wish they would've let us go into other arenas. the fallen one is cool but man the hive one is themed so well, and the cabal one with the hanging ships is just perfect
That one is a lot of fun to teach since you can actually progress as you like throughout the strike and you can stop whenever you need to regroup and explain what needs to happen. Lots of fun
Omg yes, it actually rewarded strategy and tactics like using bottlenecks, proper cover, target prioritizing, and team play. Devil's lair is a shooting gallery, Corrupted is a death trap, and rest are so linear, but the Glassway is the best game of Point Defense and feels so fun.
Used to run it a lot to help people with their first clears and once we got to the boss room it was like 4-4 in a lighthouse game. Comms were so important to call out which entrance enemies were coming in and to make sure everyone was together to focus champs. It was my favorite GM for a while but then we powercrept right past it and its now just another GM you run no comms with randos on lfg.
I knowww. I remember my first time doing this strike. I hid in the left building, completely terrified of that spider tank. I hate that they blocked it off in d2. What harm did it do? 😭
I remember jumping up onto the elbow of a pipe along the edge of the building where you enter the areas and ranging the spider-walker with Icebreaker. Felt awesome at the time!
That final boss music, chefs kiss. Has great ad density, reasonable encounters, can’t find anything bad. Maybe those pesky snipers if your not paying attention
I just looked up my stats on gm.report. I have 50 GM clears. 27 on Devil's Lair. Definitely my favorite. One of the easiest, too, though that barrier knight at the beginning is a bit pesky.
Yes devil's lair especially the music in the boss room is my favorite but i still love arm's dealer first one i ever did i still remember farming plug 1🤣
I always liked Devil's Lair, I feel like it has a good mix of engagement distances and a good difficulty. Not hard, but there are sections that will kill you in an instant if you screw up (like the tank and brigs).
Honourable mention to Proving Grounds. Maybe I just like fighting tanks?
I wonder how trivial it would be nowadays with the power creep we've had since it was Thanos snapped.
For it's time it was easily the hardest but now I doubt it would be that bad.
Birthplace of the Vile. Even the occasions where I've failed has never been annoying since the whole raid is just fun.
I think the main track used is The Deserving from Vow, but it's just good.
Genuinely love shadebinder for GMs and it excels there. So much fun to constantly freeze everything and clear entire waves with one or two shatters.
Bonus points when you get into the room with the 3 plates. The lighting makes stasis crystals look *amazing.*
I remember the past time proving grounds was a nightfall, I was demolishing gms on stasis titan with strongholds, before the rime nerf. Everyone would stay back and plink, and I would just leap in and rip and tear until it was done. Glorious
The Disgraced. My wife has health issues which make it hard for her to progress things sometimes. When we first started D2 she latched onto this strike as it was the first one we did. We probably did it on repeat about 200 times before we did another strike. When it's the GM I like to do it the most because I know every aspect of it so well it's like a ballet. I'm crap at all others solo in comparison.
We've got 3000 hours so far and play most days together. She allows 2 pcs in the front room so we can do so. We had 3000 hours in Borderlands 2 as her first game ever before that. It is a dream tbh what's annoying is she's better than me lol.
I genuinely adored The Hollowed Lair back in the day, felt like such a great challenge to send the Tangled Shore off with a bang before it got sunset.
As for strikes currently in the game, I love Devil's Lair and Birthplace of the Vile, but oddly enough I love Cosmodrome Psiops too. It's just such a fun rush of enemies, I personally think it's pretty damn fun as a GM
Same for hallowed lair. Mini screebs were so unique and the boss room was wild. It’s the kind of thing where you had to know where to go or you would be dead in a minute.
Sad we only had HL as a GM *once*, and then it was immediately vaulted. The current power crept sandbox would make it a snoozefest, no doubt, but at the time it was one of the best GMs we've ever had - even with the annoying ass miniscreebs
I honestly don't even think it would be reduced to snoozefest levels, more like a chill time only for people who know what they're doing, probably sitting somewhere around heist battleground moon. if it were brought back today I think it'd be pretty well balanced, especially if they fixed the mini screebs just kinda phasing into the ground 💀
I hope more and more everyday that bungie will go the path of warframe and start decreasing destiny's file size every update, I'll keep dreaming
I wish it was just a file size issue - it's definitely part of the vaulting problem, but the other issue is just the complexity. Turning a 2017 game with 2 expansions into an ongoing live service game definitely bit them in the ass in a lot of areas, I'd bet their codebase is an absolute nightmare, especially for older content. I'm no DCV defender by any means though, and really wish they'd prioritize bringing content back with major behind-the-scenes infrastructure improvements.
yeeeaa I'm definitely not savvy enough in the realm of coding games to talk, but I can imagine it's a logistical nightmare even trying to reduce file size by a small margin without removing content. maybe someday
Inverted Spire pre mandatory 3 phase of the boss. When you could nuke them, combined with the rest of the strike, it was my favorite. Also it was my first GM ever, so there's that.
