TTK (v2.0) UPDATE: Tips, Wikis, and Other Useful Information

USEFUL SITES:
http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/  <----UPDATE: the most current information available.

Excellent post on explaining how to tackle TTK if you've been a Year One Player:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/3l5u6r/things_to_do_in_the_taken_king/

Stuff about The Taken King:
---------------
The Taken King
*Oryx and his army has arrived
*Meet them on Phobos, a moon of Mars
*Requires The Taken King and a minimum character level of 25

General
*Max Character Level Cap now increased to 40 (Requires The Taken King)
*New Vanguard and Crucible bounties are now available at your local Bounty Tracke
*Year One Moments of Triumph are now locked in history and cannot be progressed
*VIP 'Founders Fortune' rewards will be distributed in the Tower (Requires The Taken King)
*"Spark of Light" Level 25 Character Boost consumable is available at the Postmaster (Requires The Taken King)
---Spark of Light will immediately take a new (or less than level 25 character) to level 25....

Classes
*Subclass quests for new subclasses are now available after the completion of The Coming War story mission (Requires The Taken King)

Activities
Patrols
*Patrols now offer rewards once again

Daily Heroics
*Required Level: 40
*Requires The Taken King
*These missions will include selections from Year One and Year Two

Vanguard Strike Playlists
*Weekly Heroic Strike has been replaced by the Vanguard Heroic Strike Playlist
*There are now three Strike playlists:
--Legacy Strike Playlist:Available to all players; Contains all Year One Strikes, including original Dust Palace and Undying Mind Strikes

--Vanguard Strike Playlist: Requires The Taken King; Contains all new The Taken King Strikes, as well as 3 remixed Year One Strikes (Dust Palace, Undying Mind, and Cerberus Vae III)

--Vanguard Heroic Strike Playlist: Requires The Taken King; Contains all new The Taken King Strikes, as well as 3 remixed Year One Strikes (Dust Palace, Undying Mind, and Cerberus Vae III)

*Heroic Strikes earn bonus rewards on weekly completion: Legendary Engram (1 time per character); +10 Legendary Marks (3 times per account)

*Playing multiple Strikes without returning to orbit increases reward chances
*All The Taken King and Updated Strikes now feature random encounter variation and may contain Taken combatants

Nightfall
*Required Level: 40
*Requires The Taken King
*Wiping in Darkness Zones no longer kicks player to orbit; Resurrection timer is now a 30-second cooldown (must be resurrected by teammates)

Crucible
--Year Two Crucible is now in effect (Requires the Taken King): Rift, Control, Clash, Skirmish, Salvage, Rumble, Elimination are now Year Two core playlists
--When Trials of Osiris is active, Elimination will only be playable via Trials of Osiris playlist
--Featured Daily and Weekly activities are now active
--Year One Core Playlists now contains Classic 6v6, Classic 3v3 and Classic FFA playlists

Tower

Cryptarch
--The Cryptarchs will now exchange Legendary Marks for Legendary Engrams
--Available engrams will be randomly selected by each Cryptarch every Tuesday
--Legendary Engrams no longer have a chance to produce simple Materials
--Rare Armor Engrams have a chance to produce Artifacts instead of Armor

Banshee
--Starting on Armsday (Wednesday), Banshee-44 will accept Orders for new Foundry Weapons to characters at Gunsmith Rank 1 or higher. Higher Ranks will allow placement of more orders per week

Speaker
Legendary Armor has been added to the Speaker's inventory

Shaxx
--PvP Quests are now provided to players (Required Level: 5)
--Shaxx now carries a set of Weekly Crucible Bounties, with Nightfall equivalent rewards for completing all five in a week

Arcite
--Arcite now carries a set of Weekly Crucible Weapon Bounties

Roni-9940
--The Vanguard Quartermaster will now exchange old Class Armor Materials for new unified Armor Materials

Queen’s Wrath
Petra now has new bounties available in the reef upon completing a new quest
These bounties will also drop a Treasure Key the first time one is completed each week

