The Trials of Osiris is a brand new Crucible game mode that arrives with the House of Wolves. Like Skirmish and Salvage, it features small, coordinated fireteams working in tandem in a nail-biting experience. When you choose to enter the Trials, you and two others will square off in an elimination-style battle against three other Guardians. The Basics ToO is 3v3, you can only play with pre-made teams (“guaranteed team on team combat.”) You’ll be matched with players based on your connection and will be fighting a new team each time; you can’t join a match in progress. You’ll be able to play ToO each Friday at 10 AM PST until the weekly reset on Tuesday. There will be a new map each week, but it will be a mystery as to which map it will be. The first map will be The Burning Shrine. You may only be revived by a teammate, and if your whole team is down, the round is over. Matches are played to five points, with a single point awarded to the victors of each round. Etheric Light and ToO Legendary gear can be rewarded at the end of a match; you don’t need to buy armor and weapons. You can buy “endgame” 42 Light armor and 365 weapons that don’t need to be Ascended. The more wins on your Trials Passage scorecard, the more/better rewards will open up to you to purchase from Brother Vance. Once you rack up nine wins or three losses, you may return the completed Passage to Vance for rewards you’ve earned through your wins, and buy another if you wish. Only 1 Trials Passage (scorecard) can be bought at once and . You can buy a new Trials Passage if you 1) Discard it, 2) Lose 3 times, or 3) Win 9 times. Passage Coins can be used to buy helpful ToO consumables. Earn Passage Coins by playing daily featured Crucible playlists or normal Crucible. Gaining Entry You gain entrance to the Trials by acquiring a Trials Passage. You will be rewarded one of these for your questing work with the House of Wolves. Following this, you can then purchase subsequent ones for a nominal fee of only 100 Glimmer. The Trials Passage will function as both proof that you qualify and as your scorecard while competing in the Trials. A Trials Passage is easy to acquire – just 100 Glimmer! Once you have everything in order, it’s time for the Trials to begin. The match will progress almost like a normal Skirmish battle, but with a few key twists. You’ll spawn as usual, at opposite locations on the map. Before this, however, you’ll be shown your “Game History” on your Trials Passage scorecard. Wins will be indicated by a single filled-in, yellow circle. Losses are displayed as red circles. Quitting a match or losing will cause these “red circles” to fill up. The more you win, the more rewards you can buy from Brother Vance You’ll be able to play a total of 12 matches, for a possibility of 9 wins and up to 2 losses. Once you have earned either 9 wins or 3 losses, your scorecard is treated as ‘full’ and you’ll have to turn it in, and then purchase a new one to keep playing. We’ll discuss the rewards for success and the penalties for failure down below. What’s the Goal? Again, the objective is to kill your opponents. However, there’s no “scoring” as we know it, nor do you earn points for assists, kills, or objective clearances. When a Guardian is downed, he or she is unable to revive themselves through the usual means. The player must wait for a teammate to revive him or her. The UI in the upper left-hand corner will indicate when a fellow teammate or an enemy has died by displaying a single Blue or Red skull, respectively. As teammates and enemies are revived, these indicators will fade. You have two minutes to wipe out the opposition. If neither team has done this in the allotted time, the game will progress to Overtime. In Overtime, a single Capture Zone will spawn near the center of the map. If either team controls this zone, the game will end in their favor. Of course, you can still aim to just kill the other Guardians; this will grant victory as well. Keep in mind that level advantages are enabled, just like the Iron Banner, so the highest Light level Guardian will have a slight edge over the others. Kills and Revives will be marked with simple “Kill” or “Revive” indicators on the HUD, without any associating points. Super Energy is still earned by completing Kills and Assists, and does not revert to empty at the conclusion of any given round. To this end, Supers can be conserved tactically or used immediately. In the stream, we noticed Special ammo spawning at regular intervals, as early as Round 3, which suggests that it may be either round-based or on a timer. Regardless, know that your special ammo reserves does carry over into the next rounds, so make your shots count. As soon as a team has notched 3 round victories, Vance will indicate to Guardians at the beginning of the next round that Heavy ammo is inbound, and they will have 15 seconds before it spawns in which to secure it for their team. This functions as a “Heavy Ammo round” of sorts, and any remaining missiles or machine gun rounds that were not spent, do not carry-over into the next round. Gear that’s bought at Brother Vance doesn’t need to be Ascended; it’s got 365 Attack and 42 Light when you buy it That’s the last curveball Osiris will throw at you. After this round, the game progresses according to its usual format until one side has defeated the other 