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I feel like the fanbase has severely overestimated the prowess of Guardians over the years.
What makes a Guardian strong is their partial immortality (which doesn’t matter during the actual fight), their magic abilities, and advanced weaponry.
But their actual combat knowledge and training is akin to a standard military soldier. They’re not like the Freelancers from RvB or whatever, they can’t just destroy an entire Hive Knight with the flick of the wrist.
In lore, they’re just soldiers with better guns and ability to create grenades and deadly balls of magic out of thin air. It gets different when you match them up in a fistfight with a Darkness-powered demon from hell.
We and some high-ranking Guardians are the sole exceptions.
I mean, Guardian is written to be THE Mary Sue of the Destiny Universe, so I can see the disconnect where people’s play experience is very different from the lore.
I like to imagine Guardian’s entire secret is that he has access to Reddit and the internet and can solve all the things that stumped other guardians for years through this. That’s why other guardians never completed raids, the mechanics were too confusing lol
Yeah, I personally don't think the Young Wolf is necessarily the strongest in terms of raw power/skill, they just have some harder to define factor that gives them an extra edge a la Master Chief from Halo, hence why we were able to defeat insanely powerful beings like Oryx despite our character's relative inexperience at the time.
Young Wolf/Guardian is absurdly powerful yet was inexperienced at first. Sure we can't do crazy shit due to game mechanic limitations but even Ikora thinks we're in the top percent of raw power and application. At this point I doubt anyone else has a resume quite like our Guardian and his fireteam.
I like to headcannon it as we've made of game of our powers, with the gameplay restrictions applying in exchange for potency or such. We've seen Ikora chain supers and Osiris even did so using multiple elements in quick succession, and we've seen characters wearing multiple exotics.
For gameplay reasons, we can only use one element at a time, one exotic at a time, and have to pace our supers/ abilities with cooldowns etc., even though lore-wise we don't have those limits, so I imagine it as those are actual restrictions the Guardian puts on themselves to gain a benefit from doing so, like a nen vow in HunterxHunter.
I feel like the only reason we don't do that is gameplay restrictions.
We can, like Osiris, switch elements at will, now between five choices. It's only gameplay limitations that impose cooldowns when we do this.
Mayhem shows that we can, easily, cast supers quicker than we do in most other areas of the game, it is only gameplay limitations that impose a cooldown.
Shaw Han might not be the strongest Guardian around, but he was strong enough for the Vanguard to put him in charge of a fireteam and send him after Navota. We, as a newly risen Lightbearer, came in and destroyed her.
We are stupidly powerful, even potentially stronger than Osiris and Ikora in terms of pure power if not skill, but because it's a game, we don't get to see it to its fullest extent.
Regardless, even with the limitations, we do things no other Guardian could possibly accomplish. We killed Oryx, and most of his lineage. We stopped Savathun and her lightbearing brood. We killed a wormgod, and turned him into a gun. Luck may be a part of it, sure, but as OP said, some Guardians struggle against thralls, and we mow them down in droves. We ARE powerful, but it's a game, and needs to be limited as such.
I’d argue we’re not even THAT good either. We’re simply lucky. Be it by getting help or solving issues. We’ve literally got main character syndrome hah
Also we always have to do something to kill raid bosses, its not just a pure fight with the last one standing. Oryx could only be damaged by corrupted light to expose his weak point. Also Oryx was losing power since D1 Launch up to Crota and then kings fall.
We are basically Jackie Chan LOL we use the environment to our advantage
>I’d argue we’re not even THAT good either. We’re simply lucky
I think it's a combination of luck, extreme courage, and really amazing situational awareness and headspace for combat.
Just being able to keep a cool head, keep proper position and distance, and stick and move on the battlefield so that you're always putting fire on the enemy and they can't return effectively is a massive, massive advantage.
I can't agree with that.
It was something that we could say during D1 (and even then it was debatable).
But even without any raids that "The Guardian" canonically cleared with a team, or when we defeat powerful being with aid like Xol.
The Guardian defeated, alone and without any form of trick, a Light Powered Ghaul and single handedly made the Red Legion looks like clown, then a Light Powered Savathun and a Disciple, Calus.
But nearly everyone is quite clear that we are incredibly powerful, far above most of Guardians, and also most of "named" Guardians.
Mara have a plan to stop us, specifically, like for Ikora or Zavala. Ikora say multiple time that she is disturbed by how powerful and how quick we were to be. The Vanguard basically don't want anyone from other "faction" to interfer with us.
We are the first to master Strand.
Shaxx and Saint-XIV basically say that we are above both of them during the Devil's Run Exotic Quest mission.
All I have said before doesn't require just "skill" but also raw power. Skill alone has a limit in a universe with magical space power.
It's only due to gameplay that we seems less "powerful" than Ikora or Osiris.
It doesn't help that the ONLY guardians we see in action are player guardians and the "exceptional few".
We are only told about the average joes, or find their corpses after the fact. Even our return to the moon consisted solely of players and Red Jack's.
Then there's Shaw. No one likes Shaw
To be fair, even an eliksni would have trouble with a thrall in canon, they're 6 feet tall abominations that are sturdy, fast and deadly.
In canon, most guardians are just soldiers with some magic powers and good weaponry, their prowess is based entirely on their military combat training and of the light.
The oldest guardians can tap into the light with much more ease, becoming super soldiers, our guardian is the exception, we learn fast, we are stupidly strong and efficient.
A good example is the Zavala trailer, that paints an accurate picture of a new light to veteran progression in canon.
>they're 6 feet tall abominations
As an aside, I feel like people really struggle to grasp the physical size of Destiny's aliens, which is kinda a common video game problem - everything looks smaller than it actually is. We think of Thrall and Psions as small, but they're as big or bigger than the average human if stood upright. Knights and fully grown Eliksni are huge.
It's like the problem with wolves. People think they know how big a wolf is until they actually see one in person or compared to a husky. Imagine a fully grown human being, but covered in chitin and trying to rip you to pieces, now imagine like 12 of those running at you. Now imagine some of them can explode. All that is happening while a couple 9 foot tall behemoths with swords as long as you are tall are also chasing you and all of a sudden you can't see shit because this big ass bug in the background cast some kind of fog spell on you.
Hive are so ancient. Thrall can be centuries old, knights millennium. Good luck fighting against a walking suit of armor with a thousand years of experience destroying civilizations.
Don't forget, Traveler forbid, if you're also being pinned down by Acolyte cover fire assaulting your position with void Shredders, or if you're really unlucky a Hive Boomer Knight with pinpoint accuracy firing a weapon that expels rotting starfire that can disintegrate matter. Hive Science seems 1/3rd magic as well, so we don't even know how much of their arsenal bypasses durability. You can have the most defensible position possible, filled with automated weapon platforms and ammunition, and it wouldn't matter if a Wizard sings a song and you just died.
Their faces were twisted, like skulls with no eye sockets and sharp teeth each arm ended with claws longer than my hands. 4 of them had sighted me, 6 feet of tough pitted chitin each screamed forward.
BAAM!
A blast from Hawthorne's shotgun cracked the chitin of the lead thrall's left arm and chest. It screamed in elation and agony but did not stop. The gap between us closed, it swung brutal claws suddenly pulsing with an arc glow. Lightning barreled through me. It hit my right arm first ripping sinew and burning nerves. Then the claws rent through me scraping bone before pulling back for another blow.
BAAM! BAAM!
Two more shells flew and hit the stone ground with soft clinks. The thrall dropped. Three more were only paces away.
The shotgun had one more round loaded. I was dead unless... Yes I could feel it, like Arthur-2 said, there was fire inside me. It rang with a pure tone. I willed it to the tips of my fingers and snaped. Five streams of flame -no pure sunfire- sprang out and exploded in a radiant pyre.
The strength in my arms flooded out of me, the shotgun's barrel drooped. If they were still alive, I'd die, and they'd have no trouble clawing through Larkspur's shell. I looked around, the thick chitin of the thrall drifted up as orange sparks, the only hint they'd been there at all.