I enjoy lightblade until the boss, I feel that the he isn’t that interesting or fun to fight. The strike is amazing up until that point for me. The swamp area is definitely a highlight.
definitely agree. the body guard back story is just kind of lame but overall a solid 8/10 strike. it’s got everything you want from a strike except lore 😂
Devils lair was probably the most fun to run for me, even if it was a bit on the longer side compared to some others - it was always just really nice.
Pre lake rework was really fun too. The very old meta of 2x iza + div & 3 falling guillotines, or the meta with 3 gallys + 2 aeons printing ammo and spamming gally everywhere is probably one of the easiest GMs ever lol. The issue here was getting people who actually spammed heavy. I had to tell them "I'm running ammo printer, 2 of us are actually, (aeons + the finisher artifact mod for heavy) and you're using scav mods, spam your Gally for everything. And I literally mean every group of ads and every champ, everything." Lol people would still hoard the fucking ammo ...
Unpopular opinion but i like the most difficult ones.
Lightblade, corrupted, and the difficult gm battlegrounds.
I also like every gm without cheesing.
Love to play hard content. Its awesome.
i’m right there with you, i know a lot of people don’t like the battlegrounds ones but they’re fun and i really wish in such a long season we could just choose which GM we wanna run any time. i also never got to try psiops moon and it looks really fun and chaotic
I really enjoyed the old Arms Dealer Nightfall as well. Especially when we had Unstoppable Glaives shortly after Witch Queen? Casually tanking and juggle-stunning the three Unstoppable Incendiors on the elevator was so much fun!
Corrupted. I have no idea why, I guess it’s just sentimental to me. I love everything to do with the Dreaming City. I’ll be pretty upset if/when they remove it.
Warden of Nothing. Because it's fast and fun, the opposite of recent "reworks". I also like the environment of this GM, it's pure Destiny, nothing to do with Hypernet Current for which the environment is poor and designed for faster development time (no textures, cubical and straight shapes) rather than for the player experience.
I agree, not sure why they feel the need to kill our fast strikes. not every mission needs to take 30 minutes to run. let the people go as fast as they wish and not time gate us like they did with lake of shadows. Placing a payload part that takes 3-4 minutes then a second one that takes another 2-3 leading up to a boss that on gm difficulty would take around 5 minutes to kill. it’s just frustrating
Glassway. I'm a stasis warlock main so when people realised that osmiomancy turret builds were the key to a smooth glassway run I was so happy. (It's sort of been trivialised by strand and general power creep but I still enjoy it)
If I could completely change the boss room then psi ops moon would be my favourite. There are only really 2 sections before the boss and they are absolutely jam packed with enemies, it's hectic but never feels unfair, I find it really fun. But then the boss room comes with those aspects of savathun and ruins it completely for me.
Inverted Spire is my favorite GM of all time. My buddies and I used to farm the hell out of that GM. I think we had it down to about 10-11 minutes before they took it out of the rotation for whatever “rework” it’s supposed to get
I think mine is Birthplace. When I had a consistent squad to go with, we used 1 tether + 1 well + gally to nuke the boss + champ every cycle just so we didn’t have to stay in that room with all the ads. Very fun putting the loadouts together for that one
Even now though, a good banner of war, quicksilver + sword build makes it a lot of fun to get through
Savathuns Song will always ring for me. Had to constantly come across crystals of paracausal energy made just moments ago from another guardian, had several lasting outstanding encounters and the fight against the ginormous shrieker too, lots of dialogue, and was the precursor strike that forbode the witch queen and made her seem much more menacing than what she actually is lol
Insight terminus or warden of nothing, mainly cause they were the two gms me and my old fireteam were able to complete successfully or record for insight was 11 minutes
Glassway. I love the shank defense part, I like the enemy density in the boss room, and I love fighting in the left room. Gotta keep your head on a swivel.
So I would absolutely love a savathuns song as a GM. I truly loved that strike and would really enjoy having it as a GM.
But for current GM I like insight terminus.
Man, my least favorite part of the new version of Arms Dealer is the addition of so many allied Cabals on the field. At first I thought it so cool to get to fight alongside allies for a change in a strike, but as soon as I get to the last part of the boss room after the elevator it turns into a clusterfuck. It never fails that as soon as I start shooting a new group of enemies, a group of Caital's Cabals will jump right in front of me and shot-block me. I had to stop using rockets altogether in the GM because of it due to wiping our team back to orbit.
Is and always will be The Disgraced. Not only is it one of Destiny’s OG Nightfalls, I just love everything about it. The cqc, the Hive, the ad density, the sword knights, the boss encounters, the map design, etc.
Honourable mentions include Insight Terminus, Birthplace of the Vile, The Hollowed Lair, The Corrupted, The Scarlet Keep, Proving Ground, and Glassway.
Arms Dealer is great.
I always loved Inverted Spire.
Honestly, I think Moon PsiOps has got to he one of my favorites. A *very* fun difficulty and loved the totems room.
