Okay, so I have a level 34 Hunter but I have only ever finished the Vault of Glass once on normal and have never finished Crota. The main reason for this is I never have had a full fireteam. I have 2 friends that I play with and each of them have a level 34 Warlock and 34 Titan respectively. We have pretty much all the best guns and armor that aren't raid gear. Is it even worth it for us to try and get 3 more people to complete these raids? I would like to see Crota's end before The Taken King comes out but are all the loot drops obsolete at this point? Or especially with the new raid coming soon, would it even be worth our time and effort? I wouldn't mind getting fatebringer and some other raid guns but I just don't know.

I think Crota is worth doing at least once just to see it. Even if you cheese it, the environment is interesting to look at. Also, I'm not 100% sure if The Last Word is raid specific but if it is that is a hand cannon totally worth having. Also the sniper, Black Hammer, is useful for PvE.

I have yet to even do VOG on hard to try and get those raid specific weapons, but I know personally I still see people using Vex Mythoclast all the time in PvP.

You could even try joining in at the end of Crota by using DestinyLFG just to get the drops. I know when I was doing Crota weekly, it was common for people to drop out before beating Crota, and always easy to replace them with players on LFG.

Vault of glass - Fatebringer, Vision of Confluence, Vex Mythoclast

Crota - Black hammer, Hunger of crota.

Some of these weapons are arguably the best PvE weapons in the game. Plus, there's the chance to get exotics.

And most importantly - you can mess around in a strike and still make it. A raid, however, really tests your skills (not so much when you're lvl 34, but still). The satisfaction of beating a hard raid is pretty great, even without the need for rewards.

I only finished Vault of Glass once and got Vision of Confluence my first try, and while it's most interesting perks apply specifically to that raid it proves invaluable on any weekly that involves solar shields. With its range and accuracy, if I ever get ahold of some etheric light and upgrade it to 365 it'd easily be the second best primary in the game next to The Devil You Know hand cannon IMO.

But I don't have any friends that regularly play the game, and for me Destiny has always been best as a "listen to podcasts and run around grinding experience/loot" game, I'll probably be level 32/31/30 with my three characters forever but I don't really mind. It's about the gameplay for me, I just take 2-4 week breaks every once in a while.

As someone who has all the weapons from both raids my usual loadout would be quite different if they didn't contain raid weapons. Those two raids are absolutely worth it to run not only for the gear but the experience as well. Also I was in the same position as you around the launch of The Dark Below and I found out about LFG sites. It has literally changed my Destiny experience. I went from wishing I could finish VOG for the first time to tons of clears on both raids. I can't speak for everyone but in the many months I have used LFG I have had only a handful of bad experiences. So jump in and let us know how it goes.

For some more backstory. I have Vision of Confluence at 365 damage. It is a beast. We are fairly certain we can do the normal VoG and Crota with our 3 man fireteam but it's those hard mode raids that we will need the full 6. We play on PS4 and myself and 1 of my friends have 365 Gjallahorn's. We mainly just want Fate Bringer, Black Hammer and Vex Mythoclast. I'm just torn on if we should work on the Raids or work on the 35 Skolas PoE as we still haven't beaten the 35 yet. We have gotten so close twice but some random bs has happened and ruined it for us lol.

@holycrapitsadam: I have beaten Skolas 7 times already and I am no longer interested in fighting him. The rewards for POE 35 in my humble opinion are complete garbage. If I were you I would weigh the possible rewards and whichever one is more enticing I choose that one.

@jamrockzx7r said:

I've heard this too from players that have done it multiple times. The armor seems really specific and not worthwhile as well as the weapons. The Queen's weapons (Her Benevolence etc) can be gotten by doing lvl 28 POE, and those are more valuable imho than the legendaries you get for the harder difficulties. You can get exotic bounties to drop, but for the work you put in, I don't know if those are worth it. I've seen people say that the shotgun and the sniper are cool, but you have to put work in and depend on a lot of RNG to get the bounty to drop in the first place.

