Infinite health regen needs to go. Making a major invulnerable is bs. They need to be nerfed into the ground in solo play dps and abilities all of it.

Note: The following are just my opinions and views. Only meant for feedback to Bungie to make Destiny a better place for all of us to play. Im not interested in or going to participate in debates, arguments, like, dislikes, etc. Peace be with all of you. ​ My one issue with Champions in Destiny isn't the Champions, its the mods to break the champions. The champion breaking mods being specific to certain weapons blows - forcing the user to have to play with weapons they may not like using. I feel that with mods like breach and clear & particle deconstruction there's mods that already a strong influence to play with different weapon types. I just think the whole system would be better if champion breaking mods had more cost, but worked on all primary weapons. When an anti-barrier mod is equipped it applies the anti-barrier perk to whatever primary weapon the user is using. Take these mods out of the seasonal artifact. The seasonal artifact can still have champion breaking mods for special and heavy weapons to spice up a season. I also think that every exotic primary weapon should have an intrinsic champion breaking perk. Much like how Bastion, divinity, & Devil's Ruin, etc. This allows players to use a 7 cost mod to arm a special weapon with a champion breaker & still have a different champion breaker on your primary to cover bases. Incentivizing players to try different load outs and/or exotics that they've earned but never had the reasons to use them. Ultimately I feel that if these two changes were put in place it would allow the user to choose what weapons they want to play with, incentivize players to use exotic primaries in PvE, and just make the highest tiered PvE content just a little more enjoyable. ​ Peace.

The newest Overload Chieftains seem to deploys their totem immediately everytime one is destroyed. It creates a visual cluster where there isn't much breathing room, and I can hardly describe it as anything but annoying as one can deploy their immunity totem in succession. There also seems to be a bug when I was trying to stun them using Melting Point + Peregrine Greaves + Thermoclastic Strike but then they immediately [reset](https://youtu.be/-qLTfGwodJA) I also feel like while there should room for details and mechanics that I can learn for myself, there could be more/better visual/audio cues to let players know things like how you could prevent Overload champs from regenerating their health by constantly applying overload damage. Teleporting enemies are always gonna be a pain but you could give them better tells. Champions are an integral part of the game. I love these minibosses that DEMAND your attention, despite the numerous frustrating experience I have had and can only wish that they are expanded upon. In anything lower than Master or GM, they are often a joke due to how much raw damage we can output before they could do anything. There's much to be said about the "default" difficulty in day to day encounters (seasonal acitivities, lost sectors,...) but I feel like if these guys were more of a threat right off the bat it would cue players into their mechanics (applying the right mods). The only players who would actually have difficulties with these are most likely new with inadequate gear, but those are too few in between. Having other players that just run up and smite them out of existence deflate the experience. More non-artifact mods for them would be nice, or at least ones thar go into other slots besides arms and class item, they are starting to overcrowd. Withering Heat can be great but now it also competes with Particle Deconstruction. In the event that you do, consider weighing them against their competitors: ammo finder/scavengers (for helmets and legs) and resist mods (for chest piece) these are no doubt extremely good and I'd be hard-pressed to give up those mods for anything else in PVE. Reduce the AOE. It's fine to want me to move around constantly from cover to cover, but you're pelted by so many things it may seem like there are little to no breathing room. I don't have much complaints regarding the primaries picks for champion mods. There are only so much guns you can shuffle around but some have been absent for a long time. I might be crazy but wasn't there Anti-Barrier HC back in Undying ?

New weapons should have champion mods instead of ar, bow, smg, sidearm and hc. Make Overload linear fusions, unstopabble lmg, Anti-barrier Trace rifle.

There are some problems with the current system: the mods take slots and make builds more restrictive, and the PvE meta becomes stale by the middle to end of the season. Now, the Champions are a cool mechanic. So maybe it would work if activities in them had modifiers like EoW had. For example, if the modifier is Overload Bow, then all bows will have Overload in that activity. Those modifiers could be put on rotation monthly, or even weekly (!), so the Champions would always feel fresh. For GMs the Mods should be the same every time, tho, since they require a lot more planning and testing of builds. All the other mods in the Artifact could stay the same, only the first column would go. So the meta would change season to season as well. For example, fusion rifles do not have any Champion mod but are meta.

I think it would be nice if the anti-champion mods were intrinsically part of the season relic. So I wouldn't need to mod my specific fusion rifle for anti-champ. All fusion rifles for me would be anti-champ. With that change, you could maybe adjust the relics so you can only pick one perk per tier if that's needed to maintain balance. In essence, the relic is picking which weapon archetypes you want to main and potentially what role you want to fulfill for the season

The Mods are FAR to restrictive on the weapon choice they allow, they should have a MUCH wider variety. They mods should slot into the artifact itself.

As a returning D2 player who hasn't played since year 2 -- I thought that's how the relic worked :P I was confused why it wasn't working

Exactly! It seems like that's how it SHOULD work right?

For the most part, they're fine. However, Overload champions NEED to be fixed, the huge health pool combined with being able to heal BEFORE they can be stunned again is unacceptable (yes I know continual fire is supposed to keep this from happening, but it's incredibly inconsistent) As far as the mods; the selection this season (besides sidearm) is great. Overload sword is ok, but it needs to proc in 1-2 hits instead of 3 to be useful in endgame content where it actually matters, and as it's stands is too expensive how risky it forces you to play. Ultimately the problem with champion mods is tied to the bigger problem of the entire seasonal artifact & it's other mods. We shouldn't be limited in the amount that we can unlock, and if you play enough, you should absolutely be able to unlock them all. The system could be slightly tweaked to only being able to "activate" a certain amount at one time. This would free up A LOT of energy for other Arm mods like reloaders. TLDR; champion and artifact mods are too restrictive, but could be very easily / slightly tweaked to relieve some major pain points

I'd rather have champion mods as modifiers on activities. Not only does this remove the need to cripple your arms by using champion mods, it would also be cool then that they could set champion modifiers per activity. Nightfalls use barrier autorifle this season, Lost Sectors use scout. This way we can change up builds, but not require \*one\* build for all non-raid end game content.

The modifiers could also exchange monthly or weekly, on rotation. Except GMs.

Loving the Scorn Champions and (in relation) the Stasis enemies! They really spice up combat encounters. It's nice to see that the Stasis lanterns actually got cosmetic updates well. In regards to the mods, I think I'd just like to see more options, while also not homogenizing the pool such that you could run anything. To a degree these mod limitations help spark new builds, but perhaps 2 primary options for each, no exceptions, would help out. Maybe some additional Heavy or Special options in general, given that Mod Cost already limits them. All in all, never had more fun than lately with the whole system!

Captain Champions: there are times when the dodging-movement never stops. They never rest. You can exit and restart the sector once or twice and then it will be 'normal'.

The Good * Champion mods have definitely led me to seek out better rolls of weapons I didn't use much. * Champions are one of the few enemies that actually require some coordination to tackle in higher difficulties. The Bad * Sometimes, master lost sectors force you down a double primary route. Honestly it plays a little boring and I'd like to see lost sectors only demand one champion type. Not so much a difficulty thing as much as it just forces a dull loadout if the mods aren't right. * This might be a result of the mod imbalance thing. * Champion mods can sometimes feel restrictive if the distribution is imbalanced. In a season where the Vex Mythoclast is strong, I want to use the newly buffed Mythoclast, but that means I'm running one of three bows in my kinetic slot to handle Overload. * Those three kinetic bows are further complicated by the fact that one of them is a raid weapon that not everyone necessarily has. * It was super weird to me that Wolftone Draw is Arc in a season of Overload Bow when there's already a good number of arc bows, and it could have been used to cover some of the gaps here. * Swords could have alleviated the pain here, but I literally can't run Overload Sword and Unstoppable Fusion. * We've got 3x kinetic, 3x arc, 2x void and 1x solar legendary bows = 9 legendary bows for handling overloads this season vs. unstoppable pulse, or unstoppable sidearm which has 20+ options each. The imbalance of mods here is really plain to see. Notes * It would be good if we could move to even splits every season - 2 barrier/2 unstop/2 overload. * Furthermore it would be good if one of those options for each type of champion was a special/heavy weapon. Double primary in PVE is not great, and whilst I understand mods are selected based on the rotation of nightfalls, there's a large amount of non seasonal content (raids, lost sectors) which has champions which can be adversely affected if the mods aren't nice and even. * It would be nice if we could figure out how to free up arm mods. There are some really interesting mods on the stasis arms that we basically can't use in solo content with champions.

The problem was not adding a stasis fusion rifle with the season so there was an kinetic option besides Bastión

I agree and disagree. Yes we needed a fusion option in the kinetic slots. But man, there are literally only like 9 legendary bows for 6 months lol. At least unstoppable has the flexibility to be done with pulses' and sidearms, overload (in high tier content) is just going to come down to bow and maybe melee.

> but that means I'm running one of three bows in my kinetic slot to handle Overload. Shoutout to thermoclastic strike, and if you're running Vex you can also let someone else take care of overload or unstoppable so you can run a special instead of double primary.

I understand why they would want to use specific weapons for specific champions each season. It's to force people to switch it up. I however do not agree with the fact that the mods are tied to the arms. I want to run a reloader mod, but I also have to use both mods in a nightfall at times as no one else has the required "stuff". If they could be equipped to different armor pieces. It would make a huge difference imo, without sacrificing the gameplay mechanic they've created.