Economy

*Vanguard and Crucible Marks deprecate and are converted to Commendations (at a rate of 50:1)
*Legendary Loot drop rates have been increased across all activities
*Legendary Marks are now earnable by completing Daily Story Chapters, Weekly Heroic Strikes, Daily PVP Activities, Weekly PVP Activities and Dismantling Year Two Legendary items
*Strike rewards now drop from bosses instead of in the PGCR (except for Sepiks Prime, who has been known to cleverly fly above water to deny victorious Guardians their rightfully earned spoils)
*Strikes reward tables now include items for all Armor and Weapon slots

Known Issues
*Strike Legacy playlists are currently not providing rewards. This is a known issue and will be hotfixed as soon as possible
---------------
http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Destiny_Wiki

http://www.destinydb.com

db.destinytracker.com

All exotic weapons explained: http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2j5cxx/index_of_every_exotic_gun_wgameplay/

If you gold tier your first public event of the day, you'll have a legendary level reward waiting for you at the Postmaster.  You've also got a chance of getting a legendary level drop after completing the event itself (rarely).   When you collect the rewards with your two non-main characters, place these materials in your vault.  YOUR VAULT IS SHARED BETWEEN ALL OF YOUR CHARACTERS AND HAS NOW DOUBLED IN SIZE.

Not sure if this is still working....Public Events timer: http://destinypublicevents.com
---This website is pure gold.  If you don't know how to get to a certain location, you can hit the blue play button by the location on the map.  It will show you how to get there.

BASIC TIPS:

-MATERIALS: Spinmetal is found on Earth, Helium Filaments on the Moon, Spirit Bloom on Venus, Relic Iron on Mars.
-The ammo and engrams you see on the ground are specific to your world only.  Your fireteam-mates see their own ammo/loot spawns.  That is, you're not taking someone else's loot.
-Those shiny orbs you see on the ground are created by other players when they do something awesome- kill several enemies very quickly, nail a bunch of baddies with their super, etc.  If you pick them up and your super meter isn't full, it will start to fill it up.
-When alighting from your Sparrow, you can push the left stick in the direction that you'd like to get off.  This can help if you very quickly need to find cover after getting off your Sparrow.
-All non-gold loot chests will disappear shortly after you open them (~5 seconds).  Make sure you call out to your fire team that you've found one and wait for them to join you before opening it.  That way everyone can get the loot inside.
-Before you turn in a bounty or do absolutely anything that awards XP, make sure you have the items you want to level up equipped.  For example, if you're sticking with a fully upgraded pulse rifle, try equipping another primary weapon that would benefit from the XP gained from completing a mission/strike.
-The Discipline stat affects grenade cooldown, Intellect affects your super cooldown, and Strength affects your melee cooldown.
-The Impact stat on your primary weapon is much more important than its listed damage.  The higher the impact, the more actual damage your weapon does.

Not sure about the Light Level required for the following (probably 25...)

-Once you're a high enough light level, DO THE WEEKLY NIGHTFALL MISSION THE FIRST DAY IT RESETS!!!  Successfully completing the event not only gives you some excellent drops (legendary/exotic weapons or armor), it also gives you a 20% bonus to your Vanguard rep and marks, glimmer, and XP for the REMAINDER OF THE WEEK.  As an added bonus, your character's head will be surrounded by a wispy blue flame/halo. (NOTE: Have not confirmed if NF completion still gives XP boost)
-Strange Coins and Motes of Light can be traded to Xur for some legendary/exotic weapons and exotic engrams.  Xur only shows up on the weekends.  He spawns on Friday and disappears Saturday late night.
-Legendary marks are NOT capped, but you can only hold 200 at a time.  Spend 'em if you got 'em!  Vanguard and Crucible Marks have been replaced by LEGENDARY MARKS.

Mission Modifier Skulls

Spoiler:

Damage Types (match to shield colors)

Spoiler:

HIDDEN PERKS IN YOUR SUBCLASS:

Spoiler:

Patrol Mission Icons:

After you reach level 20 you can join one (or maybe more) of the three factions in the tower.  When you join a faction you can start to earn reputation for that faction similar to how everyone earns Vanguard and Crucible reputation.  Once you get reputation with a faction you can start to buy their gear from their vendor.

The Future War Cult (FWC) vendor is up the stairs from the Shipwright (go right from the tower spawn).  The Dead Orbit vendor is down the stairs from the Shipwright.  And the New Monarchy vendor is down the stairs from the Speaker (go left from the tower spawn).

