Making TLW / Sniper "happen" (again) + IT'S ALL MEANINGLESS

Back in time a bit:  I recall Xur sold The Last Word a couple weeks before Rise of Iron was released.  Lobbies were rife with the weapon that day.  At the time, I happened to be in the middle of a few days of trying to make things happen with a Last Word / sniper loudout.  It was working out alright.  The Last Word, no surprise, is a fairly dominant 1v1 engagement primary, assuming the engagement range is sufficiently low.

Back in time a bit more:  I'd run with the thing here and there earlier in year 2, when the method for using the gun was to hold down the fire button, auto-fire one or two shots to the body while ADSing to snag improved hit detection, then release the ADS button to complete the engagement with auto-hip fire while enjoying the remnants of that initial, improved ADS hit detection. It worked very well that way:

Forward in time a smidgen:  That wasn't working any longer, though, towards the end of year 2.  Hip fire was all but removed from the game.  Trying it became this (credit to Sassi).

Instead, one needed to remain ADS once engaged, and tap out shot-by-shot as quickly as the stability will allow.  Example:

Exception to that rule would be in extremely close quarters, when auto-firing center body mass (while ADS) would also be acceptable.  Heck, the instability may even kick you up into a finishing crit shot.

What I found running this loadout, however, was that I'd achieve some level of success in my usual mid-tier lobbies, then get matched with someone who actually knows what they're doing and wind up schooled, repeatedly, in the ways of The Last Word.

Present day:  The schooling has continued now that everyone seems to be coming down from that initial Rise of Fast Pulse-ador high.  Indeed, a bunch of folks in my lobbies, myself included, seem to have independently but simultaneously arrived at the thought: 'nuff of this.  I'm going Last Word / sniper.  The wisdom of crowds, indeed.  Even tippy-top players seem headed in this direction (excuse the gay panic tinge to the gentleman's tweet (or don't)):

From my renewed schooling, I share some thoughts on effectively using TLW / sniper combo versus the currently strong loadouts.  Or, at least, what I'm working on in hopes of becoming effective again.

● Engage at optimal range.  Meaning, the closer side of mid.  Don't give in to the temptation to treat grenades as a range extender (i.e., "If I weaken with a nade, it won't matter that I'm out of Last Word range.  Surely one or two of my eight shots will connect, despite the sub-optimal range!"  Wrong.)

● Break engagements.  Miss that first sniper shot (or hit body and you are out of primary range)?  Disengage.  Enemy makes it to cover and you don't have a full clip and/or health bar?  Disengage.  

● Related note:  Regarding cover (and this is not TLW-specific), be smart about how you choose to lay in wait for enemies.  If you are set up to exploit a high traffic lane, you should be in or next to cover, and your intended kill zone (where you want the enemy to be when you commence firing) should not be near cover.  

● Use The Last Word like a hand cannon.  I am astounded now and then by the time-to-kill of The Last Word in the hands of someone using it like a hand cannon.  What I mean is this: 1.  Keep your reticle trained at head level.  2.  Snap to your opponent's crit spot and fire three well-paced shots. 3. $$$Profit$$$.  I am working on this - going into patrol and shooting walls, trying to group a clip of shots as tightly as I can while pushing the fire rate up as high as I can.  I can't do it properly yet.  But going up against someone who can?  Insta-killed.  Believe it.

● Avail yourself of Bungo's magnanimity.  After a year of upper-mid impact sniper rifles everywhere and the only high impact one being stuck behind a PvE chore, year 3 is awash with high impact legendaries.  Use one.  Especially if you are like me and the body shots are real.  Vendor Event Horizon.  Seriously.  

● Be extra careful with corner bait cat/mouse stuff.  Those eight shots in the mag go by rather quickly.  Take a second or even third look at your radar before engaging in a game of corner bait with your opponent.  Check for extra pings that indicate two or more enemies are around the bend.  Disengage or wait for backup.

● Always Icarus.  HCs are pretty good in-air.  So be in air, especially if your 1v1 enemy is going that route and you feel like remaining on the ground leaves you at a disadvantage. 