I think the only other reason to do POE is to get etheric light, but that can be gotten in other ways, nightfall strikes and grinding Iron Banner. Frankly, I would rather play Iron Banner to rank 3 for some etheric light than do a high level POE, but that's just me. :/

Raids are worth doing if you haven't seen the content since they are the most interesting part of Destiny. I haven't done them, I know they're fun and challenging based on people I trust talking about them, I just don't have the time to devote to it or a good friends list. Plus, I have managed to stay pretty much on par (I'm level 33) with people who have done them, just by doing single player content and crucible, so it almost feels like they're unnecessary now. Unless you want the weapons of course, but I find that the weapons I use the most aren't even the "viable" ones that people keep yammering on about. I did my last Iron Banner with The Fulcrum (FWC hand cannon), Vestian Dynasty (single player HOW reward) and Truth (exotic purchased from Xur) and I did pretty well. :)

Either way, they are good to do because it is some of most unique content in the game. But I personally wouldn't grind them for gear.

If I got Bungie's non-answers regarding weapon progression right, old purples will be outdated as of the next expansion. So some of the best weapons in the game (raid weapons like fate bringer, black hammer and hunger of crota) might be outclassed by the new stuff.

Raids are still the best content in the game, much better designed than prison of elders and you can get good exotic drops out of them but they're not as useful as they use to be.

I came back to the game recently. Haven't touched a raid and went from level 25 on my Warlock to 34 in a few days. You don't need them, at least in regard to light level.

Raids are completely useless for hitting 34. If that's your goal then you are out of luck. But, Raids are so much better than any other content in Destiny it's laughable. Get a group, or grab some of the guys from here if you haven't done both Raid's yet, they are well worth your time. And honestly, if you have a decent Sherpa, not even a Hard Raid should take more than an hour for each one if everyone is at the level cap or higher, which is 30 for VoG and 33 for Crota's End. The weapons to look out for would be VoG: Vision of Confluence, Fatebringer, Corrective Measure, Praetorian Foil, Found Verdict, and Vex Mythoclast; Crota's Normal: Black Hammer and Swordbreaker; Crota Hard: Word of Crota and Fang of Ir Yut. Those are the weapons that routinely make it into my rotation even today. Swordbreaker is the only one of those I rarely use, and that's because I have both an awesome Void Judgement and Matador. Vision of Confluence, Fatebringer, Vex Mythoclast, Found Verdict, and Black Hammer are 5 of the top 10 guns in Destiny PvE at 365.

So, if you ask me, doing the Raids is still very much worth it. Those guns leveled up make many of the hardest challenges in Destiny pretty easy.

@jadegl: You can get the Elder Cipher (Exotic Bounty) to drop from POE 34 and depending on the week 34 can be super easy. In fact all 3 of my Elder Ciphers have dropped from 34.

Nightfalls are not an efficient way to earn etheric light but PVP sure is. People who play PVP extensively along with PVE have more etheric light than uses for it.

While you are proof that you don't "need" all the most popular raid weapons to be successful in Destiny it sure helps. Plus, Destiny is a loot game and if you aren't chasing the best loot what are you doing?! All jokes aside, I will continue to beat the drum for people to use LFG sites. It changed the way I view and play Destiny. I went from trying many times and never finishing VOG normal to having a combined 99 raid completions between the two raids both hard and normal. I now have a robust friends list filled with 20-40 people on at any given time and most playing Destiny. You will always come across the occasional jerk on there but all in all you find not only extremely nice people but very skilled people on there the vast majority of the time.

