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I'm a pvp player but I did plenty of pve grinding even though I don't like it. But I did it because I love building and completing my pvp builds. Sort of theory crafting.
It's taken me 15 months to build 7 fully masterworked pvp builds just for Hunter (to do it on warlock/titan too would be insane).
I have the standard stompeez, wormhusk etc, but I also really enjoy weird ones like gemini jester, bombardiers (really fun with top arcstrider), and shinobu's vow. I even made a fun "explosive" lucky pants with explosive payload handcannons and top tree Gunslinger for explosive knife.
I'm not just a meta slave and I enjoyed taking all of the exotics D2 has to their "end point" and see what they're capable of.
I did this because of the expectation that my time investment MATTERS and that means being permanent. The entire reason why each gear piece takes SO many materials to upgrade in destiny (as opposed to like Division, where you must regrind pieces but upgrading is much easier) is because of light infusion; you only need to do it once. So invest hours to weeks of time. It will be worth it! That's why I even bothered to build/MW stuff in the first place.
MWing more than just "meta" builds takes months and even year(s). Some gear pieces I do use in more than one build, but then again, exotics take 3 golf balls each. I probably put 50 golf balls into my Hunter alone this past year. And for me, one golf ball per week is a huge task for a pvp player!
I also grinded menagerie, forges, and Dreaming City for a god roll Retold tale COUNTLESS times. Like daily and religiously. I have like 400 clears in Reckoning III and probably 3x that in tier II. I have over 1,000 menagerie runs. That was all to get my perfect rolls for weapons to fit my gear build's purpose.
I didn't "enjoy" the grind but I enjoyed achieving and completing my perfect builds. And we all play PvE for different reasons right? I may not have done PvE for the same reason raiders do, but I definitely invested a lot of time/effort.
Now, with gear sunsetting, I have not done a single menagerie, forge or really ANY pve activity. I just...can't bring myself to do anything because what does it matter? There's no reason to do ...anything or am I wrong here? Maybe 7th seraph CQC sg because it's good for 3 more seasons instead of just 1?
All of my perfect 100-50-100 and 100-100-60 intellect builds are just...gone. I kinda am sad and mourning this because I loved the wide "menu" selection of fully MW'd builds I had for each pvp map and playlist.
Now, instead of looking at my builds and imagining the possibilities, I look at them and realize they're gone in just over 1 season. ALL OF THEM.
Then, there's the future: I feel that with gear sunsetting, we will only ever have enough time to MW our gear pieces for ONLY meta builds (wormhusk, stompeez, etc). It personally takes me 4-6 weeks to fully MW six gear pieces if I'm SOLELY focusing on just that build and nothing else (e.g. pinnacle leveling, trials, etc) and playing every day.
So how can I build anything other than meta pvp exotic builds in the future? How can I justify building shinobu's vow? By the time I finish building meta exotics and move on to off-meta ones, the sunsetting time will already be due.
I feel this is a huge huge mistake. I'm 10000% not putting in the same amount of time I used to just to see things go away.
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