Destiny 2: Everything you need to know!

sum1

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Jun 26, 2015
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sum1
So I have had a full four days of playing and watching Destiny videos... sometimes both together. I am over 270 light level with all major events done. As such this is a guide for EVERYTHING in Destiny 2. The start will be some basic info as this goes along more and more will advanced information will be given.
WELCOME TO DESTINY, remember this has NO connection to Halo, disregard all coincidences like the fact you are super soldiers guarding earth against space zombies, an evil empire of aliens that kinda look like brutes and Jackals, and robotic life forms that teleport all around. So Gear up Spartan.... err... Guardian.

Backstory!
First, you are a Guardian. I fallen soldier from a war long ago, raised back to life with no memory of your past life. You were brought back to life by the, now dead, Traveler. When the Traveler died it send out a fleet of "Ghosts" these fine their Guardians and bring them to life again, as well as give them powers based on your class and subclass (see related sections). That is the basic backstory.

Races!
Playable
There are three races to choose from.
Exo: Human Shaped Robots

Awoken: Human shaped blue people, best for members of The Blue Man Group, or people cosplaying Thrawn.

Humans: LOOK IN A MIRROR!!! like that but usually much nicer looking.

Enemy
These are the enemies you will fight against.
Cabal: These two legged rhinos are as smart as you, as such most people stand on the other side of a glass door and watch them walk into it repeatedly. You, on the other hand, are going to have to shoot them. The story focuses on the elite new unit from the Cabal empire the undefeated Red Legion. Weak points: Head and backpack/red vent

Fallen: These two or four armed scavengers with the robots they built work in a house/clan system and are more into raiding than anything else, they still can be deadly. Weak point: head.

Hive: Zombies.... FROM SPACE.... there then to be a lot of them with a few elite units. Weak point: Head


Vex: This robotic hive minded a mix of Geth from Mass Effect and Borg from Star Trek are odd... The two things you need to know about them is first that is not milk... it's the other white fluid. Second. Weak point: DONT AIM FOR THE HEAD!!! most have a glowing white chest jewel.... hit them in their jewels!

Taken: Take all the hardest enemies from the other races and turn them into black goo shadows... HAVE FUN!!! Weak point: Shoot the white glowy point.

CLASSES
There are three classes each with three subclasses. Your class choice is unchangeable, however, your subclass can be changed at any time. all classes have four abilities, a grenade, a melee attack, a class ability, and a super, as well as each class having a different type of jumping ability. Each class can modify the ways to modify all of their abilities. Also, all abilities are dependent on your subclass with the exception of the class abilities.

Titan
The Titan is a tank, with the ability to put down a tall or short wall shields as its class ability. The biggest weakness of the Titan is it tends to be slow, with a hard to use jump called "Lift" when in the air jump again to slowly start moving up and in your chosen direction, you can jump again to end the effect early. The three subclasses are Sentinel, Striker, and Sunbraker, hereafter called, Captain America (Cap), Temper-Tantrum, and Thor. The Titan Vanguard (Leader) is Zavala, an Awoken tactician.

When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield.​
Cap also has a bubble shield that could be very useful as it blocks all damage from all sides. besides that run at people with your shield or throw it at them.
Have you ever just want to throw a tantrum and run at people hitting the ground? Well, Striker can do just that.... he runs at people and slams the ground.
Thor hits people with his hammer or throws it at them.

Warlock
SPACE WIZARDS!!! these magical space wizards have the ability to flow like a butterfly.... and the class ability to make a glowing circle on the ground that either heals or increases the damage of people inside of it. The three subclasses are Stromcaller, Voidwalker, and Dawnblade. The Vanguard for Warlocks is the book loving Ikora.

Stormcaller, or more accurately Emperor Palpatine, shoot lightning at people as you float around blasting Duel of the Fates.... or AC/DC.
Voidwalker likes to throw his big balls of void energy a people....
Dawnblade.... a guy with wings and a big flaming sword that shoots fire at people.