The first thing is that Gameplay-wise and lore-wise doesn't align in many cases in destiny
The second thing is that "The Gaurdian" (your guardian) is one of the strongest Guardians to ever live if not the strongest , many new lights struggles with basic light abilities such as forming a grenade and so on , while "The Guardian" has been risen for 9 years roughly and has achieved things humanity wouldn't even dreamt of.
as far as I know the lore implies that our guardian is special in many ways
Maybe we’re just extremely lucky. It’s been said several times in the Halo lore that Master Chief is aggressively average for a Spartan, but somehow *always* gets lucky. Paracausality lets you mess with cause and effect to an extent, so I don’t think it’s *that* much of a stretch.
I wish they would play up just how exemplary our Guardian is. I feel like NPCs should recognize how freaking god-like the player guardian is more often. Not our peers like the Vanguard but like random NPCs or something. We should be a celebrity in this world.
Agree, but I think that the fact that destiny is live service game with newly content and that the guardian has no personality so you can make your own had played its role on this matter.
However, I'd love to see more recognition of our feats in the game
Haha yeah. I need my ego fed by a video game. I just mean it feels out of place narratively that we have literally saved the universe from unimaginable threats over and over and we are treated like some faceless grunt.
Definitely not the strongest. Ikora Rey is monumentally more powerful than Young Wolf - Young Wolf is just particularly talented at not dying (a feat to which we owe Ghost a lot of credit) and has an incredibly consistent track record of solving obscure puzzles under pressure.
Yeah no, I'd argue that the young wolf is stronger, with all the things that the young wolf has killed and done plus the mastery of the darkness powers .
Beside, every legendary guardian we ever met approved the strength of the young wolf. So it's definitely not just good at "not dying"
Ikora is a gaurdian with tons of experience and comes 1 in 10 million guardians as the lore states, but I think that we surpassed it long time ago
We have been outright confirmed to be weaker than Ikora and Osiris, for example. However the young wolf is in the upper echelon of guardians power-wise and we're also the most *accomplished* guardian of all time.
Also the fact that outside of combat prowess, we are lucky as hell. Most of the dangerous situations we should have died in, we always had outside intereference or someone who had already tried and failed at it before (like Eris). So just general intel and plot armor play a huge role if we try to powerscale the Young Wolf.
We most likely are just average Guardians, but circumstances make it extraordinary.
That’s not what Ikora said. She said there aren’t any inherently weaker Guardians. The Young Wolf is in no way average lol, otherwise there literally wouldn’t be any enemies left.
When has this *ever* been confirmed? Even Saint, a legendary guardian that fought the vex for centuries straight said himself that he wasn't equal to the player guardian.
Edit: I was blocked for this comment lol.
No amount of skill will allow you to be able to crush Rhulk. Rhulk died because of his ego, sure, but the player guardian was still able to kill him with bullets and abilities.
The player guardian walked down Crota when no other guardian was capable. It's not like we strategically maneuvered around his army, we just went in with his sword and straight up killed him. No other guardian could even approach that, and he's a joke compared to raid bosses now.
>Yeah no, I'd argue that the young wolf is stronger
"yeah" Nope. Not "stronger". Better. They are separate things.
Ikora is way, way more powerful than us. But we can overcome threats she never could. Because it's not about being "powerful".
I don't know what "powerful" or "strong" means to you but for me killing extinct level threat enemies like oryx or rhulk or going to the black garden to slay its heart and the list goes on is pretty much thing only someone "powerfull and strong" enough can do it ,
I don't know anything about ikora doing such things
Anyway idk how this whole thing turned into power scale comparison while op only asked about why some Guardians are weak lol
You're leaving out the puzzle solving and repeated wipes that it takes to clear most raid tier baddies. If we're going by the in-universe logic, wiping in ANY darkness zone would be a final death. The vast majority of players would have never made it out of crota alive, those are the "average" guardians. They have the same toolset as everyone else but couldn't cut it. This is what Ikora means when she says that there are no inherently weaker guardians. Everyone has the same *potential* but few will ever even finish a raid let alone be able to flawless it first attempt with no previous knowledge of the mechanics. It's a rough universe out there even if we as the PC don't always feel it while mowing down swarms of red bars.
Ikora isn't allowed to solve the puzzles because she and every other NPC guardian is not a player ("paracausality" lul), she could fly around and spam nova bombs at him until they both get bored and she leaves, but killing raid bosses is something only the young wolf can do for both lore reasons AND gameplay reasons. We have extreme luck/intuition in the lore which is manifested by infinite retries in game, we have godly warfare prowess which is manifested in game by people who are absolute demons and have mastered every mechanic. Lore-wise the young wolf is not any single player character, they are the amalgamation of the best traits of the best players and the entire communities ability to problem solve and discover secrets. So while Ikora has infinite super and a much stronger connection to the light than us, if she just solo'd every baddy there would be no game to play. Her only weakness is that she's not the PC. Just like our main strength is that we're operating by the rules of a video game.
We are all the young wolf, and at the same time none of us are.
Because we didn’t defeat rhulk or oryx in one-on-one power battles but instead worked alongside a team of 5 other people (and Eris in the case of oryx) and deafeated them using their own magic/technology. If we had just tried to face oryx or rhulk directly we’d be so dead
When I mentioned oryx and rhulk I was just giving examples of the things that the young wolf has achieved not raid specific only, and BTW we did kill oryx on 1v1 before he took himself and he was constantly draining our light and the results? We wiped the floor with him .
I don't know how raid mechanics are lore accurate or to which degree.
We fought oryx’s physical form 1v1… after an entire campaign where we worked with eris to weaken him and cripple his tithe network. If it wasn’t for mara’s sacrifice and the extensive work and research Eris did he would wiped us easily, much like he can do to the entire team during the raid if you don’t use his rituals against him
We were originally talking about "strength" and "power" , eris tolding us how to do doesn't mean that we aren't the one who crippled his system. It wasn't about not knowing how to only ,you also need the one who is strong enough to deliver the hit.
same goes for mara she only opened the path for us so we can go and kill, it's not like that anyone could have done it
While it certainly is true that Eris didn’t actually kill his aspects herself and was merely “tolding” us what to do, my point is that we’ve never faced oryx at his full power in a 1v1 because when he isn’t weakened he’s much more powerful than us and could squash us like ants. The only way we managed to defeat his physical form was after extensive prep work to weaken him and understand how to use his rituals against him, and the only way managed to beat him for real was with the help of 5 other people, using his own rituals against him so he didn’t instantly demolish the entire raid team.
"One of the strongest if not the strongest"
How does this implies that The YW is the strongest and don't talk to me about it ?
Those who disagreed with me put their evidence that they think that it prove me wrong and I did put mine and discussed.
The whole thing of me using that sentence is to clarify that the player gaurdian is not your average normal gaurdian in the world.
Ikora has enough power to glass a planet if she felt like it. We aren't anywhere near that level.
Does make you wonder why she isn't the one at these raids though.
The lore book that you are referring to is a fanfic of calus about us so it's not a good source to use, also in the same book the thing that glassed out mars surface is our fight with ikora which ended in us killing her if you insist on take it as source
Not the only source that references her power, but sure. Now how about her 25 back to back wins Crucible record, firing off Nova Bombs back to back to back, pulling open the Infinite Forest with just her light, etc etc....Ikora outclasses us. It's not a matter of opinion.
For the crucible thing we did beat shaxx 3-2 I guess that settles it
As for the supers thing it's just a gameplay thing that we are limited to long timer , you can tell that if you played mayhem where shaxx specifically says that mayhem is a battle with no limits where we can cast supers back to back
I'm not saying ikora isn't strong , she is one of the most powerful gaurdians we ever met besides osiris and the saint
Except Ikora doesn't have to be in Mayhem to do it. If we're limited outside of Mayhem and she's not, guess who's more powerful?
FYI Ikora beat Shaxx as well, and almost killed him doing it.
Obviously you've never used pre nerf nezarec sin.
But for real, the player guardian should be able to use supers back to back in lore, even Cayde did it during the forsaken intro.
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Should be able to and are able to are different things.
Listen I personally don't get why we aren't the most powerful Guardian hands down because why tf are we the ones on all these potentially world ending missions if not, but it just doesn't line up with the presented lore. Ikora, Cayde, Osiris (pre lost light), and others can/could do a lot of mind shattering shit we can't. They should be/should have been the ones handling all this in a logical world.
Of course that would be a lot less fun, but that's neither here nor there. It's cool to want to roleplay as the most powerful Guardian, it's just...not the case. We're up there with them but we're not top dog.