● Count out your shots.   Out loud, to start with.  You really need a feel for the mag size, or else you'll find yourself lashing out with a panic melee when you should be finishing with the primary.  And bear in mind that aside from Warlock, the melee ranges are always a little shorter than you think in the heat of the moment.  Especially bladedancer, with which I still find myself counting on year one blink strike range, sometimes.  (Hint: the range now is bigly shorter than year one range.)  Needless to say, an out-of-range melee is even worse than doing an emote in the middle of a fight, since it's a full second of helplessness you cannot interrupt.

● It's okay to feel bad.  Existence is a horrific exercise in self-delusion, in which every moment of growth or joy is an illusion.  But so, too, is despair an illusion.  You will try TLW/sniper, and you will fail.  You will despair.  That's okay.  It does not matter.  You will improve.  That, also, does not matter.  But you'll have fun doing it.  (Or not.)  😊

  

My Rumble Plateau and a New Direction

The Rumble Mismatch Problem

Last post, I touched on a few things that helped me improve in Destiny crucible this past summer, but as we race through the fall season I am suffering a bit of a regression.  Maybe.

Or? Maybe . . . maybe the skill-based match-making settings are going a little haywire.

The case for my own personal regression in skill level is compelling.  Yes, skill-slip is almost certainly the culprit behind my decreasing K/D.  Looky here.  Components of a successful play session include: warm-up, mental clarity, focus and energy.  Not complaining, but my life set-up precludes such indulgences.  There's the whole working-a-lot thing, and then I cannot play until kids (and spouse) are asleep in bed, and then I have to stop a couple times during a given session to tend to the youngest kid when she starts wailing from her crib, and then I'm staying coiled and ready to shut off the game system and TV if/when the spouse wakes up, so that I can plausibly deny staying up to play later than would be prudent.  I've covered all this before, but I'm looking again at these factors now that I have a test case from the summer, when I was relatively free from responsibility for a couple weeks and just piled hours upon hours into practicing my aim and my overall game skill.  As measured by rumble wins, those summer sessions were more fruitful than any other I've had with Destiny.  

Funny thing about that, though.  Towards the tail end of the intense couple weeks-long session of practice and improvement, I hit a wall.  A wall of grossly outsized competition:

Listen to me.  I'm not bragging about being matched up against top-tier rumble players.  Because here's the theory about SBMM settings just being a little haywire, summed up:  based on skill, as evidenced by performance in Destiny crucible, I have no business being matched up against Texas Prod or Grip Funky (or Cam or Nicely or Endarro, etc. for that matter).  It might not be archived on Twitch any longer but I checked and Texas Prod was streaming when we matched up for a couple games.  Very interesting to see my own total destruction from another vantage point.  I was half expecting to hear him rage when I got him a couple times at the end (wasn't targeting him or anything - I just always try to hold A on Widow's Court and that's where he was), the effect of which was to prevent him from catching Grip Funky.  But nope, just orbit out of the lobby and away from Grip Funky, thanksmuch.

Anyway, it's continued like that, or gotten worse, maybe.  Especially just recently.  

I have no business being matched up against I Am CoolGuy.

I have no business being matched up against more velocity.

It's lunacy, really.  Rumble ELO rankings-wise, I'm somewhere in the eleven thousand range on xbox.  And here I am loading into lobbies with top 200, top 100 players.  In those lobbies, I am nothing but a helpless kill feeder.  Look, I understand the bell curve means that the player population at the upper echelons is quite thin, and we don't want to keep those folks waiting and waiting and waiting for matches.  But with around 600 to 700 hundred thousand crucible players every day, do we really need to dip into the five digit rankings pool in order to construct lobbies for players with double digit rankings?  

You know what?  I guess we do.

And?  And . . . I love it.  I mean, I don't get to play this game I love all that much, and if 8 or so minutes of the hour I get with this game is spent getting creamed by players I look up to, then all the better.  

DTS Discord Points the Way: A New Direction AKA Ask me your kit questions

So what?  So I should git gud skrub.  Thing is, that's been the goal for quite a while, and I think I'm at a plateau.  See, I'm old as shit.  My reaction time is shit.  I'll watch back my own clips and see that an entire missed Last Word clip was not ghost bullets, but simply bad aim I was either not cognizant of or unable to adjust for in the moment.  Even against stationary targets.  

