I don't like the Cruible but I love the Iron Banner

I do not like playing the Crucible in Destiny.  About the only time I play Crucible is when an exotic weapon bounty requires I complete specific tasks in the Crucible.  There is no single reason why I dislike the Crucible.  The best I can come up with is the experience as a whole is not enjoyable.  For me the Zenith of PvP online gaming lies somewhere between Halo 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  I loved Halo 3 for its Forge and Private matches while MW2 offered fun playlists that a player with a lifetime 1.1 K/D ratio could enjoy.  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a very close 2^nd place to MW2.  I haven't owned a CoD game since MW2.

The Iron Banner knows your power.

The PvE aspect of Destiny is what drew me to the game after I saw my son playing it at launch.  To be honest, I had no idea “the Crucible” was the PvP for like two weeks.  I went on a forum or Reddit looking for something about Queen’s Wrath and finally discovered that Crucible was in fact PvP.  The game types and descriptions in the Crucible weren’t very clear and read more like prose than actual info about the game type and objectives.  As my light level climbed through the low and mid-20s I kept trying Crucible.  Each time I tried to play it I found it unsatisfying.  It's more of a collection of thoughts rather than one specific feeling.  I wasn’t calling everything OP or hating a Hunter’s super, I just didn’t find the experience rewarding.  Having said all of that, I love Iron Banner.

I don't mind that Iron Banner grind

The first Iron Banner came along early in Destiny’s life.  I looked at the bounties, the gear, and the ranking system and wasn’t interested in it at all.  I perceived it as super hard core.  It didn’t seem to be worth my time and I was still very much a noob.  Then the reforged Iron Banner 2.0 came out about a month later.  “Power Matters” was the new mantra and as luck would have it, I had just acquired a Suros Regime.  I got your power right here!  Control happened to be my favorite of the Crucible playlists, so off to the Iron Banner I went.  Despite having no clue how to actually play Control (something I wouldn’t figure out until Iron Banner 4.0) I was able to complete a couple bounties a day and often sat on five coins until I was lucky enough for a team to drag me to victory.  Thanks to the Tempering buffs, I clawed my way to Level 4 by Monday night.  After laying waste to thousands of Cabal I was able to purchase Iron Banner Gauntles and Boots, that, along with my Raid Chest Piece and exotic helm, got me to level 30! 

At the end of my first Iron Banner week I felt tired, relieved, and accomplished.  At the beginning of the week I committed myself to playing as I knew the rewards would be level 30 gear.  I KNEW WHAT MY REWARDS WOULD BE.  All I had to do was put in the time and be fairly competent.  The journey to rank 4 required resolve and dedication and for doing that there was a pay off.  I’d like to thank everyone I played with that week, or perhaps more appropriately apologize to them, as I played 70 games and never, ever got above 0.60 K/D and I probably flipped the spawns in every game I played.  Sorry.

Get gud skrub

Iron Banner 3.0 came along during a week when my in-laws were in town for a visit.  So I had plenty of time to hide downstairs and play Iron Banner to my heart’s content.  I realized if I had a shader and Titan mark, I would gain rep faster.  So my goal for IB 3.0 was to get a Titan mark and shader.  That week I managed to reach rank 5.  With some spare time on my hands, I farmed some glimmer (DIE CABAL, DIE!!!) bought a new pair of gauntles along with that SWEET Iron Banner Auto Rifle, Similar’s Wrath.  Along the way I got Ghilean’s Demise (aka Ghilean’s D) to drop for me twice – accidentally sharding one.  Again, not once did my K/D for the week get above 0.70 in approximately 70 games.  Sorry again.  Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to develop buyer’s remorse over Similar’s Wrath.  What a waste of life.  Yuck.

It was after Iron Banner 3.0 that I realized something: 1. I sucked at Control and 2. Iron Banner is the only place in Destiny where Bungie gives you a clear set of loot to earn for your troubles.  With the exception of some god awful gauntles you get from Eris, and the surprisingly useful Murmur – the only place where you get a concrete reward for your time and effort is Iron Banner.  While Destiny is unique in the ambitions of its developers, a few ‘standards’ are missing from Destiny that exist in DNA of its comtemporaries in similar genres.  As example, nowhere in Destiny can I farm a specific boss for the chance of a specific item to drop.  How about that Raid Boss?  Aethon has a 100% chance to drop some tears, energies, and a ship that looks like a dildo with wings (add a yellow stripe for Hard Mode).  Maybe I’ll get a Vex Mythoclast, Fatebringer, and raid helmet from Vault of Glass in one drop, or maybe I’ll just get Chatterwhite and 3 energies. BUT THAT’S THE FUN, RIGHT?  WHO THE F**K KNOWS WHAT YOU'LL GET?!?! For better or (likely) worse Destiny has mortgaged its end game on the brutally unbiased RNG system.  I really don’t give a fat rat's butt if I can get a Thunderlord from a Purple engram that I got from a level 4 dreg.  What I really want is for Rockets McDickface to have a 3% chance of dropping a Thunderlord.  I will run that strike 25 times a week at the 3% chance of a Thunderlord dropping.  Instead, I haven’t run a ROC strike since Christmas and probably won’t ever again.  The disappointment from the Nightfalls is enough esteem-draining shame for me.