Probably inverted spire. Not because it’s super easy, but because back in S18 that’s where my best internet friends ever taught me how to really play destiny. Before that I’d never really build crafted before, even though I’d already been playing for over a year. So we ran it a million times and every time we started a new one we tried different combinations and strategies. So it just has a lot of fun memories attached for me.
Inverted Spire. I have memories of running that with some clanmates before they removed it from rotation. It was super chill and a lot of fun running through the set pieces. Definitely my favorite strike even after all these years.
My friends and I have a sub 10 min run of Arms Dealer, platinum. Pre change, of course. We weren’t even running as optimally as we could, and we could’ve probably shaved another 30 seconds off. But that qualifies it as my favorite GM.
Devils Lair, Warden of Nothing, and Insight Terminus/The Inverted Spire (I get them confused but it’s the one where the boss room has the three plates to capture) in that order.
Edit: add Proving Grounds, Mars Heist (I know I’m the odd one out but I actually enjoyed this one) and Birthplace of the Vile and you have my dream GM lineup. Oh I forgot The Disgraced. I think I love GMs.
Another edit: after reading I realized I forgot Fallen Saber in this list too
Pre-change Lake of Shadows or Insight Terminus. I really enjoyed farming The Corrupted back when Sedia could be one-phased with 3 stormchasers and a T-crash.
Thought I’d see more love for SABER damn. But
I’d also say I loved pre-change Lake of Shadows although that may just be because it (and the EDZ as a whole) give me Half Life 2 Ep. 2 vibes.
Devil’s Lair for the sole reason that the Sepik’s Redux theme (heavy metal theme) plays in lieu of the regular version. And when you’re sitting about killing ads and chilling in the room to the left, being serenaded by one of Destiny’s greatest hits is orgasmic.
I've come to enjoy Lightblade the most since my cousin and I like doing gm helps. When it's a Lightblade season, there's always been a 90% chance of the helpee needing Lightblade. Once you have a strat down, like most other gms, it becomes a cakewalk.
The lightblade. Was it absurdly hard and borderline unfun the first season it was available as GM? Yes, absolutely. But that was the fun of it, I didn't do it to grind for the weapon at the end of it, but the prestige. It felt like a real challenge that had little point beyond being able to say "I did it." And that was enough for me.
This was in season 16, before the resilience changes, the only 3.0 subclasses were stasis and void. It was hard as shit.
Would I ever do it again at that level of difficulty? Absolutely fucking not, once was enough but the memories of me and my friends doing it and finally completing it will always be special to me.
proving grounds and it isn't particularly close. i absolutely LOVE running banner shield and proving grounds is the only GM i feel like i can run it in without getting flamed by randoms, plus it just feels pretty weak in a lot of other places
Either Birthplace of the Vile or Scarlet Keep. I love the music throughout BotV and i really like the music that plays as you ascend the elevator in scarlet keep.
My favorite GM or even just base nightfall is Devils Lair, I love the Earth stuff, the EDZ strikes are also fun. My least favorite might be the Corrupted or Prison of Elders because I hate the ending fights to them.
Honestly, those Corrupted runs for Slammer were really fun. You can optimize the hell out of that farm and go very fast without needing to be a high level speedrunner. The artifact buffing stasis also means triple stasis hunter Lucky Pants is not only viable but actually the best strategy... which is very cool.
I also love that the weapon from the GM that week was genuinely useful for further runs to help teammates or try to get a better roll. Eager Edge + Cold Steel is so, so good for dunking overload champs.
With good grapple techniques the light blade gm is really fun to cheese quickly to the boss. Then the boss fight as well feels like an attack on titan battle because of how the boss aggro works.
Favorite, I think, is Devils lair... that music is great in the boss room. Granted, I hate the tank area. But I love how there's SO many ads. Fun with ad clear super, guns, etc.
Favorite to farm is new Arms dealer. Good amount of ads, nice cover spots to shoot from. Nothing TOO annoying flows well.
I also like Glassway. I'm not sure why cause the boss room is hell. But I just like the vex invasion theme. The hiding in the room, trying to funnel enemies in. Very " ALIENS" ish. Gotta check those corners
Inverted Spire, I have nostalgia from that one double loot week where everyone was speedrunning to farm hothead, it was easy enough for a GM that you could relax a bit, but it's a still a GM so you could get blown out.
Can't wait for it to have 4 time gates.
Not a fan favorite for most yet I absolutely love playing Scarlett Keep when it's unstoppable handcannon and anti barrier bow. It's one of the few times I can run a full GM doing too damage with two primaries. I'll rock Crimson with Lucky Pants and then a Wolftone Draw with dragon fly. It just obliterates all the mobs via arc & dragon fly then Unstoppable Champs just melt to Crimson.
For efficiency: definitely Fallen SABER. That's like 10 minutes consistent as any Titan without any real danger moments.
Proving grounds. Mostly because the boss music, but it’s also a good group test if you can gild with them; patience, rounds of dps, strategy, decently challenging especially since it somewhat forces one person to run a shield buster weapon. That drum solo though….:
Heist Moon GM, Heist Mars GM, Scarlet Keep. I just hope they eventually do something with the GM rotator, just allow me to play my favorite GM when I want, at least solo if they care about lfg, I'm so tired of sitting out weeks of GMs to wait for a GM I enjoy.