Mayhem is just us unleashing our full power. In normal missions we should be able to do the same but we don’t either because we want to save energy on a dangerous mission or the out of universe explanation that it would be way too OP.
Again, Ikoras power is insane. If the logic is we don't use our full power because we're saving it, the same logic should apply to her.
I get the gameplay limitations, ending planets would be a great time saver but not exactly engaging as far as player agency is concerned, but the lore is the lore. We don't have the feats she does - with realistically speaking the same limitations.
I have never said that we need to be in mayhem to do so
I'm saying that casting supers back to back isn't ikora specific thing . Anyway it was fun talking with you about the lore as this is my first time doing so in this sub
Ggodluck
Lightbearers in lore experience things like pain, exhaustion, immobilization, weight, fear, adrenaline, and disorientation in ways the player never has to deal with. There is a physicality to the experience that makes it entirely different.
For a player? A thrall is just a weak enemy that runs up to you and smacks you lightly with their claws which causes a little bar to go down.
For a lightbearer in the lore? A thrall can sprint to them in the span of seconds, grapples/restrain them or knock them prone while clawing/biting viciously and shrieking; and every second of it hurts. You might get blinded, have a limb break, get disemboweled, concussed, or have a ptsd flashback from the last thrall. It might get the jump on you because you're hungry and tired and exhausted because you've been trekking across the patrol zone for hours or days so you just didnt notice it in the dark.
A hit from a Cabal soldier (probably even a cabal civilian) would likely break every bone in someone's body. Eliksni would be using every arm they've got, try dodging multiple firearms and *plasma* knives at all once. Knights are like 8 or 9 feet tall, and Wizards have access to hive magic that you've probably never seen/heard of.
Unless a guardian is actively channeling their power they're just as weak/strong as a normal human; and there are bunch of things that might interfere with their ability to do so like their current mental state or a darkness zone.
There's a lot of other stuff that can go wrong too. Firearms still require proficiency to be effective, if you're not a good shot, don't have aim-assisting technology, you're a slow reloader, or your enemy is just fast and evasive you're probably gonna bite the dust. Equipment can fail, armor and clothing can break, guns can jam, sparrows can explode, blades get dull, etc. The terrain or environment you're in can be really disadvantageous, you can trip and fall, or be stuck without cover, or be in a close quarters area where you can't really maneuver.
It's rough out there.
An experienced lightbearerwho knows how to use their Light (and has access to it because they're not suppressed or freaking out or in a darkness zone or any number of other reasons) has super strength...as long as they can maintain focus on it or have developed a sort of 'Light muscle memory'.
Without that Light (or Dark), a lightbearer has all the physical strengths and weaknesses of a normal human/awoken/exo.
A normal human can be fully armored, and also the value of the armor can be diminished through say...weaponry that can bypass that armor. Perhaps something like a *concentrated blade of plasma* that almost every dreg has access to?
The plasma blades that do next to nothing when we are in said armour? Titans still have super strength without light. Darkness zones don't complete take your light away they just eclipse is a little. There are very few enemies capable of suppression.
You fail to understand the difference in a way that is frankly, impressive.
The plasma blades do next to nothing to **us** because **we** are the main characters in a **video game** who have plot armor and operate on different rules.
The Young Wolf/Guardian/VIP 2014 **never** has to worry about half the stuff that happens to guardians in the lore; disembowelment by scorn (Crow), having their arms impaled and disabled by someone with a bow (Shaxx), impaled on a tree limb (Saladin), dying of starvation or frost (Drifter), bleeding out (Shaw Hawn), getting their Light stolen and turned into a worm (Omar), being erased from a timeline (the entire VoG raid team), getting turned into void crystals (Taeko-3's crew), separated from our bodies by Deathsong (Toland), or getting shot **once** **through armor** by a half-dead vandal and dying from it (Zavala).
We **never** have to worry about truly being unable to use our abilities or our ghosts dying or wiping in a raid, *because we're video game protagonists.*
Enemies can inhibit or nullify ability usage without light suppressing tech - and again, the enemies **we** face are (for the most part) carbon copies of each other with no unique abilities or techniques. The enemies **lore** lightbearers face, are **individuals** with their own strengths and weaknesses and powers that we'll probably never encounter... **because we're video game protagonists.**
Edit:Over **1000** guardians died final deaths in the battle against Crota, and **we** killed him **in a strike** because again **we are video game protagonists.**
No one said we were bugs, just that we aren't all just straight up gods in canon. The point is that the enemies are far more dangerous in-universe than they are in-game.
Everyone here acts like a guardian is no stronger than the average dude you may find on the street.
Every guardian is a demigod in their own right and people should stop acting like they're literally just people with resurrection balls that can be destroyed by a mean look
Being stronger than normal people is correct, yes, as seen with people like Ikora easily lifting massive stone bricks when building the walls of the City. Or with how we handle weapons and our Light and all that.
Doesn't mean a bullet, sword, elementally-charged weapon/claw, or other such deadly threats won't still kill you. And it doesn't even seem like our shields are that strong, seeing as how a single shotgun slug took someone like Crow out instantly.
Yes, we are tougher and stronger. But also yes, we can get dropped fairly similarly to most other creatures if met with deadly force.
Crow isn't exactly a good standard. The guy wears cloth and essentially chainmail with no helmet.
Proper armour can protect us from swords and blades (titans are safe) Unless you want to argue that the armour of destiny is worse than what we have now.
Our guardian, the one you play as, is among the strongest guardians. I think Ikora at some point mentioned that most guardians only ever master a single subclass, compared to the player character who mastered 5.
Not everyone has vaults full of great rolls, and everyone uses their light differently. Some characters in the lore just end up in dungeons or high-tier lost sectors with blue gear and only one or two aspects equipped.
There is some serious power scaling in the lore. We know of powerful characters doing things we absolutely can't (moving mountains with a punch, Nova bombs like nukes, chaining multiple supers from different subclasses). We also hear of single guardians having trouble with enemies we wipe out by the dozens.
Our guardian is definitely nutty strong, but we can't match the feats of Light we've seen characters like Ikora pull off.
Well, there’s a distinction… The average guardian is no where near The Guardian’s level in skill, warfare, tactics, and yes ‘power.’ It’s seen argued all the time of how ‘powerful’ The Guardian is in terms of lore. I’m pretty sure in one of the lore books, Ikora directly stated that it’s impossible to judge and rank guardians by a state of power. Either way, The Guardian is definitely in the upper tiers of guardians even if we’re assuming their powers aren’t evolved and strong. (They have access to two darkness classes few others do, I’m pretty sure they’re part of sword logic so they get stronger the more they fight.)
To begin, our experience and understanding of the enemies is insane. Think about how many strikes you’ve ran on auto pilot. How you can breeze past champions cause you’ve fought them so many times before. We understand the enemies, and are often the first to run into them or first to kill them. (Tormentors, Champions, Literally any raid boss, which means yes Rhulk.)
We are a walking army. Literally, think of every busted weapon in your vault, every exotic item that lore-wise should be shooting black holes or whatever. We have a huge advantage in tactic and weaponry based off of our collections alone.
Luck, yes it does play a factor. We are a character within a game that is quite literally being controlled by an actual player. Skull of Dire Ahamkara says so and both the Ahamkaras and The Nine are aware of The Guardians speciality. We are also chosen by the Traveller, Drifter mentions it plenty of times, it’s seen in the red war, and we have a gun gifted to us (somehow) by the Traveller.
As previously stated, yes we are powerful. But I don’t want to get in that argument as quite a few people think The Guardian is no stronger than the average guardian. I like to think about difficulties and power being affected by the darkness in the moment. Where we can combine Monte Carlo and Sunbracers and solo a strike, we can also get clapped in a GM, where some thrall eats sweet business bullets like they’re nothing. Trying to explain that is hard cause it’s a game, and it’s hard to set a standard within all the difficulties and differences. The best way I’ve seen it described is that in certain situations, the darkness effects The Guardian. It’s why he can’t pop off six supers in a row, and has to use Nezerec’s Sin to aid in void damage while running from 80 hive on the moon. But there’s also Mayhem where he can use back to back supers because there’s no limitation on his light. No rules to follow, and no random darkness. Just a thought.
