Supers

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

As you might guess, my thoughts have been mostly with Destiny of late.  I was able to use another TV for cable so I took my big screen I was using for XBOX and put it back on my computer, and took the little screen I was using for the computer on worst graphics ever and tried it out on XBOX.  Thing is the computer video card only has DVI or SVideo connections so the only thing I could do is use it on my ultra high graphics monitor(DVI) or use my TVs and watch my twitter in TV mode(SVideo) which was OK.  

But now, I have it set up with 3 TVs again.  The SVideo connection that I had on the little TV meant that I had to watch MSNBC and some movie on regular composite input and moreover since the only other connection was a component connection, I used an RCA cable in the component connection of the little TV which meant that I had to watch Rachel and Alex on a sort of dotted green display.  Bad but not so bad once you got used to it.  And every so often if I wanted to watch a serious movie I would watch it on the high graphics screen that was on my XBOX via Netflix.  That was before when I had two monitors but recently I was given a big huge TV to go with my two relatively small flatscreens.  So I moved my graphics screen back to my computer that was on my XBOX and put the TV that was doing the job of both internet and cable and put THAT on XBOX, and then used the big TV for just cable.  

What a difference.  

Now, I can tell how good-looking Rachel ACTUALLY is... and don't get me started on Erin Burnett lol or Alex.  But meh, the real high point is that I can watch the news while playing the game and even though I have curtailed tweeting a great deal, it's at least possible to tweet while watching the news again.  

Now, it's a real letdown to go from big graphics monitor to a 13 inch flat widescreen, but it has 720p and strangely, by moving the screen closer to my seat which is easier to do because it is smaller and is on a file cabinet, it seems to have awesome video detail, although I would sort of rather have it on an arm elevated in front of my face, which is not out of the question since the whole screen weighs about 20 pounds. 

Amazingly, I am blown away at how mindless the missions are.  The game just keeps starting you over so that you can take breaks if you want but it's a nice experience and at least in theory you can talk to other players even though I have turned off all communication for the moment until I max out the 3 players I am playing.  

Ok, since I have a little steam let's talk about the game a bit since there is a LOT they don't tell you about getting ahead and frankly there's so little that's unexplained that buying a strategy guide is a bit of overkill. 

There are 3 warrior types: Titan, Hunter, and Warlock.  

The titan is like a warrior.  You can choose a sub type that is basically an alternate style of play but have the same armor, which means there are TWO titan types: Defender and Striker.  All characters have two alternate powers besides just straight out weapons and heavy weapons.  One power is the Super, the other is the Mega-melee hit.  Both of them charge up slowly after you use them once with the super taking about 5 minutes(guess) and Mega-melee taking about 2 minutes.  These timers can be adjusted with special equipment or through various other abilities.  

Now instead of leveling up to infinity, you level up to level 20 and then you start to improve gear that improves your level through enchantment.  So if you want to level up as fast as possible, don't worry about how you look, just keep upping the gear.  

As you reach level 20, ALL gear start to have a LIGHT component to it.  This means it will say LIGHT +11, then better gear will have LIGHT +13, etc until it gets to LIGHT +37 or so.  I think that LIGHT +9 gets you a new level so LIGHT +36 should get you to level 30.  A guess cuz I'm not sure if it's +9 or +10.  Now, each piece of gear has maybe two or three upgrades that get it to +9.  Gear can be switched out at this point to suit what you like looks-wise and gear you don't want gets "dismantled" into items that you use to upgrade the gear you chose.  You get two upgrades that give +2 LIGHT and the third that gives +1 and then 3 more that use 6 ascendant shards each, which are more rare but meant to be obtained by higher level fights.  Switching out gear that you like for nicer looking gear makes you start over so at this point so it's important to spend on the upgrades and not dilly dally too much on looks.  You should just have faith that better gear is coming and TRY not to get too attached to how nice your guy looks.  Trust me, I'm a real art fanatic so it's hard for me to let go of a nice pair of gauntlets but I did.  It's best to put the maxed out gauntlets of LIGHT +11 on and then scan over the LIGHT +13 completely un-maxed gauntlets that will probably reach LIGHT+24 and then right after you equip your new gauntlets, immediately dismantle the old ones.  I have had the situation of holding on to some nice gear that gives me good abilities, like leveling up your Super on non-guardian kills, which is great  for vanguard,  but when I turned in the bounties, which levels up your gear, I still mistakenly had on the NICE set of gauntlets that were already maxed out.  This meant that I didn't get any of the experience points to count for the empty gauntlets so I would have to do that many MORE bounties to make up for it.  

Waste.  

Ok so much I want to warn you about, um, there is a tower that is set up like a city and even though there are shops everywhere, they sell the same items and it will be a LONG time before you can buy any of the level 20 gear, so it's better to decide early which weapons you like and maybe map tht out on paper so you don't waste time running around trying to remember what you wanted.  Trust me that you will want to level all 3 characters at the same time so as to take immediate advantage of any EXOTIC drops that might not fit the character you are playing.  You might take all of them to level 5, finish the moon missions, do some crucible them on a different day, take them all to level 10, do all the Venus missions, and then take them to level 20 or just finish up the Mars missions and the story.  Fact is, I love playing crucible so I leveled some characters to 30 without even finishing the story, but it messes you up if you start finishing out Vanguard bounties.  Some of those bounties ask you to finish Mars missions and if you got lazy with the story on your second or third character, you are gonna be bummed that you have to play out the story before you can collect on the bounty for doing a mission that you can't access yet because your story line hasnt taken you to that area yet.  