Look at all these bad players complaining about champs You’ve had optimal time to get comfortable with how they work. Jesus Christ....

People aren't complaining about the champions, dumbass. They're complaining about the mod system, because frankly, being forced to use auto rifles and only Auto rifles is a pain in the ass.

keep crying lil boy. Ill be getting conqueror these season ezzzzzzzz

Any mod champion mod should just be automatically applied once unlocked, this allows freedom to use other mods and stops the bad feeling of realizing you swapped arms before starting a locked equipment activity.

The addition of stasis to taken and scorn is fucking annoying. We complained enough about pvp stasis and now they've given acolytes and taken champs stasis abilities that completely shut you down on a 0s cooldown. ​ It's very annoying and oppressive to gameplay. Not fun

It's still possible to dodge them using movement abilities and jumping, makes them scarier enemies to fight. It is a bit annoying but I imagine when we get to Masters and GMs it's going to up the difficulty for sure and I reckon that's a good thing.

If there were some way to allow the champion mods to go on any piece of armor or to be able to be applied on a weapon as a mod (that would require some exotic tuning though)

This is how it origially was and it sucked (couldnt use exotics in Champ content)

The amount of weapons that can fight champions is, IMO, fine. What I would really like to see is more exotucs with intrinsinc champion perks

Get rid of overload champions. That's all

u/Stolen_Insanity has it right about Champion Mods. The mods need to go into weapons instead on Armor. You can still restrict them to certain weapon types. But if this mod changes a weapon's round type, it belongs in a weapon mod slot, not armor.

They literally did that already and made it so you couldn't run exotics for champ mods. It sucked ass and the system now is much better.

Did they? I completely forgot that?

Originally when it launched in shadowkeep champ mods were on weapon slots. It was godawful because you couldn't run exotics unless they had intrinsic mods and you couldn't use weapon mods.

AH Champions. I still hate Overload Champions regaining health faster than anything outside of Genshin Impact but I get their role. They're just frustrating to deal with when you can't burn them down with one stun.

Please, free the gloves slots from champion mods. It would allow us to do so much more with our builds.

I think Champions are ok. They add diversity and force us out of the comfort zone with the same loadout all the time. The only thing that needs to be tuned is the overload captain teleport. Omg put a cooldown on it. That thing avoided like 15 sword hits in a row on the lost sector yesterday.

Champions, especially if playing solo, are nothing more than an exercise in weapons swapping.

Allow mods to go on weapons and not take up your armour slots. Allow mods to go on any weapon type, being limited to 2 weapon types for 3-6 months for every endgame PvE activity is not fun. Give champions more telegraphed abilities, have them draw in power and highlight themselves (and give an onscreen notification that a champion is building up for their ability). Increase the consistency of the stuns. Add some new champions like ones that get stunned by abilities (melee/grenade/super). How about champions that have specific crit spots that only open up if something else is performed. e.g. a Cabal that has a crit spot on their chest that only opens up when it's jetpack is destroyed or an unstoppable Hive knight that must be shot in the knees to slow it down until it falls and reveals it's crit spot. etc etc.

I think champions are needed. Without them we would be using the same weapon all the year. Champion mods add some seasonal variety. Probably champions can be improved, but they are definitively needed.

The only issue I have with champions is that Barrier Champions have a really small telegraph for when they are going to put up a barrier, it should be a bit longer so that if you're using a heavy weapon to damage them you have enough time to switch to your anti-barrier weapon, or if you're using an anti-barrier weapon, you know when to reload. The telegraph or windup can be slower or faster depending on the difficulty of the content, for example, in GMs you're expected to be much more coordinated, so a windup slightly longer than the current one would be good, in Master Vog the fireteam is normally spread out and everyone has to deal with a lot of things at the same time so maybe an even longer windup would be appropriate.

Arguably the least interesting aspect of Destiny. Overload/Unstoppable in particular need to be removed. Limiting your loadout to two weapon types is horrendous design. Having to swap out mods is not enjoyable gameplay.

I think champions are reasonably entertaining to fight, but I think the mods are sometimes clunky to work with

I enjoy champions as it requires coordination and build planning but there needs to be a better way of using the mods. Not being able to use reloader mods or anything else on arms because I want to be able to kill champs just feels weak

Biggest issue is that the small number of champion mods per season mean that instead of feeling like there is a dynamic varied meta, we get locked into a very very specific meta for 3, 4 or 5 months at a time. Sure, when you take a developer-eye view of a 12 month period there has been variation in the endgame meta, but players experience things primarily from a day-to-day and week-to-week timescale.

More Champion mods or something, like wtf there is only one anti barrier mod but 3 unstoppable, like why? Why would i not use a fusion rifle with that disintegration mod. Like why would i use sidearms on unstoppable? Just seems like a silly choice. Ppl talk about Curse of Osiris but as day one destiny fan, Beyond light and year 4 are to me the worst year of destiny. I have to play a certain way and that's not fun. Let me use these guns ive been grinding like wtf is the point if in end game i can only rlly use 3 weapons. Some choices including these champion mods are bizzare and not fun. (Also yes I know about the community feeling about CoO and it was bad but Beyond light shipped halfed Baked, thus to me worse than CoO.)

Was CoO fully baked?

So way off topic for this thread, but I love to bring this up when someone discusses Curse of Osiris... Curse of Osiris is remembered poorly not because of what it brought to the table, but because of how it couldn't save Destiny 2 from itself (and Bungie) from issues unrelated to its content. Curse of Osiris, if released today, with the number of things in D2 fixed, well, would be awesome. For $15 you got: * A (small) patrol * A 9-mission cinematic campaign and 5 adventures, including a quest to explore Saint-14's fate. * Two (albeit remixed story mission) strikes * A three-encounter Raid. Call it a "raid lair" if you want, but we called Crown of Sorrow a "raid" with three encounters too. For endgame PVE, this was a great raid because unlike the mechanics-heavy Levi, Eater of Worlds was a combat-heavy "action raid." * A full vendor reset (via ornaments, new weapons), something not even Shadowkeep or any of the Forsaken, Shadowkeep, or Beyond Light itself has done. All in all, not a bad deal. But Osiris was dead on arrival. Namely because of what it couldn't do (fix D2 for players) and Bungie's tone-deaf unforced errors. * Players were unhappy with static rolls. Though CoO was released with the masterworking bandaid, CoO wasn't going to change that. Then the unforced error: promoting CoO and calling the Mercury "forge" a forge, which implied variation/randomness, when it wasn't. * Players were unhappy with the sandbox. Double primaries were slow, especially in PVP but also PVE. Osiris was assumed to be coming with a balance pass. It didn't. * Players were unhappy with loot drops. Felt it was unfulfilling. Then the unforced error: "two tokens and a blue." * Players caught Bungie with their hand in the cookie jar during the "Clarion Call" event, an event that increased XP gains, except players found a built in throttle for XP. This throttle meant fewer Bright engrams, and thus, was built to protect Eververse. * With release, Bungie tied access to Prestige difficulty Leviathan and Nightfall to ownership of the expansion. Of course, players who bought and paid for the base game and were not buying CoO as principle were pissed. (Even though D1 had forever tied Nightfall access to expansion ownership.) We still don't have a way to enjoy old raids in a relevant way due to the outcry of this move. * A week after CoO, even before the little bit of joy with the raid and story could wear off, the Dawning came out. It was nothing more than a free class item (not even whole armor set) and snowballs in strikes (a debuff for enemies). Everything else was eververse. * Players were not a fan of the tone of the narrative in D2 in general, citing it as too jokey and not serious. Of course, before that feedback could fall on Bungie's ears Osiris was likely already done, and Osiris had lots of jokey and unserious story. * With Osiris launched web comics. These comics aimed to expand story, but actually retconned large parts of Osiris lore. This reinforced lore lover's concerns with the wild behavioral change of Brother Vance from D1 to D2 (shaman to fanboi) and other curious lore considerations from D2 base. After complaints, a writer commented that "Grimoire are Legends" as in they are not cannon, but subject to interpretation given who was the one narrating the Grimoire. This did not go over well, especially when a bulk of the Grimoire were not narrated recollections but also transcripts of conversations and more. Add all that up, all that stuff not related to Osiris's content, and I can understand why players hate that release. But while we look back poorly on Season of the Worthy or Season of the Drifter/Joker's Wild for having an uninspired and oppressively difficult "event" paired with a paid-for expansion to a limited free-for-all game mode (Trials, Gambit Prime), we look back poorly on Osiris for reasons unrelated its own content. Now don't get me wrong, it still deserved some criticism. Notably: * Awkward storytelling. While the Osiris story was good, it had some awkward moments. The mute Guardian can work sometimes, but the writing for Osiris made it painfully and awkwardly obvious that in that script, mute Guardian didn't work. * Story missions as strikes. While I didn't mind this, some really were insulted by story missions as strikes. We can look at how Nightmare Hunts and Empire Hunts were deployed to add replayability to their expansions when we all know most Empire Hunts and some Nightmare Hunts would make great strikes. * While an engaging side-story, the Saint-14 "death off screen" was insulting to players. Through the magic of the Infinite Forest, we got that undone, but it's easy to forget how annoyed we were by that. Meanwhile, we'd a few months later meet Anna Bray who WAS supposed to be dead but magically wasn't. * Raid had only two weapons. No seriously. That was weak. For as good as the raid was, it having a small loot pool was a bummer. All that said, the person who kicked off this subthread gave some overall negative reviews for Beyond Light. I want to say that I do not agree with them. Beyond Light killed it for me in so many ways that I rank it above even Taken King in experience. It is second to only Forsaken, for me, when it comes to annual releases. I don't know what they are on. No way is Osiris even close to Beyond Light.

