Destiny House of Wolves Reef Blowout: Materials Exchange, Etheric Light, Trials of Osiris and More

Bungie recently hosted its live stream on Twitch for Destiny’s upcoming House of Wolves DLC, which showcased the new Reef social space and talked about upgrade paths for Legendary and Exotic items. A whole lot of information was revealed and most of it was fairly positive.

The most positive change is that the Reef won’t be locked out to non-DLC owners. There will be new Vendor and Crucible Gear available in the Tower but there will be benefits to picking up the DLC.

First off, you’ll encounter some new characters in the Reef. There’s Petra, who hands out story missions and serves as a vendor (besides selling an Awoken patrol ship at Rank 3); Variks of the House of Judgment, who serves as the Prison of Elders warden and has a variety of items and gear that can be purchased from playing the activity (which has a weekly lockout; the inventory will refresh each week and PoE will apparently be changed up enough to offer fresh challenges each week); and a disciple for the Trials of Osiris PvP event (available every Friday from the launch of HoW and running till Tuesday’s refresh). Trials of Osiris is especially interesting since it offers various items that can mitigate the first loss you suffer and even convert one win into two.

There were plenty of similarities: the Bounty Board is the same and not any different from the Tower. The Vault is still the same and doesn’t act as separate from your current Vault. It was hinted that Xur could appear in the Reef but wasn’t confirmed. Of the House of Wolves weapons revealed, there was a “Shank Burn” auto rifle which increases damage to Shanks.

There is plenty of reason to visit the Tower though. You can now exchange materials like Ascendant Shards, Ascendant Energy, Radiant Energy and more at the Speaker for Glimmer, Motes of Light, etc. New items showcased the New Monarchy vendor indicated the return of Red Hand IX and the Vindicator Auto Rifle. All DLC weapons can now be re-rolled at the Gunsmith at the cost of Glimmer and Motes of Light, in case you’re not satisfied with a weapon’s roll. There will be new perks introduced with weapons as well, including a perk that has a chance to refill ammo after killing an enemy with melee.

As for the upgrade paths, Bungie revealed the new “Ascend” feature for all Legendary and Exotic weapons. You use a new currency – Etheric Light – which can be gained from the Nightfall and Prison of Elders to Ascend weapons and gear to the new attack and light level cap. This will appear as a small bubble on the left of the item’s skill tree and won’t reset your progress. Materials required include Glimmer, Spinmetal, etc. In the case of Exotics, you need Exotic Shards. So rejoice – Xur will no longer be necessary for Exotic Upgrades.

It was also mentioned that Bungie is discussing a higher Glimmer cap. New Ghost Shells aren’t coming (for now) but it does seem that Black Hammer’s Hive Disruptor perk has been fixed.

Destiny’s House of Wolves is out on May 19th for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360 and PS3.