5 times. At this point, they will be declared the winner and the match will end. The losing side will earn another red circle demerit on their Passage scorecard. If it’s the third for any of the players involved, he or she will be unable to participate in the Trials of Osiris until they buy or earn their way back in. However, if he or she had a respectable amount of victories, it may be possible for their Guardian to collect a reward from Brother Vance. We know that different amounts of victories qualify Guardians for different tiers of rewards. The higher the victories; the higher the tier. The higher the tier; greater the reward. What’s more, Guardians may be randomly rewarded gear as an end-of-match gift. The final goal, of course, is the Trials of Osiris Armor. This end-game quality Legendary gear will be available only to those who’ve proven themselves superior in the Trials. How will we prove this? We’ll have to find out when House of Wolves arrives. Trials of Osiris weapons can’t be Reforged Watching the footage, it’s already clear the Trials of Osiris represents the most tactical Player vs. Player experience that Destiny has ever seen. It’s a white-knuckle ride where emotional whiplash, heartbreak, and astounding comebacks will become commonplace. Although it’s hard to know what sort of metagame will develop around the Trials, we can already anticipate some of the key strategies and elements that will factor in to a successful team. Rewards You can buy every package for which you match or exceed the number of required wins. There are 2 sets of armor per class. The “endgame” set is purchasable from Vance, and the other set is obtainable through match rewards. The “endgame” set does not need to be Ascended. 2 – 3 wins – Stone – Bronze tier rewards, including Motes of Light and Passage Coins 5 wins – Weekly armor 6 wins – Silver Tier package 7 wins – Weekly weapon 8 wins – Gold Tier package 9 wins – ?? (possibly the Fate of All Fools Exotic bounty?) Consumables bought via Passage Coins Strategies Tactical Revives We’ve seen on the footage that reviving a teammate still grants an overshield to both players. This momentary buff to defenses could then immediately be used in an offensive rush, where both players can attack in a two-prong formation, shrugging off damage that might otherwise be fatal to deliver a killing blow. Fireborn Sunsingers This strategy will represent the ultimate comeback, and could potentially steal a round. With single kills being so important, the ability to sponge damage and give it back will make Sunsingers vital for a successful strategy. A player could wait to be killed by an opponent’s Super, and then rise from the ashes vengefully to easily revive a teammate, take advantage of the overshield, and clean out the opposing team all in one fell swoop. Patrick Casey aka Holtzmann and his team were helpless against Bungie’s team and Ms. 5000 Watts, who took advantage of the Sunsinger’s penchant for turning the tables to earn a devastating victory. Playing for Overtime A Defender Titan might like his or her chances in having to capture only a single point. Stalling out the opponents for 2 minutes could be very doable, and if the location of the Capture spawn is known, getting a Ward of Dawn with Armor of Light up could be game, set, and match. Of course, the Defender in question will have to play it very close to the chest, and keep track of when each enemy used his or her Super. A judicious Nova Bomb by a patient Voidwalker could spoil the whole thing. Revive Camping If a team scores a couple of lucky early kills, and is concerned that the remaining player might be itching to revive his team, it pays to set up one or two people near the corpses of his teammates. He’ll be forced to engage if he wants to have any chance of earning a comeback victory. With a little skill and patience, keeping an eye out and shutting him down will be a trivial matter. Less Shotguns Well, maybe. Since points (and therefore total kills) are no longer the driving factor in securing a win, we can see Shotguns becoming a less appealing option. While a CQB rush strategy could possibly earn an early kill, your victim’s two teammates will likely dispose of you and quickly have their buddy back on his feet in top shape in no time. You’re down a player, and all you got was a kill out of it. Instead, we’re likely to see a shift towards staying in relatively close proximity with your fireteam, playing cat-and-mouse games with the other team and capitalizing on their mistakes to quickly swing momentum in your favor. Once they’re down a player or two, the Shotgun could be employed as clean up, but efficiency with Primaries, Fusion Rifles, and Snipers is no doubt going to be more important than it is currently. Closing Thoughts Trials of Osiris is going to be huge. Almost every player is given a fair and equal shot to participate, and we anticipate extremely positive feedback. Appears to be the Queen’s Wrath mission/quest reward This is the most competitive multiplayer experience Destiny will offer, and we hope that, if it succeeds, it paves the way for private matchmaking, and maybe even a ranking system. The Iron Banner was a cool idea, but it looks like Trials of Osiris is poised to outdo it in almost every way. Are you as excited as I are for the Trials of Osiris? Source; PlanetDestiny