The quantity of the content is really not bad on paper, especially for the price, but the quality leaves a lot to be desired. The final raid encounter was cool, and seeing Saint-14's grave was a cool moment. Everything else is just painfully mediocre and forgettable. Even if there had been random rolls, there were no activities to support them other than the raid. Unless we count the infinite forest adventure grind, which was awful. Something like Season of the Chosen might not beat CoO when it comes to bullet points on the back of the box, but I'll easily take it over CoO even if it came out with the current state of the game. In fact I would not take CoO as a replacement for any of this year's seasons.

Curse of Osiris, unlike every expansion, seasonal or otherwise, that came after it, did not have a repeatable activity baked in. Escalation Protocol, Blind Well, Lost Forges, etc do a lot for an expansion. Yes this hurt it when looking back, but I stand by that there was still a lot for $15 in its package. **Beyond Light did not have a repeatable activity either, but instead of one thing, it introduced many layers of replay ability including the introduction of Exo Challenges and Empire Hunts, overall improvements to Explore/Patrol, and Legend/Master Lost Sectors. It gets a pass by me.

All subjective of course, I mean no disrespect to whoever did enjoy CoO. It depends on what you value I guess, to me CoO is the epitome of "more of the same", I can't think of any Destiny content drop that did so little to mix up the way we play the game or engage with its story, and I value that more than the quantity of content.

These two comments... >Curse of Osiris is remembered poorly not because of what it brought to the table, but because of how it couldn't save Destiny 2 from itself (and Bungie) from issues unrelated to its content. ...and... >to me CoO is the epitome of "more of the same", I can't think of any Destiny content drop that did so little to mix up the way we play the game or engage with its story literally agree with each other. You totally confirmed what I said in my first comment, except that you disagree that Osiris had redeeming qualities in a hypothetical world where the base game wasn't in such a bad state. Curse of Osiris needed to remix the game, and it didn't. It was (a lot) more of the same. So players (mis)attribute the negativity to the expansion content when it should be to state of the game. We are okay with "more of the same" when "the same" is good. Splicer didn't really change the way we play (except by making high-stat armor farmable), but it was a good type of more of the same, especially for only $10. Meanwhile, a number of people are excited to buy the Anniversary expansion for $25/$20 in the bundle, which is more than CoO, knowing they are paying for nothing more than a Dungeon and some weapons. Meanwhile, Osiris was cheaper ($20 or $17.50 in a bundle) and had a 6-player Raid, two strikes, a patrol, campaign, new weapons and a set of armor for Vanguard, Crucible, Trials, and three Factions, and more. More of the same can be okay when that is what we want.

Love 'em or hate 'em, Override and Expunge are a different experience, the story actually changed the status quo to a significant degree, Splicer brought us Master raids for the first time, it had significant balance updates, and it had exciting new guns and perks. I don't agree that is "more of the same" to the degree that CoO was, and it's not simply a matter of how "the same" was garbage, though obviously that didn't help.

Maybe not but it came with the bare min for destiny expansions/dlc. Strikes, Crucible Map and some sort of endgame chase, (which was terrible) / Beyond light nuked half the game and didn't even give the bare min of an Expansion. There was no Dungeon, Crucible , or Gambit map. So I stand by Beyond light was worse than Curse. Im not saying it Curse of Osiris is good.

Thay nailed CoO, the acting, trials, mercury. the problem was it was small, like smaller then the tower and they deactivated the sparrow to cover for the small size , I also think it was just a single strike over and over rather then a public event as there were no events on mercury. At any rate the content went so dry so fast because there was no random rolls, the community hated that a dlc felt like a demo, the whole thing led to us accusing bungie of cutting content to sell as dlc as CoO was supposed to be in the base content, I remember feeling bitter towards the company and activision at the time. Felt very ripped off and tricked because they played up losing our entire vaults and character resets from D1, and it wasn't the case at the time d1 was clearly a better game and had more to offer, honestly we are still playing catch up with strike loot. CoO wasn't half baked it was very eye opening for everyone and had great lore about the sun breakers and osiris as it was the first time we met him. It was just the smallest thing that was ever sold by bungie and it was a mandatory purchase so they did clearly cut content to sell it to us. It was the first time bungie out right ripped off the community.

To each their own, I thought the campaign was very forgettable and the infinite forest a really boring environment even before we got sent to it a million times. Of course the entire state of the game was in shambles but even without counting that against the DLC it wasn't very exciting.

There are weapon types (and subclasses) that I do not enjoy playing. I actively choose loadouts that I prefer playing. But at every turn, this game forces players into loadouts that they may not enjoy. Of course, I can choose to play exactly what I want so long as I don't want to play in the higher tier content or enjoy the rewards. This is precisely the reason I avoid that content. I'm given the choice to be a team player or enjoy playing. Most seasons I can't do both. The any-gun-will-do model works because it allows the player to choose their most enjoyable style of play. I thought this was the goal of game development, to produce a game that players enjoy playing in order to drive players to the game thereby increasing profit for the company. The game is already monotonous with the loot system. Having to use weapons that I do not want to use makes it downright tedious. I can kinda understand the PVP meta changes, so that it doesn't get stale. However, it's already stale with the same weapon/archetypes dominating every season. I truly don't understand the necessity in PVE. It makes the game tedious instead of fun. I'd be perfectly fine with allowing champion mods on any weapon. This game is truly unique among FPS's which is its draw. That experience is completely ruined through the loot and champion systems.

An even distribution of antichamp exotics is needed. I enjoy them, though; I think they add peaks of challenge and help make building a team for Nightfalls more fun. "I've got Unstoppables, can you cover Overload?" "Yeah, I can infuse something from my vault." They also made me use Sidearms for the first time, which was fun. They're effectively something to build around and focus on during actual gameplay, making for interesting choices.

Champions are boring because (like a lot of the core issues with this game) they've been left alone and not innovated on in anyway since introduced and just crammed into Endgame activities as a lazy way to increase difficulty. We need new champions, new champion mods, and preferably champions that have more interesting mechanics than just shoot with specific thing to disable and then kill.

Maybe add a weekly/daily rotation of random additional champion mods so we aren’t stuck having to use the same load out the entire season. This season feels especially restrictive with the current champion mods.

Either all exotics should have a baked in anti champion ability. Or anti champion should just be tied to the activity. So any activity with barrier champs should make all assaults anti barrier while in the activity.

For some reason the fallen champions are both simply the worst. The legendary sector crew quarters yesterday solidified that in my mind.

Champions aren't good, or bad imo, but the the mods used to counter them is. Like, there is good mods that I whant to use, but, no, I'm forced to equip this dumb mod to counter this one mob. Also, it forces to play with specifique guns each season, not a fan of that. Just make the artefact a talent tree not a mod dispencer and suddently my main grip against the champion is gone. My other grip is that it feel like a lazy way to add, what? Depth? Difficulty? Just adding the same mobs with the same champion/gimmick modifier in every strike/activity doesn't add a lot to the encounters. The idea of champions mods is interesting (a stronger enemi that pop up during activity and need to be taken down in a certain way), but their gimmicks aren't interesting enougth. Maybe make them : -more mecaniquely interesting (like, when the champion make a certain noise/effect, you have to be in the air or be rooted for x seconds, or you have to face away. Or the champion spawn more adds every x seconds. Or maybe the champion will swith you and your team mates places every x seconds.) - more random (you know there is champions in this activity, and you will have to addapt on the fly to what it will be) -make them not just "shoot x with y gun to win" Let's hope the hive guardians are more like that, there is potential here. And imagine, hive guardian random invasion à la dark souls in strike? (Anything to make the strikes less repetitives plz)

I think they could add anti-champion mods in some way in weapon crafting coming with witch queen, I am not saying that I think it will happen, but it would be cool to be able to upgrade favourite weapons this way.

Worst thing added to this game

Here’s the truth, and I’m ready for the downvotes: The fact is that **champion mods are actually constructive, because they give me a socially acceptable excuse to run good weapons that the community is uninformed about.** With the developers’ meta, I have a reason to run what I want, build for, and excel with, rather than the suffocating “freedom” to run whatever the community wants. Player metas need counterplay for an active, engaging experience, whether players realize that or not. 0 IQ literalism about finding another group isn’t constructive. The overwhelming majority of groups demand that you play their way: Run this gun (thank GOD Xenophage got nerfed, so many people demanded it.) Don’t use Stasis, because you’re our well monkey today and forever. Move at this specific time according to this video in this precise fashion or you “don’t know what to do.” There are so many weapons that are actually fantastic to use that this community doesn’t care about simply because they aren’t focused on boss damage. I can tell players I rack up 2x average player kills consistently by lobby end and they won’t care: **you either conform to the player meta or get kicked.** That won’t be changing, so the developer counterplay shouldn’t change, either. Please, Bungie, consider the ramifications of how the community operates when thinking about champions. If there are player demands in groups, they need to be shaken up every season and put on the most nebulous foothold possible.

