Destiny Iron Banner 2.0 Tips, Tricks, Strategy, and FAQ

So Destiny's Iron Banner is live this week, and apparently only for one week. That's a lot of gaming that needs to get done if someone wants to reach rank 5 and get those new guns and beautiful shader! Here is a ton of information I've compiled through digging forums and playing enough matches to be rank 4 (so far).  The tips and tricks are at the bottom so read everything!

The mode is control. This means you capture the various points on the map, and for each kill, you get some points and the most points wins. The trick is that for EACH point you control when you get a kill, you get a bonus 50 points.

Each win in IB gives you 50 reputation

Each loss gives you a medallion, and you can hold up to 5 medallions. When you finally win a match, your medallions get redeemed at around 30-40 rep a piece.

The IB emblem, class item, and shader provide a 10% rep buff each, so make sure they are all equipped! It does not seem to matter which shader and emblem you have, they all give the same boost.

You can buy the Tempered consumable buff every 12 hours from Lord Saladin. It's the little coin looking icon at the bottom of his store. It costs 1 mote of light and lasts for 12 hours. When consumed it gives you increased rep gains. The rep gains are also greater the later in the week it is although it is not known exactly how much it changes from day to day.

You can get exclusive IB weapons and a ship as a drop after you reach rank 3

IB weapons can be reforged at 2 motes of light a piece. This resets your progression on the gun and changes the abilities and element of the gun permanently. You can do this multiple times as long as you have the motes

Here are the costs (in rep), for leveling in IB:
Lvl 0-1 costs 100 rep
Lvl 1-2 costs 1200 rep
Each level after costs 2400 rep

Here is Saladin's store:

Rank 1

• Unlock Iron Banner Emblem (Sigil of the Iron Lords) - 2400 Glimmer

 Rank 2

• Unlock Iron Banner Shader (Million Million Shader) - 7500 Glimmer

 Rank 3

• Unlock Iron Banner Armor Item (Greaves/Boots) - 9950 Glimmer
• Unlock Iron Banner Embelm (Scar of Radegast) - 2400 Glimmer

Rank 4

• Unlock Iron Banner Armor Items (Gauntlets/Sleeves/Gloves) - 9950 Glimmer
• Unlock Iron Banner Class Item - 4500 Glimmer
• Unlock Iron Banner Weapon Item (Perun's Fire - Solar Fusion Rifle) - 11500 Glimmer

 Rank 5

• Unlock Iron Banner Weapon Item (Gheleon's Demise - Scout Rifle) - 11500 Glimmer
• Unlock Iron Banner Shader Item (Goldspiral) - 7500 Glimmer

Here is Perun's Fire:

Here is Gheleon's Demise:

Iron Banner Tips, Tricks, and Strategies

Before the game take note of the map you are playing on and change your gear/upgrades to match. Are you playing on a mainly indoor map, maybe shotguns are the way to go. Is it open, maybe snipers. You get the idea.

In the beginning of a match only 1-2 people need to claim the objective closest to you. Everyone else should be running for B since it is B that the game revolves around.

Only capture 2/3 zones. Zone B is the most important on every map. The team that controls B will most likely win. If you can get B and another zone you will earn double the amount of pts for each kill than the other team. DON'T capture a 3rd zone though, as that will randomize where the other team will spawn and there will be a higher chance of them getting multiple zones off you.

When it comes to heavy weapon ammo:
- Get it! It's very important and easy to get kills with them
- If you can, wait until a teammate or two come before you open the ammo box, as it will give the ammo to everyone there. If your whole team is using the heavy ammo, you will crush
- If you kill an opponent and that opponent dropped heavy weapon ammo and you already have heavy ammo DON'T pick it up. Use the ammo you already have. If you die, you can respawn and find the heavy ammo still on the ground, and now you can use your heavy weapon again!
- You can also use the spawn point of the heavy ammo near your opponent's side as a fish-in-a-barrel situation. Everyone blindly goes running for the heavy ammo and it makes for easy pickens

If you only have 1 zone you really need to capture a 2nd, but don't go crazy and throw yourself into the meat grinder that your opponents have created in the path to the 2nd zone. If they have B, go get their A or C, and then after you get it mount an attack on B as they try to go get it back. Let your opponent get A or C, it's B that matters.

