@jasonmasters: It's not. It's really fun. Best Raid they ever did, best leveling system they ever had and might I add: some of the better weapons we've seen yet. Other part was during Taken King and Vanilla (Vault of Glass).

@zevvion: Alright, thats good to hear. I'll probably get it on sale.

@jasonmasters: Honestly it's been pretty great. The story is pretty decent, albeit a bit short and feels like a few missions are missing between 4 & 5. The Plaguelands are a ton of fun and they've already fixed one of the major problems it had at launch with Archon's Forge. It's actually pretty fun now and very rewarding. The new Patrols were interesting. All of the Exotic Questlines were extremely satisfying, especially the hidden one within the Raid. It is easily the greatest Quest they have ever done within Destiny, and was extremely rewarding. The Raid itself is arguably the best Raid ever in Destiny, with incredibly satisfying encounters. The leveling system at launch was one of the biggest hindrances and since the latest patch it is extremely easy to outlevel the Normal Raid just by doing Heroic Strikes. There are a lot more ways than ever before in Destiny to reach Max Light of 400. While it may not be quite the scope that The Taken King was, it's also $10 cheaper, and I've easily already spend 150 hours into Rise of Iron. For $30 that's quite a bargain, and I haven't even hit 400 on one character yet, I'm still only 399 with 3 pieces left to obtain. Then I need to get my other characters to 400 and my ideal gear up to that point as well, not just my Raid set, my PvP gear as well. That's going to take me at least a couple more weeks. And I play a lot more than most. It is well worth the asking price, as it is honestly Destiny hitting on all cylinders at this point. Destiny will never be a perfect game, which is why you see complaints here and there from many of us. But many of these are 1% problems that do not effect the vast majority of players, things we obviously want fixed and hopefully Bungie will address, but they do not by any means insinuate that Rise of Iron is anything but a fantastic DLC.

Anyone doing the WOTH raid Tomorrow?

@hestilllives19: Fair enough.

@zevvion: Since we were talking about Skeleton Keys the other day I've seen a few several Reddit posts (example from today) about people's experience with Skeleton Keys. They seem to be rather consistent to the drop rates of Exotic Engrams from 3 of Coins, or roughly 1/8 for most people. With the average strike taking roughly 10 minutes that around 1hr 20min per Skeleton Key drop on average. In that same time you are likely to get 1 Exotic Engram as well. So 2 400LL quality upgrades, that is after you run another specific strike to get the loot in question, another 10 minutes. So about 1.5hrs per 2 upgrades. In other words, Skeleton Keys are still a really poor time investment for Light Leveling purposes, and not something I would waste time on unless I was looking for a specific piece only obtained from a specific strike, a chart with those items can be found here. I would focus on the Events that reward more frequent loot at 400, such as the Heroic Raid, Trials of Osiris, Iron Banner, Archon's Forge (Class Item/Ghost/Artifact), normal Crucible, and Nightfalls (if they are quick and easy). I would only do Strikes if nobody was on and I really wanted to play Destiny, it just isn't worth the time investment right now. Similar to finishing the Shaxx Weekly Bounties. 1 Reward isn't worth that much work, though with the Shaxx you can also get Crucible and Exotic's from 3 of Coins at the same time, so it's less of a waste of time. Just my 2 cents on Skeleton Keys right now. Use them if you have em, but don't waste time grinding them.

@jasonmasters: Not sure what system you are on or if you are waiting for a better sale, but it is on sale right now on PSN.

@hestilllives19: I'm LL373 trying to reach LL385, can I do this with normal crucible at reasonable rate? Repeating the strike play-list is soul crushing for me and coming across people doing Archon's Forge is too inconsistent during my play-hour.

@hestilllives19: The Raid yields by far the best loot since it seems to have a much higher chance of being 5-8 levels above your current. I was 396 when I entered it and it yielded nothing below 400. People in my group had 400 drops when they were as low as 392 and most at around 394 also received 400 drops consistently, though not always.

Beyond the Raid, Exotics are still the best way to level up. Since you get those from Strikes, I don't think grinding Strikes is a bad idea at all. You won't do it specifically for Skeleton Keys, but they are a bonus on top of the Exotics you'll get. It will also allow you to chase specific slots better than Crucible does, not to mention give you a chance at specific armor and weapons, some of which are incredibly strong right now like Grasp in PvP or Imago Loop in PvE. Lastly, you can get primary and helmet slots guaranteed if you have a key, while others yield a 50% chance to get the desired slot which still isn't too bad.