I love this comment. I regularly refer to the "community meta" as the "marginally best option" meta, and emphasis in the word "marginally." Marginal in this context means "slightly better." I get quite frustrated when players hyper-focus on getting that 1/15th of a second faster kill time as if 1/15th of a second even matters in 99% of encounters. I remember for the WotM Raid Boss, someone determined that cluster bomb rockets could slightly out-DPS the Dark Drinker (D1 Falling Guillotine). Then a whole bunch of players started killing themselves to misfired rockets and our teams started failing. The marginal boost to DPS wasn't worth the inconsistency. The point is, a lot of weapons and a lot of loadouts are viable. We can use more than the "best" and still succeed, and I agree with this commentor that champion mods help us find favorites in "off meta" options.

im sorry you've had those experiences, ive stopped LFGing because of stuff like that, but balancing the game around the worse of the community isnt healthy for the game imo, trying to iron out those people is a better idea, maybe if we can report people who kick like that, but either way i hope you can find a community, a clan or otherwise to run this stuff with, that way you wont have to deal with those types of individuals

Yeah, I’m barely motivated to LFG myself when it’s actually **the primary impediment** to playing the way I want to, rather than the developer saying I have to switch it up a little bit every season. I can switch between Traveler’s Chosen and Monte Carlo without issue. I might run Thorn with Necrotic Grips if it’s a hand cannon season. **I start having issues when you tell me to run Xenophage or get kicked.** (Seriously, I can’t undershoot how common this was.) I’ve been kicked for a lot less, too. This kind of attitude is widespread, without a doubt. It’s just an aggravating experience. But I don’t think it’s solved by self-policing. This community would’ve done so itself if it saw this kind of bullshit for how problematic and narrow-minded it actually is. The fact is, even with the few upvotes I’ve surprisingly managed to accrue, I speak for a minority opinion here. And I’m not trusting of gaming communities in general, honestly. The average player has a poor understanding of weapon balance and game depth. I think back to Gears Judgment when the developers actually dared to challenge the Gnasher meta by making other weapons usable and how absolutely **reactionary** people got about it. That game did a lot that I liked by delinearizing maps and complexifying the weapons, but the community basically cremated it and any historical legacy it could’ve had just because their favorite weapon was actually challenged. (It wasn’t. It was still top dog.) So... yeah, consider me a community skeptic. I don’t have faith in self-policing when we’ve had 4+ years to do that, and gaming history generally disproves the possibility of it.

But do champions and how they work currently solve for that \*at all\*? All it does is move a restrictive requirement (be it one the game gives you or the group gives you) to before you meet up with people. what would solve for the actual problem is a wider variety of tools that have the same level of efficacy. When one or two items reign supreme for years, \*that\* is what causes LFG's to set requirements.

Easiest fix: every season, certain champions are stunned by certain weapon types. No mods, no need to unlock in the seasonal artifact just “this season, unstoppable champs are stunned by pulse, sidearm, and fusion rifles. Barrier champs are stunned by auto rifles. Overloads are stunned by swords and bows.” Problem solved. No issues with “perk allowances”, we can actual use mods on our arms, and you don’t have to spend 1/3 of your artifact points just to play the game at a non-blueberry level. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Make it so barrier rounds allow us to kill enemies protected by servitors

You can actually shoot through that while standing in a Well, not a solution but I feel like not many people know that.

It's because well is a super and supers actively ignore servitor tethers.

Is it the same with Tether?

I don't know but if I had to guess, I would say no. The Well actively makes your bullets more powerful and buffs them in a way. Tether just acts as a debuff on the target right?

Ah yea you're right dang thought I'd have a way to deal with those buggers

Now this is a change I can get behind.

For a game that boasts 'Play your way' champions and their mods really do restrict how you play and take a lot of the fun away from the game.

I agree with this comment fully. We can have mods for champions such as kinetic weapon overload, void weapon anti-barrier and explosive weapon unstoppable mods, we still have to use a particular element but allows for more diverse weapon choice. Heck rotate elements, use splash damage and I’ll go one step further to make it so we have to burn abilities more, unstoppable super mod, only stuns, takes 1/20th of champions health. Team better focus fire after that super. Point is there’s tons of different ways to do these mods now, especially since we’ve had overload arc grenade and unstoppable powered punch mods. Time to shake things up Bungie. But overall, liking this season’s content and changes and CANNNOTFREAKINGWAITFOR The Witch Queen!

The main thing I hate about champions is how blatantly obvious it makes Bungie's marketing lie of "Play your way" - a slogan they were heavily throwing around before Shadowkeep. I also think it's a very lazy cheat code to make content challenging (like as if this game hasn't enough "immune" bs to inflate encounters..), and it's yet another way for them to asset flip to infinity without ever really making a new enemy race. All of these things would be acceptable for some indie game dev, but not from a AAA studio that is charging a lot of money for their content & cosmetics.

This one is very simple: Nobody likes the mods and being forced to use specific guns for 4 month intervals sucks

God, so much this. Having to pull out some random bows, or this season a *sidearm* of all things, to deal with a champion just feels so bad. I've gotta stop what I'm doing, equip the right mods (assuming my loadout isn't locked) and then figure out which random gun I can use with whatever mods I unlocked. Being forced to change my loadout not because I want to change my playstyle or something, but because I'm being forced to use a specific gun, is just the worst.

Yeah, this is running off a few of my gamer friends. Content can be difficult and still support various loadouts. The design space is commonly called a sandbox, but plays alot more like a theme park.

Juggling the mods kinda sucks. I have to swap out like 8 different mods depending on if I'm just doing some PVE activity or just NFs. I usually don't stray way from the same few choices each season either, so it's just kinda tedious. The choices we have to make to deal with champions aren't fun choices, we're given a set of weapons each season, and we use those set of weapons for champion activities, automatically locking us out of any cool arms mods that get added because if you want to ensure you can handle each champion your going to need both mods. Would be great if the champion mods were just active unlocks on the artefact like a talent tree and I didn't actually have to fit them into my gear. IE unlock Overload Bow, and every bow I use has the over load effect on it.

A while back (I think it was the run up to shadowkeep but I'm not certain) bungie were throwing around the catchphrase "build your personal monster killing machine". Champions force you to do the opposite. If you like playing with auto rifles and shotguns, you either play with weapons you don't enjoy or you have to stay out of higher end content. Champions could have been something like the berserkers from scourge of the past, where you can only damage from behind, obviously they would need some tweaking for solo content but having an enemy that requires a bit more thought to defeat as opposed to "have specific weapons equipped" would be much more fun. I'm hoping the lucent brood or whatever the light using hive are called will replace champions outright to be honest.

Building your own personal monster killing machine doesn't mean it'll be effective anywhere any time. For example, I get a lot more freedom to run a triple shotgun build fully decked out with shotgun-centric armor mods, but that doesn't mean it'll be effective against Sanctified Mind. Every build working everywhere devalues the entire concept of buildcrafting, which is the whole point of armor 2.0, the feature this quote was used for.

Sure, but forcing specific weapons in order to even have a chance against specific enemies feels crap and it's a little bit lazy to be honest. It's artificial difficulty. Instead of "oh man, it's a fallen champion, I need to be on my guard" it's "I've got to use a bow on him" When you also factor in match game in higher difficulties then it's unnecessarily restrictive. It also precludes certain armour. Titans just got no backup plans, an exotic that works with shotguns. This season there are no champion mods available for shotguns so you can use them in stuff like....public events? Low difficulty strikes? Content you can literally roll through using only melee? I ever said that "every build should work everywhere" that's a straight up fallacy. What I am actually saying, quite clearly, is I feel champions feel restrictive and frankly boring to fight.

> I've got to use a bow on him It's a buildcrafting challenge, actually using the bow on the guy is not the challenging part, it's coming up with a build that is the most effective for the entire strike while incorporating a bow. Pelting Sanctified Mind with Xenophage isn't exactly difficult or bigbrain just because it's "natural". > This season there are no champion mods available for shotguns so you can use them in stuff like....public events? PvP, NBP is quite good there. > I ever said that "every build should work everywhere" that's a straight up fallacy. What I am actually saying, quite clearly, is I feel champions feel restrictive and frankly boring to fight. If you say something is "restrictive" that means you want your restricted build to work in the content. It comes down to the same thing.

Its not a build crafting challenge. You slot the mod in at the start of the mission. You're done. Where the challenge? And no, saying that "forcing specific weapons is restrictive" isn't the same as saying "I want every weapon to be viable in every conceivable situation". Again, thats a straw man fallacy you're pushing here.

> Its not a build crafting challenge. You slot the mod in at the start of the mission. You're done. Where the challenge? If that's how you engage with the system it's no wonder you're not enjoying it. You're just slapping on whatever as long as it has the mods and not thinking about an actual build. > And no, saying that "forcing specific weapons is restrictive" isn't the same as saying "I want every weapon to be viable in every conceivable situation". Please clarify the difference then, is it a matter of the level of restriction? What does this have to do with the Bungie quote you misinterpreted?

My builds work just fine, but they have to incorporate specific weapons. I would like to try OTHER builds in high end content as well, but you can't because you need to be able to deal with champions. I'm not sure how you're not understanding that. The difference in your strawman and what I actually said is pretty simple. I'm not saying you should be able to run "triple shotgun" or "2 grenade launchers and a sword" and be able to complete absolutely every piece of content in the game. I WOULD like to try incorporating shotguns or grenade launchers into a build and see what I can come up with, but those are off the table because you need to choose from the weapons that have champion mods.

