Navigating Without a Map

“In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters.“^[1]Borges, Jose Luis. “On Exactitude in Science.” Collected Fictions. 1999.

I wander around the Landing of the Pale Heart in a closed loop. Transmat in. Wait 30 seconds for the Hive stockpiles to spawn. Begin the run: five chests, five chances to get a random roll on the new Hunter exotic cloak, Relativism.

It’s an ugly piece of equipment, one of the most maximalist cloaks in the game with a slick off-white sheen like someone dipped the fucker in baby oil, but it’s too important for this season’s meta to ignore.

Relativism, like all exotic class items, comes with two intrinsic perks taken from other exotic armor pieces. As stated, the perks roll randomly, though the item is drawing from a small enough pool that the chances of getting an ideal combination – like Spirit of Caliban and Spirit of the Liar – aren’t prohibitively high. The sticking point is that there are really only two ways to farm for class items: either you and a friend run the Dual Destiny exotic mission together for hours, or you run around the Pale Heart opening chests for hours. The former is guaranteed to drop an exotic; the latter is too, but at a much lower rate.

And so I’m listening to a podcast at 2x speed, watching my Hunter sprint around the Landing, opening chests and occasionally shooting enemies to break up the total monotony. When I’ve opened all five Hive stockpiles, I fast-travel back to the Landing’s transmat-point and start the loop again.

I lose hours to this loop, this literal treadmill. I gain a few decent rolls of Relativism; not the one I’m looking for, but still pretty good according to the people who regularly talk about such things.

The reason I’m doing this is because I’m trying to make a build for my Hunter that I actually like. The prismatic subclass has basically blown the doors off of the old buildcrafting paradigm, and naturally this has happened right as I was just getting used to that way of doing things. Whereas before each single-element subclass had their own ideal configurations for PVE and PVP, now you basically have two options to slide into: Combination Blow/Silence and Squall Prismatic or Still Hunt Nighthawk Prismatic (likely feat. Combination Blow). In other words, we can choose between extremely close-quarters combat or flaming sniper.

I’m not good at either, but this is where the meta has landed; hence, Caliban/Liar exotic class armor being the god roll for any Hunter who wants to play hardball.

I was excited for Prismatic because of the creative possibilities I thought it would unlock for Guardians; what it seems to have done instead is limit the viable build options for each class (and almost eliminated them for Titan entirely, but since I don’t play Titan at all I’m not able to speak to that past giving their plight a mention). It’s too early to tell what kind of long-term effects this is going to have on the game, but currently it feels like creativity has taken a backseat to what works at a bare minimum.

What sucks about this, at least from a Hunter’s perspective, is that Combination Blow/Liar’s Handshake/Gambler’s Dodge has been the de facto Hunter meta since Arc 3.0, almost three years ago now. The main thing mitigating that combo’s complete dominance, other builds in different subclasses, has been replaced by a subclass that functions as a grab-bag. “Oh, you can run Shadowshot Deadfall (and Combination Blow) or Silkstrike (and Combination Blow) or Golden Gun Marksman (and Combination Blow)! No worries, plenty of options.” The meta reminds me of that anecdote about a Model T Ford salesperson: “The car comes in any color you want, as long as it’s black.”

Why am I even focused on the meta? I could technically play the game the way I want to without anyone’s permission or approval, any time I want. I could do that right now!

The problem is that everything in Destiny 2 has long been boiled down to a math problem, and motherfuckers have solved it. You need to have gear that specs into Resilience and Discipline, no matter what; your guns need to have ideal perk combinations or they’re trash; your exotic armor needs to synergize with your subclass abilities and super; everything needs to adhere to what’s on offer in the Seasonal Artifact. The consequences for not doing this: getting stomped on in higher-end PVE content, being rendered uncompetitive in PVP, kicked out of Fireteam Finders for running off-meta builds, falling out of contention for various earn-able titles.

It’s easy to say none of that matters, because it truly doesn’t, but it also does absolutely fucken matter. The difference between running an off-meta build, paying attention to exactly none of the modifiers in high-end content, and running a build that adheres to the meta and pays attention to the modifiers, is night and day. Being able to hold your own and progress through Expert-level and above challenges means you’re able to avail yourself of materials and currencies necessary to further upgrade your kit. It also means you get access to cooler guns and armor, which in turn makes the game easier and (in theory) more fun to play. Rinse and Repeat.

I have been stuck at the last encounter of the last legendary campaign mission since the second week of June. Iconoclasm. I’ve tried every build, every balance of light and dark powers. The mission is simple on paper: defeat two Subjugators, grab a Sword of the Traveler, destroy Precursor statues, harm the Witness. The last bit of the mission is a simple walking section where we hold onto the Aegis shield as shards of Darkness swirl around us, the shield a bulwark against which we guard our last hit point jealously.

But defeating the Subjugators is a multi-phase process: you have to whittle them down to half-health, wait for their overshield to spawn, grab Aegis, shoot a ball of energy at them to dispel the overshield, and then do it all over again until they’re dead and you can pick up the sword.

The second Subjugator spawns in with toxic air, which you have to defend against by shooting these little shells around the map, granting yourself a Darkness Protection buff. Ads are more aggressive, as is the Subjugator itself, so you have to be ready to jump out of the way of a passing bullet or energy projectile. If you manage to dispel the second Subjugator’s shield while maintaining your buff, transcendent enemies spawn in, adding a new layer of fuckery to the equation. You can’t ignore them, because they will kill you easily.

I’ve managed to get to this very last phase a dozen times, only to be overwhelmed by ads or caught by the buff running out.

Maybe if I get a Caliban/Liar’s Relativism, I’ll be able to finally beat this final campaign mission on Legendary difficulty.

I feel like I’m locked in a cage with Destiny 2. The part that is intensely game has overrun the part I typically like, which involves the story, exploration, pointless meandering. Years ago I would play the game simply to wander the European Dead Zone or the Dreaming City. I loved just staring at the architecture or considering the lore implications of a piece of scrap my Ghost wanted me to look at. The Pale Heart is so ripe for that kind of wandering. It is a total fantasy world in a game that typically grounds its most fantastical elements in the realm of hard science-fiction. Magic is paracausal energy, except in the Pale Heart, where it’s just magic again. The Awoken created themselves and their homeworld through a single person’s overriding will and the power of a singularity; the inside of the Traveler is shaped simply by dreams and memories, yet Mara Sov remarks how similar the Pale Heart is to the Distributary. The shattered worlds of the Solar System are shot through with the kind of decay and destruction you’d find in any old active warzone or nuclear apocalypse; the Pale Heart – its healthy and diseased zones alike – feels more like Middle Earth as you travel from the Shire to Mordor.

I love this new location and everything that happens in it so much it’s almost painful to think about, but the rest of the game – the literal treadmill requiring me to run a single path through the Pale Heart’s Landing for hours on end – prevents me from letting my mind – and Hunter – wander as they please.