 

Iron Banner 4.0 rolled around during a week where I was really busy.  I played when I could and barely got to rank 4.  Much to the butthurt of raiders, Iron Banner 4.0 introduced light level 36 gear.  I ended up buying the level 31 chest piece as I was still running around in my horribly obsolete Kabr’s Wrath.  Ranking up my Vanguard and Faction ranks a combined 12 times only yielded rage and misery – no chest plates.  The Vanguard chest pieces were lame and Crucible marks are too big of a PITA to blow on Armor.  So the Iron Banner chest piece gave me a level 31 alternative to my Armamentarium.  I was able buy the light level 36 gauntlets and figured that the rest of the light level 36 stuff was on the way.  My streak of zero Crota's End completions remained intact.  The good thing was I finally figured out the strategy of Control on each of the maps.  Coincidentally, my K/D was consistently above 1.0 and winning streaks became common place.  Yay me!!

 

Iron Banner 5.0 showed up as the same time as my buddies from GTA Online converted to Destiny and reached level 31.  My three buddies drooled at the site of Ghilean’s D and the march to Level 5 began.  Along the way RNG blessed them with many o’ Radegast’s fury and Timur’s lashes in post-game lobbies.  And why not, they had bough the game just a few week's prior.  For my grind through 5 levels I was blessed with 6 complete sets of Raku Type armor for my Titan.  Despite the crappy post-game rewards, my crew was able to regulate the playlist with authority, as only the most hard core of gamers were able to beat us.  My 30% boost in rep made earning rank 5 a breeze, playing fewer games in the process.  Needing little else, I bought the Gold Spiral Shader and some Light level 36 boots.  It wasn’t until my last two matches that I got a legendary drop.  The 80 proofreader and Radegast’s Fury dropped in my last two games respectively.

Yeah, and you though it was rain.

I had become disenchanted with the idea of reaching level 32 from  raid gear when Iron Banner 6.0 rolled around.  My crew of 4 had several failed attempts at completing Crota’s End with random hookups and friends of friends. The drops in our failed attempts were unkind, I mean random, and only one piece of raid armor had dropped in four attempts.  So when Iron Banner 6.0 launched we all drooled at the rewards to be earned: A Light level 36 chest piece, boots, and J-Dubs Hammer with a 331 attack rating.  I had over 60 motes of light and I was ready to re-roll the shizzle out of J-Dubs Hammer.  So with my glimmer maxed, the march to level 4 began.  Iron Banner 6.0 also marked the death of my first love, the Suros Regime.  It was my constant companion through the previous 4 Iron Banners.  After getting a face full of Red Death in my first match, and the Regime’s lack of effectiveness painfully obvious, I put the ol’ Suros out to pasture and equipped the unleveled Red Death.  Immediately, the unleveled Red Death was superior in every way to a maxed Suros Regime in the Sliding Shotgun Banner, I mean Iron Banner.  Upon reaching rank four in the Iron Banner, I bought the coveted chest piece and J-Dub’s Hammer.  Then it was time for the Cabal to die.  Lots of Cabal.  By two-man jamming the Exclusion Zone, we could double the amount of times we ran the mission while Resupply Codes were active.  In less than two hours I had purchased two more Jolder’s Hammers and one each of the chest piece and boots for my alts.  It’s amazing how quickly two players with fully maxed Bad Juju’s can rip through Cabal, especially when you spawn the second ship in the exclusion zone right away.  I re-rolled all my J-Dub’s hammers in three different burns all geared towards PvE.  My Deviant Gravity-A with CQB Ballistics, Field Scout, and Feeding Frenzy is an absolute MAN EATER in Iron Banner and the best kept secret in Destiny. 

Rest in Peace

Conclusion (aka - TL:DR  aka - I like books with lots of pictures and big letters)

So what is it about Iron Banner that I like?  I am a barely average PvPer and I don't enjoy the crucible.  Here's why:  At no other point in 7+ months of playing Destiny have I felt the level of satisfaction as when I buy something from Lord Saladin.  There have been moments of unequalled joy when I got the Gjallarhorn and Last Word from a Nightfall.  That joy, however, is more from the feeling that I somehow ‘beat’ the RNG system and the elation was derived from surprise and shock.  But the satisfaction I get from grinding through the Iron Banner to reach the required rank and actually acquire something I need is found nowhere else in Destiny. It’s too bad that this sense of purpose and determination can only be filled once a month in Destiny.  The rest of the time your progression is based on luck in Destiny if you crave something other than the ever static tower gear.  And that is why I continue to play Iron Banner.  I know that if I continue to improve as a player, learn the maps, understand the strategy, and put in the time, I will be rewarded with useful gear once a month.  I think Destiny could sprinkle in more events and reward systems like Iron Banner, which is probably what people really mean when they mention bringing back Queen's Wrath.

Lord "Toss My" Saladin