I've tried to be a student of this game, of the equipment, the abilities, the maps and their angles.  All of it.  And that study has paid all it's going to pay, I think.  In-game, at least.  What I've noticed, though, is that I have something to contribute to the discussion on clan Discord chat, at least when it comes to weapon rolls, scope attributes, ability node choices, that sort of thing.  Kit questions, basically.  

Or shoot, I think I have something to contribute.  Because kit advice from someone like True Vanguard or MTashed is well and good, but don't be surprised if those players can "make it work" with equipment that will leave you, dear reader, in the cold.  But if I, an average-or-below player, can point to something that has worked for me, there's a fair chance it can work for you.  Anyway, maybe that's a new direction I can take this rather haphazard, sporadically updated blog.  So yeah, ask some kit questions.  Stuff like: "What am I looking for on a Clever Dragon when next Iron Banner comes around?"  "I got two Hero Formula drops - which should I keep?"  "Vortex or voidwall?"  "Is the answer always 'matador 64'?"  "Will using juggernaut lower my IQ?  By how many points?"

To close, here's a micro-fail-tage, as well as a seasonally updated logo for some holiday cheer 

/  \_(ツ)_/¯

I got better

The set-up. Mid-summer this year, the Prime Family sold our house in order to move into a new one being built a few miles away.  Vagaries of life event timing being what they are, the move-out took place a month and a half prior to the moving in, and on fairly short notice.  To start the liminal period, we divided.  Wifey Prime and Primelets to Prime-in-laws in Florida for sun and such.  Subtimus to Optimus' place in New York for working in the firm's NYC office.

The lonely drive up 77 was all #feelsbadman, missing the fam as the car radio offering a steady diet of depressing presidential campaign antics and equally depressing twang-pop passing as "country." Time ticked away on the first night of Iron Banner.

The practice and the Halo.  Let's get to it, guardian, I thought.  The time away from family, though sad, was time I might spend improving my game.  And I did.  To start, I reached Iron Banner level 15 for the first time.  And on Friday, no less.  And I worked at NLB/sidearm.  No surer way to improve aim, perhaps.

Another thing that helped: being gently dragged over to Halo 5 by catstacheinc.  Something about the pace, reticle placement and maybe even the framerate of that game, although wildly different from Destiny, helped when going back to Destiny.  Plus there's the focus Halo provides.  I mean, I'll get matched now and then in Halo against some players who are really good at movement/flanking/coming from strange angles/team movement/etc., but mostly the matches are about shooting well and using spatial awareness to create one-on-one engagements.  All very good practice for leaving behind all those loadout, super, ability and kit concerns and instead getting to core gun skill in Destiny.

But what about those loadout, super, ability and kit concerns?  Destiny is more than just a core shooting mechanic, of course.  And that's what makes it something to think about damn near 24/7.  Always something to try, something to strive for, to grind for.  Because sometimes, you get one of these:

So after working up some NLB/sidearm/shadestep skill, I went the other direction and worked on closing out my clash and control grimoire wins on my titan.  Because if I learned one thing getting matched against Texas Prod in Free-for-all one time (with my utter failure apparently broadcast live on his twitch stream), it's the answer to that age-old question: can juggo/matador/eyasluna Titan can work quite well?

Yes, yes it can.

Since that time alone with the game, I've slipped in direct proportion to my reduced playtime.  And what time I do have is low-quality, coming late at night when I ought to rest my medical merry-go-round ridin' ass.  And I feel my slippage turning algorithmic as the Rise of Iron end-game content passes me by, light-level-wise.

But there was a moment, there.  I had it.  Consistency.  We shan't see its like again.

What Shindig in the Crucible Taught Me About Life, Love, Solopsism and Invis Trolling

If you've read anything else I've written, or played with or against me, or run into me in Destiny-related chat/discord/twitter/what-have-you, you'll not be astounded to learn I am a middling player who, while not yet at his skill ceiling, is shaded by a rather low ceiling.