Although people on the forums will complain that Bungie should nerf this and that, I will really say all the weapons are great if used correctly. All the classes are great if used correctly. I have been killed by every class and I fear all of their supers(except for maybe Sunsinger).

I will say, however, that if someone is using an assault rifle, they are most likely using the Suros Regime. Every match it seems over half the people are using it. It's a great weapon and it works. It's not invincible though. You can beat it with any other weapon. Don't freak out and rage quit or start demanding Bungie to nerf, just work on your aim with your favorite weapon.

Aim for head shots! Although they say that weapons and gear matter in IB, the biggest deal is who is accurate with head shots. Head shots drop an opponent more than anything else, so go for that noggin.

Spread yourselves out a little bit when capturing a zone. Not only do you want some space for strafing in case you are shooting at an opponent, but you don't want everyone to be wiped out by a rocket or a super. If you are more spread out there is a better chance one of you may survive. Heck, I might even go so far as to recommend you staying away from the capture zone, and just watch for opponent's using their supers. If there are multiple teammates trying to capture a zone just stay a little back, and wait. I have gotten many kills and captured zones by waiting and letting someone use their super, only to have my come in and kill them and then finish capturing the zone.

Be a team player. You need to capture 2 zones and then get kills. Obviously your k/d ratio is important, but if you only have 1 zone you are getting half the pts your opponent is. Don't just sulk or camp, actually go out and help your team. Also, if your teammate is taking fire, jump in and help, don't go hide or run away. If you help you may take some fire off of them and then you can team up and kill your opponent. I've seen this dozens of times. 2 people running around get a lot more kills than just 1. Work with each other and help each other.

Lastly, have fun. this is just a game. Enjoy playing with people and take it as a challenge when your team is down. I have played several games where my team has come back from a several thousand point deficit. It can be done, trust me. And nothing feels better than doing it.

That's all I got. Quite the list and congratulations if you've made it this far. Happy gaming!

Iron Banner 2.0 and Level 30

Boom, I'm level 30 (as my Warlock)! And I reached it actually without needing the Iron Banner gear. In a last ditch effort to get the remaining gear I needed (either the gauntlets or the helmet), I desperately tried to get a group together to do the hard raid. We started at Oracles and went all the way through Atheon. Despite 4 people being lvl 30 we had an annoyingly difficult time defeating Atheon, but in the end I was finally rewarded with 2 copies of the raid helmet, lol. Oh well, I'll take it. There are still a lot of things I would like from the raid, but I was finally able to reach lvl 30! I quickly did random bounties and anything I could to immediately become lvl 30. Now I can play Iron Banner without freaking out.

Now onto the Iron Banner 2.0 discussion: There have been a couple of changes, and they are all for the better, although I still don't think it's where it needs to be. Although I'm lvl 30, I'm still not seeing that much of a difference in the levels. If I, as a 30, am going up against a 26 or 27, they shouldn't be able to do a thing to me. Bungie probably didn't want to penalize lower lvl players as much but I thought the point was that your armor and weapons mattered? It doesn't seem to.

I have been pretty decent in Iron Banner, finishing in the top 3 almost every time. Although I will gladly finish last on my team if we get a win. That's my primary issue with IB. Although it is better than last time with you getting a loser token for every loss (up to 5), but it's still not great. Bungie managed to fit in even more RNG into the game in that it doesn't really matter how well or poorly you do, if your team is good, you will win. That's a good and bad thing. Good in that it stresses you need to play as a team, but bad in that you are punished for simply being a part of a bad team. If I do amazing, I should be rewarded. But in IB I could be thrown in with campers and other horrible IB control players that don't play correctly and we lose, and I get nothing until I happen to win by being placed on a good team. I personally think you should get limited reputation for being in a losing match, and a lot more for winning. I also think you should get a bonus if you are number one on your team. That would motivate people to do more. I've seen too many games where people will sit there idly when they start losing because they know they will get something at the end no matter what. And I get tired of working my butt off only to get the exact same thing as someone who either did nothing, or just joined and did nothing, then to top it all off the last place person frequently gets rewards. It sucks.