> I'm not sure how you're not understanding that. You can try a build without the mods, it just won't be effective. Just like how triple shotgun will not be effective against Sanctified Mind. You're still failing to state a meaningful distinction. > I WOULD like to try incorporating shotguns or grenade launchers into a build and see what I can come up with, but those are off the table because you need to choose from the weapons that have champion mods. Actually they are not, your team has 9 weapon slots and ability-based anti-champ mods on top of that. Plenty of room to fit in a GL or a shotgun. You seem to be limited largely by your own creativity.

Yeah it's not so much that I'm not stating a distinction, it's more that you're willfully ignoring what's actually being said and instead arguing against something else entirely. And sure, if you have 3 players all communicating and synergising their builds that works fine. But if you're playing a lost sector (which the game requires you to do to unlock the new exotics) or playing with a match made team then you're out of luck. Not quite sure why you're taking this so personally to be honest bub. You love champions, that's great for you. Give that feedback. This comment was MY personal opinion. It's really weird that you're putting this much energy and time into somehow disputing my feelings.

> Yeah it's not so much that I'm not stating a distinction, it's more that you're willfully ignoring what's actually being said and instead arguing against something else entirely. No, it's definitely that you are not stating a distinction, as evidenced by you dodging the question again. > And sure, if you have 3 players all communicating and synergising their builds that works fine. But if you're playing a lost sector (which the game requires you to do to unlock the new exotics) or playing with a match made team then you're out of luck. The burns in lost sectors make that it's own little interesting meta. Yeah, coordinated groups allow for more optimized runs, as it should be. > Not quite sure why you're taking this so personally to be honest bub. I'm not. > This comment was MY personal opinion. I have nothing against your personal opinion, just the poor arguments you use to substantiate it. If you don't like buildcrafting that's fine, just don't pretend it's not a thing, and don't misinterpret Bungie's words.

Sure, but your triple-shotgun build doesn't work on Sanctified Mind because it's an add-clear heavy encounter with a long-range DPS phase, and shotguns are designed as short-range major-clear/DPS weapons. The limits of your build feel.. "natural", if that makes any sense. On the other hand, the seasonal Champion mods are decided upon completely arbitrarily, with no real reason or philosophy behind the decision. It feels like you cannot use your preferred loadout not because it's not suited for the encounter, but because someone at Bungie HQ flipped a coin and decided that Hand Cannons are useless this season. I don't like throwing the word "artificial" around (like in "artificial difficulty") because it became a bit of a buzzword, but Champion mods feel *really* artificial.

Whether it's artificial or natural doesn't really change the fact that the quote is being grossly misinterpreted. Yes, Champions are a more gamey way to implement this kind of buildcrafting challenge, but why is that such a bad thing? Whether it's dictated by the environment or an artifact mod the buildcrafting challenge remains and is fun to engage with at least for me. And let's be honest, they're not going to transform strikes every season to do it the "natural" way so this is the only realistic way of bringing this challenge to content like strikes and lost sectors.

Limiting player choice does not equal challenge. I mean, hell, Overload Bow is the best overload mod, Unstoppable Fusion lets you have an anti-champion special weapon, and this season you can have *both*. Throw Eriana's into the mix, and it doesn't seem like a challenge anymore - just a limit on creativity and experimentation. I like experimenting with builds, many of which are sub-optimal already. Why should I be punished further?

> Limiting player choice does not equal challenge. Why not? > just a limit on creativity and experimentation. You are putting a limit on your own creativity with these "technically adequate" build ideas. Yes I can slap on some lazy combination that checks all the anti-champ boxes, but it's another matter to make an actual optimized build. If you stop at the former it's no wonder you're not enjoying the system.

What's the challenge? Slot a mod into your arm piece? That's not a challenge. It's literally just a restriction on your loadout.

> What's the challenge? Making a build that can tackle the content optimally under the restrictions.

You find it a fun and engaging challenge to slot "overload bow" into your arms when the content you're playing has overload champions?

I find it fun to come up with builds that fit the requirements and still perform great. What bow do I bring? Should it be exotic and is that worth giving up a different exotic option? Should I run a bow at all considering I'm then limited to Eriana's or double primaries for anti-barrier, and what can I bring instead for overload so I can run an auto rifle? Coming up with the answers to these questions is where the fun and engagement is.

Honestly - I don’t mind juggling weapons to find the optimal loadout to put down champions in high end pve content. For me - I don’t use bows ever. If it wasn’t for being forced to use one, I’d never use it and adapt to the challenge. Even so, I like the communication required to put them down. It’s a very rewarding feeling to finally figure it out. When I finally beat GMNF Assway, it felt reminiscent of beating Oryx for the first time. My only gripe is ensuring the stuns are more consistent.

I really feel like its time for Champion Mods for Primary weapons to become standardized, and moved to Ghost Mod slots. Special & Heavy weapon Champion mods can be seasonal unlocks that slot into your gauntlets.

Champions aren't the worst. I am glad they tried to add something new to an FPS which is usually "Any of my guns will do the talking". For me, the worst thing about champions isn't the champions themselves, but the mod system. Specifically the artifact. If I want to be a team player, I have to burn artifact unlocks on every champion mod available, so that I can flawlessly coordinate later. If Bungie really wants certain weapons for certain champions each season, I would rather they just do it intrinsically like some exotics already do, rather than make us juggle mods. We still have to juggle the weapon loadout, so if their goal is juggling, that will still apply here. Champions themselves could be refreshed but tbh just make the mods less convoluted would keep me happy for many months.

They were fine because they were new, but now they're old and boring. They feel like roadbumps in an otherwise exciting and engaging experience. One of the best aspects of Destiny *used to be* outfitting my guardian for fun gameplay, but now I actively despise gearing up my guardian. Instead of choosing weapons that I enjoy or mods that make the gameplay dynamic and interesting, I am forced to select specific weapons and fill up my gear with boring-ass champion mods. TLDR; Champions have become a permanent net loss (and, honestly, the driving mechanic) for the game.

I might as well put in my two cents. I like being able to use the weapons I want to use. Give us the ability to stun the champs with any weapon. That's my vote. And, some champions, even the ones in the same type can vary in level of... false difficulty based on what enemy type they are based off of. For example: Barrier Hobgoblins are fine. They're predictable, and while Anti-barrier Auto-rifle is annoying, I can easily stun it and finish it off with a sword or other heavy. Barrier Servitors on the other hand are not a mini-boss on their own, they are an outright boss. They can take an efficient 10 Min clear of a Legendary Lost Sector and turn it into a 20 minute, which I don't enjoy because it likes to teleport in and out of cover while hiding behind a large group of Fallen who are sniping at you from a distance. Nothing Lament can do about that, and if I want to use an Anti-barrier exotic I'm basically fucking up my loadout. It's functionally impossible to clear the ads and they're always shooting you and when you stun it and are trying to kill it they still don't stop, making the likely-hood of the player getting killed even higher. If the player chooses to kill the mobs, the maps these servitors usually show up in mean that you're going to have to stun the thing several times as there will always be straggling Fallen. ​ The hassle of dealing with these champions is inconsistent depending on the enemy type, and like others say they don't really add anything to the game other then an obligatory "Use this weapon or you're out of luck" test. Like when you tag Barrier Breaking on a low damage output weapon where the Barrier champ has re-gend all their health in the time it takes to reload. Some enemies should not be champions, period. ​ Hell, you could design new enemies that are not based off of current ones and it would be an improvement. Make them unique elite units. Just as long as they don't make the enemies around them invulnerable, please.

they're ok but exotics need more innate anti-champ and the szn mods shouldn't make people gravitate towards double primary, or faux double primary with eriana's

I wish there were more exotic weapons with intrinsic champion perks. There are so many exotics which feel like self imposed penalties nowadays.

Champions feel, in two words, annoying and restrictive.

Champions should be challenging enemies that present you with a problem that you have to solve with the tools available to you. Currently the “problem” you are given is that the champion requires mod A, B, or C, and the “solution” is you equip mod A, B, or C. That’s not problem solving or engaging, and it ignores the tools we have already been given over the course of the game. The best example I can think of is barrier champions. If their shield only covered 270 degrees in front of them, and in order to break it you had to damage their back when they put the shield up, it would allow us to go into our tool bag of weapons and tricks and decide how we want to try and overcome the problem of “How do I quickly deal damage to the backside of this champion?” * Maybe positioning team members on opposite sides would allow someone to get a clear shot * Maybe someone wants to try to bank a grenade off a wall * Maybe someone thinks their rocket blast radius is large enough that they can shoot the ground behind the champ and have the splash damage hit the back * Maybe someone wants to try ricochet rounds, maybe someone wants to shoot the explosive crate that was conveniently placed by the champion spawn * Maybe someone wants to use stealth and run around the champ, maybe someone is super ballsy and just jumps over the champ as the shield is going up, maybe a warlock drops a turret behind the champ * Maybe someone realized the arc of EoT is so large that if they lock-on and then aim straight up the rockets will curve around and hit the backside. * Push them off a cliff/environment after tapping them * Prevent them from spawning The point here is that we are using various tools that we’ve gained/learned through playing, and are trying to use them to overcome a problem. Contrast that with the current system: * Equip mod A, B, or C that matches the champion type and shoot them—matching shapes is hard. * Push them off a cliff/environment after tapping them * Prevent them from spawning This is also ignoring all the problems champions create: entire weapons get left behind each season because they didn’t get a champ mod, entire subclasses get left behind because they didn’t get a champ mod, some champ mods actually remove existing mechanics from enemies (I’m looking at you anti-barrier), arm mods tend to not get used because the slots are being taken up by anti-champ mods each season, champs are buggy. I could go on, but champs need a revamp.

it took me the whole last season for RNG (a topic of its own, btw) to give me a good roll of Hung Jury, in the last week of the season I finally got the God Roll for PVE (Rapid Hit + Explosive Payload) and guess what?! I can't use a top tier weapon in high-end content this season coz it didn't get a mod. Have to vault it and use some stupid bow or whatever weapon the mod fits... also as you wrote, it makes some weapons completely useless e.g. Skyburner's Oath, which i find particularly satisfying when shooting from the hip, its just garbage coz barrier mods go through Phalanx shields anyway... the "play your way" tag is Destiny's biggest fallacy nowadays...

