Destiny’s “Loot Stairs” Is The New Loot Cave

Yesterday Youtuber MinistryOfGeeks posted a video which shows off yet another Destiny engram farming location that works with the latest patch, which is being affectionately referred to as the Loot Stairs. It’s located in the Cosmodrome on Earth, very close to where you spawn.

[kurruptor]

Not sure why they haven't just made it so that the item drops are equivalent to the enemy level. You shouldn't be able to get level 20 gear off level 1 mobs.

[Perjoss]

Certain areas would get very crowded and lower level areas would become empty.

[kurruptor]

Wouldn't be that pick of a change. You still need to go to these areas to get crafting materials, bounties and public events.

[ShinMaster]

Not unless everyone started the game at level 20.

The game is just broken.

[ChronoJoe]

Lots of people were doing this in the beta. It's not really that viable though. I mean if you're feeling really lazy I guess it might be worthwhile, but the lootcave was proportionately much faster to farm (faster respawns and less time required to kill the respawning enemies).

At this rate you might as well just play the game normally. Hell, the area before the start of the first strike has a clearing where like 5 pools of enemies constantly respawn, you can just run around that area forever, killing things. It's not necessarily slower than this, and at least there's some potential to have fun in the process.

[Majin-vegeta]

Wow this is old as hell.My lil bro has been farming here since before they patches the cave.

[Conzul]

It's great for the 2-fer Fusion rifle bounty, though. Hell, most of the Vanguard bounties can be done real fast at the loot stairs.

[Abriael]

It's not even really a good spot, since anyone passing by above will block the spawn, and people pass by there a lot.

[SINISTERGENESIS]

And the noob exploiters strike again....

[Gh05t]

Where do the leet exploiters farm?

[SINISTERGENESIS]

Noobs exploit games like that period, if you or anyone sits and waits for enemies to re spawn just to collect orbs at all then your a noob.... People like that are the same people that spawn trap in games like BF4,KZ, etc.... I have 0 respect for these type of people, they are a plague that ruins games... I HATE them, no skills,can't play the games how the devs intended... They are same as quick scopers, campers,glitchers,same move using idiots, etc.

Frankly they need to quit playing games until they can mentally mature enough to act right... If I had endless money I would go place to place and break their consoles for acting like that. Granted Bungie screwed up Destiny in so many ways ( this being one aspect ), it doesn't mean you HAVE to do that you CHOOSE to do so and its pathetic...

[vickers500]

Yes, please tell us more how we should play our own games.

[Gh05t]

Wow! Settle down turbo, it was a joke at the fact you forgot a comma and made "exploiters" the subject and not "noob" or you could have written "exploiting noobs."

Noob in this case was the adjective rather than the noun.

[Novistador]

Actually you're a "noob" if you dont farm in Destiny. This is the most efficient way to farm up materials, engrams, and strange coins (after you finish your weekly quests). The loot system in this game (even after the patch) is still awful. If you want to have the best gear you will need to farm.. whether you choose the rng route (which can be faster) or decide to farm up 100 marks a week.

[Maxor]

The only noobs here are the devs who spent millions crafting the ultimate loot cave simulator. This doesn't happen in any other loot based game.

[Spurg]

loool...this is pathetic...You may get the best loot in the game by doing this but you'll still be shit an doing raid, strikes and especially crucible.

[DivoJones]

False. Every item needs to be upgraded with parts which come from any color item. Though the last few upgrades tend to be held up by Ascendant Shards/Energy which only come from purple, you still need weapon/armor parts to upgrade.

[Palitera]

Actually, it would take years to get the best weapons in the game this way. It takes a lot of time for a legendary engram to drop and the best weapons are exotic.

For the best armor, though, it is impossible. The only way to get the best armor (which puts you on level 30 when fully upgraded) is by doing the hardest endgame content: the raid.

I'm a level 29 sunsinger, with exotic + raid gear, so the only thing missing to me is the top tier weapons (and xp to up the gear to level 30). I don't plan on touching this loot location. There's simply no use to me.

[StanLee]

^^^^^ THIS

At level 24 and higher, loot exploits make no sense. At that point you already have your legendary and exotic armor pieces. You're likely to get more legendary engram drops from Vanguard Strike playlist and the raid. I don't see the point of spending an hour loot farming when you could have simply played a handful of Tiger strike missions and receive twice as many rare engrams and a few legendary engrams.