You'll not demand evidence of these, my middling bona fides.

I wondered, though.  What lies beyond that ceiling?  And is the theorized and unbound celestial province, all earthly evidence notwithstanding, within my reach, and yours?

I wondered, because there are distances within me insusceptible to our race's fumbling measurements and clumsy taxonomy.  Now, fair warning:  the rest of this paragraph grows more obnoxious yet.  I have authored epic-length novels.  I have written and recorded dozens of songs on numberless instruments and toured the country performing the same.  I have degrees in classical and jazz music from renowned institutions; my JD is from one of the tippity-top law schools.  Each of my four children is possessed of the talent, intelligence and charm requisite for success in any endeavor, and each of them would serve as a credible child model besides.  I am calm, collected and expert as I run the legal documentation side of billion+ dollar transactions and I negotiate with counterparties and applicable regulators.  And yet, this is not all that I am.  Far from it.  Clumsy taxonomy, remember?

What, then, is a 0.99 k/d across three Destiny characters?

What, indeed?

It is a ceiling, yes, but it is an illusory one.  I have seen what lies across that flimsy barrier; I have learned to transcend it.  Amanda Holliday, my Seer.  Shindig in the Crucible, my Teacher:

I have habitually avoided competition against and confrontation of my fellows because success requires a nauseating (to me) imposition of will.  A man best embodies his Aristotelian form when he takes all and leaves none, and harms another to do it.  I've always been more of a Plato man, myself.  It was therefore enough for me to mostly win high school GoldenEye; to usually win dorm LAN Quake; to sometimes "get the girl."*
*Used solely in the colloquial sense; it's not exactly hard-won wisdom when I aver that "girls" are human beings and not prizes for male competition.

It is my nature to, as Al Swearengen would say, stand what punishment the world has in store, and give some back.  But only some.

To wit, some years back, I was caught unawares in the apartment of a new lady friend when, while said new friend was off to work, her ex stopped by.  I hadn't known about the ex situation, but his position seemed so eminently reasonable that I bore his boyish facsimile of punches about my head and body and thought, as I catalogued my blood stains for later cleaning, "Okay, that's fair."

You say, "The hell does this have to do with Destiny Crucible?"

Okay, I say, that's fair.

The point is this: I can reach beyond the limits of my skill ceiling only by abandoning that which makes me Subtimus.  By running invis bladedancer and sniper camping or, if the map does not allow that, matador camping (which, trust me, is a thing).  By hanging back as a stormlock or hammer sis and waiting for super to charge.  By using goddamn sticky grenades.  Juggy/shotty.  See what I mean?  Nauseating.

No, no, I was not meant to be Optimus.

Were you?

There are Guardians, natch, whose skill ceiling allows for a 2 point whatever K/D as a matter of course.  Who impose will purely by loading into a match and being themselves.  Who resolve, utterly and finally, any open question as to whether it is the gun or the user that decides the outcome of each engagement.

They are legion, and I have (thankfully? depends . . .) only rarely been matched against their like.

Some will bear further investigation via future installments of the blog's CALLING ROLL series, but here's a non-exhaustive list of folks I've either encountered or who are content creators you may already know of, all of whom embody the almost alien quality of being able to impose will in the Crucible:
Clan TIERJUAN (bonus points for pun name)
Clan Pineapple Boys
Clan Last Rites
Destiny Fun Police (clan motto - "What Ya Gonna Do?" - boldly evinces the ethos while twisting the "Bad Boys"/"Cops" connotation in a new direction.)(Also, it's worth noting that clan founder fimi_sheikh represents the final word on that old saw, "so-and-so elevates trolling to an art form."  He might bristle at the sobriquet, but fimi is a true Artist and it's inspiring to watch his art form evolve and stretch and change the perceptions of everyone around him in this game world.  Destiny Fun Police on YT.  The pure, unvarnished imposition of will.)


I leave you with a micro-tage that, in the absence of knowing more about me, might give the impression I am one who imposes will, too.