Lame

I still would say I'm enjoying IB though. Control is my favorite mode to play in multiplayer, even though I still don't like multiplayer as much as anything else in Destiny. I really like the rewards for this one. You can boots and gauntlets that can help you get to 30! Although I don't need them for my character I'm glad they are giving people a chance to "earn" that last remaining gear they need. That will be a big help for the next expansion. I also like how they aren't as good as the raid gear in that they don't have all the other nice perks. They just add to your light level. That seems fair. I also like how you can buy some special IB guns and I hear there are a couple that can dropped while playing that are exclusive to IB once you reach rank 3 and above. The thing I'm working hardest to get now is rank 5 so I can get the gold shader.

Reaching what will end up being rank 5 is a ridiculous process though. I have been fortunate enough to have a lot of time on my hand lately (usually late at night), to play, but I can't imagine someone who is even a little bit busy getting close to rank 5. Now Bungie has given us a consumable that costs 1 mote of light each that can be bought every day, and every day the event goes on the buff gives you more reputation for the IB. I don't know how many hours I've poured into IB this week but it's considerable. Easily over 10 hours, and I'm only lvl 3, almost lvl 4. I'm hoping I can do it but I actually won't be able to play for the next couple of days so that will be hard. I might have to depend on a late night Monday streak. Also, I need to play some single player to get some glimmer as I have run out purchasing various upgrades.

So if you have the time get in to IB and give it a try. It is much better than last time and hopefully it will be even better next time. Get your gear to get to lvl 30 asap because it's awesome!

Destiny Multiplayer and lvl 26

So yesterday/early this morning I finally gave Multiplayer a try. My primary reason for this was because I maxed out my Vanguard marks for the week and although I don't care that much about multiplayer, playing it can give me crucible marks. Crucible Marks can allow me to purchase some pretty sweet high end gear and since I am limited with Vanguard it might make sense to get something else so I can get as high of a lvl as possible in time for the raid or the weekly nightfall strike.

In Multiplayer you at first only have the Control mode unlocked, which is basically a capture and hold mission that lasts 10 minutes. It's a fun, simple, and familiar mode that anybody with multiplayer experience will be able to catch on. There are 3 points on the map and you have to capture them and kill the opposing team for points. At the end of 10 minutes the team with the most points wins. It is a 6v6 swirl of a game that occupied my time for 5 matches as I had a bounty giving me rewards for just that.

After that you can unlock the other modes. And, keep in mind, that you do not even unlock multiplayer until like lvl 4. You need to complete a couple of missions and lvl up to get your super ability as well as your special weapon. This isn't a bad thing really as trying to play multiplayer without your super ability or without at least the minimum of weapons would be dumb. As it is I would recommend starting it after you've unlocked several of your abilities, as they translate into multiplayer. I am not sure how exactly the game is scaled, but your skill build tree definitely translates into multiplayer, so me upgrading my Golden Gun to cause explosions when I kill an enemy is a beautiful thing, as is my cloak of invisibility while using my Blade Dancer:

But anyway I managed to start playing multiplayer, already looking quite awesome and decked out from all my time in PvE. And it didn't really help. Sure, I got over a 1.0 K/D ratio, but I consider myself a fairly decent video gamer with lots of experience playing the various Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Titanfall, etc games. I still did not do very well. I was usually low on the totem poll for my team (although in my defense I was defending and capturing points a lot). It was still decently fun. Right now the meta is all shotguns all the time with assault rifles mixed in. It's very much like Halo, which isn't a bad thing if you like that.

Right now I am lvl 26, and now am running into the issue of having decent armor and weapons, but no way of upgrading them. They all require various ascendant materials, which are very hard to come by. I have 3 armor upgrades for several of my armors and they all require 6 ascendant shards among other things. I have one shard and 4 energy. It's gonna take a while I'm guessing. I still have my leg armor to upgrade to a legendary status but I need more vanguard marks to do that. Soon, assuming that the limit on marks gets lifted after today.

I also managed to snag my first legendary the Mask of the Third Man (http://www.bungie.net/en/Legend/1/4611686018429606097/2305843009215180483#gear).
I got this gem from Xur Agent of Nine who is this really cool ringwraith/cthulu looking NPC that sells exotic and other legendary items. It cost me all my strange coins but it was totally worth it. I may suck at Multiplayer but I look dang impressive.

Tuesday marks the availability of the raid. I hope my clan has enough people to do it. I think I'm ready to at least give it a try. I can't wait.