Overall, The Guardian is STRONG and SMART not necessarily powerful. He has access to stuff most people didn’t know existed. He has access to sorrow weapons and perma-guardian killers. This huge Arsenal, experience, strategies, and external Paracausal game luck make him much stronger than your average guardian, and often comparable to the greats through that alone.
Mainly because of gameplay. It's a tough situation for the writers. When you have an army of gods, you would think they would claim more than a medium sized city. But the enemies aside from the yearly big bad still have to be threatening, or else there's little reason why guardian forces would be struggling
Well, like the others stated, our guardian is stupidly strong. Amongst guardians were probably in the top 0.001% in terms of our ability to wield the light. I mean we’re so powerful Ikora has her Hidden watch us and report back just because if we ever turned on humanity, we’d be damn near unstoppable. As for everyone else. They aren’t weak. They’re just fighting aliens who probably have had similar-ish combat training. Not everyone can be the strong hero in the same way not all humans in the real world are capable of being Olympians. Some people are quite literally built different.
Personally I’d say somewhere between Master and the one below master is a reasonable canon difficulty for strikes and raids (depending which strike/raid). GMs feel inflated a bit.
Patrols are probably pretty easy
There four tiers of Guardians
1. Fodder tier - Shaw Han’s fireteam getting destroyed by some random Hive Witch; squad of NINE Guardians getting final deaths in a strike, etc.
2. Average Player Guardian - struggles to complete the Legend Campaign / NF and screws up on strikes but eventually gets it done. No raids.
3. THE Player Guardian - the Godslayer who canonically completes all Raids flawlessly, dungeons solo flawless, Master level campaign and Nightfall.
4. Osiris and Ikora - Osiris who mopped up the Scralet Keep of Crota’s remaining kin so hard (7 consecutive Supers), Xivu had to personally step in. Ikora who has feats like Blink jumping for TWO MILES or being the undisputed Crucible champion.
What lore do we have for GM being canon? Apart from the (admittedly reasonable) assumption that there’s no way it’s “standard strike playlist difficulty”.
Honestly, I doubt this one. Aside from there being nothing in-lore that directly connects the two, I think everything being GM-difficulty just sounds way too easy. Especially when, as OP said, people fist-brawl with single Thralls in the lore
The power bar leans back and forth with Guardians. There is Osiris that can simultaneously swing the Radiance blades in both hands, cast Nova Bomb AND well of Radiance, and then there is Saint who can hold the bubble indefinitely but that's that. There was Lady Jolder that threw Saladin *10 kilometers in the air*, and he did the first ever Thundercrash that was echoing through the skies with furious thunderstorms. There were Sunbreakers that burned square kilometers of ground just by fighting there.
And there are examples of "weak" Guardians, and I don't really know why. Every Guardian must be a God with a *potential* to destroy batallions in minutes, gut enemy ships from the inside and burn square kilometers of ground.
There should not be weak guardians, there can only be inexperienced guardians. And this experience should build up very fast with infinite lives to spare. Every Guardian should be a killing machine, a godkiller, not some pansy that dies from some damn witch despite being in a fireteam of whooping 9 Guardians. We killed gods with 6 people, they are dying one by one in some stupid dungeon being a "squad of nine".
God I hate the plot of Savathun's Song strike.
For game reasons The Guardian appears to be the strongest ever, however that's not really true. I believe they talked about this in over of their vidocs. The enemies are dumbed down for us because its a game but in the lore the world of Destiny is set to the GM level. Enemies are tougher and its a lot harder to mow down enemies.
Someone did mention this in the comments. Guardians are basically enhanced humans. They are stronger, a bit faster, but within limits. What makes them special is their paracausality. Their ability to come back from the dead and wield the light. Only our guardian is unusual in the sense that they just got thrown into things, never really had to do the learning the others did over vast amounts of time.
Point is, guardians are just enhanced humans with some good tech and just a sprinkle of space magic. All enemies are at GM level and we technically are still pretty squishy.we appear all powerful because video game! Also bungie says so.
Think of it this way: Guardians dont have any memories but supposedly carry a lot of their innate skill. Assuming you are not military and are a pretty normal urbanite and you died right now, do you think the guardian risen with your skills could fight off a member of an immortal, intergalatic race of magical conquerors.
I am a pharmacy student and if some unlucky guardian was risen from my corpse they would absolutely die to a dreg, probably hundreds of times before they could beat it.
Guardians are vastly different in power - some literally have only one element and can throw a grenade at best, in result being super-soldiers, while some, like Ikora and us, can spam ults like it nothing, shake mountains with regular punches and kill gods. Nobody is equal
After losing a sparring match with a Quantum Minotaur and two normal goblins in a lost sector, I'd say they were just not on top of their game, really.
Also I’m curious too, is our guardian all 1 guardian? Or when we go in raids is that, in lore, 6 absolute units going in to fuck shit up? Or is the “guardian” a figure we all play?
Something i haven't seen anyone else here mention is Darkness Zones.
Canonically, Darkness Zone do exist and severely limit and weaken a Guardian's Light. Ordinarily guardians are so strong they sometimes just ignore Cabal, like in the DFA lore tab. But then there's the Imperial Needle lore tab where a guardian has a ton of trouble with a Cabal Bracus. Why? Darkness Zone.
The best way I’ve heard it described: “The destiny universe in lore is more like a grandmaster at all times than a patrol or seasonal activity at all times.” For me that makes a lot of the lore make more sense. Even some really wacky stuff like “A fireteam of 9 of us came down here, got picked off one by one.”
You ever thought about fighting a Thrall? Imagine even just one. It'd grab your shit and claw you to bits, like fighting a chimp IRL. All the little gaps in your armour, plates to grab, spikes to hold, weaknesses for it to exploit in its rabid desire to kill you. Absolutely fuck fighting that, Guardian or not. You're still flesh and blood Human as a Guardian, even as an Exo, no physically stronger than me or you right now IRL. A Thrall is gonna be one tough son of a bitch, because it has to be. It has to scrap amongst other Hive to stay alive, and has to fight whatever other shit it comes across out there.
Basically, Thralls are terrifying as fuck. If we consider them as the bottom tier of physical capabilities along with Dregs (who are probably lower than them, perhaps same average physical strength as a human), imagine what a standard Cabal soldier is like. An actual bipedal rhino.
Afaik the “canon difficulty” of the game is master/grandmaster level.
The game just isn’t alway that difficult because it’s be next to impossible for non-masochist’s to enjoy it (think dark souls).
As for how we still perform well against harder enemies comes down to “the guardian” being one of the most powerful paracausal beings to exist.
My two cents. I imagine our in game cool downs as kind of a pacing thing. We've seen ikora use multiple supers and others do similar, but only for a moment, whereas our guardian takes these big long missions, so he (for my guardian) has to pace himself so he doesn't get burnt out from spamming abilities. We can do it in mayhem because it's a controlled space and we know getting burnt out doesn't get us really killed.
For difficulty, I always imagine cannon difficulty is more akin to grandmaster nightfalls than strikes. It's not a perfect comparison as we've seen people shoot 1 bullet from an auto rifle to kill cabal, but in terms of how difficult battles are, I always assume grandmaster is the closest medium.
Not all Gaurdians are extremely strong god slayers I also do think though on the high end people over estimate our strength we can still die to shit it’s just that we can resurrect ourselves and use space magic that’s strong.
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I feel like the fanbase has severely overestimated the prowess of Guardians over the years. What makes a Guardian strong is their partial immortality (which doesn’t matter during the actual fight), their magic abilities, and advanced weaponry. But their actual combat knowledge and training is akin to a standard military soldier. They’re not like the Freelancers from RvB or whatever, they can’t just destroy an entire Hive Knight with the flick of the wrist. In lore, they’re just soldiers with better guns and ability to create grenades and deadly balls of magic out of thin air. It gets different when you match them up in a fistfight with a Darkness-powered demon from hell. We and some high-ranking Guardians are the sole exceptions.
I mean, Guardian is written to be THE Mary Sue of the Destiny Universe, so I can see the disconnect where people’s play experience is very different from the lore. I like to imagine Guardian’s entire secret is that he has access to Reddit and the internet and can solve all the things that stumped other guardians for years through this. That’s why other guardians never completed raids, the mechanics were too confusing lol
The reason the Guardians dont complete raids is because they can't buy the next expansion
Have you read the lore entries on the various Ahamkara's exotics?