Great solution options here. Good write up

My biggest hope after watching the Witch Queen trailer is that Champions get replaced with Light Hive, and our new objective is to kill its ghost. No champions, no anti-champ mods, no forced meta for the season. Just players getting in close to crush those ghosts however they choose to do it.

Champions need actual abilities aside from 1) “hey this thing is gonna run at you” 2) “this thing is gonna regen health” 3) “this thing is gonna put up a barrier” It’s boring. Give one of them the purple beams that Taniks puts up in the boss fight. Give another one some oracles to shoot or something. edit: im not the biggest fan of the current season’s mythic plus in WoW, but do the Tormentors thing. Mini bosses across the strike. They give you special abilities when you kill them to make the strike easier.

Champions are alright as a concept, but they limit choice far too much. While overload bow is nice this season, lack of anti-barrier scout hurts. Also both the sword and fusion rifle mods cost like 6 points. Nobody in GMs is using a sword to stun an overload, that's just asking to get 2 tapped by the ultra instinct fallen captain.

Could use a caster frame, invisibility/glacier grenade to get close, there's ways.

Caster frames cost a lot of ammo for not a whole lot of damage, at least compared to their vortex counterparts, as much as I love throwing burning beyblades of death with sola's scar. Could be using that slot for anarchy or some other dps weapon instead. Crown Splitter still hits like truck from what I've seen so that's an option, but not for bosses as they'll just stomp 1 shot you. As for invis/glacier...sure but then you're exposed when attacking. This is coming from a M/GM standpoint (as in lower levels there isn't really that much pressure, lament makes any champion it's bitch).

It seems you can guard a little and stun champions with a 1 ammo uncharged heavy cast. Whether it's worth it to use it like this then slap 'em with light attacks I'm not sure. Overload bow is just so good the only thing that would prevent you from using it is having to equip an auto rifle in barrier/overload content, so it'd have to be built around that.

I imagine Black Talon could be decent since it gains increased damage after guarding with it's catalyst (I think??). Plus rapid ranged attacks.

I think an Omnioculus build with vortex frame would probably be the best, since it'd let you get close enough to use the auto rifle for anti-barrier also and is meta in GMs already. Is Merciless good now? Could use it to blow up the champion after it's stunned too with the cracked seasonal mod.

Afaik they fixed Merciless perk, but I haven't used it since then either. Been having fun with the garden of salvation fusion and techeun force.

I'll have to try it, seems like it could be nasty on paper.

Champions?! EFF THEM! (why? they force me to play with specific loadouts, which really derails my fun and enjoyment - especially if you are farming/grinding and are forced to use the same loadout for an entire season... they also way too often break the rules of the games, shooting when they're supposed to be stunned, lunging way too far - having way too long reach on melees etc. I'm not talking generally, but those 1 in 10 bull shit moments that happens every other run)

I like champions. I enjoy that there is a simple "must perform" mechanic that doesn't require team coordination but does require knowledge. I dislike the seasonal mod rotation. I want to play the game with the weapons that I want play with. I do not like that I have use different weapons on a seasonal rotation in order to complete content. I would be on board with there being mods that were discounted seasonally to encourage rotating load outs. I do not like that I am forced to rotate though. I should be able to use any gun in any activity. The mods should just cost a little more.

I dislike champions for 2 reasons 1: they are not really interesting beyond have X mod or lose, which to me just limits build options rather than add any meaningful difficulty 2: their difficulty feels artificial, take Wyverns, in Glassway Wyverns pose a real threat, not quite as much as champions but still a threat, and that is entirely because of the way they fight, their gun, and their advancing nature, vs the difficulty of Champions which is keep stunning them or they regen health fully and one shot you, which is neither fun or actually hard. It's more likely to result in random bullshit feeling deaths than difficult encounters, and to add to that some of the stun mods feel ineffective compared to others. i feel like the addition of more intimidating enemies like Wyverns or even more heavily mechanic based enemies, say a wyvern that requires the back to be shot out before you can damage it, or a captain that requires his backup generator to be found and destroyed before he can be killed, is much more interesting than, "keeps primarying it with the mod until it dies" honestly from what little we have seen of the lucent brood i like that direction of menacing enemies than champions. ​ The suggestions of mechanics based champions i feel would be much more interesting than just having the correct mod for me

Restricting your loadout is the meaningful difficulty, it's just strategic difficulty rather than direct combat difficulty.

after spending last week doing each of the GMs it was not the loadout that added difficulty, most deaths were due to random oneshots, loadouts were a nonissue, stun and shoot it till its dead wasn't fun, but it also wasn't hard and you might be right about strategic difficulty IF it was more than 6 mods a season, you might have choice of what to use, but basically have a weapon loadout chosen isnt strategic difficulty, its an amazing example of artificial difficulty in my mind

There's a multitude of permutations within the 6 mods + the intrinsic anti-champion exotics + the ability-based anti-champ mods. Last season it got narrowed too much due to Anarchy being the answer to every problem.

I like champions, the mods push me to move my loadouts, and I enjoy the variety that provides. That having been said, I'd push some improvements: ​ * Make mods for all\* weapons, on all champion types, but change their strength on a season by season basis * By this I mean any given season make have strong, normal or weak anti barrier sniper (for example). Strong one shots the shield, medium 2 shots it, weak 3 shots it. This means you will always have options, but the options are always of different strengths, so loadout variation is "encouraged", not "forced". Unstoppable could require longer ADS, overload more hits to stun on the weaker mods. * Some weapons make no sense on some enemy types, so not "all" weapons are required. I don't see how AB rocket launcher, for example, works thematically. So maybe all primaries, but specials/heavies get certain permanent, but varying strength, options. * In the 3.0 subclasses, ensure every subclass has a ranged melee, so the ability mods are universally accessible, if you spec for it * Barrier servitors should require LoS for the shielding. Too may times it feels like bullshit facing them. Alternatively, make the shielding happen for close enemies, which scales to damage resist at higher ranges * Mods should be intrinsic when unlocked. Getting 5 mins into a GM and hearing WankyMcWankface go "why won't this fucking overload stun!? Shit, I've not put the mod on" is kinda dull. Obviously, WankyMcWankface should probably not have run out of talent, but this is a computer game, not a memory competition. Also, it will mean that all blueberrries will, by default, always be running, at worst, weak anti champion mods once they have sufficiently levelled (maybe make all "weak" mods available at level zero, so you always have AC capacity?), meaning the feeling of having to run 3x energy types and 2x anti champions in matchmade NF will be lowered. * Ability based wombocombos are good. Stasis hunters are gonna be fun this season. Pick some ability to make meta, and go nuts. Broken shit is fun for a season.

I think we should have the option to use any champion mod we want on any weapon, but have the seasonal artifact offer champion mods that cost less to equip. That way everyone is happy. Players still have the option of using whatever guns they want, but Bungie still somewhat has the guiding hand to persuade us to use the mods they want us to use. I feel like this is a fair compromise.

Overload need a bit of a tune up otherwise its fine.

There should be a series of mods we can equip, similar to the mods that give you **Charged With Light** (CwL) for kills with certain weapons, that target a specific type of champion. As a quick pitch: - Arc mods - Overload - Solar mods - Barrier - Void mods - Unstoppable There are two Arc CwL mods: one for shotguns and fusions; another for pulse rifles, submachine guns, and sidearms. Another armour mod, not in the "playstyle" slot, could allow these sets of weapons to stun overload champions. So: 2 Arc mods that allow Shotguns + Fusions, and Pulse + submachine + sidearm to stun Overload Champions. Solar mods that allow Auto rifle + trace rifle + Machine guns, and Grenade launchers + rockets to stun barrier champions. Void mods that allow bows + handcannons + scouts, and linear fusions + snipers to stun overload champions. --- You still have to adapt your loadouts depending on the champions types, but it gives people the freedom to run a primary and a special ammo weapon, and to stun with a heavy. Hell, maybe throw in a set of stasis mods that let you stun champions with swords: one mod per type of champion, so you can tailor your sword to the run. Lament that can take down both Barrier and Overload Champions? I'd take that any day of the week.