If you're only okay at PVP getting etheric light out of it isn't efficient at all. :P You can get 2-6 from Iron Banner each month (two per character) and your only other source of PVP etheric light is Trials of Osiris and BOY I suck at Trials of Osiris. I don't think I've gotten a single win in my time with the mode. :P

@meatball said:

I've been getting it through Iron Banner and that is the best way for me, even as someone who isn't the best at PvP. The barrier to entry for Trials of Osiris is too darn high for me. :D

Man I just picked this up during the 50% off sale for xbone. I'm currently sitting at 22 and I'm sort of getting discouraged. From the looks of it I basically have to keep running the 22-24 strike until I get much better drops so that I can eventually raid. As a Diablo player this normally wouldnt be a big deal but I've been doing the random strike and its always the same one. I think I've done the 3 lieutenants like 7 times in a row.

Is there something I'm missing? I do pretty ok in PVP despite not having a Thorn which almost seems to be a prereq to being successful in pvp.

@boxxybae: Just use the your Marks you are getting for gear and play Iron Banner this week. Obviously equip the best gear that drops along the way to get to the highest strike playlist that rewards you the most the fastest. I think a lot of the new Blue gear can take you to 29 by itself. You should be able to check what two pieces of gear Lord Salad Bar is selling at the top of the tower and buy the other two from vendors with either Vanguard Marks or Crucible Marks. Level up and buy an Exotic from Xur for coins or grab one or several of his Engrams this week with Motes of Light, then level that up with daily bounties. Then run 32 PoE this week for the helmet which is 42 light and use the two Ethiric Light from Iron Banner on the non Exotic and Helmet from PoE. Then bam, you are 34, max level, this week. Normally I'm not a huge Iron Banner fan, but it should be extremely easy to achieve this week specifically because of Iron Banner, just don't jump in there until you are at least 30, but that should be easy to achieve by buying Vendor Gear. If you already have an Exotic that will save you a lot of time. Seriously, this should take you more than 15 hours of Destiny this week. But make sure to play Iron Banner later in the week as those Boons you can buy for a mote of light can drastically increase progression later in the week. I leveled to 3 on 2 characters on Monday of last week in about a half hour each.

Another suggestion if you plan on playing a lot of Destiny (don't if you play less than 5 hours a week) is to create two extra characters the same class as you are, and then you can run events by gear swapping after you hit 20. It should only take 6 hours to level to 20 on a new character and then you can run every event from now on 3x per week, Raid's, Nightfalls, Weekly, etc.

@meatball: You are not wrong but as someone who does not play PVP at all I am at a much bigger disadvantage but albeit a self imposed one. :-) Also in PVP at least you can see where you can actually obtain etheric light. In nightfall you have zero guarantee.

In late game Destiny you shouldn't be relying on drops at all to increase your light level. Ideally, you need to focus on your Vanguard/Crucible rank or your rank in any of the individual factions. Then, once you have the appropriate number of Marks earned, and once you are of a high enough rank, you can simply buy the gear from the vendors that you need to access more of the higher-level content.

That still means you are grinding bounties and strikes, but it gives you a better endgoal direction than praying for Destiny to drop gear for you.

@jamrockzx7r:I wouldn't worry about it, unless you are a boss at PvP or have an incredibly talented team, Trails isn't worth the headache (coming from someone who loves Trials, and thinks Elimination is by far the best Crucible game type, but is just Ok at PvP). You can still obtain plenty of Etheric Light guaranteed from 34's and 35's if you are talented enough to complete Skolas and have a group that is solid. Most of the LF Central guys I play with have plenty of Etheric Light for the best weapons just running 34's. Also, I've done 3 Nightfall's per week since HoW launched, with zero Etheric Light from that...

@jadegl: Iron Banner is a solid way to obtain Etheric Light if you are desperate for it, but if you have hit 33 or 34 already, the 34 PoE Challenge is pretty easy, should only take a half hour if your team is solid and you research the boss fight beforehand. And 32 is a cakewalk for anyone above 31, which will grant you an armor piece each week to help level you to 34.