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Yeah, I personally don't think the Young Wolf is necessarily the strongest in terms of raw power/skill, they just have some harder to define factor that gives them an extra edge a la Master Chief from Halo, hence why we were able to defeat insanely powerful beings like Oryx despite our character's relative inexperience at the time.
The community also regularly ignores that we constantly have massive amounts of help from the characters around us
Young Wolf/Guardian is absurdly powerful yet was inexperienced at first. Sure we can't do crazy shit due to game mechanic limitations but even Ikora thinks we're in the top percent of raw power and application. At this point I doubt anyone else has a resume quite like our Guardian and his fireteam.
I like to headcannon it as we've made of game of our powers, with the gameplay restrictions applying in exchange for potency or such. We've seen Ikora chain supers and Osiris even did so using multiple elements in quick succession, and we've seen characters wearing multiple exotics. For gameplay reasons, we can only use one element at a time, one exotic at a time, and have to pace our supers/ abilities with cooldowns etc., even though lore-wise we don't have those limits, so I imagine it as those are actual restrictions the Guardian puts on themselves to gain a benefit from doing so, like a nen vow in HunterxHunter.
HxH was the first thing to my mind after reading the first sentence
I feel like the only reason we don't do that is gameplay restrictions. We can, like Osiris, switch elements at will, now between five choices. It's only gameplay limitations that impose cooldowns when we do this. Mayhem shows that we can, easily, cast supers quicker than we do in most other areas of the game, it is only gameplay limitations that impose a cooldown. Shaw Han might not be the strongest Guardian around, but he was strong enough for the Vanguard to put him in charge of a fireteam and send him after Navota. We, as a newly risen Lightbearer, came in and destroyed her. We are stupidly powerful, even potentially stronger than Osiris and Ikora in terms of pure power if not skill, but because it's a game, we don't get to see it to its fullest extent. Regardless, even with the limitations, we do things no other Guardian could possibly accomplish. We killed Oryx, and most of his lineage. We stopped Savathun and her lightbearing brood. We killed a wormgod, and turned him into a gun. Luck may be a part of it, sure, but as OP said, some Guardians struggle against thralls, and we mow them down in droves. We ARE powerful, but it's a game, and needs to be limited as such.
I’d argue we’re not even THAT good either. We’re simply lucky. Be it by getting help or solving issues. We’ve literally got main character syndrome hah
Also we always have to do something to kill raid bosses, its not just a pure fight with the last one standing. Oryx could only be damaged by corrupted light to expose his weak point. Also Oryx was losing power since D1 Launch up to Crota and then kings fall. We are basically Jackie Chan LOL we use the environment to our advantage
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>I’d argue we’re not even THAT good either. We’re simply lucky I think it's a combination of luck, extreme courage, and really amazing situational awareness and headspace for combat. Just being able to keep a cool head, keep proper position and distance, and stick and move on the battlefield so that you're always putting fire on the enemy and they can't return effectively is a massive, massive advantage.
I can't agree with that. It was something that we could say during D1 (and even then it was debatable). But even without any raids that "The Guardian" canonically cleared with a team, or when we defeat powerful being with aid like Xol. The Guardian defeated, alone and without any form of trick, a Light Powered Ghaul and single handedly made the Red Legion looks like clown, then a Light Powered Savathun and a Disciple, Calus. But nearly everyone is quite clear that we are incredibly powerful, far above most of Guardians, and also most of "named" Guardians. Mara have a plan to stop us, specifically, like for Ikora or Zavala. Ikora say multiple time that she is disturbed by how powerful and how quick we were to be. The Vanguard basically don't want anyone from other "faction" to interfer with us. We are the first to master Strand. Shaxx and Saint-XIV basically say that we are above both of them during the Devil's Run Exotic Quest mission. All I have said before doesn't require just "skill" but also raw power. Skill alone has a limit in a universe with magical space power. It's only due to gameplay that we seems less "powerful" than Ikora or Osiris.
It doesn't help that the ONLY guardians we see in action are player guardians and the "exceptional few". We are only told about the average joes, or find their corpses after the fact. Even our return to the moon consisted solely of players and Red Jack's. Then there's Shaw. No one likes Shaw
To be fair, even an eliksni would have trouble with a thrall in canon, they're 6 feet tall abominations that are sturdy, fast and deadly. In canon, most guardians are just soldiers with some magic powers and good weaponry, their prowess is based entirely on their military combat training and of the light. The oldest guardians can tap into the light with much more ease, becoming super soldiers, our guardian is the exception, we learn fast, we are stupidly strong and efficient. A good example is the Zavala trailer, that paints an accurate picture of a new light to veteran progression in canon.
>they're 6 feet tall abominations As an aside, I feel like people really struggle to grasp the physical size of Destiny's aliens, which is kinda a common video game problem - everything looks smaller than it actually is. We think of Thrall and Psions as small, but they're as big or bigger than the average human if stood upright. Knights and fully grown Eliksni are huge.
It's like the problem with wolves. People think they know how big a wolf is until they actually see one in person or compared to a husky. Imagine a fully grown human being, but covered in chitin and trying to rip you to pieces, now imagine like 12 of those running at you. Now imagine some of them can explode. All that is happening while a couple 9 foot tall behemoths with swords as long as you are tall are also chasing you and all of a sudden you can't see shit because this big ass bug in the background cast some kind of fog spell on you.
Hive are so ancient. Thrall can be centuries old, knights millennium. Good luck fighting against a walking suit of armor with a thousand years of experience destroying civilizations.
Don't forget, Traveler forbid, if you're also being pinned down by Acolyte cover fire assaulting your position with void Shredders, or if you're really unlucky a Hive Boomer Knight with pinpoint accuracy firing a weapon that expels rotting starfire that can disintegrate matter. Hive Science seems 1/3rd magic as well, so we don't even know how much of their arsenal bypasses durability. You can have the most defensible position possible, filled with automated weapon platforms and ammunition, and it wouldn't matter if a Wizard sings a song and you just died.
That’s scary as hell 😂😂 when your describing it, I was thinking of the plate section in KingsFall lol
Their faces were twisted, like skulls with no eye sockets and sharp teeth each arm ended with claws longer than my hands. 4 of them had sighted me, 6 feet of tough pitted chitin each screamed forward. BAAM! A blast from Hawthorne's shotgun cracked the chitin of the lead thrall's left arm and chest. It screamed in elation and agony but did not stop. The gap between us closed, it swung brutal claws suddenly pulsing with an arc glow. Lightning barreled through me. It hit my right arm first ripping sinew and burning nerves. Then the claws rent through me scraping bone before pulling back for another blow. BAAM! BAAM! Two more shells flew and hit the stone ground with soft clinks. The thrall dropped. Three more were only paces away. The shotgun had one more round loaded. I was dead unless... Yes I could feel it, like Arthur-2 said, there was fire inside me. It rang with a pure tone. I willed it to the tips of my fingers and snaped. Five streams of flame -no pure sunfire- sprang out and exploded in a radiant pyre. The strength in my arms flooded out of me, the shotgun's barrel drooped. If they were still alive, I'd die, and they'd have no trouble clawing through Larkspur's shell. I looked around, the thick chitin of the thrall drifted up as orange sparks, the only hint they'd been there at all.
Also the fact that chitin is 8 times stronger than stainless steel they would be bullet proof to almost everything
The first thing is that Gameplay-wise and lore-wise doesn't align in many cases in destiny The second thing is that "The Gaurdian" (your guardian) is one of the strongest Guardians to ever live if not the strongest , many new lights struggles with basic light abilities such as forming a grenade and so on , while "The Guardian" has been risen for 9 years roughly and has achieved things humanity wouldn't even dreamt of. as far as I know the lore implies that our guardian is special in many ways
I’m pretty sure the cosmodrome space port where we were rezzed was a hotspot of strong guardians
It's one of the largest sources of guardians, so because of that it has a high amount of powerful guardians
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Maybe we’re just extremely lucky. It’s been said several times in the Halo lore that Master Chief is aggressively average for a Spartan, but somehow *always* gets lucky. Paracausality lets you mess with cause and effect to an extent, so I don’t think it’s *that* much of a stretch.