Hunter
The hunter is a High agility, high damage boss that has an easy to use double or even triple jump to make moving around the map look easy and sexy. with a class ability that lets them dodge in a direction and reload their ammo or melee ability, this ability can be used about four times per one use of the other class abilities. The total kick-ass subclasses are the Arkstrider, Nightstaker, and Gunslinger. with the best vanguard of the bunch, the lovable rogue, voiced by Nathan Fillion.... Don't believe me? here watch this.
See told you.
The Arkstrider is a crazy awesome staff swinging super hero that will crush all before them.
Nightstaker has invisibility and a bow that when it hits a target will grab all enemies around causing them to be unable to move and take increased damage.
The Gunslinger has a epic ranged gun that can destroy bosses health, combined with the only ranged melee attack in the game, a throwing knife. The Golden God, also known as, God Gun, GG, or Good Girl, doubles as a magic wand that lets you perform a magic trick that makes the enemy boss vanish leaving your fire team in awe of how you did it, this trick can be taken even further is you get an item called "Celestial Nighthawk" that greatly, GREATLY, increases damage done, but reduces it to a single shot.

Great, now we are ready to talk about playing the game!


Leveling
There are two levels that matter in Destiny, your level, and your gear level (also called light level). your first goal is to get to max level, 20, and to complete the main store (The Red War) when you have completed this, you are ready to start playing the game. At this point, you should have a gear score around 200 and just have been given a bunch of new quests to complete. At this point, your new goal is to get your gear around 265-270. this is where you can start doing the end game content. your progress will now start to slow down a lot, by doing the weekly quests is the best way to get new gear at this point. just look for anything that will drop a "Powerful Engram". 300 is the current gear level cap.

Gear
as you play loot will start to drop for you. it will drop at different rarities, and will always drop at a higher light level than yourself if the rarity of the gear can drop. Your gear level is calculated by averaging all of your currently equipped gear. the rarer the gear, the better stats it can have. here is a list of all the gear rarities.
Common: White, you will not see much of this outside the gear you start with.
Uncommon: Green, this is hard capped at 200 gear level.
Rare: Blue, the most common gear to find when you reach the end game, it will drop up to around 225-230 I think, then when you get past that it will drop at your light level - 10. so if you are at 270 it will drop at 260. this happens to all purple and gold drops after their soft cap as well.
Legendary: Purple, this is your main gear it soft caps at 265 with the exception of powerful engrams, those will keep dropping up to 300.
Exotics: Gold, these are unique items, you can only ever have two equipped at any time, one weapon, one armor piece. and will drop up to 270.
Infusing is taking a piece of gear you like, and using a different piece of gear with a higher score to make the one you like better, the does remove the infused piece from your inventory. To do this go to the gear you want to keep and in the bottom left you will see 3 boxes the one on the far left will give you the option to infuse.

GUN!!
There are three guns you carry with you at all times, your kinetic, energy, and power. with kinetic and energy sharing the same gun archetypes, and power being hard-hitting with limited aim.
The difference between kinetic and energy may seem small, but important. Kinetic weapons have greater damage against weak points, where energy do more damage to shields that share the same energy type. So if you see a red glowing shield around then enemy use a solar weapon to melt it off. There are three energy types, Solar (Fire), Ark (Electric), and Void, (Darkness my old friend).
Here are all the kinetic and energy weapons types.
Auto Rifle: full auto close-mid range weapon.
Pulse Rifle: a three round burst rifle (one exotic gun has a five round burst) best at mid-long range
Scout Rifle: a single shot rifle that relies on player skill and shots hitting weak points. best at longer ranges.
SMG: full auto with very short range, best at close range, well paired with a scout or pulse rifle.
Pistols: these are best at close ranges, can be single shot, burst, or full auto.
Hand Canons: Big pistols with big rounds can be used mid or closer ranges, and some can be used at long range. like the scout rifles, this is best is hitting weak points.