Destiny and Being Sick: Get up and Move, Guardians

Pain woke me early this past Christmas Eve.  It was around 2:40 A.M.  I wondered, should I go to the ER?  This feels . . . not good.  It was bad; it was different.  But it was in my abdomen, long my most reliable source of nagging pain and general unpleasantness.  Plus, I wasn't about to ruin Christmas for the Prime brood.  So I figured, nah, let's grind some more SRL.  Time, after all, was running out on leveling up my alts in sparrow racing.  Now, DTR puts me in the top 15% for SRL (for whatever that's worth), but I didn't do so well this run:

Pictured: what organ failure does to your SRL game.

I don't recall whether I went DNF or not, but I packed it up after that one game and went back to bed.  Somehow, I achieved REM sleep.  And felt better the next day.  Not well.  Better.  I maintained a reduced-but-constant level of abdominal pain for a week.  I scheduled an appointment to see the gastro about a possible ulcer.  Appointment was 5 weeks hence.  That made heading to the ER a pretty easy call when that night, one week after the first, intense pain, the intensity returned.  In triage I found out I was negative for signs of infection, then sat in the ER waiting room from 11pm to 8am waiting to be seen, counting the minutes to my next dose of hydrocodone for the pain.  Pissed off the whole time because I was missing first night of Iron Banner.

CT showed kidney spots.  Likely infection.  But - what about me not having signs of infection?  Yeah, well, follow up with a urologist.  Here's a script for antibiotics.

I missed the second night of Iron Banner due to pain.  And vomiting from the pain.

Early on New Year's Eve, I got in to see a PA at the urologist's office.  First thing she said: "Looking at your record, I don't think it's an infection.  Here, let me . . ." she gestured for me to turn around.  Surprise, she knuckled into my lower back.  "Nope.  If this were pyelonephritis, you'd have jumped out of your skin just now.  I need to discuss with my colleagues, but I think you have renal infarctions."

"You mean, like, dead tissue?"

Yes head nod.  "Probably blood clots.  They choke off blood flow and the tissue dies."

After some patient advocacy I was able to score a repeat CT scan on a better machine (and with proper technique, since the first one was apparently botched from the get-go), and that confirmed multiple spots of dead tissue in one kidney.

So, back to the ER.  Only this time, minimal waiting.  And, morphine.  I was there for a couple days to get my most-of-me scanned for additional clots.  Didn't find anything.  I was rocking pain meds and blood thinner.  All was right with the world.  Got back home Saturday, looking forward to scoring a Haakon's Hatchet.  I wasn't able to put in much time with the remaining Iron Banner.  My wife made me promise to lay off the game until I was better.  And that was . . . sensible.

So I did.

But once I returned to the game, I decided I wanted to make an effort to join the community.  Oddly enough, given the solo ethos of my sub-optimal destiny.

Here's the thing, guardians: humans are not performing as intended.

E.g., my prime-in-law began his relationship with vertigo a few years back.  Some crystals get shaken out of their requisite spots in the inner ear and - blam! - vertigo.  "Why," I asked Optimus Prime (my dad, natch), "would the body be set up to fail like that?  Why have so vital a system - balance - have its maintenance depend on some marbles remaining in just the right marble holes?  I'm asking, dad, why we lose our marbles."  Optimus Prime, you see, is a physiologist by trade.  So.

"Well," Optimus answered, in his way, "the human body has not evolved to exist longer than about 30 years.  Things fall apart."  And you and I can supply the rest of the Yeats quote, thanks much.

As I was struggling in the dark with my mysterious clotting and infarct-ing ailment, I read a post on the Bungie.net forums about a guardian seeking to honor his buddy who'd died due to a blood clot that traveled.  Gaming related, I took it.  Trying to locate that thread just now, I see several other gaming/clot threads stretching back to the Halo days.  Even though my own clots were not caused by remaining stationary (at work or at play), I advertise to you, dear reader, the importance of stretching those gams.

One of my bosses put it, when he saw me trying out a makeshift standing desk (cf, fetal position desk): "I try to get up and walk to the kitchenette every twenty minutes or so.  I only fill my water bottle a little bit, to make sure I have to get up again soon."  And I have really not taken that to heart.  But I invite you to do so.  Lest you take a clot to the heart.  See what I did there?