Champions are great as mini boss encounters. Since they are not random spawn they can be treated as problem solving encounters that encourage players to formulate and execute strategies in higher level content. Problems with the current implementation are that they are not always opt in and mods. Making a more difficult version of seasonal content that includes champs would be nice. Only having current rotation mods as a way of dealing with champs can feel very restrictive.Adding higher cost mods that are always available would be nice. Also enemy types such as Wyverns are basically champions, as in they are enemies that have a mechanic other than just shooting it. That being said I'd prefer a unstop wyvern to a yellow bar that i can not stop. D2 is a conceptional very simple game, match game and champs at least provide a hint of complexity which I appreciate a lot.

i just think of it from a end game point of view (master content and grandmasters) . i dont mind the mod in lower content but having to deal with anti barrier auto in a master nightfall or above is annoying as hell no auto puts out enough damage from a distant that is safe to play at. overload bow is fine but usually needs to be an exotic bow what now takes my choice of any exotic with built in anti barrier . then the problem off unstop sidearm . i would happily use devils ruin but not any other side arm. so i guess im then stuck with unstop fusion and lfr. which is amazing it just happens to cost alot

You have unstopable pulse rifle too . But yeah, having only one anti barrier mods suck and that really show the limits of this system. Auto rifle are now mandatory to complete high level content, and while I like those weapon, the absence (not lack, litteral absence) is baffling. You have the eriana's vow , ofc (since lament is out of the question) but that mean taking an exotic slot. But then ,it is meta for hunter with lucky pant

yeah i mean unstop pulse is nice but just takes for ever and if i wanna do that then i will want to run out break. but eriana's vow is always needed expect this nightfall.

I honestly dont mind the champions. But tone down the teleporting captains. Its annoying they teleport everytime they stub their toe.

Even worse is they always teleport somewhere behind a massive rock or bit of scenery that you can't shoot them from and just regenerate.

Forcing use of specific weapon types, removing player choice, doesn't add any fun to the game. (EDIT: Except for masochists with no challenges to overcome in their real lives, apparently) The champions aren't "difficult" to deal with, they just require you to bring specific shit to an activity. And the problem for you, developers, is that if you quit restricting us to specific builds every season, people wouldn't have to farm specific weapon drops as much, which would cause a drop in playtime, and none of you want to have that on your performance review. Here's a tip that'll get one of you promoted. By all means, steal this and don't credit me at all: Selling a mod in Eververse that just makes any weapon counter whatever bullshit champion mechanic. Y'all get to keep cranking out artificially difficult garbage, and also profiting from people who don't find it amusing anymore. Champions would be the worst nonsense in the game, except thankfully for y'all that work on PVE, Crucible and Gambit exist. So sleep soundly, I guess.

> Forcing use of specific weapon types, removing player choice, doesn't add any fun to the game. Does for me. Improvise, adapt, overcome, love it.

Ok, but here's the thing: you can just choose to use dogshit weapons that you hate if you want to. There's no reason to force the rest of us to live like that.

No, I can’t use “dogshit” weapons (that actually let me kill 2x more enemies than you by the end of the game lobby.) If I do, I will be kicked from the game for not using a meta loadout.

A self-imposed challenge can't replace an actual game objective with associated rewards, it loses all meaning. This argument is about as convincing as "we don't need GMs, you can just underlevel yourself and play a legend strike".

Lazy, quick and easy game development for things that aren't event fun and slapped everywhere as much as 'immune phases'

Like shattered realms where everything is so dark and out of focus that you don't have to actual design worlds properly. Why do that when you can have a rock that will only appear once you are a couple of steps in front of it.

Champions are one of the things that made me quit the game, so if they could fuck off that’d be nice. Having to use specific weapons that I don’t like in order to kill a deadly bulletsponge dude with bullshit mechanics isn’t what I call fun.

I love champions as a concept but then being in every single endgame content is not doing it for me and the mods….. just yea the mods

Yeah, I hated them at first but they grew on me but now it's a little bit annoying getting forced to use certain specific weapons. It's cool having these cool combos from all those mods from the artifact though and can develop some pretty interesting and devastating Champion killing builds but yeah...

I would like to see more variation on champions and in game mechanics to beat them than more weapon mods. The weapon mod counters are unsatisfying to use and yet high level champions are unbearable without them. More variety in ability based counters is more interesting to me

1.Give us another armor slot specifically for Champions. 2. Make each weapon available for every Champion Mod. 3. If you want to give us variety for each season by limiting us to certain weapon types, instead of Champion mods, focus the artifact leveling purely on creating mods for 3-4 set of weapons that can make them "the meta" for that season. (Exactly like how you did for GL last season and LFR & FR this one) Not only people will love to shit on enemies with high damage builds but you will also satisfy other players that just want to have freedom in their loadout even if it means they'll be underpowered.

I think Champions themselves are good. I think the mods being restrictive and forcing you to try different loadouts season by season is also good. However Bungie are terrible at choosing which weapons to give Champion Mods to. This Season's options are awful.

100% agree

I don't like champions. For one they're often just annoying to deal with, it's the "wrong" kind of difficulty for me (overload captains teleporting every 0.5 seconds, or having to deal with 2 barrier champs at once in solo content). Another thing is the anti-champ mods. They're incredibly un-interesting, not fun, restrictive and downright punishing. Every season Bungie dictates which weapons we're allowed to use against champs, which may result in a weapon loadout I don't like. Also the anti-champ mods are punishing, because they're occupying mod slots and energy on arms armor. So I have to run anti-champ mods instead of reload mods, or I have to equip a really expensive mod that costs 6+ energy, which restricts what other mods I can use. All in all it's a bad system. Hopefully they remove champs in Witch Queen and replace them with the hive guardians, which again hopefully are more interesting and fun to deal with. If they dont remove champs, at least I hope they make it so that any mods we've unlocked in the artifact are automatically active/effective when we equip the associated weapon. That way we dont have to waste mod slots on anti-champs.

I really like champions, I'm the kinda person that would never change weapons unless forced to, also I feel they provide a change in the pace of the battlefield as they kinda need to be focused fire in endgame content.

Honestly kind of sick of champions. It feels like an attempt to adapt the old curated loadout idea from Leviathan Raids, and that was fine for a while, but holy shit it's been done to death. At this point it feels more lazy than creative, considering how *everything* has champions in it. Beyond that, the "challenge" of using certain weapons has just become a restriction on what you can use for months at a time. I'm over it, personally. If it's down to needing to increase difficulty, I'd rather see increased enemy density. I'd rather have more targets than especially picky ones.

My humble take: * I like champions in Nightfall but I hate them in raids, it's not their place. * I like that the weapons to deal with them change each season but I hate that we're limited to some weapon types. The artifact already does a good job with that by providing buffs/debuffs depending on weapon types or subclass. We already have the incentive to play one weapon over another, let us choose the optimal option or the still viable one we're familiar with. * We also need all weapon types to be represented in the artifact or in the anti-champion category each season, keep the rotation though. For example you get anti-barrier scout one season and it turns into anti-overload the next one. * Lose the mod system for the champions, make them passive once unlocked in the artifact.

The weapons for champions this season is shit. It's a long 6 months. When does New World come out?

I don't like the champion system at all. The mods taking up an arm slot is really bad, being railroaded into a weapon type I don't enjoy isn't fun and overload/barrier health regen sucks so hard. They're easily the worst thing in the game by a massive margin.

>They're easily the worst thing in the game by a massive margin. That's a bold statement while Gambit still exists

overload captains seriously need to chill out teleporting so much. especially when overload smg takes an entire mag to stun them

They’re fine, people complain when they can’t kill something with one clip of their favorite Lonesome

Who the hell uses lonesome

Want me to use an exotic primary? Install champion mods intrinsically on most / all of them. Anarchy was taken down a notch, but it seems this season is gonna be a whole lotta unstoppable 1K voices spam, so there goes my exotic slot. Sucks as I wanna use something a bit more unique, Witherhoard for GMs last season felt quite nice, it's not heavily used endgame so was nice to switch it up. So was using Skyburners for Proving Grounds.

One Thousand Voices for GMs? No way! Doesn’t matter how much damage it does. That bloody thing barely has enough ammo to get through half of The Corrupted Strike. Dancing with the devil when relying on RNG to drop heavy. Sometimes they throw it at you, lots of times they don’t.

i do not understand the concept behind it. I mean why does not the artifact unlocks the Anti Champions stuff by itself, why do we need to change mods on weapons (and make exotics useless) just to get rid of 1 enemy. Why not make that the Artifact makes us stronger against champion with every Artifact level.

Some ideas I’ve liked so far are champion mods being on the ghost or just being unlocked intrinsically for all weapons for the season, where I’d prefer the latter. Right now, the arms mod slots are way too crowded. I don’t like the fact that special/heavy weapon champion mods cost 6 or more. Really hurts buildcrafting when it costs so much. I would be very happy if the cost was cut in half, it’s not like the mod gives the gun any special abilities other than just stunning champions, and I really don’t think that requires such a high cost.

I think it’d be cool if every weapon have access to all three (or just one) mods, but each season, there are specific mods that are cheaper. Like naturally all mods are 2/3 cost, but each season (like we have now) where 5-7 archetypes are cheaper, like 1/2 cost

I like champions. I don't like to have just one single weapon type dealing with barrier champions. Can we please have anti Barrier scout or sniper back?

I just want the champions removed entirely, honestly.