The power weapons are for killing bosses or large numbers of enemies with one shot. they all do energy damage.
Shotguns: get up close and pump them full of rounds, there are some that are full auto, some semi, and some pump action.
Rocket launchers: you shoot a rocket, it goes boom, does lots of damage, some trace, some have cluster bombs. reload after every shot.
Grenade launcher: like the rocker launcher but with more ammo per reload, but less damage per shot.
Sniper Rifle: long range, single shot, can hit weak points and really only worth it if you can land those weak point shots.
Fusion Rifles: these rifles charge up then release a burst of shots best a mid or close range as the recoil can be a lot. The Exotic fusion rifle "Merciless" is one of the best boss killing weapons in the game.

Money
Glimmer is everywhere, easy to get, and you will stop worrying about it when you get to the end game, as it not used for much by then, and you get a lot of it.
legendary shards are gotten by dismantling purple or gold gear, they are used in infusion other purple or gold gear as well as some other things. you will have almost none until you reach the endgame, even then use sparingly.
Silver, you spend money for extra bright engrams to get cosmetic items.
Silver Dust, as you level up, or buy bright engrams, you can get cosmetic items for free from these, or you can get silver dust to buy some items of your choice.

Missions
The Red War: Main Story Missions
Strikes: hard missions for people starting the end game to get good gear, and people deep in the end game to get more exotics. Nightfall is a weekly strike on extra hard. but better gear and rewards.
Other: The world is full of things to find, lost sector mini bosses, side quests, and more, after the main story is done you will get missions marked with a blue crown if you finish these mission you will get a question for some exotic gear.
Public Events: these happen all the time in all public war zones, finish them to get loot, find the trick to make them go heroic to get even better loot.
Cursable: PvP

Clan!!
JOIN TEST SQD IN DESTINY!!!!
https://www.bungie.net/en/ClanV2/Chat?groupId=2098496

(tell them sum1 sent you for a limited time joining fee)

I will be updating this page with more information as I know more!
 
Last edited:

sum1

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Jun 26, 2015
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sum1
TL;DR: Slightly different from Destiny 1 with no real innovation or attempt at originality. In other words, if you weren't impressed with Destiny 1, Destiny 2 isn't going to change your mind.
I disagree, the story is there, not great but passable with a GREAT cast. Besides that, it is a loot based game, like Borderlands, it has taken most of the failures of Destiny 1 and has fixed them. If you don't like looting shooter, then yeah this is not the game for you. but I would not go so far as to say "no real innovation or attempt at originality." It has several things I have not seen in a shooter before, like the public events, yes the concept has been done before but the way Destiny 2 does it is unique, and I think better.
 

Doggen

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Ive finished the single player and did 2 or 3 strikes and enjoy it a lot. Levelled to 20 by playing single player and doing public events.
Saving all the missions and exploring for the PC so I wont be on a lot if at all.
 
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rogesh

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i love cayde or what ever his name is XD he is so damn random XD
nice guide btw
 
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sum1

Space Marshal
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sum1
i love cayde or what ever his name is XD he is so damn random XD
nice guide btw
Cayde + Failsafe
So if someone is not the best at FPS is this worth picking up?
It is mainly PvE so I would not worry too much about it. The end game can be very hard, but if you enjoy working at it you will only get better.
 

zeddie

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Humans: LOOK IN A MIRROR!!! like that but usually much nicer looking.
key word: usually. A lot of people who imported their Guardians still regret making them so ugly and they don't get to change it. I usually spend about 10-15 mins editing mine, go into first cutscene, find it ugly, delete, and restart the process 2-3 times.

Weak points: Head and backpack/red vent
AKA the glowy bits. Also for the Phalanx, their glowy shield has the glowy center point, that's weak, that'll destroy the shield.

Weak point: DONT AIM FOR THE HEAD!!! most have a glowing white chest jewel.... hit them in their jewels!
except the ... whachamacallit, the big shilded dudes. They didn't have a weak point in the head in the first game, but apparently they do now? (at least they did in Beta)

HAVE FUN!!! Weak point: Shoot the white glowy point.
Again, FPS 101, if it glows, shoot at it =)

Don't forget the T-Rex arms... their melee distance is super short...

While these have SUPER long melee distances (well not THAT long, but much longer than Titan, and more than Hunters, except ... of course, the throwing blade)

"Celestial Nighthawk"
It's in the game!? SWEET!