Oh, trust me I know. I have earned plenty of etheric light but need a bunch more to upgrade every single thing I have. This is specifically for my second and third characters which isn't super necessary but its there so I do it. As I stated earlier I no longer do POE 35. I think the rewards are bad and in my opinion isn't worth the time investment. So to be specific all of my etheric light have come from 34 & 35 but nowadays I only get them from 34. Funny enough I have gotten etheric light twice from nightfall but it feels weird to just get one etheric light. Either way its not guaranteed so some folks may never see it. Who knows how Bungie will pervert the etheric light system when TTK drops. You may not even need it anymore.

@jamrockzx7r: I think your probably right about them dropping Etheric Light. Not sure what would keep people playing if Day 1 they can add Etheric Light to their Armor and Weapons and be max again. Then there would be no reason to Raid on the new Raid, which would be sad by all accounts. I'm sure there are lots of things they can do this time around, like make a new Etheral Light or something that functions similar but levels you to say 38 if cap is 40, and Raid gear drops at 38 but can be upgraded with 1 Etheral Light to 40 (60 Light) on each piece. It would also be cool if 4 of the Taken King missions rewarded you with Random Stat Armor with 48 Light, or Level 36 gear, so that everyone can hit that, with the Raid being Level 37 Normal and 40 Hard. They could also guarantee 1 Etheral Light per Normal Raid, and 2 per Hard. Maybe even allow The Speaker to trade 5 Etheric Light for 1 Etheral Light.

But, I guess we will wait and see, I just hope they don't backtrack on the gains they have made to the way Destiny's Progressions system works with The Taken King. I have just now gotten to the point where I have all of my Armor/Weapons to 365 and 42 Light, and I play almost daily. One thing that may push me to quit though is if they continue the BS Delta Scaling because they don't know how to properly create difficult challenges so they have to cheat.

.

Sounds good. We will have to wait and see how it pans out. You are right Bungie has made tremendous strides is streamlining progression with the gear and weapons and it would be a shame to see them ruin it. I am not worried though because as you have seen this community will bring out pitchforks at the drop of a hat. Most of the times for good other times not so much. Also the you are one level below the "hard" raids is old and tired. If you introduce real complexity and team work into the raid it will stand the test of time.

I really think (and hope) that current legendary weapons and armor will not be upgradable to the new power levels in Taken King. Don't get me wrong, I love Fatebringer and Black Hammer as much as anyone, but it's become stale just using the same handful of weapons all the time. It's kind of lame that a game all about getting new stuff has devolved to a point where everyone is ignoring the majority of the new stuff in favor of things we've all had for 6+ months. I admit I would miss not using these weapons anymore, but I'd much rather leave them behind in favor of new things, especially after seeing the direction they're going in the Taken King with the gun manufacturers and new weapon aesthetics. This video pretty much mirror's my thoughts.

EDIT: Oh, yeah delta scaling is dumb, that needs to stop. Hopefully they rethink it after how trivial hard mode Crota's End became after everyone could actually reach the level of the enemies. Hard mode Vault of Glass is still much more challenging than Crota's End, even as a level 34, because the difficulty was based on encounter design, not enemy level.

At first blush I sincerely disagree with your first sentence. While I am not totally against leaving stuff behind I think Destiny isn't your typical loot game and you have to change your thinking. In my opinion the answer isn't just leave them behind. Bungie needs to make sure the weapons are better so you want to use them over the old stuff. If there were cooler and or better rocket launchers than Gjallarhorn I would gladly not use it as much. They don't even need to be more powerful just cooler, different and actually useful. From the weapons I have used in HOW (aside from some trials weapons) I think they are terrible. If TTK weapons are terrible as well I will stick to my old stuff. They don't need to worry about leaving stuff behind they just need to make the new stuff good then you wont have the problem of everyone using the old stuff. This isn't Diablo where your getting new loot every second. There has never been a game like Destiny therefore new rules need to apply. I personally think Bungie doesn't have a clear vision of how they want weapons to work in Destiny. I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. They are learning as they go and this is all uncharted territory. Yes many elements are similar to things we know but they're in the confines of a very different game.

