As a lot of current Destiny players know, The Dreaming City is a very fluid and ever changing place. Since the World's First Completion of Last Wish, Forsaken's Raid, it has changed every single week, culminating in this week's Final Curse state where players can see a drastically different Dreaming City from a visual standpoint with giant Taken Blights all over the skybox and a sort of upward flowing "Taken Rain" misting through the entire area. Some pretty significant things also happen story wise when players finish their Weekly Offering, but if you want that spoiled I'll let you watch the linked video. Outside of these changes, with each week's cycle since that first clear, Petra Venj has had a new story mission, and after this very likely 3rd and final one, a hidden encounter was unlocked for players who completed them all. That mission can be found in a rather hidden room called the Confluence in The Dreaming City's underground level, and players will there find a mission Activity labeled a Dungeon called The Shattered Throne. And like many hidden missions before it like, it is very much tied to an Exotic Weapon, this time, the Wish Ender Exotic Bow.

The Shattered Throne Dungeon itself is not to be taken lightly. It's more or less a 3 player Raid Lair, with a Raid light Puzzle, Jumping Puzzle, Crota Lamps like Thrall escape, a Dark Souls style platforming section with Ads that will push you off a tiny walkway, a major Boss Encounter, another Jumping Puzzle, and then the actual final Boss Fight. All of that and the entire thing and all enemies are set to 590 Power Level. Needless to say I had no clue what I was getting myself into last night with two other 370+ very skilled players, and this still took us 2:21:55 to complete. From the despair of never thinking we would beat it last night, to destroying the final Boss, it was one heck of a ride and I highly recommend it. Dungeon's are exactly the type of content Destiny needs going forward, and this is an incredible first showing of that.

When you start to add it up... The best Campaign in Destiny's history (at least in most players eyes), 4 of the best Strikes in Destiny's history, Gambit as the first PvEvP content, 2 entire Destinations with one being The Dreaming City which is a full End Game patrol zone, a pretty satisfying new wave based Activity in Blind Well, an entire End Game Arc to the Campaign, Last Wish being one of the most complicated and fulfilling Raids in the history of Destiny, The Dreaming City seeing major changes post Raid completion, a multitude of hidden secrets and Quest objective that rotate on a weekly basis, and then this launch of Destiny's first Dungeon... Destiny PvE has never been better.

I'm not going to say it's without it's faults. I have some serious reservations about the Power Leveling system in play for Forsaken and think the post 500 grind is way too much, especially in that 520-550 range when you can't quite do End Game content yet, but you started to hit 2nd and 3rd Softcaps (see this). Note: After writing this, I don't think I'm stressing enough how serious my reservation are about the current Power Level situation.I think it's the #1 problem with Forsaken right now, and it's preventing a lot of players only willing to put in 5, 10, or even 15 hours a week into Destiny from seeing what is truly great about Forsaken. Now at 582 (9/25), I'm not worried about hardcore players like myself as much as friends of mine. It's going to both take them a long time to get Raid ready, and they may never get a chance to experience things like the new Dungeon, or ever get settled in this DLC at max Power Level, which is nothing short of a tragedy. Public Space Activities that allow you to instance with random players also need to allow you to match friends on purpose, which has been a requested feature all the back as far as Court of Oryx in The Taken King. It's a serious hindrance to Activities such as Blind Well and Escalation Protocol, which are fantastic Activities. The absence of Faction Rallies and Trials of Osiris are also particularly troubling to me, but I hope those Activities will return, and better than ever come December.

That's where I stand on Destiny 2 Forsaken right now. It's easily the best the franchise has ever been from a PvE standpoint minus a huge glaring Power Leveling issue that I hope gets rectified soon. What do you guys think? How has Forsaken been for you?

Damn work, I need to be grinding.

Malfeasence and Wish Ender Quests to do.

I'm only 540 power so I'm not gonna attempt the Shattered Throne yet but I am super excited to try it.

I hope they do more "3 man RAID" style dungeons/events.

I'm excited to try all this stuff but I hate how high level all this is. I'm 525 light right now so I won't be able to do any of this stuff for quite some time.

Seeing all these other players already at 600 light blows my mind. I don't know how they do it.

I also don't check Reddit everyday so I have no idea what I'm doing in the Dreaming City. There are so many hidden and cryptic things which on one hand is cool but on the other hand is a great way to ensure that a lot of players don't see some of this content. I wish it held my hand just a little bit more.

I just to the daily and weekly milestones to get powerful gear and then I am just sitting there waiting for the reset.

I'm getting drops at about 514 and still haven't seen The Dreaming City or any of the end game content that people talk about. I'm having a great time but the grind is real.

Just an FYI, today is the final day to do Shattered Throne for 3 weeks. It will only be available during Week 3 of the Curse state, so we won't see it again for another few weeks. So get in your first run if you can, or squeeze in your 2nd and 3rd runs if you've already completed it and are running multiple characters. Or if you are an insane person, get in your solo and solo deathless runs. Personally, I'll never even try those. It was hard enough to do with 2 teammates all 3 times.

I do want to talk about a few things people here and on Discord have discussed about it. Shattered Throne is 590, and that is really rough and pretty much requires 565+ Power Level, and really I wouldn't recommend under 575 PL unless you are just a top notch player (some of the 565's I've done it with struggled, and they are top tier PvE players). All I can say is you gotta keep grinding. The Leveling Guide that is pinned here is to help you out when it can and give guidance, but there is a lot of work to do. And make no mistake, going from 520-550 or anytime above 520 without doing any parts of the Raid is going to be all kinds of rough. But once you hit that 550 mark, the high tier Powerful Rewards finally start to open up, allowing you to make some meaningful grind upwards. If you haven't hit 520, the biggest advice few pieces of advice I can give are to get to The Dreaming City and join the GB Destiny Discord. I'd also normally tell players to join a GB Clan, but most of those are currently full, so it's kind of hard to give that advice right now. For those looking to find out more info on Shattered Throne or do it with others, please hit us up on Discord. We have been talking about it all week, and those who have hit 570ish have been doing it and Wish Ender together. Granted, there aren't a ton of us, but there are around 10 of us on PS4 and the same on PC, and I think a few on Xbox One. If you aren't there yet, you have 3 weeks to get to that point, and doing your weekly Powerful Reward Activities is best done with a group, so hit up those LFG channels on Discord for that. As far as the specific Activities go, I'll be updating the Leveling Guide today, and that should then include Shattering Throne and a few new updates, so make sure to check that out if you need to know how to do an Activity.

@hmoney001: “I need to be grinding” is where I kinda check out.

I’ve tried some Destiny 2 again (not the expansion, though), and while it’s improved from the mess they delivered a year ago, it didn’t take long to hit soft caps and realize that if I’m not down to slog, I’m probably not going to have a fulfilling time with Destiny 2.

I may get Forsaken if my friends get on board, but Destiny being truly good feels like a fleeting thing that comes around for a few weeks each year.

@curryspiced: I think the Cayde problem is that he’s the only character in the series. Nothing is fleshed out enough. Characters are vendors 99% of the time. When they do have a chance to shine, they’re typically poorly-written and listlessly-acted lines of dialog thrown over missions. Once in a great while, there’s a cut scene (which are usually solid). Once in a very, VERY great while someone appears in gameplay.

All the characters SEEM like they could be cool, they just don’t do them justice with the way Bungie handles stories, these days.