(also called light level)
I think they're now called Power level.

Blue, the most common gear to find when you reach the end game, it will drop up to around 225-230 I think
I hear Blues can decrypt until 260.

Grenade launcher: like the rocker launcher but with more ammo per reload, but less damage per shot
Except it has a drop curve, unlike rockets who go straight. So you'll have to aim a bit higher, and has limited range.
 
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zeddie

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So if someone is not the best at FPS is this worth picking up?
Yes, pretty much. It's a relatively forgiving shooter. You may not be able to excel at Crucible (PvP mode) or end-game events like Nightfall Strikes or Raids, but you can play the game just fine. The campaign is also one of the easiest for a shooter.

I was never "great" at shooters neither, especially with a controller, but I had no trouble enjoying myself. Also the raids were really fun with a group (if they're patient enough for your mistakes)

Can't wait for the PC release!
 

Likewise

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I told myself I wasn't going to buy it because I got burnt out on the first one. I assured myself unless it's vastly different I was out. Then I Redboxed it, played with some friends, complained about it being very close to the same but with some quality of life changes, and then bought it the next day. What can I say? I like playing it with friends.

I have no will power....
 

supitza

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So I have had a full four days of playing and watching Destiny videos... sometimes both together. I am over 270 light level with all major events done. As such this is a guide for EVERYTHING in Destiny 2. The start will be some basic info as this goes along more and more will advanced information will be given.
WELCOME TO DESTINY, remember this has NO connection to Halo, disregard all coincidences like the fact you are super soldiers guarding earth against space zombies, an evil empire of aliens that kinda look like brutes and Jackals, and robotic life forms that teleport all around. So Gear up Spartan.... err... Guardian.

Backstory!
First, you are a Guardian. I fallen soldier from a war long ago, raised back to life with no memory of your past life. You were brought back to life by the, now dead, Traveler. When the Traveler died it send out a fleet of "Ghosts" these fine their Guardians and bring them to life again, as well as give them powers based on your class and subclass (see related sections). That is the basic backstory.

Races!
Playable
There are three races to choose from.
Exo: Human Shaped Robots

Awoken: Human shaped blue people, best for members of The Blue Man Group, or people cosplaying Thrawn.

Humans: LOOK IN A MIRROR!!! like that but usually much nicer looking.

Enemy
These are the enemies you will fight against.
Cabal: These two legged rhinos are as smart as you, as such most people stand on the other side of a glass door and watch them walk into it repeatedly. You, on the other hand, are going to have to shoot them. The story focuses on the elite new unit from the Cabal empire the undefeated Red Legion. Weak points: Head and backpack/red vent

Fallen: These two or four armed scavengers with the robots they built work in a house/clan system and are more into raiding than anything else, they still can be deadly. Weak point: head.

Hive: Zombies.... FROM SPACE.... there then to be a lot of them with a few elite units. Weak point: Head


Vex: This robotic hive minded a mix of Geth from Mass Effect and Borg from Star Trek are odd... The two things you need to know about them is first that is not milk... it's the other white fluid. Second. Weak point: DONT AIM FOR THE HEAD!!! most have a glowing white chest jewel.... hit them in their jewels!

Taken: Take all the hardest enemies from the other races and turn them into black goo shadows... HAVE FUN!!! Weak point: Shoot the white glowy point.

CLASSES
There are three classes each with three subclasses. Your class choice is unchangeable, however, your subclass can be changed at any time. all classes have four abilities, a grenade, a melee attack, a class ability, and a super, as well as each class having a different type of jumping ability. Each class can modify the ways to modify all of their abilities. Also, all abilities are dependent on your subclass with the exception of the class abilities.

Titan
The Titan is a tank, with the ability to put down a tall or short wall shields as its class ability. The biggest weakness of the Titan is it tends to be slow, with a hard to use jump called "Lift" when in the air jump again to slowly start moving up and in your chosen direction, you can jump again to end the effect early. The three subclasses are Sentinel, Striker, and Sunbraker, hereafter called, Captain America (Cap), Temper-Tantrum, and Thor. The Titan Vanguard (Leader) is Zavala, an Awoken tactician.