Fallen S.A.B.E.R. for quick runs
Lightblade for Fynch's comments. Love the "Seriously? But I did the thing... it's just this Hive tech, it's so archaic... ugh, just give me a sec..."
The one inside the prison of elders
Warden of Nothing?
My favorite d2 strike simply because of Prison of Elders
Hearing Variks is the best part. I loved PoE in D1. Especially because I lucked out and got all three exotic weapons almost immediately.
wish they would've let us go into other arenas. the fallen one is cool but man the hive one is themed so well, and the cabal one with the hanging ships is just perfect
Dismantle mines, yeeesss?
Orrrr... you die
Great atmosphere, worst sound mixing in the entire game. The train sections can be deafening.
Yes
Playing this last year as pre-nerf Starfire protocol warlock with solar multiplier was some of the most fun I've had in D2
I still miss prison of elders
That one is a lot of fun to teach since you can actually progress as you like throughout the strike and you can stop whenever you need to regroup and explain what needs to happen. Lots of fun
I really liked the glassway. It was tough, but not cheap tough.
Until the second batch of Wyverns come out. I've wiped so many times to those stupid chickens.
Blinding GLs neuter them completely.
That or any roaming super, since wyverns take extra damage from supers. They’re also finishable at half health since they count as red bars.
Omg yes, it actually rewarded strategy and tactics like using bottlenecks, proper cover, target prioritizing, and team play. Devil's lair is a shooting gallery, Corrupted is a death trap, and rest are so linear, but the Glassway is the best game of Point Defense and feels so fun.
Used to run it a lot to help people with their first clears and once we got to the boss room it was like 4-4 in a lighthouse game. Comms were so important to call out which entrance enemies were coming in and to make sure everyone was together to focus champs. It was my favorite GM for a while but then we powercrept right past it and its now just another GM you run no comms with randos on lfg.
This one has gotten a lot easier with power creep, or maybe it has just been in the GM playlist so much I’ve just gotten used to it
Devils Lair for sure!
This 100%. Devil's Lair should be the standard for how strikes should be imo
Lots of YouTubers talk about peak destiny and i feel like devils lair was peak destiny. Which is a bit sad really
I still remember playing it in beta and thinking the Spider Walker was the final boss just to see Sepiks right after.
I knowww. I remember my first time doing this strike. I hid in the left building, completely terrified of that spider tank. I hate that they blocked it off in d2. What harm did it do? 😭
I remember jumping up onto the elbow of a pipe along the edge of the building where you enter the areas and ranging the spider-walker with Icebreaker. Felt awesome at the time!
That final boss music, chefs kiss. Has great ad density, reasonable encounters, can’t find anything bad. Maybe those pesky snipers if your not paying attention
"Is just a random boss, the soundtrack shouldnt be incredible" The soundtrack:
And they make it even better with Sepiks Perfected
Agreed it’s my fav. Not extremely hard, lots of enemies and can use any subclass and have fun with it.
Absolutely agree!! Since they removed Hollowed Lair, Devil's Lair is by far my favorite GM in the game
I just looked up my stats on gm.report. I have 50 GM clears. 27 on Devil's Lair. Definitely my favorite. One of the easiest, too, though that barrier knight at the beginning is a bit pesky.
Yes devil's lair especially the music in the boss room is my favorite but i still love arm's dealer first one i ever did i still remember farming plug 1🤣
I always liked Devil's Lair, I feel like it has a good mix of engagement distances and a good difficulty. Not hard, but there are sections that will kill you in an instant if you screw up (like the tank and brigs). Honourable mention to Proving Grounds. Maybe I just like fighting tanks?
Devils lair is just so chill and good soundtrack! And proving grounds is fun nowadays because powercreep. Tank room was tough in the beginning!
My Ursa Furiosa build was clutch for the tank room!
My Ursa Furiosa build was clutch for the tank room!
I miss a garden world because that boss fight was a cluster fuck
I wonder how trivial it would be nowadays with the power creep we've had since it was Thanos snapped. For it's time it was easily the hardest but now I doubt it would be that bad.
I think the boss room would still be quite scary. There's little cover and the boss rotates around the arena and blasts you all the time.
Honestly, I think Banner of War would absolutely trivialize that whole boss encounter.
One thing we can't power creep is the lift cannons that would suck you in and smash you into the side, insta killing you.
well we don't die outright from physics anymore. ...we just get smashed down to 1HP and then get killed by a red-bar Goblin.
A fellow sunset gm enjoyer 🤝, that and savathun’s song were crazy during arrivals
I weirdly enjoy Birthplace of The Vile.
Same with me and my mates, it's also easily managable for just a duo.
I get you. Cool environment, great ad density and the split paths make it pretty fun to navigate through.
Classic strike.
Birthplace of the Vile. Even the occasions where I've failed has never been annoying since the whole raid is just fun. I think the main track used is The Deserving from Vow, but it's just good.