Call Me Crazy, but My Favorite Destiny Activity is IRON BANANA

I tried it once as a kinderguardian - a Level 25 hunter in a level 34 world.  I dropped in at the end of a match on burning shrine.  Racked up one kill, five assists, twelve deaths and a defeat.  I think that might have been the last pre-TK Iron Banner.  July 2015, my second month of playing.

FFWD to October 2015.  I was sole associate on a pretty killer deal at work (in terms of time commitment).  In my line, that means getting up at 6 and working straight through to 2, 3, 4 a.m. for a week, week-and-a-half at a time.  Don't feel bad.  That is the exception, and I'm compensated.  Anyway, I wasn't exactly hitting the week's Iron Banner . . . like yer pa hits the sauce.

But I wanted to.

Then, emergency.  Wifey Prime needed to travel on moment's notice from our southern state 1 (well, I call it "our" because we live there now; I'm a New Yorker, please and thank you) to southern state 2 in order to be with Wifey Prime's mother in her time or emergent medical need.  Wife Prime booked a flight and left the next morning, Friday.  She took Baby Prime with her, but that left me to care for Daughter Prime and Viking Terrorist Prime Things 1 and 2 all while managing the killer work deal.  I moved my work accouterments from my third floor office down to the kitchen table so I could keep an eye on the Primelets.  That worked out alright, far as it goes, although the distraction of trying to keep children from harming themselves and each other seriously enough to require hospital services likely had me saying "yeah.  Huh?  Wait, sorry, repeat that if you would" the few times I dared unmute my phone headset against the unyielding backdrop of screams and shouted potty talk.

But! It also meant that once the three Primelets were asleep for the night, I could concentrate fully on the deal.  And then once the deal was asleep for the night (11pm or so, making it an early Friday), I could concentrate fully on the ole' Iron Banana until I couldn't stay awake.  And it was good.  I kept much the same schedule on Saturday, playing my Hunter main to rank 5 and then switching to my Titan alt.  And hoo-boy, what a difference.  To wit: I never did clear the 2500 score bounty on the Hunter.  On that pre-nerf hammer Titan, though?  I never scored below that.  Usually came out top of the boards, even in losses.  I don't know why the stats tracker sites (even Bungie.net) have somehow lost my October 2015 Titan Iron Banner stats, but hoo-boy I wish I could, like, check my medal count from that Iron Banner or something.  Cuz it was noice.

Also noice, the weapon loot from my first Iron Banner:

The Finnala's will sub in for my First Curse when I need to use an exotic special or heavy.  Doesn't hit quite as hard or have as much aim assist, but has good range (plus range finder and reinforced barrel for even more) and a good magazine size.  And as seen above, with hidden hand the aim assist isn't bad.  This is dropping / rank 4 weapon for the current IB.  Recommended if the roll is right.

This Bretomart's dropped for me in October, and I understand this exact roll is popping up in the current week's Saladin vendor rank 5 slot (credit: Byf).  Pick it up.  It's a-nice.  Only weakness I see is ammo capacity (both mag and carried - you'll always need to have machine ammo boots).

Oh, Bretomart's Stand, how I adore you:

But more than the loot, I dig Iron Banner for the nebulous sense of togetherness.  As in, we're all in this together.  Together, to deprive each other of wins.

I find there are more folks on mic during Iron Banner than in regular crucible, and at least at the start, I got a kick out of that.  But yeah, the chat is largely poisonous.  I remember coming out at the bottom of a losing effort during which I'd remained silent but listened to one enthusiastic fellow attempt to make call-outs to his less-committed chat partner.  Come the rewards screen, I was awarded a legendary legs engram.  The enthusiastic fellow exploded.  "See that, right there?"  I paraphrase.  "Dude gets a legendary.  Just like life, my man.  Blam!-ing welfare, know what I mean?"  Yep, just like it.

So . . . Iron Banner.  It's the best.  I'm coming back from vacation tomorrow night and I'll be hitting it.  Like yer pa hits the sauce.  Hey-o.  Join up if you see me on the x-bone.

