Sup Fenris? Monkey back with a fairly substantial update! As you all may know (unless you've been living under a rock for the past year), the House of Wolves expansion has finally arrived, and with it, all manner of places to go, people (and awoken and Exo's, no discrimination here) to see, jerks to shoot in the face (or other respective critical hit box), and a metric crapload of shiny goodies to loot. What's New?: Well... A lot. There are many new additions to the game through this expansion, as well as things that revamped the stuff we already have. The Vanguard and Crucible Handlers/Quartermasters all have new armor and weapons to purchase, some are good, some ain't so good. The Faction vendors also have newly refreshed stocks with some fairly nice new guns (i.e. Red Hand IX and Arma Engine DOA), as well as new armor which actually looks pretty nice. A few of the old vendors we almost never use now have new things that will peak your interest and make them actually have a purpose. The Speaker now has a material trade option so that you may trade in your ascendant or radiant materials for glimmer or motes of light and vice versa. The gunsmith now carries telemetries for faster leveling of gear. He also gives you the option to reforge a weapon. Note, it only works on legendary guns from expansion two, you cannot reforge raid weapons, Exotics, Blues, Greens, Whites, Dark Below legendaries, or vanilla Destiny legendaries. The Reef: Queen Mara has invited us for tea!!...Oh wait, the message didn't say tea, it said bounties. Yes, Her Majesty has invited the Guardians to the Vestian Outpost, a new social hub similar to the Tower, but also different. Their postmaster, bounty tracker, and vault systems are all connected to their Tower counterparts. They even have their own Cryptarch! And he's actually nice! He's not a jerk like Rahool, Master Ives is a much better Cryptarch. There are three newer vendors as well; there's Petra Venj, the Queen's emissary and head of the royal guard, Variks the Loyal, a Fallen from the House of Judgment and the warden of the Prison of Elders, and Brother Vance, a disciple of Osiris and handler for the trials of Osiris. They all have plenty of work to go around and will reward you handsomely. The storyline in this expansion is actually quite good, I'm glad that Bungie has finally kicked it up a few notches. There are 5 story missions total, plus a couple quests to do in patrol that work into the storyline. All of these will reward you with multiple emblems, as well as the Vestian Dynasty, a new special weapon classified as a sidearm (Review possibly on the way). Along with the story we have three excellent Crucible maps. Thieves Den takes place in the Ishtar Sink on Venus, Black Shield takes place on Mars' moon Phobos, and Widows Court takes place in the European Dead Zone on Earth. I have not yet had the chance to play the new maps but from the gameplay I saw on them, they look pretty freaking sweet. We will also eventually be getting another new map on Mars called Timekeeper, but it is currently a Playstation Exclusive map. The new strike, Shadow Thief, is really quite something. It was a fairly enjoyable mission with many surprises along the way. I don't want to spoil it for you so I'll just give you these three suggestions. 1). Look out for the exploder shanks, they are very mean. 2). Don't recklessly sprint through the whole thing or you'll likely get stomped. 3). There is a walker. It will kill you. A lot. However if you want it to kill you less, try and make sure you have a Titan for bubbles. As you all may have noticed, there is no raid..... AAAAHHHHH WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO AAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Shut up. Intstead of a raid, they've included something that you'll actually enjoy replaying over and over for a few months, multiple times a week. That's right, I'm talking about Prison of Elders. It is a kind of like a strike and a raid had a baby, and that baby is a horde mode with objective and random modifiers. Unlike a raid, you can only have 3 people in there, and it's not just Fallen you're fighting, it's all the enemies, one faction behind each door. It is intense to say the least, it is basically uncheesable, and it changes from week to week. The core event is a level 28 matchmaking event, that can have some clutch moments in it but is relatively easy to complete. There are also three challenge modes at levels 32, 34, and 35. The 32 and 34 change on the weekly reset, but the 35 is always Skolas, and he is difficult to say the least; picture how difficult the Atheon fight was before the community figured out how to bludgeon him with sharp cheddar. But this is all worth it, the challenge modes will reward you with Etheric Light (ascends armor to 42 light), Armor Cores (turn them in with Variks for level 34 Fallen themed armor), and Weapon Cores (same as armor cores but with guns, you can also turn in one of each for a Judgements Chance, which is like an engram for endgame goodies). Unfortunately those are all once a week drops from each mode and are stuff to the weekly reset, but the big chest at the end can be collected from as many times as you'd like. The big chest can include Queen's wrath guns, exotics, and on the higher difficulty modes can include one of three new exotic weapons bounties (more on those in a later update). Trials of Osiris is the new Crucible endgame activity. It is very fun, but can be frustrating at times. The game type is 3v3 elimination, first team to take out the other team 5 times wins. There are revives so you'll be able to get your team back up, but there are no respawns and every time you die and get revived in a round, the timer that prevents revives increases by five seconds, so try not to die. In order to participate you must pick up a score card from Brother Vance. On each score card, you are allowed up to nine wins or 3 losses, and one you fill out a score card, you may go turn it in with Vance and get the goods. There is also a special place you can go if you complete a score card with a perfect 9-0 called The Lighthouse. It is a location on Mercury that has some crazy rewards, such as exotic items, elemental ToO primaries, shaders, and an Exotic Emblem. Note: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ROOM IN YOUR INVENTORY!!! THIS STUFF DOESN'T GO TO YOUR POSTMASTER!!! As for the new exotic weapons and armors, I'll include the names and what they do, but I won't include everything about them. I will however review them at a later date, once I get my hands on them. Each class gets 3 armor pieces. The Hunters get "Celestial Nighthawk"(A helmet that combines all three golden gun shots into one that does 6x damage and grants Keyhole for overpenetration), "Bones of Eao" (Boots that upgrade double jump with an additional jump), and "Khepri's Sting" (Gauntlets that grant invisibility after crouching for a short time and melee attacking an enemy from behind while invisible deals bonus damage). Titans get "Eternal Warrior" (A helmet that grants Unstoppable for fist of panic), "ACD/0 Feedback Fence" (Taking damage from a melee attack deals damage in an area around you), and "Peregrine Greaves" (Shoulder Charge deals bonus damage when activated in the air). Warlocks get "The Ram" (Increased armor, all Voidwalker melees trigger Life Steal on hit), "Nothing Manacles" (Enables tracking for Scatter Grenade, hold an extra charge for Scatter Grenade), and the "Purifier Robes" (Activating radiance from death disorients enemies around you). There are five guns to get, four of them from bounties that I do not have intel on yet. The weapons are as follows: •347 Vesta Dynasty (Scout Rifle) •Fate Of All Fools (Scout Rifle) •Dreg's Promise (Burst Fire Sidearm) •Queenbreaker's Bow (Fusion Sniper) •Lord Of Wolves (Burst Fire Shotgun) I will be reviewing each one as I get it, so stay tuned. This brings us to the end of the tour, but even still, this is barely scratching the surface. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. This has been Monkey0953, Scrublord Extraordinaire. I'll see you all starside.