In theory, to max out your playability, you should finish the story as soon as possible, then do everything else but the story stops you at some point because the Venus and Mars missions are much harder than the Earth and Moon so the game forces you to level up at least to some degree on Vanguard and Crucible.  

If you play a lot of Crucible(deathmatches with other players) then you are going to want gear that helps with the shotgun; if you play a lot of Vanguard(solo play or play with other players vs. monsters) you are probably going to want gear that helps with the sniper rifle.  These two special weapons are the only ones I use.  There is also a Fusion Rifle which some players put to good use.  You charge it for 2 seconds and it one-shots stuff but for me it's too foreign, though other players will use this on you ALL DAY and one shot you until you figure out it's weaknesses, mainly rushing the players or making them miss then counterattack.  Special weapons use special ammo and though regular ammo drops all the time and you never find yourself out of regular ammo for your regular weapon(choices for regular weaopns are 1.automatic rifle, 2. pulse(3-shot) rifle, 3. scout(one-shot zoom) rifle, or 4. pistol(one shot big dmg but slow) ), you will often find yourself out of ammo for your special weapon if you use it too much.  You can only use 3 types of weapons the regular, the special and the heavy.  The heavy weapons are the rocket launcher and the Machine gun.  The heavy weapons have very rare drops but if you need practice with them just play a lot of Vanguard(missions vs. monsters) and you will get enough practice to make you decent at using them against players. 

Ok, I'm tired now.  The defender is what I am using now because he is almost maxed out and I wanna finish with him before I get back to the other two.  

You should do this too.  Some of the female characters look sexy too but you really do a lot of running around and a lot of admiring yourself and your gear and if you're character is female, well, that's up to you.  

I chose all male with human titan, exo mage, and an awoken thief.  The awoken look like albinos which make them spooky so that's why I chose this for the hunter.  The exo are the machine race so I made this guy a mage which doesn't matter because in game(missions) they all have helmets that they take off when you are in the tower(city) admiring yourself and buying stuff.  

The setup is basically exactly like PSO(Phantasy Star Online).  You all get together in the city and buy stuff then you go out to the dungeons with other people and there is the option to advance the story.  Once you finish the story, you can re-complete the story at higher levels for more rewards which is really setup for you to choose your difficulty so that even if you aren't any good at FPS(first person shooters), you can play at several levels below your level and just enjoy playing and getting few rewards that takes longer but you still get your gear or drops that you need to level up your gear.  

Crucible sounds scary but since everyone has a super, basically everyone gets killed no matter what skill you have.  What's troubling is to see some guy with 30 kills and you just got to like 5 maybe.  But meh, even though you die often, the game advances the level of your weapons and gear making just participating rewarding.  The real mistake is trying too hard and getting emotional about it because, sometimes these guys know where you are, esp if you are going for heavy weapon ammo or like to camp people with your sniper.  Once you die the game shows you who killed you and where they were, so if you get sniped, poof, instant feedback on who's one your list and where they live.  

Now that I am at level 30, I am getting into exotic gear which is the highest gear you can get.  You can have only ONE exotic weapon equipped at a time.  Same goes for ONE exotic armor, (which I didn't know so I had TWO pieces of exotic and then I was forced to dismantle the other one) which has more defense but also has more LIGHT which allows you to coast right in to level 31 with only 4 maxed out pieces of gear.  

The expansion, which I haven't bought yet, is supposed to have more LIGHT gear that will allow you to get to 32, but I will wait to max out all 3 characters before considering that.  

Ok just a little more.  The fun part about the Titan is rushing after people as a Striker.  Even though you are a titan and look like you have OMG armor, you have same defense as thief or mage of your level.  The only difference really is the abilities so just get that out of your system.  But the Defender gets a nice super called the Dawn Sphere, which you can use to create an instant sphere that you can step in and out of.  Sadly, the Defender is really not set up for killing like the Striker is but to make up for this, it has special orbs that can drop that make your super charge up faster and that helps other players use their supers which are all very "productive". 

When other players use their super to kill players, that drops you orbs that you can use to fast forward YOUR super, so it works well to play near another player so that those orbs, that only fast forward the cooldown of other players' supers, can be used to best advantage. 

What I really like about the game is that there is some music that comes on that puts me at peace.  But more specifically, it puts me in the mindset of the Earth, after the smaller meteor hit in the movie Deep Impact.  In fact, it's sort of the same EXACT music, lol, you can almost hear Morgan Freeman in the background(not really), but it's nice because it's reminiscent of the movie and that makes me feel like we all dodged the big one.  

PS. One thing I would like is if they could hide my gamertag.  I know that if I change my gamertag, ppl that wanted to could figure out who I am by my achievements so that's pointless, but in Defiance you can change all of that out and not worry that people know who you are in real life.  I have thought often of changing my name or identity but that is a lot like surrender, which implies that there was a war, which implies that I have enemies, that I can't even name... see where this is going?