Destiny April Update New Things to Earn
Bungie had its 2nd of the 3 Twitch streams related to the upcoming April Update. In the 1st stream, Bungie took us on a tour of the some of the upcoming content in the April Update. Today’s stream covered “New Things to Earn”. And DeeJ did not disappoint.
The opening 30 seconds of the stream was a torrent of clips and pictures of what’s coming in the April Update. After the opening montage, DeeJ appeared on screen with two other Bungie employees - Keith Bachman and Brenton Woodrow. They discussed their contributions to the April update and what they did to Takenize the new Destiny content. Bungie again made a point to stress that the April Update will give players “16 weeks of new content” to play. 1 The walk through began with a trip back to the Reef.
New Armor
The new content reveal was kicked off with a little bit of a fashion show. Each faction is getting a full set of new armor for each character class. The height of the fashion show was when DeeJ revealed two new armor types.
Spektar This is a new line of armor and is style of armor we saw on the Titan in the pre-release images from Bungie. The armor has smoother, more modern lines and is accentuated by the glowing outlines Bungie called chroma. There’s more detail on the new chroma feature below.
Desolute This is the new line of armor that makes your Guardian look like they were Takenized. This is not a shader as a lot of us speculated. To gain the full Taken effect your character will have to have a full set of Desolute armor. Having a full set of Desolute armor will also unlock a new emote - Jitter - which makes your Guardian move more like its a Taken enemy.
Side note: I can just imagine having a fire team running a King’s Fall Raid in Desolute armor.
The Red Buttons
In the previous Twitch stream we saw some red buttons on one of the weapons the Bungie fire team won in the Challenge of the Elders. This week DeeJ and crew explained what these are and how they work in the stream. New weapons and armor that drop as part of the April Update will include a new chroma perk tree. Think of it as the glowing lights on objects in Tron. 2
Items that drop as part of the update will have the new perk tree slot to enable the chroma feature. To enable the chroma feature you need to obtain a consumable item to enable the feature. 3
New items with this feature will drop with one of four chroma colors.
- White
- Yellow
- Blue
- Red
To enable the chroma you use a consumable chroma material and it will essentially light up the armor piece.
You can change the color of item by re-rolling the chroma perk for 100 glimmer. The new color selection is completely random so you may need to re-roll it a couple of times to get your choice of color. If the item previous had the chroma feature enabled, re-rolling a chroma color will also discard the previous chroma material.
The chroma effect will work similarly for weapons included in the April Update.
Sterling Treasure
The two new armor styles, Spektar and Desolation, come from a new source called a Sterling Treasure box.
For those who are impatient, you can purchase a Sterling Treasure box for 200 Silver. For those who are on a tighter budget or can wait, each week you can get a Sterling Treasure boxes from the following sources:
- Post Master: Each week Guardians will get one new Sterling Treasure box from the Postmaster.
- Lord Shaxx: Competing in the weekly crucible will award your Guardian a Sterling Treasure box.
- Variks: Completing at lease one L41 Prison of Elders run each week..
One item that is an optional drop from a Sterling Treasure box is a reputation booster pack. These packs will allow you to more rapidly boost your Vanguard, Crucible or House Judgement rank for you and your team for 2 hours.
New Weapons
Bungie briefly went over some Y1 weapons that coming forward. A Destiny Reddit thread has a breakdown of what weapons are getting pulled into Y2:
- Shadow Price
- Badger CCL
- Lord High Fixer
- Grim Citizen III
- The Saterienne Rapier
- The Devil You Know
- The Swarm
- Zombie Apocalypse WF47
- LDR 5001
- Y-09 Longbow Synthesis
- The Comedian
- Two to the Morgue
Images of some of the updated weapons coming in April:
Note the colored sigil markings on the weapons are part of the chroma package for the weapon.
Side comments made in the stream make it sound like Taken weapons will only drop from the new Winter’s Run strike.
A new Taken sword was also shown off and details on how to get the sword were not strictly laid out in the stream.
Updated Exotics
One part of the April Update that Bungie didn’t show on the stream was the Y1 exotics that are coming to Y2. The current list revealed by Bungie includes:
- Helmets
- The Glasshouse
- ATS/8 Arachnid
- Eternal Warrior
- Chest Piece
- Lucky Raspberry
- Purifier Robes
- Gauntlets
- Sunbreakers
- Khepri’s Sting
- Weapons
- Queenbreaker’s Bow
- Patience and Time
- Universal Remote
- Lord of Wolves
- Dreg’s Promise
Out of all the Y1 → Y2 releases, Patience and Time and Universal Remote appear to be the most interesting. Patience and Time is a sniper rifle that grants ~10 seconds of invisibility to the Guardian when crouched and looking down the sights. Universal Remote looks promising due to the increased range and precision when looking down sights. Both of these weapons could disrupt the current gameplay in the Crucible and Trials of Osiris.
There was also a sigh of relief (and disappointment) that it appears we won’t see Thorn or Gjallarhorn get Y2 updates.
Infusion Mode
Probably the biggest change that hadn’t been previously revealed was Bungie’s change to how gear infusion will work. After the April Update, infused gear will get a 1:1 Light Level (LL) upgrade. So if you have a piece of Spektar armor, which drops at LL 3 by the way, and have a piece of LL 298. You can infuse the LL 298 gear into the LL 3 Spektar item and walk away with a piece of LL 298 Spektar armor.
Other new items
After all the other goodies that DeeJ and the gang showed us, they let us know there are few other new goodies to work towards:
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Ships: 3 new ships, one of which is Takenized will be available in the Sterling Treasure boxes.
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Sparrows: New sparrows that include the chroma bling will be available from various sources - one specifically mentioned was your faction. 4
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New ghost: A new ghost will drop in the new Prison of Elders PVE content.
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Emotes: Several new emotes will be available from the Eververse Trading Company.
Where to get new gear
So now that we know about all the new stuff coming on April 12, where can you get it? Here are the player activities that Guardians can do to get some of the new goodies.
Items up to LL 320 Gear:
- Normal PVE Content - Strikes/Patrol
- New L41 Prison of Elders
- Normal Mode King’s Fall Raid
- Weekly Heroic Strike
Item up to LL 335 Gear:
- Challenge of the Elders (L42 POE)
- Hard Mode King’s Fall Raid
- Iron Banner
- Trials of Osiris
- Exotic Engrams
- Court of Oryx (Artifacts only)
Expanded Vault Space
Bungie heard our cries and they have added an additional page of vault space for all items - Weapons, Armor, and General. This will be updated after you download and apply the patch to your console.
Minor Housekeeping
In the first stream, Bungie stated that Hard Mode King’s Fall (Oryx Raid) will drop LL 330 gear. Bungie stated a small post patch will made to bring drops in MH King’s Fall will be up to LL 335. This will not be available on April 12. The date for the post patch was not revealed.
Next week - Sandbox & Crucible Updates
Bungie has one final Twitch stream before the April Update drops. Next week Bungie will cover
- Crucible - Changes and content updates related to Crucible and PVP.
- Sandbox - Changes to the core Destiny game.
- Subclasses - Overview of subclass changes/tweaks.
- Weapons - Updates on buffs or nerfs to weapons.
The next stream will be Wednesday, April 6th at 11am PT.
See you next week Guardians!
Watch the entire stream Destiny April Update New Things to Earn