@aktivity: I don't think so, during Crucible you are able to get 400 quality Primary, Special, and Heavy weapons. You can also use a 3 of Coins pretty much every game. I wouldn't suggest using those Engrams until after you hit 390. You could also use a Rep Booster and use any Crucible package, roughly 1 per hr for Armor slots, but you might get 1 (Ghost/Class Item) and 1 Armor slot per hr. I think the Rares you get in Crucible cap at 365 but I don't know that for sure. Test to make sure it isn't 385, if it is, this all goes out the door and it's fine. But if it's capped at 365, Crucible is much slower to level than the Heroic playlist. Mainly because 3 385 items every 10 min vs. 3 per hr. roughly. You get about 6x the amount of 385 quality drops. Once you get to the 385 range get out quick though, as you rarely get any benefit from that anymore.

The best advice I can give you is to find people to play with. It sounds like you are doing this thing solo, which can really add to the monotony. Find 1 or 2 players to do this stuff with and just do it while talking about random stuff, paying as little attention to the game as you have to. That's how I get through the grind like this. If you need some help with this check out the Giantbomb Clans. I believe Cerberus Wolves is full again but BatmanBatmanBatman still has space on both Xbox One and PS4, I think we are at 20 on X1 and 83 on PS4 of 100. I've played with a large % of the guys here (all 3 clans), and they are all pretty good dudes.

@zevvion: Completely agree about the Raid. If you have the group its the #1 activity I would recommend for leveling, that's why I listed the Heroic Raid first in my recommendations. Though as far as seeking specific weapons from Chests using Skeletons keys such as Grasp of Malok or Imago Loop, I really hate the change they made. It is far harder now to get those weapons, as each of those chest's still offer other rewards besides those weapons, the boss no longer drops them on kill at all, and the possible rolls are so vast that even if you receive one by using your Skeleton key, the odds of you getting a great roll are insanely low, as in 1 in 1,500 key uses on Imago Loop (Fatebringer clone) and something like 1 in 150 on Grasp of Malok (any High Stability, Counterbalance, OAS). It honestly isn't worth the effect anymore (kinda never was for me). I actually did grind Omnigul when she was the Solar Airborne Nightfall a few months back, and after roughly 200 kills I barely got 2 good rolls, and neither were God rolls on Grasp. That's how hard it is to get a great PvP Grasp of Malok, and now farming for 50 hrs like many did isn't even an option. For those wondering, or already have, a God Roll Grasp of Malok is OAS (Truesight is ok), Braced Frame (Perfect Balace is also fine, some prefer), Counterbalance (pretty necessary), and Spray/Play or Feeding Frenzy (Third Eye works as well, but Gheleons does that now, also Last Resort is fine for Trials, Glass Half Full is never bad either). Any other roll absolutely requires Braced Frame to really even be useable. Life Support can be good and a roll with both Headseeker and Glass Half Full can be very interesting as it gives both forgiveness for body shots and makes the bottom of the magazine basically a faster firing Hawksaw. But Grasp has so many perks the potential to roll poorly is very high, especially in the first slot with 11 possibilities and only 1 really good perk. Imago Loop is the same way 13 perks in that first slot, only 2 of which are good, 1 for PvP and 1 for PvE. It also requires a 1/5 (though ideally 1/10 because you want Rifled Barrel) roll on the middle column's middle tree. Though column 5 is good because it has several useable perks for PvP like Luck in the Chamber, Hidden Hand, and Icarus, and also Firefly for PvE. Reactive Reload isn't terrible either.

That's a very long winded way of saying getting good rolls on those two weapons is far too hard right now. And in my opinion, not at all worth the time unless you just have a Skeleton Key to burn for giggles.

@hestilllives19: You misunderstand. I wouldn't recommend someone to go for Skeleton Keys. But I'd recommend them to do Strikes. Almost every Strike procs on Three of Coins which is the best way to get Exotics. It's faster than Crucible if you concern yourself with efficiency. The Skeleton Keys are just a nice bonus on top of it. Especially because some slots can be gotten guaranteed (helmet, primary) if you manage to obtain a key which realistically you will within 10 Strikes.

You're right about specific loot like Imago Loop and Grasp of Malok not being consistently good though. I got the Titan Butt-Towel 6 times in a row. It's heartbreaking. But I actually managed to luck the fuck out and got a near-perfect Imago Loop on my seventh attempt with Outlaw, Firefly and Snapshot. The funny thing is, I had given up on getting a good roll on it and decided to use other Hand Cannons. I checked my vault and discovered that The Vanity is actually a better Hand Cannon than Imago Loop. Better impact, better range, better stability, better everything except for magazine size (9 instead of 10). Arguably better perks too with Firefly and Luck in the Chamber. Right after that discovery mister god roll Imago Loop dropped. I guess that's how it works.

@lego_my_eggo: thanks for the heads-up. I snagged it.