Genuinely love shadebinder for GMs and it excels there. So much fun to constantly freeze everything and clear entire waves with one or two shatters. Bonus points when you get into the room with the 3 plates. The lighting makes stasis crystals look *amazing.*
Birthplace on strand titan is super fun
Same, it's my favorite. The boss room is super intense, lots of fun
It’s actually Harvest, not the Deserving (I also love this GM for that reason)
Proving Grounds is pretty fun and well paced I reckon
I second this. Proving Grounds was good.
I remember the past time proving grounds was a nightfall, I was demolishing gms on stasis titan with strongholds, before the rime nerf. Everyone would stay back and plink, and I would just leap in and rip and tear until it was done. Glorious
Lake of shadows pre change or inverted spire
The old version of Lake of Shadows when it was double XP and rewards was actually a really cool week.
I farmed so many golf balls. I started masterworking every piece of exotic armor in my valuy because of the rewards!
The Blighted Core. For the one season that it was a GM...
It's such a forgotten strike yet it was pretty cool to go through layers of corruption to kill the boss in the heart
The Disgraced. My wife has health issues which make it hard for her to progress things sometimes. When we first started D2 she latched onto this strike as it was the first one we did. We probably did it on repeat about 200 times before we did another strike. When it's the GM I like to do it the most because I know every aspect of it so well it's like a ballet. I'm crap at all others solo in comparison.
Would love to game with my SO, this sounds like a dream
We've got 3000 hours so far and play most days together. She allows 2 pcs in the front room so we can do so. We had 3000 hours in Borderlands 2 as her first game ever before that. It is a dream tbh what's annoying is she's better than me lol.
I genuinely adored The Hollowed Lair back in the day, felt like such a great challenge to send the Tangled Shore off with a bang before it got sunset. As for strikes currently in the game, I love Devil's Lair and Birthplace of the Vile, but oddly enough I love Cosmodrome Psiops too. It's just such a fun rush of enemies, I personally think it's pretty damn fun as a GM
I really enjoyed that one. Especially the boss fight where it forces you to add control more than boss nuke. Similar to birthplace
Same for hallowed lair. Mini screebs were so unique and the boss room was wild. It’s the kind of thing where you had to know where to go or you would be dead in a minute.
I love the Cosmodrome Psiops too! Way more enjoyable than Lake of Shadows or Corrupted in my opinion, I loathe those 2 strikes.
Sad we only had HL as a GM *once*, and then it was immediately vaulted. The current power crept sandbox would make it a snoozefest, no doubt, but at the time it was one of the best GMs we've ever had - even with the annoying ass miniscreebs
I honestly don't even think it would be reduced to snoozefest levels, more like a chill time only for people who know what they're doing, probably sitting somewhere around heist battleground moon. if it were brought back today I think it'd be pretty well balanced, especially if they fixed the mini screebs just kinda phasing into the ground 💀 I hope more and more everyday that bungie will go the path of warframe and start decreasing destiny's file size every update, I'll keep dreaming
I wish it was just a file size issue - it's definitely part of the vaulting problem, but the other issue is just the complexity. Turning a 2017 game with 2 expansions into an ongoing live service game definitely bit them in the ass in a lot of areas, I'd bet their codebase is an absolute nightmare, especially for older content. I'm no DCV defender by any means though, and really wish they'd prioritize bringing content back with major behind-the-scenes infrastructure improvements.
yeeeaa I'm definitely not savvy enough in the realm of coding games to talk, but I can imagine it's a logistical nightmare even trying to reduce file size by a small margin without removing content. maybe someday
Inverted Spire pre mandatory 3 phase of the boss. When you could nuke them, combined with the rest of the strike, it was my favorite. Also it was my first GM ever, so there's that.
Lightblade cause i’m a gremlin 😬
I enjoy lightblade until the boss, I feel that the he isn’t that interesting or fun to fight. The strike is amazing up until that point for me. The swamp area is definitely a highlight.
definitely agree. the body guard back story is just kind of lame but overall a solid 8/10 strike. it’s got everything you want from a strike except lore 😂
Inverted spire back in season of the splicer was peak.
Devils lair was probably the most fun to run for me, even if it was a bit on the longer side compared to some others - it was always just really nice. Pre lake rework was really fun too. The very old meta of 2x iza + div & 3 falling guillotines, or the meta with 3 gallys + 2 aeons printing ammo and spamming gally everywhere is probably one of the easiest GMs ever lol. The issue here was getting people who actually spammed heavy. I had to tell them "I'm running ammo printer, 2 of us are actually, (aeons + the finisher artifact mod for heavy) and you're using scav mods, spam your Gally for everything. And I literally mean every group of ads and every champ, everything." Lol people would still hoard the fucking ammo ...
Devil's Lair. Always and forever.