The problem lies in the fact that, as was mentioned in the video, you run into the issue of power creep. Fatebringer is essentially the best PVE hand cannon that could possibly exist, so in your scenario the only way to dethrone it would be to make something even better. Then, PVE content becomes trivial because people have a ridiculously powerful gun or conversely Bungie is forced to make all content harder to counteract that power creep and then people that don't have the weapon are punished because that content is more of a struggle for them.

A situation where Bungie is forced to create weapons better than things that already exist (some of which could already be argued are overpowered in PVE) creates a dangerous situation for PVE difficulty balance going forward, and in my mind the best solution is simply move forward with the weapon sandbox and start leaving that year 1 stuff behind. Just as we saw with Dark Below, people will still totally use some of those old weapons and some will even still be viable at old power levels, but at some point the past has to be the past.

I understand the power creep problems Datto talked about, and I don't entirely disagree. But I think Destiny is one of those games that your accumulation of gear, especially as small as Vault Space is currently, needs to continue to respect players progression since Day 1, as well as address the power creep. I think the number 1 way to address both is increasing the Vault Space again by adding 3-4 extra pages of Vault Space. That should help with their memory issues on old consoles as well as increasing space. If I can store my old weapons as collector items, then slowly decreasing the effectiveness of my heavy hitting weapons by 10% per expansion until they are just collectors items is fine. Because the first month of The Taken King, if weapon max is now 400 (my hope), then those 365 weapons are still viable until new one's replace them. Even at 465 (hopefully DLC 5's cap, or year 2 cap) Fatebringer, Vision, Blackhammer, etc are only doing slightly under 30% reduced damage, which is enough time to feel satisfied with putting those old greats to bed. But I better be able to keep those as a memento so to speak, and 36 weapons slots is not enough to properly do that. As long as my Exotic collection lives on, both Armor and Weapons, I can live with a system like that, as long as they don't keep gimping Legendaries just for the sake of gimping their abilities, because let's face it, the new weapons from House of Wolves would be great if they didn't hamper them with awful unchangeable perk combinations. Like Wolves Leash, the base stats on it with Arc like mine are amazing, it would literally be my new favorite weapon if all of the perks weren't butts and useless. Diciplinarian should have been like Hive Disruptor with a real perk like Firefly. That would make it go from awful to top tier, it's just bad design in an attempt to gimp the weapon with good base stats. By the way, I'm still kind of in love with the fire rate on it, so I'm hoping an awesome Scout down the line uses it's base stats.

Another thing they can't do again is change the system for progression with every DLC drop. That is getting old. Refine your system, and nail that down as how it works from now on. Stop making it a mystery how progression will work to get more Twitch reveal views a month out. That's getting old real quick.

@ll_exile_ll:

I edited my previous statement to better reflect my point but for some reason it didn't go through before you replied so I will try to make it quick. I think HOW weapons are pretty bad with the exception of some trials weapons. So while TTK weapons look cool if they're functionally worse than what I have why bother. Make the weapons better!! Which doesn't specifically mean more powerful. Better more interesting perks, as well as highly specialized weapons would help with that. In my opinion power creep is only an issue if the developers let it become one. Veterans shouldn't have any problems keeping up with changes and new players shouldn't be in our activities anyway until they come up in rank. They could make everything light level 100 two years from now and have the weapons and enemies adjusted accordingly. If I want to use my maxed Fatebringer and Gjallarhorn because they are still what works then let me. I think the problem is they goofed and made the initial weapons too good and they have been trying to reel it in since then. If Bungie doesn't give me new weapons that are effective, cool and fun to use I will dismantle immediately and use my old stuff. Let me move on naturally not forced. They forcefully removed auto rifles from everyone and you see how that went. Destiny is a different kind of game I think new rules need to be applied.

@ll_exile_ll: @hestilllives19: Power creep would definitely be an issue but if I'm forced to give up a full set of great elemental primaries for let's say, underwhelming guns like the ones you get in PoE 34 then F that.