When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield.​
Cap also has a bubble shield that could be very useful as it blocks all damage from all sides. besides that run at people with your shield or throw it at them.
Have you ever just want to throw a tantrum and run at people hitting the ground? Well, Striker can do just that.... he runs at people and slams the ground.
Thor hits people with his hammer or throws it at them.

Warlock
SPACE WIZARDS!!! these magical space wizards have the ability to flow like a butterfly.... and the class ability to make a glowing circle on the ground that either heals or increases the damage of people inside of it. The three subclasses are Stromcaller, Voidwalker, and Dawnblade. The Vanguard for Warlocks is the book loving Ikora.

Stormcaller, or more accurately Emperor Palpatine, shoot lightning at people as you float around blasting Duel of the Fates.... or AC/DC.
Voidwalker likes to throw his big balls of void energy a people....
Dawnblade.... a guy with wings and a big flaming sword that shoots fire at people.

Hunter
The hunter is a High agility, high damage boss that has an easy to use double or even triple jump to make moving around the map look easy and sexy. with a class ability that lets them dodge in a direction and reload their ammo or melee ability, this ability can be used about four times per one use of the other class abilities. The total kick-ass subclasses are the Arkstrider, Nightstaker, and Gunslinger. with the best vanguard of the bunch, the lovable rogue, voiced by Nathan Fillion.... Don't believe me? here watch this.
See told you.
The Arkstrider is a crazy awesome staff swinging super hero that will crush all before them.
Nightstaker has invisibility and a bow that when it hits a target will grab all enemies around causing them to be unable to move and take increased damage.
The Gunslinger has a epic ranged gun that can destroy bosses health, combined with the only ranged melee attack in the game, a throwing knife. The Golden God, also known as, God Gun, GG, or Good Girl, doubles as a magic wand that lets you perform a magic trick that makes the enemy boss vanish leaving your fire team in awe of how you did it, this trick can be taken even further is you get an item called "Celestial Nighthawk" that greatly, GREATLY, increases damage done, but reduces it to a single shot.

Great, now we are ready to talk about playing the game!


Leveling
There are two levels that matter in Destiny, your level, and your gear level (also called light level). your first goal is to get to max level, 20, and to complete the main store (The Red War) when you have completed this, you are ready to start playing the game. At this point, you should have a gear score around 200 and just have been given a bunch of new quests to complete. At this point, your new goal is to get your gear around 265-270. this is where you can start doing the end game content. your progress will now start to slow down a lot, by doing the weekly quests is the best way to get new gear at this point. just look for anything that will drop a "Powerful Engram". 300 is the current gear level cap.

Gear
as you play loot will start to drop for you. it will drop at different rarities, and will always drop at a higher light level than yourself if the rarity of the gear can drop. Your gear level is calculated by averaging all of your currently equipped gear. the rarer the gear, the better stats it can have. here is a list of all the gear rarities.
Common: White, you will not see much of this outside the gear you start with.
Uncommon: Green, this is hard capped at 200 gear level.
Rare: Blue, the most common gear to find when you reach the end game, it will drop up to around 225-230 I think, then when you get past that it will drop at your light level - 10. so if you are at 270 it will drop at 260. this happens to all purple and gold drops after their soft cap as well.
Legendary: Purple, this is your main gear it soft caps at 265 with the exception of powerful engrams, those will keep dropping up to 300.
Exotics: Gold, these are unique items, you can only ever have two equipped at any time, one weapon, one armor piece. and will drop up to 270.
Infusing is taking a piece of gear you like, and using a different piece of gear with a higher score to make the one you like better, the does remove the infused piece from your inventory. To do this go to the gear you want to keep and in the bottom left you will see 3 boxes the one on the far left will give you the option to infuse.