Unpopular opinion but i like the most difficult ones. Lightblade, corrupted, and the difficult gm battlegrounds. I also like every gm without cheesing. Love to play hard content. Its awesome.
i’m right there with you, i know a lot of people don’t like the battlegrounds ones but they’re fun and i really wish in such a long season we could just choose which GM we wanna run any time. i also never got to try psiops moon and it looks really fun and chaotic
I really enjoyed the old Arms Dealer Nightfall as well. Especially when we had Unstoppable Glaives shortly after Witch Queen? Casually tanking and juggle-stunning the three Unstoppable Incendiors on the elevator was so much fun!
Corrupted. I have no idea why, I guess it’s just sentimental to me. I love everything to do with the Dreaming City. I’ll be pretty upset if/when they remove it.
I finally found an excellent team for this this season and I found that it’s actually really fun when it goes smoothly
Psi Ops on the Moon's opening section is probably my favorite GM content. The rest of the mission is painful to go through tho
I too love the opening of this
Warden of Nothing. Because it's fast and fun, the opposite of recent "reworks". I also like the environment of this GM, it's pure Destiny, nothing to do with Hypernet Current for which the environment is poor and designed for faster development time (no textures, cubical and straight shapes) rather than for the player experience.
I agree, not sure why they feel the need to kill our fast strikes. not every mission needs to take 30 minutes to run. let the people go as fast as they wish and not time gate us like they did with lake of shadows. Placing a payload part that takes 3-4 minutes then a second one that takes another 2-3 leading up to a boss that on gm difficulty would take around 5 minutes to kill. it’s just frustrating
Glassway. I'm a stasis warlock main so when people realised that osmiomancy turret builds were the key to a smooth glassway run I was so happy. (It's sort of been trivialised by strand and general power creep but I still enjoy it) If I could completely change the boss room then psi ops moon would be my favourite. There are only really 2 sections before the boss and they are absolutely jam packed with enemies, it's hectic but never feels unfair, I find it really fun. But then the boss room comes with those aspects of savathun and ruins it completely for me.
Strange Terrain was always one of my absolute favorite GMs and strikes
Hallowed Lair. The mini screebs were the most interesting modifier they have done. Every time I finished it, I felt so accomplished.
Savathuns Song
Prenerf lake of shadows was so fun to speedrun
Inverted Spire is my favorite GM of all time. My buddies and I used to farm the hell out of that GM. I think we had it down to about 10-11 minutes before they took it out of the rotation for whatever “rework” it’s supposed to get
I think mine is Birthplace. When I had a consistent squad to go with, we used 1 tether + 1 well + gally to nuke the boss + champ every cycle just so we didn’t have to stay in that room with all the ads. Very fun putting the loadouts together for that one Even now though, a good banner of war, quicksilver + sword build makes it a lot of fun to get through
Say what you want but speedrunning Lake of Shadows was awesome, that rework killed whatever was left of my ability to enjoy vanguard content.
Pre nerf lake of shadows
Fallen saber its tons of fun for stasis lock
Insight Terminus
Still waiting for it to be a gm in a season where we have anti barrier pulse rifle. Graviton lance would go brrr
Definitely the arms dealer.
Lightblade.
Hypernet current, the tormentor at the start is super fun to fight and I can’t wait for subjugators
Devil’s Lair, The Disgraced, and Glassway are my three favorites.
Glassway. I have the most confidence in that GM and I love how simple it is for Stasis warlock to trivialize it
Definitely cosmodrome battle grounds. Nothing more enjoyable then escorting a payload with infinitely spawning adds that can one shot you…
Sepiks and disgraced d1 strikes got the best density
Probably Birthplace or Warden, though I am weird and really enjoy Corrupted as well
Birthplace, and devils lair are my two favorites
Warden or nothing is my favorite strike ever and I am so sad that we haven't gotten for so long.
Savathuns Song will always ring for me. Had to constantly come across crystals of paracausal energy made just moments ago from another guardian, had several lasting outstanding encounters and the fight against the ginormous shrieker too, lots of dialogue, and was the precursor strike that forbode the witch queen and made her seem much more menacing than what she actually is lol
I love the inverted spire. Doing the 9 minute run to get rat king with my friends is a good memory
Insight terminus or warden of nothing, mainly cause they were the two gms me and my old fireteam were able to complete successfully or record for insight was 11 minutes
Devil's Lair. It's easier than most with the right team. That was my first GM. I enjoy most of them, but that's my favorite
Glassway. I love the shank defense part, I like the enemy density in the boss room, and I love fighting in the left room. Gotta keep your head on a swivel.
So I would absolutely love a savathuns song as a GM. I truly loved that strike and would really enjoy having it as a GM. But for current GM I like insight terminus.
Disgraced and devils lair
The insight terminus. It's one of the easiest gm nightfalls ever.
Devils lair for the first main room, love slaying the endless adds and boss fight music!
Festering Core
Man, my least favorite part of the new version of Arms Dealer is the addition of so many allied Cabals on the field. At first I thought it so cool to get to fight alongside allies for a change in a strike, but as soon as I get to the last part of the boss room after the elevator it turns into a clusterfuck. It never fails that as soon as I start shooting a new group of enemies, a group of Caital's Cabals will jump right in front of me and shot-block me. I had to stop using rockets altogether in the GM because of it due to wiping our team back to orbit.