I believe the equipment they sell is generally the same.  However I found this small difference online.

Someone on the Internet wrote:

[The armor from the faction vendors comes with stat bonuses.] the stat bonuses that come with these factions are: intellect, discipline, and strength. Each of the optional faction has two of these stats.

Intellect decreases the cooldown time of the super ability, discipline decreases the cooldown time of the grenades, and strength decreases the cooldown time of the melee modifier.

Dead orbit provides discipline and strength, future war cult provides intellect and discipline, and new monarchy provides intellect and strength.

Other advice from the Internet:  It sounds like you stop earning Vanguard and/or Crucible reputation after you join one of the other factions.  The gear from the Vanguard vendor (near the Shipwright) and the Crucible vendor (in the tunnel towards the three class mentors) also include stat bonuses.  So maybe hold off on joining a faction until you reach Vanguard and Crucible level 3.  Or more likely, none of this sh!t matters.

Once you join a faction, can you change to a different one later on or are you tied to that one?

Smitty wrote:

Once you join a faction, can you change to a different one later on or are you tied to that one?

You only join by buying a class item (cape, gauntlet?, band?) for your class and equipping it.  

Your vanguard and crucible stuff is then applied toward the faction.  Equip back to a regular class item and it goes back to normal.

I tried "the cave" for a bit this afternoon. It's the real deal. The enemies don't necessarily drop better stuff, but they respawn so quickly that you can get several missions worth of items in a fraction of the time. When it's working well you have enough time to reload and reaquire just as another bunch of enemies spawn.

There were 2 level 26 and 2 level 27 dudes already farming there when I got there so it wasn't hard to figure out what to do.

I would feel dirty if I didn't already feel so cheated for the stingy drops elsewhere.

TyrantII wrote:

Smitty wrote:

Once you join a faction, can you change to a different one later on or are you tied to that one?

You only join by buying a class item (cape, gauntlet?, band?) for your class and equipping it.  

Your vanguard and crucible stuff is then applied toward the faction.  Equip back to a regular class item and it goes back to normal.

So yes, you can switch to a different faction later, at any time. I started with Future War Cult.

I joined up with the FWC last night as well.

When you say your vanguard, etc is applied to the faction, what does that mean? Is there some sort of competition between these factions (ranking)?

No, there is no competition between factions. By doing strikes you receive vanguard marks/reputation. Vanguard marks are currency. You use them to purchase legendary items in the tower.

When you are part of faction (selected at level 20 and you have to equip the faction "class amor") you start leveling up that faction. You need to be level 2 or 3 to purchase most of the items.

This link explains it in more detail and in a relatively easy to understand manner.

http://segmentnext.com/2014/09/12/how-to-earn-destiny-vanguard-marks-reputation-and-faction-rep/

I think of it this way (which may not be technically correct).

There are 5 factions: Vanguard, Crucible, Dead Orbit, Future War Cult, and New Monarchy.

Each faction has its own vendor, from which you can buy gear.  But before the vendors will sell you anything, you have to earn enough reputation within that faction.  And you also have to earn that faction's currency, i.e., marks.

After reaching level 18, by default everyone automatically earns reputation and marks for the Vanguard faction for PVE missions.  And everyone automatically earns reputation and marks for the Crucible faction for PVP missions.

If you choose to, you can "join" the other three factions.  You do this by going to the vendor, purchasing the class-specific gear (such as the Warlock bond) and then equipping that item.  While you have that item equipped, all of your PVE and PVP missions will earn reputation for that faction rather than the default Vanguard or Crucible factions.  But you can simply unequip that item to revert to earning reputation for the Vanguard and Crucible factions.

My suspicion is that the gear from all 5 faction vendors is basically the same and that it largely doesn't matter which faction you focus on.  But it takes time to earn the minimum reputation so you wouldn't want to divide your time among all three of the optional factions.

Reputation gets awarded as points, like 50 or 100 points per bounty.  And after you earn some number of points you go up a faction level.  I think you need to reach Vanguard level 3 before you can buy stuff from the Vanguard quartermaster.  You can see what your faction level is by going to the faction vendor.  It's displayed in a circle on the left side of the screen.