Calling Roll: Introducing A Non-Exhaustive Survey of The Productivity-killing Plurality of Content Creators

I did PvP in the heady days (or, salad days? The hell is that about, Billy?) of GoldenEye and Perfect Dark.  I was pretty clutch with the couch LAN, so you must refer to the below visual aid as you fantasmically reconstruct the feelings that welled from out my darkness when, after a 15-year PvP hiatus, I hopped into Destiny rumble and promptly dug a K/D tunnel to Tasmania.   Deep hole, ya see.

Pictured: A pretty fair approximation, actually, of Subtimus Prime's first forays into Crucible.

What to do?  Google suggested thusly, in words furnished by the meta-redditor: "git good. scrub."

Another of Google's appendages, though, formed more *ahem* fruitful words: "Crucible school."  "PvP Tips."  "Mr. Fruit! Teach me to be the best! Okay."  Ah, youtube.  I started from that base of videos by MTashed, BBK Dragoon and Mr. Fruit and, aside from the rare moment Wifey Prime and I have for zoning out together, haven't even touched Netflix since.  (One of these days, Daredevil season 2, one of these days.)  For lo, what need have I for scripted entertainments and the like?  The 'tube provides a roster (I've 26 subscriptions, subject always to change) of skilled and diverse Destiny content creators churning out comedy, tips, reviews and "hold my beer and watch this" awesomeness and tomfoolery.

And this isn't a bunch of half-assed shakey-cam putrescence.  (I've done my share of that for my kids' toy review channel: TheToyAroundKids, if you dare. (Tip: don't dare.))  Naw.  Whether it's just raw uploads or skillfully edited montages or machinima, all of it bears the indelible marks of the humane, the profound, the absurd, the sentimental and the naive, all at once and forever.  Here, my fellow soloists, is community.

This is Calling Roll, installment the first.

Pictured: The logo for QAA51MB's 'tube channel.  I don't get it either, but the gameplay is effin' solid.

For our first installment of the Calling Roll series we take a peek at a PvP youtuber with the handle QAA51MB.

QAA51MB puts up raw Crucible footage.  Good gameplay, and always outside the meta.  And there's a lot of it.  From what I can tell, this is a UK person - paypal donations page is set up for £.  I'll say QAA51MB is a "he" because he responds to 'tube comments like "good gameplay bro" with "thanks" instead of "thanks, but I'm a she-bro." (Although that's not dispositive.)   He's a titan through and through, but just this past week started up a warlock.  It's interesting and informative to see someone wreck despite the inherent new-character equipment and skill tree limitations.  Plus, this.  (jump to 3:08; tee-hee.)

introducing SUB-OPTIMAL DESTINY. plus solo cheese (valus nightfall March 22)

Pictured: Valus Ta'aurc at the wrong end of a 310 outlaw/army of one Nirwen's Mercy cheese strat.  (Small arms FTFW.)

Here at Sub-Optimal Destiny we're firmly ensconced in the silent majority of Destiny's 2 million crowd.  Translation: we don't even raid, bro.

1. A Brief History of Subtimus Prime and Destiny.  I picked up the game from the Bezos bargain bin just after House of Wolves dropped.  But only because my buddy Pete_BNG (not real name/tag, so don't even.  Don't even!) was coming to visit and I didn't want to be rude.  What was I gonna do?  Not have his game?  Imagine that for a moment: "Oh, heh-heh, yeah, just got this here x-bone a couple months ago.  Still don't have the game you've been killing yourself lo these years to birth and nurture, though.  It'd've cost me near-on twenny-figh clams, ya savvy?  Sooooo, MCC, anyone? I think the download's just about fini-- nope, still going."

As my buddy Pete_BNG sat there in his company in-joke t-shirt, watching me play the opening mission, it must've sounded like faint praise when I complimented him on the excellent controls.  I say that because he responded by promising the raids would be fun.  And by all accounts, my buddy Pete_BNG was spot-on there.  It's just, well, I'm pretty sure I'll never know firsthand.

And not because "oh noes, in-game LFG wut!"  Rather, it's because I, Subtimus Prime, cannot be counted on.