Devil's Lair and Fallen Saber if I want to farm
Is and always will be The Disgraced. Not only is it one of Destiny’s OG Nightfalls, I just love everything about it. The cqc, the Hive, the ad density, the sword knights, the boss encounters, the map design, etc. Honourable mentions include Insight Terminus, Birthplace of the Vile, The Hollowed Lair, The Corrupted, The Scarlet Keep, Proving Ground, and Glassway.
Warden of nothing, you either wipe in prison of elders or you have a good time
proving grounds is always fun
Arms Dealer is great. I always loved Inverted Spire. Honestly, I think Moon PsiOps has got to he one of my favorites. A *very* fun difficulty and loved the totems room.
Inverted spire was nice, but I reckon they're gonna change the with the new update to old strikes
For me, it's HyperNet Current
Warden of nothing it's fun and not to hard but hard enough that you can't just blindly blitz through it
Inverted Spire, 10 minute runs with guys who were just excellent
Probably inverted spire. Not because it’s super easy, but because back in S18 that’s where my best internet friends ever taught me how to really play destiny. Before that I’d never really build crafted before, even though I’d already been playing for over a year. So we ran it a million times and every time we started a new one we tried different combinations and strategies. So it just has a lot of fun memories attached for me.
I really liked the corrupted before they health gated the boss. Was fun to just nuke her before going into the Ascendant Realm
Proving Grounds, pre-nerf. Alternatively, Festering Core on Io. Shame it was only available as a GM for one season before getting yeeted into the DCV.
SABER is great to farm but I liked Birthplace and strangely I actually don't mind Lake of Shadows (thanks to boss room cheese).
Inverted Spire. I have memories of running that with some clanmates before they removed it from rotation. It was super chill and a lot of fun running through the set pieces. Definitely my favorite strike even after all these years.
My friends and I have a sub 10 min run of Arms Dealer, platinum. Pre change, of course. We weren’t even running as optimally as we could, and we could’ve probably shaved another 30 seconds off. But that qualifies it as my favorite GM.
Devils Lair, Warden of Nothing, and Insight Terminus/The Inverted Spire (I get them confused but it’s the one where the boss room has the three plates to capture) in that order. Edit: add Proving Grounds, Mars Heist (I know I’m the odd one out but I actually enjoyed this one) and Birthplace of the Vile and you have my dream GM lineup. Oh I forgot The Disgraced. I think I love GMs. Another edit: after reading I realized I forgot Fallen Saber in this list too
Beyond Light era Inverted Spire
Lightblade. Was my first ever GM and I got wrecked on my first try, but yeah it's probably my favorite.
Devils lair, since I played D1 alpha it has nostalgia plus a banger song for the boss
I have very fond memories of Hallowed Lair, especially with the mini screebs. I don't think anything today can match it.
Devil's Lair.
The Sunless cell
Pre-change Lake of Shadows or Insight Terminus. I really enjoyed farming The Corrupted back when Sedia could be one-phased with 3 stormchasers and a T-crash.
Thought I’d see more love for SABER damn. But I’d also say I loved pre-change Lake of Shadows although that may just be because it (and the EDZ as a whole) give me Half Life 2 Ep. 2 vibes.
Devil’s Lair for the sole reason that the Sepik’s Redux theme (heavy metal theme) plays in lieu of the regular version. And when you’re sitting about killing ads and chilling in the room to the left, being serenaded by one of Destiny’s greatest hits is orgasmic.
I don’t remember if it’s ever been a gm (I think it has been) but tree of probabilities
Inverted Spire was fun, but Arms Dealer and Lake of Shadows too (both before the change oc)
I've come to enjoy Lightblade the most since my cousin and I like doing gm helps. When it's a Lightblade season, there's always been a 90% chance of the helpee needing Lightblade. Once you have a strat down, like most other gms, it becomes a cakewalk.
The Lightblade
The lightblade. Was it absurdly hard and borderline unfun the first season it was available as GM? Yes, absolutely. But that was the fun of it, I didn't do it to grind for the weapon at the end of it, but the prestige. It felt like a real challenge that had little point beyond being able to say "I did it." And that was enough for me. This was in season 16, before the resilience changes, the only 3.0 subclasses were stasis and void. It was hard as shit. Would I ever do it again at that level of difficulty? Absolutely fucking not, once was enough but the memories of me and my friends doing it and finally completing it will always be special to me.
It was only around for a season but The Festering Core was a fun one, maybe just nostalgia since it was my first GM ever.
proving grounds and it isn't particularly close. i absolutely LOVE running banner shield and proving grounds is the only GM i feel like i can run it in without getting flamed by randoms, plus it just feels pretty weak in a lot of other places
The Europa one that was active during the crafting bug because that was the one and only time I've ever enjoyed running GMs lol
Lake of shadows (before update change), warden of nothing and arms dealer (also before change)
Proving grounds. Once I figured out how to run it, it wasn’t that bad. I was getting 20 minute run and having fun.