This guy is at Vanguard level 0 and almost half-way to Vanguard level 1. He has 6 Vanguard marks and 24 Crucible marks.

mbgonzomd wrote:

When you say your vanguard, etc is applied to the faction, what does that mean?  Is there some sort of competition between these factions (ranking)?

There's two basic things you earn from completing PvE/PvP things in the game that come into effect after rank 18(?);  Reputation and Marks.
- Marks are a currency and used to buy stuff from the higher level vendors, faction leaders and quartermasters
- Reputation is a leveling system for these vendors; most will not allow you to buy thing until you get your reputation with them to level 2 or level 3.

There’s two different kinds of Marks and Reputation;  Vanguard Marks/Rep and Crucible Marks/Rep.  
- Vanguard Marks/Rep are earned through playing the vanguard strike list, completing daily/weekly heroic events, gold staring a group event, or turning in vanguard bounties.  
- Crucible Marks/Rep is earned through playing crucible matches and crucible bounties.  
- Both Marks are limited to 100 per character per week (shown as the circle that fills up around the vanguard and crucible playlist in your world map), while rep has no weekly limit.

Vangaurd Rep is applied to the class specific guy down the center stairs all the way in the end room, and the two vendors in the East wing (Ship mechanic and Vangaurd Quartermaster).  Once you get them to level 2-3 Rep you can use Vanguard marks to buy stuff from them.  Likewise Crucible Rep and Marks are used to rep and buy stuff from the Crucible Quartermaster directly down the center stairs (where you opened up crucible).  

Factions are the three guys just hanging around, two in the east wing one in the west wing.  Once you reach 20 you can buy a class item from them, and when you equip it all Vangaurd AND Crucible Rep is sent to them any way you earn it.  They have some nice legendary “light” gear and weapons that can be bought once you level them up twice.  You can stop sending rep to them at any time by unequiping their class gear.  They only seem to take crucible marks.

The thing to remember is that those three factions- NM, FWC, and DO- have equipment that focus on different abilities- Discipline, Intellect, and Strength. Go with the faction that has the ability you like most. Mine is grenades 1st (Discipline), super 2nd (Intellect).

Jumped into patrol on Earth with bytehoven (is he a NOM guy?) last night and discovered him and another guy farming the cave. Seems to be an easy way to collect engrams and stuff. Jumped on reddit and sounds like all the cool kids are doing it.

Yep. I described all you need to know about the Treasure Cave farming method in my Just the Tip thread. I'd suggest you read that so you can maximize your time there if you choose to do so.

Bytetoven is from AVS.

As I just mentioned in the other Destiny wiki thread, I jumped into a game and saw some dudes doing this last night. I didn't realize what they were doing at first, and they were probably pissed at me b/c I wasn't participating and was probably messing with their groove. Eventually I figured it out and joined in for about 10 or 15 minutes. Gonna grab a 6-pack after work and farm the cave tonight if anyone wants to join me. I'm at level 20 and haven't gotten close to leveling up anymore yet. Seems I need to do some of this to take the next step.

Just remember that if you don't see the Thralls spawn, you need to go find them, wherever they are, wandering outside of the cave.  It really cuts down on the effectiveness if only Alcolytes are being led to slaughter.

Also, as you're looking down at the cave, to the left along the wall is another cave where the crashed seeder ship is.  If you go down there and to the right, there's a spinmetal bush and a non-gold loot chest.  Always a good idea to grab those.

Finally, and I mentioned it above, you do not need to fire a single bullet to get the drops.  Simply being in the area will allow you to see the drops.  Obviously you should help out if there are only two of you as it's difficult to keep them contained in the cave mouth if only one person is shooting. And you certainly need to stand far enough back so you don't affect their spawning. I always stand by or on the stone piece that juts out of the ground.

Finally, finally, YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUN INTO THE CAVE TO SEE WHAT DROPPED OR REFILL YOUR AMMO!

1) Your primary ammo respawns after about 2.5 minutes.
2) Any rare engrams or higher will be waiting for you at the Postmaster in the Tower if you get disconnected.

It doesn't really matter, though.  You'll always have someone run in that boot knocking cave to see what they got....