Surface level, I can't plan when I can hop on Destiny.  Has to be after everyone else in the house is asleep - Baby Prime, Daughter Prime, Viking Terrorist Prime Thing 1 and 2, and last, Wifey Prime.  Then once I'm on, I'll likely have to jump off to tend to Baby Prime when she spools up the cry crank.  For a long while, I was so sensitive to having to stop at a moment's notice that I did little besides patrols. I didn't run crucible other than rumble.  I didn't want to - sniff! - let you down, coach.

2.  First NF.  I've gotten over it, mostly.  I'll leave teams in the lurch if I have to bail on strikes, normal crucible, or even iron banner.  But I won't do that to other folks in the midst of trials or a raid.  And so I've yet to run trials or raid.  I mean, I messed around soloing Crota a little but got bored and didn't power past my first death.  Then, a couple weeks ago I was running a little crucible with one of my clan leaders when he popped the question: up for nightfall?

A crossroads, that.

I had to decide.  Beg off with meek protestation about my filial obligations, or man up?  "Um . . . ." Eff it, I thought.  "Sounds good. I'm in."  And so, after approximately eleventy-four wipes at the warsat and threeve-and-a-half shivs from the shank boss, I'd done my first-ever nightfall (and was RNG'd a super-sweet Baron's Ambition in the bargain).

Pictured: CatstacheInc's POV as the rest of his fireteam wipes (again) and he has to shank the shank himself.  Dubble bros!

The cry crank, mercifully, remained un-spooled for the duration.

3.  Solo NF Cheese.  Content of my clan wall post on this subject: "Tip: if there was ever a week to solo the NF, this is it. Valus with small arms (primary damage increased) makes it pretty doable. Cheese spots are 1. for 4 guards, up on the little overhang where you leave the bunker that has the interceptors. 2. For taken gate lord, cliff up top left just before the drop down to field of blights. 3. For valus, behind stacked boxes accessible to the left of both ramps on the left side of valus' room"

Credit to: silentsnowowl - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYx8pTQuzGU
marcanum x - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYx8pTQuzGU

See, small arms Valus NF came into my life at just the right moment.  After my bubble bro (or bubble sis, since my titan is modeled after Wifey Prime) struggled with the shank NF, I wasn't sure how my 310 hunter would do in a NF situation.  So I wanted to try soloing instead of potentially wasting others' time.  I tried to solo the Chaperone strike, and was doing pretty well until I was overwhelmed by shielded psions at the space tank.  Same strike was the nightfall that week and I didn't even try it.  Then came the current one (last day is today, actually, so the above tips could very well be out of date by the time you read this *kanye shrug*).  After reading through the modifiers, I had a feeling this would be the one.  No elemental + small arms + no ammo B.S. modifier = let's do it.  After reviewing the cheese spots recommended by SilentSnowOwl and Marcanum X, I completed it with one death, and found a treads upon stars I'll probably never even use.  (I'm a DIS-43 man, through and through.)  More importantly, this marked the completion of that Vanguard quest that drops the god-roll Conspiracy Theory-D.  Since I waited so long, mine dropped at 300.  I love my LITC Matador (RIP shot package; why-oh-why'd mine have to be replaced with surrounded?), but the infamous D will come in handy for Iron Banana, if nothing else.

4.  Last thoughts on do you even raid, bro.  So alright, I'll do the NF every now and then, maybe.  Especially if it's susceptible to soloing.  But the raid?  I remain mortified at the prospect of having to leave 5 teammates in the lurch in the event I have to attend to Baby Prime or if Wifey Prime wakes up and delivers the gut-punch for which there is no viable feint or riposte: "What are you doing?" Plus, even as I yearn for the experience of raiding, there persists a subtle whisper from my subconscious, rising lately to make itself heard.  And this whisper is familiar to each of us introverts.  The whisper sends me a melange of word and image, its meanings variegated, shaded and jagged and contradictory and grand and petty.  We will continue to plumb the depths from which the whisper emanates, but for now-ish it suffices to say: I dunno, man, all that sounds like a lot of work.  To wit, this current BNG thread: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/197930767/0/0