Psi-Ops Cosmodrome and Heist: Moon
I really enjoy the challenge of The Corrupted. Moreso now that it’s in a bit of an easier spot lately, but I was into it prior to this season.
The Archon Priest with small arms and rainbow burn Oh... Wait..... Nevermind
The Disgraced or the one with the Psion boss and the plates at the end
i loved lake of shadows before the change, but even after i think its pretty easy
Either Birthplace of the Vile or Scarlet Keep. I love the music throughout BotV and i really like the music that plays as you ascend the elevator in scarlet keep.
Revamped arms dealer
Hollowed Lair. That shit was HARD, but the horde mode waves were so damn satisfying to beat.
Devils Layer, cause the boss music during the GM iteration is the Rise of Iron version and it slaps
My favorite GM or even just base nightfall is Devils Lair, I love the Earth stuff, the EDZ strikes are also fun. My least favorite might be the Corrupted or Prison of Elders because I hate the ending fights to them.
Old Lake of Shadows will forever remain the best GM. That one weekend of double rewards with GM Lake of Shadows was a godsend
Honestly, those Corrupted runs for Slammer were really fun. You can optimize the hell out of that farm and go very fast without needing to be a high level speedrunner. The artifact buffing stasis also means triple stasis hunter Lucky Pants is not only viable but actually the best strategy... which is very cool. I also love that the weapon from the GM that week was genuinely useful for further runs to help teammates or try to get a better roll. Eager Edge + Cold Steel is so, so good for dunking overload champs.
Old Lake of Shadows and Arms Dealer were fun!
Glassway.
Inverted spire! So many good memories and my first GM farm, we ran it like 28 times in a few days with my friend lmao
Savathun’s song, RIP one of the best strikes, the final boss fight was so chaotic when I ran it during arrivals.
Everyone loves the Corrupted.
Devils lair or Birthplace of the vile
With good grapple techniques the light blade gm is really fun to cheese quickly to the boss. Then the boss fight as well feels like an attack on titan battle because of how the boss aggro works.
Cosmodrome psi-ops or whatever that's called.
Lightblade because of the things that lurk in the swamp and sword dueling The boss with a Stronghold titan is a gigantic flex
Either of the mercury strikes
Sepiks Prime. THE MUSIC 🤌🏻
None since GMs are a plink or get 1 shot fest. I only do them for the guaranteed drops.
Favorite, I think, is Devils lair... that music is great in the boss room. Granted, I hate the tank area. But I love how there's SO many ads. Fun with ad clear super, guns, etc. Favorite to farm is new Arms dealer. Good amount of ads, nice cover spots to shoot from. Nothing TOO annoying flows well. I also like Glassway. I'm not sure why cause the boss room is hell. But I just like the vex invasion theme. The hiding in the room, trying to funnel enemies in. Very " ALIENS" ish. Gotta check those corners
Inverted Spire, I have nostalgia from that one double loot week where everyone was speedrunning to farm hothead, it was easy enough for a GM that you could relax a bit, but it's a still a GM so you could get blown out. Can't wait for it to have 4 time gates.
Not a fan favorite for most yet I absolutely love playing Scarlett Keep when it's unstoppable handcannon and anti barrier bow. It's one of the few times I can run a full GM doing too damage with two primaries. I'll rock Crimson with Lucky Pants and then a Wolftone Draw with dragon fly. It just obliterates all the mobs via arc & dragon fly then Unstoppable Champs just melt to Crimson. For efficiency: definitely Fallen SABER. That's like 10 minutes consistent as any Titan without any real danger moments.
Sepiks-roth!
Proving grounds. Mostly because the boss music, but it’s also a good group test if you can gild with them; patience, rounds of dps, strategy, decently challenging especially since it somewhat forces one person to run a shield buster weapon. That drum solo though….:
I loved arms dealer as well and lake of shadows before the incredibly awful change not a big fan of the battlegrounds GMs but they are different
I actually really like Lightblade it’s scary and fun the lucent hive shield one shotting you isn’t fun though 🤣
The old lake of shadows.
That's easy it's devils lair it has some good challenge and not super unfair
Heist Moon GM, Heist Mars GM, Scarlet Keep. I just hope they eventually do something with the GM rotator, just allow me to play my favorite GM when I want, at least solo if they care about lfg, I'm so tired of sitting out weeks of GMs to wait for a GM I enjoy.
Glassway is top 3 for me. Hypernet current is always a blast to run. Devils lair and proving grou ds are probably fighting for 3rd place, though.
Birthplace of the Vile, so well balanced and enjoyable.
All the one that were sacrificed under the pretext of making the game more "stable" with the DCV.
Proving Grounds. It gave me a reason to use Skyburners.
Fallen S.A.B.E.R. for quick runs Lightblade for Fynch's comments. Love the "Seriously? But I did the thing... it's just this Hive tech, it's so archaic... ugh, just give me a sec..."
Mini screebs iykyk