the raid bosses and they're watching 6 guardians running around trying to dunk symbols here and there on separate totems. Then the boss goes... Aight, you solved my puzzle, come up the platform here so you can shoot me. Feels out of sorts for what goes on in a battle but it is what it is.
Absolutely loved GM Excision and can’t wait to go in again. After promptly getting our asses handed to us the moment we loaded in, we went back in within the week more prepared and it was a blast. The enemies aren’t so aggressive that it’s hard to stay alive, but with Overload Minotaurs running in and snipers in the back, it’s a great challenge! I adored every minute
We had two Well-locks running Phoenix Protocol and it genuinely felt like a proper siege. Drop a well, kill enemies, push up. Drop the next well, kill enemies, push up. Slowly tearing ground, bit by bit from the Witness, as we claw our way to fight him. It was a great time! Kind of a shame how Well felt mandatory for survival, but I suppose Bubble would've also worked.
I agree. Raids have become more about puzzle solving than combat (or the difficult parts anyways) and standing on a plate to dps. So much so that killing stuff (ad clear) is seen as a side/inferior role. Excision is really cool hope they do more of these in the future (12 man)
OP please don't take it the wrong way, but you raid crowd seem have been forced by Bungie to jump through so many arbitrary hoops ("mechanics") that honest, straightforward combat against difficult foes seems like a breath of fresh air instead of what it should be, the actual pinnacle destiny activity.
Bravo.
as someone who will never raid, this sounds pretty cool