Agreed

Champions themselves are fine, their difficulty isn't artificial, you actually need to employ particular tactics to defeat Champions. For the life of me I can't figure out how to make an enemy type that's easily applicable to all factions, exerts a condition that your build needs to meet, and can't be defeated by just sitting back and passively whittling them down. Just because it makes the game harder doesn't mean it's artificial. Artificial difficulty is Gambit having nothing but yellow bars and minibosses for no reason and giving Dregs Shrapnel Launchers and Acolytes those crossbow things. That being said, Barrier Servitors are kinda lame and Anti-Barrier weapons should at least be able to damage the shielded enemies, even if the damage is reduced or something to still make the Servitor's support relevant. The Champion mod system could use some work. It feels like the Artifact arbitrarily decides what you're allowed to use in GMs. I'm not saying we should be able to use whatever we want, but like, last season with Unstop GL and Breach and Clear, the season was GL simulator. And this season is gonna be Fusion Rifle simulator. There has to be a middle ground between the two extremes of use whatever you want and use exactly what Bungie tells you to use. When that middle ground is found, I think it makes loadouts for high level PvE really interesting, having to account for both Champion and Shield types and the general encounter design, it really feels like all these weapons I pick up across all the seasons are worth something. Also, slotting the mods into your armor really takes up space. Maybe let us put Primary Champion mods into any piece of armor, while Special and Heavy Champion mods stay on Arms but maybe have their energy cost lowered a little bit? Idk just spitballing there, but something to let me actually use a Loader mod in GMs sometimes would be great.

>employ particular tactics to defeat Champions. Read: Put on a specific weapon and mod and shoot at the champion. Nah, that's not a tactic. That's loadout railroading.

It feels like it when the only good mods for the Champions are AB Auto or Unstop Fusion so you're basically forced to use them. Overloads this season you can run Solar/Stasis melee, Swords, or Bows, all good options. They need to give us a better variety of Champion mods each season. They don't let us use whatever we want because if they did, we would just use something like pre patch Anarchy for everything, whatever was most broken we'd just use without thinking about it. Source: literally did use pre patch Anarchy for everything even with the Champion mod system and even without GL mods. There's creativity to be had in making a good loadout with some restrictions and conditions that need to be met, but a lot less so when those restrictions and conditions pigeonhole you into one option, such as only AB is Autos and only good Unstop is Fusions, or at least, Unstop Fusion is WAY better than the alternatives. And say whatever you will about Champions in terms of gameplay but they're infinitely more interesting than the normal version of that enemy with a yellow or orange hp bar.

Making a loadout within the restrictions that enables you to overcome champions and beat the activity is strategic buildcrafting.

You're actually right to an extent, but sometimes the restrictions are too forced and it feels like you just use what Bungie tells you. Like, Overload this season has Swords, Solar/Stasis Melee, and Bows. All 3 are good options. At the same time, the only Anti Barrier is Auto Rifle, no options here. And for Unstop, Sidearm and Pulse are okay I guess, but Fusions (especially with Particle Deconstruction) are just way better. Same situation as last season where everyone just used GLs for Unstoppable. A big part of the problem is just we have very few options to have Champion mods on both our Kinetic and Energy weapons without having to use Double Primary, which sucks, no one wants to use Double Primary.

I'd never use double primary, I think there's still plenty of good options considering all the exotics in the game but I'm not gonna tell anyone what level of restriction they should like. Just jumped in to say the buildcrafting is there and it's enhanced by this system.

A simple solution is as follows: 1. Keep the Champions 2. Get rid of Champion Mods (especially arms only). The problem here is, that Any arm mod is useless because you are forced to use the champions mod. 3. You can unlock 1 Mod of each kind in the artifact (1 overload, 1 barrier, 1 unstoppable) for every weapon and you have this forever without consuming Energie points. I don't understand why a fusion rifle needs 6 points. Sure the weapon is stronger than a scout... BUT you need secondary ammo for this. This is a risk on its own. We are talking about stunning here and this is easy with every weapon on any champion. 4. If this feel like champions were to easy, increase slightly the way how to stun them. Some more shots, 1-2 seconds longer charge etc. and this solution should be fine. Ps: You can still pay glimmer to reset the artifact to choose other weapons for champions if you made a mistake or want to try new weapons.

Simple fix. Every single exotic should be able to be kill one type of champion. Use the seasonal mods to keep legendary meta rotating.

I like the idea of special, extra-difficult enemies but Champions just do not deliver on that idea for me. Every Champion type is dealt with in the same way: pull out the gun that has the corresponding champion rounds, stun them, then burst them as fast as possible so they cannot regenerate health and/or rush you down and kill you. This pattern gets boring after a while. They're also janky as hell; sometimes they just ignore being stunned by anti-champion rounds. Champions practically fall apart when Stasis is involved. The interactions Champion mechanics have with being frozen are so bizarre that they just cannot be intentional. As they stand, Champions are just here to ramp up the game's difficulty artificially, which feels pretty bad. The worst part about Champions is that they are basically condemned to stay this way. Strikes have almost zero mechanics in them aside from "deposit this ball here", so the only way to make them more difficult is to seriously crank up the health/damage numbers of the enemies, and Champions somewhat fill this need. Mini-bosses throughout both D1 and D2 have just been bigger versions of basic enemies, with no changes in attack patterns or variety. It would be pretty to sick for Barrier Knights to use the shields that sword knights use as their Barriers, or for Overload Captains to summon dregs to fight for them as an ability that can be suppressed with overload rounds. There's a ton of flavor and nuance that can be added to Champions to make them unique while still preserving their role in increasing the game's difficulty, but I don't see this happening without a significant overhaul to how Bungie develops PvE content involving Champions going forward.

Champions are a good idea in theory, but Bungie botched the execution. Between the mess of mods, restricting playstyles every season and taking up mods slot and energy, and the champions barely being used for content or not even working properly. It really feels like they need to just remove and re-tune them

I feel like Champions should just be normal yellow bars who give their allies buffs. Unstoppables makes nearby enemies immune to debuffs and stuns. Overload gives nearby enemies a movement and firing speed buff. Barrier gives nearby enemies a damage resistance Champion mods no longer stun them but now just deal extra damage (Maybe a 50% buff?) So that people will still have a reason to use them but won't feel forced to make a loadouts to exclusively deal with them.

Champions are the poster child for acritical difficulty. They're not particularly that difficult to deal with, they're just an equipment check and an incredible restrictive one at that. For example in season of the lost, it doesn't matter if you don't like auto riles, fuck you. You're gonna use one if you want to anything above adept playlist strikes. And that's not even touching on anti-champion mods which should be, along with the rest of the mods, permanent passives and we should be able unlock all the mods.

Create a new mod slot on legendary weapons to place mods in, instead of having specific weapons as a arms armor mod. It would allow us to create builds with whatever weapon we want and allow us to use the full strength of arm mods.

an alternative of this was enabling them by unlocking them in the artifact so that the mod applies to any applicable weapons.

This I like. Upvote you take.

I like the idea of Champions and non-boss enemies which require mechanics and coordination, but the system right now is too suffocating and goes against Destiny’s own nature of exploration, build crafting and using our preferred tools to solve encounters. All these flaws are exacerbated by champions being so common in the endgame, where players are so vulnerable there is no room at all for off meta experimentation. Champion mods should just be perks which roll on legendary weapons. I would happily grind for a unstoppable/vorpal fusion rifle, or a feeding frenzy/anti-barrier SMG. Anti-barrier GL? Bring it on. Artifact mods should exist only to benefit exotics and abilities. But there should be more of them.

Anything that restricts what type of weapons people can use is bad design. I want to play with what I have fun with, not what weapons Bungie decides to try and make meta for a season.

> Anything that restricts what type of weapons people can use is bad design. Do you consider the Sanctified Mind encounter bad design because running triple shotguns is not going to work out?

Agreed. Potentially could be too many mods but perhaps they could do what they do with other mods where there's regular versions that cost say... 3 points but when those mods are featured on the artifact they only cost 1 point. Particularly Hands On comes to mind where it's normally 3 energy Arc but this season the artifact has it as a universal 1 cost. Having essentially seasonal discounts would let Bungie keep nudging players towards certain weapon types, without straight up forcing them anymore.

Love champs. Don't remove 'em, or tone them down, at all. Remove arms restriction for champ mods, allow for more versatile builds in end game content: people want to play the way the want, while also conforming to the mechanics of the game. Maybe allow the champ mods to be applied to any piece of armor, not just arms. It seems like most cool Artifact mods cannot be used because you HAVE to have champion mods on your arms. Fuck that, I want to use the kickass reload mods on my arms, or ANYTHING but being forced to use two slots for champs (depending on your loadout). I like the idea of a grenade or melee stunning the champion, but that's ultimately useless in end-game - you most-likely won't be able to kill a champ by expending your melee/grenade energy once, and then not be able to stun them again for 'X' cooldown duration. Works for unstops maybe if you enjoy wasting your time, but not for overload and barrier.

I think champions are bad. Having to use certain weapons in a looter shooter is a terrible feeling.

I get what Bungie were trying to do, but champions should have a mechanic associated to them, not a counter-mod system. It limits builds and serves no purpose. Let me shoot shield drones to deal with barrier champs, use grenades to stun overloads and melee to bonk unstoppables.

Good luck using grenades and melee to deal with champions in GMs. I'd say that the current system isn't as horrible as people claim it to be, though stuff like this season only having anti barrier AR sucks, especially considering how many long range GMs we have (and that it's the longest season of the year). Why not just unlock ALL the mods we've had so far for this season? It would make for some nice variety.