OK, this is the last point, I promise. The Warsat public event drops right on top of the area where everyone stands to farm this cave. If you've left your controller to go eat while you're earning engrams, remember that this happens every X:00 and X:30. It will kill you when it lands.

Good to know. They stopped spawning when I was in there last night so I left. I guess a thrall got loose or something and that's why they stopped.

Does the Warsat public event only happen if you're in patrol? If I do it via the mission Last Array, will there be other blueberries and the public event?

Smitty wrote:

As I just mentioned in the other Destiny wiki thread, I jumped into a game and saw some dudes doing this last night. I didn't realize what they were doing at first, and they were probably pissed at me b/c I wasn't participating and was probably messing with their groove. Eventually I figured it out and joined in for about 10 or 15 minutes. Gonna grab a 6-pack after work and farm the cave tonight if anyone wants to join me. I'm at level 20 and haven't gotten close to leveling up anymore yet. Seems I need to do some of this to take the next step.

This actually isn't a good way to level up, but more of a gamble to get super rare ledgendary and exotic gear.

Join a faction, and in doing Vangard playlist and Crucible, while doing bounties, is your best bet to rank up quickly. Both also randomly award better gear and upgrade materials.

Cave is good for mindless farming, but you spend a lot of time there to just get gun parts and glimmer back in return.

frankthetoad wrote:

OK, this is the last point, I promise.  The Warsat public event drops right on top of the area where everyone stands to farm this cave.  If you've left your controller to go eat while you're earning engrams, remember that this happens every X:00 and X:30.  It will kill you when it lands.

Bungie also trolls you every 2:30 or so, but not at the same time on every server.  I'm convinced they put that cave there just for the mob LOLs'

Public events do happen in missions. You can also return to the same area after quiting out and going to the tower as long as you don't change the difficulty level higher than the standard story difficulty upon returning.

Smitty wrote:

Does the Warsat public event only happen if you're in patrol? If I do it via the mission Last Array, will there be other blueberries and the public event?

Yes the public event will happen even during a mission. There has been many times we've got sidetracked by a public event. Always go to it and when it's over continue on with whatever you were doing. In the missions there are still public areas where you will see other players (blueberries) and they definitely help when a public event comes up.

That cave on the side only normally spawns about four enemies; HOWEVER, every now and then, there is a race vs. race horde battle. It is brutal, no matter the difficulty. There will easily be over 100 enemies over the course of five minutes or so. I've been there with only one other person before, and it was hard to stay alive. It's fun, though.

I do not know the spawn criteria for these race horde battles.

I don't plan to spend a lot of time on the cave, but I figure it can't hurt to dedicate 1 night to it just to obtain some gear.

Just remember that an engram of a specific rarity can decode to a lower rarity. It's infuriating, but it's a part of the game.

frankthetoad wrote:

That cave on the side only normally spawns about four enemies; HOWEVER, every now and then, there is a race vs. race horde battle.  It is brutal, no matter the difficulty.  There will easily be over 100 enemies over the course of five minutes or so.  I've been there with only one other person before, and it was hard to stay alive.  It's fun, though.

I do not know the spawn criteria for these race horde battles.

I have been there for one of these and it is crazy. I have to think it is Bungie's way of telling us not to sit at the cave too long. LOL

eclipz wrote:

frankthetoad wrote:

That cave on the side only normally spawns about four enemies; HOWEVER, every now and then, there is a race vs. race horde battle.  It is brutal, no matter the difficulty.  There will easily be over 100 enemies over the course of five minutes or so.  I've been there with only one other person before, and it was hard to stay alive.  It's fun, though.

I do not know the spawn criteria for these race horde battles.

I have been there for one of these and it is crazy. I have to think it is Bungie's way of telling us not to sit at the cave too long. LOL

That and the fact that the Warsat lands directly on the spot we all stand to farm!

Someone posted on reddit that of course the Warsat landing in that area had nothing to do with Bungie trolling farmers since it was at that same location in the alpha and beta. I disagree. I believe they created that Treasure Cave on purpose. If you've noticed, it's a completely closed room with no fog doors. They knew what they were making and the race v. race horde war and Warsat drop most certainly are Bungie trolling farmers.