From all the new perks I saw in the taken king, none seem special in an useful kind of way. It's highly situational stuff like "better reload speed and weapon handling when 2 or more enemies are near", "bonus damage when 3 enemies are near" "boost range and handling when health is low" or "this weapon grows more accurate as your health gets lower".

Those are bad perks. Stuff to be re rolled into straight stat modifications to min/max your gun or actual perks like firefly, head seeker, proximity detonation, crowd control, etc. On top of the bad perks introduced in HoW I worry about the new legendary selection. Especially if we're forced into it.

My point exactly!

@hestilllives19:

"Another thing they can't do again is change the system for progression with every DLC drop. That is getting old. Refine your system, and nail that down as how it works from now on. Stop making it a mystery how progression will work to get more Twitch reveal views a month out. That's getting old real quick."

I completely agree! It is insane that we are never sure if each expansion will invalidate our work.

Will trade soul for fatebringer...

It's a fairly common drop, just keeping running VoG hard and you'll get one. I've had multiple runs where two dropped for me at the same time.

@ll_exile_ll: It's not fair... I've sharded 3 Mythoclasts last month...

It might be kind of useless in the next expansion. I've heard they're putting firefly into the hand canon perk pool which is the thing that makes fate bringer exceptional. They've also been hinting at the fact that there won't a way to upgrade old legendaries.

So yeah, you might be able to buy a fate bringer with better damage at a vendor in a couple of months

@cbyrne: Yeah, Mythoclast seems to be a much more common drop than Fatebringer. At least 10 of my Exotic shards in my storage of 50 or so are former Mythoclasts (pretty sure there are 15 former No Land Beyonds in there as well). Good luck out there on the hunt, if you do it enough the odds start to turn in your favor, though that may not be how you feel, but I guarantee you the night you get it will now be one of the best nights of Destiny. I still remember when I finally got Blackhammer and Hawkmoon since those two were my White Whales. Not sure I've done a Crota Normal without getting Blackhammer now; Destiny, you cheeky bastard.

Two chances for Exotics in both Raids. In addition to that:

Vault of Glass

• Vision of Confluence; fantastic PvE Scout Rifle with Solar damage. Only rivaled by Fang of Ir Yut and The Scholar.
• Fatebringer; fantastic PvE Hand Cannon with Arc damage. Top of its class.
• Corrective Measure; fantastic PvP Machine Gun for its high stability and rate of fire with decent impact. Also a real Oracle killer in the Vault of Glass.
• Found Verdict; fantastic PvE Shotgun with Arc damage. Takes down Captains like no other. Also very decent in PvP, though outmatched by some other PvP focused Shotguns.
• Vex Mythoclast; Strong Exotic primary with Solar damage. Preferred by many in PvP.

Crota's End

• Fang of Ir Yut; fantastic PvE Scout Rifle with Arc damage. Only rivaled by Vision of Confluence and The Scholar.
• Word of Crota; if you discount the Trials of Osiris Adept weapons, the only Void primary worth using when there is Void Burn.
• Black Hammer; next to Ice Breaker, the most powerful Sniper Rifle in the game. And even yet it has much more stability allowing you to hit more rapidly, eventually dealing more dps than Ice Breaker. Extremely useful on bosses as you never have to reload. Unlike Ice Breaker it's a Legendary, which means you don't give up an Exotic Slot to use it. Since Ice Breaker was mostly used on bosses anyway, Black Hammer has more or less replaced it.
• Song of Ir Yut; amazing in one specific case and overlooked by many. With Epic modifier, Knights have Arc shields. It just so happens this Machine Gun has Arc damage and it ignores the Knight's Wall of Darkness too, in addition to dealing more damage to Hive Majors. Needless to say, this actually turns out to be a beast in Nightfalls with Arc Burn on Hive enemies. Extremely specific to be sure, still worth getting for it.