GUN!!
There are three guns you carry with you at all times, your kinetic, energy, and power. with kinetic and energy sharing the same gun archetypes, and power being hard-hitting with limited aim.
The difference between kinetic and energy may seem small, but important. Kinetic weapons have greater damage against weak points, where energy do more damage to shields that share the same energy type. So if you see a red glowing shield around then enemy use a solar weapon to melt it off. There are three energy types, Solar (Fire), Ark (Electric), and Void, (Darkness my old friend).
Here are all the kinetic and energy weapons types.
Auto Rifle: full auto close-mid range weapon.
Pulse Rifle: a three round burst rifle (one exotic gun has a five round burst) best at mid-long range
Scout Rifle: a single shot rifle that relies on player skill and shots hitting weak points. best at longer ranges.
SMG: full auto with very short range, best at close range, well paired with a scout or pulse rifle.
Pistols: these are best at close ranges, can be single shot, burst, or full auto.
Hand Canons: Big pistols with big rounds can be used mid or closer ranges, and some can be used at long range. like the scout rifles, this is best is hitting weak points.

The power weapons are for killing bosses or large numbers of enemies with one shot. they all do energy damage.
Shotguns: get up close and pump them full of rounds, there are some that are full auto, some semi, and some pump action.
Rocket launchers: you shoot a rocket, it goes boom, does lots of damage, some trace, some have cluster bombs. reload after every shot.
Grenade launcher: like the rocker launcher but with more ammo per reload, but less damage per shot.
Sniper Rifle: long range, single shot, can hit weak points and really only worth it if you can land those weak point shots.
Fusion Rifles: these rifles charge up then release a burst of shots best a mid or close range as the recoil can be a lot. The Exotic fusion rifle "Merciless" is one of the best boss killing weapons in the game.

Money
Glimmer is everywhere, easy to get, and you will stop worrying about it when you get to the end game, as it not used for much by then, and you get a lot of it.
legendary shards are gotten by dismantling purple or gold gear, they are used in infusion other purple or gold gear as well as some other things. you will have almost none until you reach the endgame, even then use sparingly.
Silver, you spend money for extra bright engrams to get cosmetic items.
Silver Dust, as you level up, or buy bright engrams, you can get cosmetic items for free from these, or you can get silver dust to buy some items of your choice.

Missions
The Red War: Main Story Missions
Strikes: hard missions for people starting the end game to get good gear, and people deep in the end game to get more exotics. Nightfall is a weekly strike on extra hard. but better gear and rewards.
Other: The world is full of things to find, lost sector mini bosses, side quests, and more, after the main story is done you will get missions marked with a blue crown if you finish these mission you will get a question for some exotic gear.
Public Events: these happen all the time in all public war zones, finish them to get loot, find the trick to make them go heroic to get even better loot.
Cursable: PvP

Clan!!
JOIN TEST SQD IN DESTINY!!!!
https://www.bungie.net/en/ClanV2/Chat?groupId=2098496

(tell them sum1 sent you for a limited time joining fee)

I will be updating this page with more information as I know more!
OMG thank you. I was very confused by the weird (!?) mechanics that govern D2.
You just made everything a lot clearer.
 

sum1

Space Marshal
Jun 26, 2015
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sum1
View: https://youtu.be/Z8H7-ulGhPg


Make public events heroics for better loot

edit: This explains why entire fireteams were shooting at me after I heroically killed everything too fast
Good info, some things I disagree with.
The Glimmer farm is the second easiest ones to do. I have run it solo.
the tanks mission is easiest to solo as all you need to do is drop the tank once, then you have free unlimited rockets to pick up.
With the vents, all the vents will open up as soon as the lander comes down, you can shoot the vents at that point as well. Also when one vent is destroyed the next set opens up. So if you destroy one set of vents fast enough you can start to damage the next set at the same time.
 
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PrimeCronus

Admiral
Sep 5, 2017
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Hey Sum! Thanks you a lot for this post, really, appreciate it! I never played first Destiny, so i am very excited about Destiny 2, being a big fan of Bungie company. To be honest, haven't seen this videos about Destiny 2, so i saw them first time and thanks to you, because they are awesome! Cayde is such a cool character, hope we get him more during the game :D.

See you on the Destiny battlefield!
 
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