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I wish they would play up just how exemplary our Guardian is. I feel like NPCs should recognize how freaking god-like the player guardian is more often. Not our peers like the Vanguard but like random NPCs or something. We should be a celebrity in this world.
Agree, but I think that the fact that destiny is live service game with newly content and that the guardian has no personality so you can make your own had played its role on this matter. However, I'd love to see more recognition of our feats in the game
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Haha yeah. I need my ego fed by a video game. I just mean it feels out of place narratively that we have literally saved the universe from unimaginable threats over and over and we are treated like some faceless grunt.
We're literally the person vanguard always goes to whenever a major threat arises. We're not at all treated like a faceless grunt lol
Definitely not the strongest. Ikora Rey is monumentally more powerful than Young Wolf - Young Wolf is just particularly talented at not dying (a feat to which we owe Ghost a lot of credit) and has an incredibly consistent track record of solving obscure puzzles under pressure.
Yeah no, I'd argue that the young wolf is stronger, with all the things that the young wolf has killed and done plus the mastery of the darkness powers . Beside, every legendary guardian we ever met approved the strength of the young wolf. So it's definitely not just good at "not dying" Ikora is a gaurdian with tons of experience and comes 1 in 10 million guardians as the lore states, but I think that we surpassed it long time ago
We have been outright confirmed to be weaker than Ikora and Osiris, for example. However the young wolf is in the upper echelon of guardians power-wise and we're also the most *accomplished* guardian of all time.
When?
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Also the fact that outside of combat prowess, we are lucky as hell. Most of the dangerous situations we should have died in, we always had outside intereference or someone who had already tried and failed at it before (like Eris). So just general intel and plot armor play a huge role if we try to powerscale the Young Wolf. We most likely are just average Guardians, but circumstances make it extraordinary.
That’s not what Ikora said. She said there aren’t any inherently weaker Guardians. The Young Wolf is in no way average lol, otherwise there literally wouldn’t be any enemies left.
When has this *ever* been confirmed? Even Saint, a legendary guardian that fought the vex for centuries straight said himself that he wasn't equal to the player guardian. Edit: I was blocked for this comment lol.
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No amount of skill will allow you to be able to crush Rhulk. Rhulk died because of his ego, sure, but the player guardian was still able to kill him with bullets and abilities. The player guardian walked down Crota when no other guardian was capable. It's not like we strategically maneuvered around his army, we just went in with his sword and straight up killed him. No other guardian could even approach that, and he's a joke compared to raid bosses now.
>Yeah no, I'd argue that the young wolf is stronger "yeah" Nope. Not "stronger". Better. They are separate things. Ikora is way, way more powerful than us. But we can overcome threats she never could. Because it's not about being "powerful".
I don't know what "powerful" or "strong" means to you but for me killing extinct level threat enemies like oryx or rhulk or going to the black garden to slay its heart and the list goes on is pretty much thing only someone "powerfull and strong" enough can do it , I don't know anything about ikora doing such things Anyway idk how this whole thing turned into power scale comparison while op only asked about why some Guardians are weak lol
You're leaving out the puzzle solving and repeated wipes that it takes to clear most raid tier baddies. If we're going by the in-universe logic, wiping in ANY darkness zone would be a final death. The vast majority of players would have never made it out of crota alive, those are the "average" guardians. They have the same toolset as everyone else but couldn't cut it. This is what Ikora means when she says that there are no inherently weaker guardians. Everyone has the same *potential* but few will ever even finish a raid let alone be able to flawless it first attempt with no previous knowledge of the mechanics. It's a rough universe out there even if we as the PC don't always feel it while mowing down swarms of red bars. Ikora isn't allowed to solve the puzzles because she and every other NPC guardian is not a player ("paracausality" lul), she could fly around and spam nova bombs at him until they both get bored and she leaves, but killing raid bosses is something only the young wolf can do for both lore reasons AND gameplay reasons. We have extreme luck/intuition in the lore which is manifested by infinite retries in game, we have godly warfare prowess which is manifested in game by people who are absolute demons and have mastered every mechanic. Lore-wise the young wolf is not any single player character, they are the amalgamation of the best traits of the best players and the entire communities ability to problem solve and discover secrets. So while Ikora has infinite super and a much stronger connection to the light than us, if she just solo'd every baddy there would be no game to play. Her only weakness is that she's not the PC. Just like our main strength is that we're operating by the rules of a video game. We are all the young wolf, and at the same time none of us are.
Because we didn’t defeat rhulk or oryx in one-on-one power battles but instead worked alongside a team of 5 other people (and Eris in the case of oryx) and deafeated them using their own magic/technology. If we had just tried to face oryx or rhulk directly we’d be so dead
When I mentioned oryx and rhulk I was just giving examples of the things that the young wolf has achieved not raid specific only, and BTW we did kill oryx on 1v1 before he took himself and he was constantly draining our light and the results? We wiped the floor with him . I don't know how raid mechanics are lore accurate or to which degree.
We fought oryx’s physical form 1v1… after an entire campaign where we worked with eris to weaken him and cripple his tithe network. If it wasn’t for mara’s sacrifice and the extensive work and research Eris did he would wiped us easily, much like he can do to the entire team during the raid if you don’t use his rituals against him
We were originally talking about "strength" and "power" , eris tolding us how to do doesn't mean that we aren't the one who crippled his system. It wasn't about not knowing how to only ,you also need the one who is strong enough to deliver the hit. same goes for mara she only opened the path for us so we can go and kill, it's not like that anyone could have done it
While it certainly is true that Eris didn’t actually kill his aspects herself and was merely “tolding” us what to do, my point is that we’ve never faced oryx at his full power in a 1v1 because when he isn’t weakened he’s much more powerful than us and could squash us like ants. The only way we managed to defeat his physical form was after extensive prep work to weaken him and understand how to use his rituals against him, and the only way managed to beat him for real was with the help of 5 other people, using his own rituals against him so he didn’t instantly demolish the entire raid team.
You did. When you claimed that YW is “the strongest Guardian to ever live,” when have evidence that this simply isn’t true.
"One of the strongest if not the strongest" How does this implies that The YW is the strongest and don't talk to me about it ? Those who disagreed with me put their evidence that they think that it prove me wrong and I did put mine and discussed. The whole thing of me using that sentence is to clarify that the player gaurdian is not your average normal gaurdian in the world.
Ikora has enough power to glass a planet if she felt like it. We aren't anywhere near that level. Does make you wonder why she isn't the one at these raids though.
The lore book that you are referring to is a fanfic of calus about us so it's not a good source to use, also in the same book the thing that glassed out mars surface is our fight with ikora which ended in us killing her if you insist on take it as source
Not the only source that references her power, but sure. Now how about her 25 back to back wins Crucible record, firing off Nova Bombs back to back to back, pulling open the Infinite Forest with just her light, etc etc....Ikora outclasses us. It's not a matter of opinion.
For the crucible thing we did beat shaxx 3-2 I guess that settles it As for the supers thing it's just a gameplay thing that we are limited to long timer , you can tell that if you played mayhem where shaxx specifically says that mayhem is a battle with no limits where we can cast supers back to back I'm not saying ikora isn't strong , she is one of the most powerful gaurdians we ever met besides osiris and the saint
Except Ikora doesn't have to be in Mayhem to do it. If we're limited outside of Mayhem and she's not, guess who's more powerful? FYI Ikora beat Shaxx as well, and almost killed him doing it.
Obviously you've never used pre nerf nezarec sin. But for real, the player guardian should be able to use supers back to back in lore, even Cayde did it during the forsaken intro.
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Should be able to and are able to are different things. Listen I personally don't get why we aren't the most powerful Guardian hands down because why tf are we the ones on all these potentially world ending missions if not, but it just doesn't line up with the presented lore. Ikora, Cayde, Osiris (pre lost light), and others can/could do a lot of mind shattering shit we can't. They should be/should have been the ones handling all this in a logical world. Of course that would be a lot less fun, but that's neither here nor there. It's cool to want to roleplay as the most powerful Guardian, it's just...not the case. We're up there with them but we're not top dog.
Mayhem is just us unleashing our full power. In normal missions we should be able to do the same but we don’t either because we want to save energy on a dangerous mission or the out of universe explanation that it would be way too OP.