VoG weapons are undoubtedly better overall than CE weapons, but CE weapons are still great and the Exotic drop chance is higher on CE.

In short, yes, it is absolutely still worth doing Raids.

@hestilllives19 this might not be a great time to tell you I get very disappointed when I see Hawkmoon drop. I have 5 of them currently. I like the weapon, so I use it in Crucible to level it up and then dismantle it for the extra shard. I honestly get more Hawkmoon drops than I can level them up and dismantle them at this point.

@zevvion: Yeah, when Hawkmoon finally dropped it was the most excited my team has ever heard me, like most people first getting Gjallarhorn (that name looks mispelled everytime I type it). I had a Gjallarhorn on every character before Hawkmoon finally dropped. The only guns I don't have now are the new Legendaries from HoW. I'd take a Solar Hand Cannon and that's all I'd care about since I got a Void Wolves Leash. As far as armor goes I just need the Bones of Eao for my Hunter. Pretty much wrapping up all of the stuff possible before The Taken King. A lot of the Central guys have been playing Diablo 3 since we are now just waiting on Taken King to drop.

@hestilllives19: Yeah, same here. I have most of the stuff in the game, including the stuff I don't actually use. I also wouldn't mind a Solar Hand Cannon. Preferably Jewel of Osiris, most likely. Since a good roll on the PoE one is probably not going to happen (will end up getting Shank burn) and the base stats are better. Also wouldn't mind replacing my Word of Crota with something better, though it gets the job done well enough anyways.

I actually prefer the PoE hand cannon to the Osiris one for PVE. In terms of stats they're very similar, same impact/rate of fire archetype, only difference is the Six Dreg Pride has slightly less stability than the Jewel of Osiris. However, even with it's one wasted perk (mine has "chance to suppress Fallen Captains" for its second perk) Army of One more than makes up for it. The Jewel's Icarus and Third Eye are completely wasted in PVE, whereas Army of One on Six Dreg Pride charges your grenade and melee cooldowns incredibly fast. There's no PVE scenario I can see where I would go with my solar Jewel over my solar Six Dreg Pride.

I do them both every week, with all three of my characters... so yes? Although they really don't take that long now. VoG takes about an hour, and we can get through Crota in like 15 minutes.

Black Hammer actually does more damage per shot since it has a higher impact stat then Ice Breaker. But only slightly more. Ice Breaker is still the overall most useful Sniper for PVE, but if you are good with a sniper and can continuously crit with the Hammer, it allows you to open up your exotic slot for something like Gjallarhorn.

@ll_exile_ll: Opinions. I think Army of One is useless. There is no content that I solo where a faster grenade of melee recharge would help even a tiny bit. Even counting things I do cooperatively, I usually sit on my grenade and melee cooldowns before I need to use them anyways, not to mention it is much harder to proc in co-op. At least Third Eye is useful and Icarus, though not amazing by any means, is somewhat underrated. It makes crits more likely while in the air, which is something you'll do with Airborne on (unless Grounded is also on; stupid nullifiers).

Not a huge difference though, you are right. Preferences.

@liquidprince: That's right, I keep forgetting that. There was a time where I was starved for Radiant Shards and had Black Hammer not fully upgraded and my Ice Breaker did more damage. I keep thinking Ice Breaker does more damage because of it (whenever I don't think about it).

I just got back in from not playing for a long while and yes, some of the gear is really good, also Crota looks really neat, it's worth seeing once.

I'm going to be extremely pissed if they don't allow ascension of older gear in TTK, which seems like it's going to be the case. They should let every weapon in the game be useful indefinitely and if they're worried that people won't use the new stuff... Well... Make better new stuff. If you want people to stop using Fatebringers, make something as useful as Fatebringers avaialble... Don't just force people to move on.

Almost all of the weapons I regularly use (outside of exotics) are raid weapons. It's especially important for primaries because the only primaries with elemental damage come from the hard mode raids (except probably Skolas which I haven't run much).