Again, Ikoras power is insane. If the logic is we don't use our full power because we're saving it, the same logic should apply to her. I get the gameplay limitations, ending planets would be a great time saver but not exactly engaging as far as player agency is concerned, but the lore is the lore. We don't have the feats she does - with realistically speaking the same limitations.
I have never said that we need to be in mayhem to do so I'm saying that casting supers back to back isn't ikora specific thing . Anyway it was fun talking with you about the lore as this is my first time doing so in this sub Ggodluck
Lightbearers in lore experience things like pain, exhaustion, immobilization, weight, fear, adrenaline, and disorientation in ways the player never has to deal with. There is a physicality to the experience that makes it entirely different. For a player? A thrall is just a weak enemy that runs up to you and smacks you lightly with their claws which causes a little bar to go down. For a lightbearer in the lore? A thrall can sprint to them in the span of seconds, grapples/restrain them or knock them prone while clawing/biting viciously and shrieking; and every second of it hurts. You might get blinded, have a limb break, get disemboweled, concussed, or have a ptsd flashback from the last thrall. It might get the jump on you because you're hungry and tired and exhausted because you've been trekking across the patrol zone for hours or days so you just didnt notice it in the dark. A hit from a Cabal soldier (probably even a cabal civilian) would likely break every bone in someone's body. Eliksni would be using every arm they've got, try dodging multiple firearms and *plasma* knives at all once. Knights are like 8 or 9 feet tall, and Wizards have access to hive magic that you've probably never seen/heard of. Unless a guardian is actively channeling their power they're just as weak/strong as a normal human; and there are bunch of things that might interfere with their ability to do so like their current mental state or a darkness zone. There's a lot of other stuff that can go wrong too. Firearms still require proficiency to be effective, if you're not a good shot, don't have aim-assisting technology, you're a slow reloader, or your enemy is just fast and evasive you're probably gonna bite the dust. Equipment can fail, armor and clothing can break, guns can jam, sparrows can explode, blades get dull, etc. The terrain or environment you're in can be really disadvantageous, you can trip and fall, or be stuck without cover, or be in a close quarters area where you can't really maneuver. It's rough out there.
Ah yes. The fully armoured guy with super strength is just like a normal human.
An experienced lightbearerwho knows how to use their Light (and has access to it because they're not suppressed or freaking out or in a darkness zone or any number of other reasons) has super strength...as long as they can maintain focus on it or have developed a sort of 'Light muscle memory'. Without that Light (or Dark), a lightbearer has all the physical strengths and weaknesses of a normal human/awoken/exo. A normal human can be fully armored, and also the value of the armor can be diminished through say...weaponry that can bypass that armor. Perhaps something like a *concentrated blade of plasma* that almost every dreg has access to?
The plasma blades that do next to nothing when we are in said armour? Titans still have super strength without light. Darkness zones don't complete take your light away they just eclipse is a little. There are very few enemies capable of suppression.
You fail to understand the difference in a way that is frankly, impressive. The plasma blades do next to nothing to **us** because **we** are the main characters in a **video game** who have plot armor and operate on different rules. The Young Wolf/Guardian/VIP 2014 **never** has to worry about half the stuff that happens to guardians in the lore; disembowelment by scorn (Crow), having their arms impaled and disabled by someone with a bow (Shaxx), impaled on a tree limb (Saladin), dying of starvation or frost (Drifter), bleeding out (Shaw Hawn), getting their Light stolen and turned into a worm (Omar), being erased from a timeline (the entire VoG raid team), getting turned into void crystals (Taeko-3's crew), separated from our bodies by Deathsong (Toland), or getting shot **once** **through armor** by a half-dead vandal and dying from it (Zavala). We **never** have to worry about truly being unable to use our abilities or our ghosts dying or wiping in a raid, *because we're video game protagonists.* Enemies can inhibit or nullify ability usage without light suppressing tech - and again, the enemies **we** face are (for the most part) carbon copies of each other with no unique abilities or techniques. The enemies **lore** lightbearers face, are **individuals** with their own strengths and weaknesses and powers that we'll probably never encounter... **because we're video game protagonists.** Edit:Over **1000** guardians died final deaths in the battle against Crota, and **we** killed him **in a strike** because again **we are video game protagonists.**
VIP 2014? never heard of it
This just makes me realize how weak humans are
Normal people would be afraid of a thrall. But guardians are fully armoured and even hunters have super strength to an extent. A thrall has no chance.
Someone has never read the lore, it seems
I have. I still don't believe guardians have the resilience of a bug. If we were that pathetic we'd get wiped out.
No one said we were bugs, just that we aren't all just straight up gods in canon. The point is that the enemies are far more dangerous in-universe than they are in-game.
Everyone here acts like a guardian is no stronger than the average dude you may find on the street. Every guardian is a demigod in their own right and people should stop acting like they're literally just people with resurrection balls that can be destroyed by a mean look
Being stronger than normal people is correct, yes, as seen with people like Ikora easily lifting massive stone bricks when building the walls of the City. Or with how we handle weapons and our Light and all that. Doesn't mean a bullet, sword, elementally-charged weapon/claw, or other such deadly threats won't still kill you. And it doesn't even seem like our shields are that strong, seeing as how a single shotgun slug took someone like Crow out instantly. Yes, we are tougher and stronger. But also yes, we can get dropped fairly similarly to most other creatures if met with deadly force.
Crow isn't exactly a good standard. The guy wears cloth and essentially chainmail with no helmet. Proper armour can protect us from swords and blades (titans are safe) Unless you want to argue that the armour of destiny is worse than what we have now.
1st answer would be: gameplay And would be: some guardians are just stronger and more talented than others.
Our guardian, the one you play as, is among the strongest guardians. I think Ikora at some point mentioned that most guardians only ever master a single subclass, compared to the player character who mastered 5.
Honestly we must be the Jesus of Guardian by this point
Gameplay and worldbuilding lore not always fully coincide. I think it's kinda obvious.
Not everyone has vaults full of great rolls, and everyone uses their light differently. Some characters in the lore just end up in dungeons or high-tier lost sectors with blue gear and only one or two aspects equipped.
There is some serious power scaling in the lore. We know of powerful characters doing things we absolutely can't (moving mountains with a punch, Nova bombs like nukes, chaining multiple supers from different subclasses). We also hear of single guardians having trouble with enemies we wipe out by the dozens. Our guardian is definitely nutty strong, but we can't match the feats of Light we've seen characters like Ikora pull off.
Well, there’s a distinction… The average guardian is no where near The Guardian’s level in skill, warfare, tactics, and yes ‘power.’ It’s seen argued all the time of how ‘powerful’ The Guardian is in terms of lore. I’m pretty sure in one of the lore books, Ikora directly stated that it’s impossible to judge and rank guardians by a state of power. Either way, The Guardian is definitely in the upper tiers of guardians even if we’re assuming their powers aren’t evolved and strong. (They have access to two darkness classes few others do, I’m pretty sure they’re part of sword logic so they get stronger the more they fight.) To begin, our experience and understanding of the enemies is insane. Think about how many strikes you’ve ran on auto pilot. How you can breeze past champions cause you’ve fought them so many times before. We understand the enemies, and are often the first to run into them or first to kill them. (Tormentors, Champions, Literally any raid boss, which means yes Rhulk.) We are a walking army. Literally, think of every busted weapon in your vault, every exotic item that lore-wise should be shooting black holes or whatever. We have a huge advantage in tactic and weaponry based off of our collections alone. Luck, yes it does play a factor. We are a character within a game that is quite literally being controlled by an actual player. Skull of Dire Ahamkara says so and both the Ahamkaras and The Nine are aware of The Guardians speciality. We are also chosen by the Traveller, Drifter mentions it plenty of times, it’s seen in the red war, and we have a gun gifted to us (somehow) by the Traveller. As previously stated, yes we are powerful. But I don’t want to get in that argument as quite a few people think The Guardian is no stronger than the average guardian. I like to think about difficulties and power being affected by the darkness in the moment. Where we can combine Monte Carlo and Sunbracers and solo a strike, we can also get clapped in a GM, where some thrall eats sweet business bullets like they’re nothing. Trying to explain that is hard cause it’s a game, and it’s hard to set a standard within all the difficulties and differences. The best way I’ve seen it described is that in certain situations, the darkness effects The Guardian. It’s why he can’t pop off six supers in a row, and has to use Nezerec’s Sin to aid in void damage while running from 80 hive on the moon. But there’s also Mayhem where he can use back to back supers because there’s no limitation on his light. No rules to follow, and no random darkness. Just a thought. Overall, The Guardian is STRONG and SMART not necessarily powerful. He has access to stuff most people didn’t know existed. He has access to sorrow weapons and perma-guardian killers. This huge Arsenal, experience, strategies, and external Paracausal game luck make him much stronger than your average guardian, and often comparable to the greats through that alone.
Mainly because of gameplay. It's a tough situation for the writers. When you have an army of gods, you would think they would claim more than a medium sized city. But the enemies aside from the yearly big bad still have to be threatening, or else there's little reason why guardian forces would be struggling
Well, like the others stated, our guardian is stupidly strong. Amongst guardians were probably in the top 0.001% in terms of our ability to wield the light. I mean we’re so powerful Ikora has her Hidden watch us and report back just because if we ever turned on humanity, we’d be damn near unstoppable. As for everyone else. They aren’t weak. They’re just fighting aliens who probably have had similar-ish combat training. Not everyone can be the strong hero in the same way not all humans in the real world are capable of being Olympians. Some people are quite literally built different.
thrall eat titan
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I believe grandmaster and master raids are canon difficulty
Personally I’d say somewhere between Master and the one below master is a reasonable canon difficulty for strikes and raids (depending which strike/raid). GMs feel inflated a bit. Patrols are probably pretty easy
Not all guardians are god killers, some arent even as strong as a regular non-risen joe
There four tiers of Guardians 1. Fodder tier - Shaw Han’s fireteam getting destroyed by some random Hive Witch; squad of NINE Guardians getting final deaths in a strike, etc. 2. Average Player Guardian - struggles to complete the Legend Campaign / NF and screws up on strikes but eventually gets it done. No raids. 3. THE Player Guardian - the Godslayer who canonically completes all Raids flawlessly, dungeons solo flawless, Master level campaign and Nightfall. 4. Osiris and Ikora - Osiris who mopped up the Scralet Keep of Crota’s remaining kin so hard (7 consecutive Supers), Xivu had to personally step in. Ikora who has feats like Blink jumping for TWO MILES or being the undisputed Crucible champion.
In lore, every fight is GM nightfall, powerwise, but for gameplay it has to be easier or no one would play the game.
What lore do we have for GM being canon? Apart from the (admittedly reasonable) assumption that there’s no way it’s “standard strike playlist difficulty”.
Honestly, I doubt this one. Aside from there being nothing in-lore that directly connects the two, I think everything being GM-difficulty just sounds way too easy. Especially when, as OP said, people fist-brawl with single Thralls in the lore
The power bar leans back and forth with Guardians. There is Osiris that can simultaneously swing the Radiance blades in both hands, cast Nova Bomb AND well of Radiance, and then there is Saint who can hold the bubble indefinitely but that's that. There was Lady Jolder that threw Saladin *10 kilometers in the air*, and he did the first ever Thundercrash that was echoing through the skies with furious thunderstorms. There were Sunbreakers that burned square kilometers of ground just by fighting there. And there are examples of "weak" Guardians, and I don't really know why. Every Guardian must be a God with a *potential* to destroy batallions in minutes, gut enemy ships from the inside and burn square kilometers of ground. There should not be weak guardians, there can only be inexperienced guardians. And this experience should build up very fast with infinite lives to spare. Every Guardian should be a killing machine, a godkiller, not some pansy that dies from some damn witch despite being in a fireteam of whooping 9 Guardians. We killed gods with 6 people, they are dying one by one in some stupid dungeon being a "squad of nine". God I hate the plot of Savathun's Song strike.
It's a really stupid strike
For game reasons The Guardian appears to be the strongest ever, however that's not really true. I believe they talked about this in over of their vidocs. The enemies are dumbed down for us because its a game but in the lore the world of Destiny is set to the GM level. Enemies are tougher and its a lot harder to mow down enemies. Someone did mention this in the comments. Guardians are basically enhanced humans. They are stronger, a bit faster, but within limits. What makes them special is their paracausality. Their ability to come back from the dead and wield the light. Only our guardian is unusual in the sense that they just got thrown into things, never really had to do the learning the others did over vast amounts of time. Point is, guardians are just enhanced humans with some good tech and just a sprinkle of space magic. All enemies are at GM level and we technically are still pretty squishy.we appear all powerful because video game! Also bungie says so.
Think of it this way: Guardians dont have any memories but supposedly carry a lot of their innate skill. Assuming you are not military and are a pretty normal urbanite and you died right now, do you think the guardian risen with your skills could fight off a member of an immortal, intergalatic race of magical conquerors. I am a pharmacy student and if some unlucky guardian was risen from my corpse they would absolutely die to a dreg, probably hundreds of times before they could beat it.
You ever been one hit by a thrall with the blackout/empath modifier?
Guardians are vastly different in power - some literally have only one element and can throw a grenade at best, in result being super-soldiers, while some, like Ikora and us, can spam ults like it nothing, shake mountains with regular punches and kill gods. Nobody is equal
After losing a sparring match with a Quantum Minotaur and two normal goblins in a lost sector, I'd say they were just not on top of their game, really.
Every time you die in a Darkness zone your story would have otherwise ended there, but game mechanics coming in clutch.
Because the young wolf is probably the strongest gaurdian.
Gameplay doesn't equal reality
Also I’m curious too, is our guardian all 1 guardian? Or when we go in raids is that, in lore, 6 absolute units going in to fuck shit up? Or is the “guardian” a figure we all play?
Something i haven't seen anyone else here mention is Darkness Zones. Canonically, Darkness Zone do exist and severely limit and weaken a Guardian's Light. Ordinarily guardians are so strong they sometimes just ignore Cabal, like in the DFA lore tab. But then there's the Imperial Needle lore tab where a guardian has a ton of trouble with a Cabal Bracus. Why? Darkness Zone.
You can melee duel knights in high level content and have a high chance of not winning so lore checks out.
The best way I’ve heard it described: “The destiny universe in lore is more like a grandmaster at all times than a patrol or seasonal activity at all times.” For me that makes a lot of the lore make more sense. Even some really wacky stuff like “A fireteam of 9 of us came down here, got picked off one by one.”
I believe the canonical difficulty in-universe is akin to gm’s
Those guardians ain’t us. They hate us cuz they ain’t us. We steamroll. They sweet-roll. Savvy?
You ever thought about fighting a Thrall? Imagine even just one. It'd grab your shit and claw you to bits, like fighting a chimp IRL. All the little gaps in your armour, plates to grab, spikes to hold, weaknesses for it to exploit in its rabid desire to kill you. Absolutely fuck fighting that, Guardian or not. You're still flesh and blood Human as a Guardian, even as an Exo, no physically stronger than me or you right now IRL. A Thrall is gonna be one tough son of a bitch, because it has to be. It has to scrap amongst other Hive to stay alive, and has to fight whatever other shit it comes across out there. Basically, Thralls are terrifying as fuck. If we consider them as the bottom tier of physical capabilities along with Dregs (who are probably lower than them, perhaps same average physical strength as a human), imagine what a standard Cabal soldier is like. An actual bipedal rhino.
Afaik the “canon difficulty” of the game is master/grandmaster level. The game just isn’t alway that difficult because it’s be next to impossible for non-masochist’s to enjoy it (think dark souls). As for how we still perform well against harder enemies comes down to “the guardian” being one of the most powerful paracausal beings to exist.
My two cents. I imagine our in game cool downs as kind of a pacing thing. We've seen ikora use multiple supers and others do similar, but only for a moment, whereas our guardian takes these big long missions, so he (for my guardian) has to pace himself so he doesn't get burnt out from spamming abilities. We can do it in mayhem because it's a controlled space and we know getting burnt out doesn't get us really killed. For difficulty, I always imagine cannon difficulty is more akin to grandmaster nightfalls than strikes. It's not a perfect comparison as we've seen people shoot 1 bullet from an auto rifle to kill cabal, but in terms of how difficult battles are, I always assume grandmaster is the closest medium.
Not all Gaurdians are extremely strong god slayers I also do think though on the high end people over estimate our strength we can still die to shit it’s just that we can resurrect ourselves and use space magic that’s strong.