[GameSpawn]

The ONLY reason to do anything like this in my option is to glimmer farm. It's mind numbing but you could rack up glimmer, weapon parts, and armor material (Hadronic Essence, Plasteel Plating, and Sapphire Wire) relatively quickly. Let's face it...you'll get an absurd number of greens and a few blues (all 1-2 weapon parts / 1 armor part when scrapped unleveled). Still...mind numbing though.

If you are lucky to get duplicate Legendaries you could scrap them for the Ascendant materials, but this is still not the best method for purples. For Legendary gear you really need to do the Tiger Strike list or Raids - or just build your respective reps and buy everything.

If I'm going to farm glimmer I'd rather do the Mars "chest circle" and rack up Vex and Cabal kills (I can 1-3 shot every enemy in this area with my hand cannon). To me this was the most entertaining glimmer farm (I'm not going to say orb farm) area because it doesn't get old as quickly as the other areas and you can keep moving in a big circle to make it seem even less mundane. I got caught up in a "Vex/Cabal rush" by myself once in this area and holy hell was it fun (luckily a few people showed up halfway through keeping me from getting overwhelmed).

[GetSomeLoGiK]

Oh wow, this is the spot where I farm for the "kill 3 or more enemies with your special 20 times" Shoot my nova bomb as soon as they come out the building, kill surrounding adds, go back, rinse and repeat.

[lemoncake]

This is just a result of the very poor loot drop system, they need to sort it out.

[Palitera]

Remove the crucible not rewarding good performance in any way at all and the drop system is actually decent now. There are activities that certainly reward you with good gear, for instance: nightfall, raid and Xur.

On top of that, the strikes now give engrams, which took a lot of people away from these exploits.

[levian]

There's no point in doing this anymore. Doing the highest level random strikes gives you 2-4 rare engrams. Doing just 2 strikes, I usually come out with 8 or so rare engrams and a bunch of green items

[C1yn3r79]

Don't know why you have a disagree. What you said is true. I tried the loot cave five or six times and it just wasn't worth it to be honest. Doing strikes and crucible is the most rewarding, although the reward system for the crucible is messed up and unfair.

[Darrius Cole]

They probably disagreed because they don't get that many engram drops. I only come out of strikes with 1 or 2 rare engrams.

There seems to be a BIG discrepancy in the results different people get from the drop system. My main character has only gotten 7 or 8 purple engrams out of about 80 hours of play. Only two of those turned into purple gear and those were for another class.

I made character just to use the above mentioned gear. That character promptly got purple gauntlets from a blue engram. After just enough play to get them to level 20.

My level 28 character has NEVER gotten legendary weapon or gear from a drop. None of the few purple weapon engrams I have gotten has ever turned into a purple weapon for me. Were it not for reaching level 3 Vanguard would have not purple weapon at all. I got an exotic weapon from the a chest in the Raid. Other than that the random has screwed me EVERY TIME. And I don't think the raid even counts as random. Isn't the raid set to give better than random rewards?

Other people I know have legendary weapons in every slot from random drops.

[levian]

@Darrius

It's true you don't always get engrams, but you do get some form of guaranteed items. I've tried farming before (my old favourite spot was on Venus, three groups of enemies by the cave entrance to Archon Priest) and I'm lucky if I get a blue engram in an hour or more.

Doing strikes, I may only get blue items instead of engrams sometimes, but I need the upgrade materials regardless. It seems more consistent for me regardless. I've even gotten a purple engram as a reward once. It IS annoying though when you get two items as a reward, and your two friends with you all get 4+ items as a reward.

[troylazlow]

is this what Destiny has become?

[Baccra17]

This is what it always was. But it's ok, Activision will probably allow you to use real money to buy gear soon.

[SojournUK]

That may help their share price go back up a bit lol

[averagejoe26]

Nah, only for low level noobs. This exploit does nothing for high level players which most people are at right now.

[Maxor]

It's only a matter of time till they start charging real money for exotics.

[one2thr]

Funny seeing that I found an area where theres 3 level 18 hive things that spawn there, but it only works as long as other players dont kill the Fallen that are above them....

[GameSpawn]

Those guys are always there though they take forever to respawn once killed (unless you orbit out and back in). There are also three at the bottom floor of the bunker in the forgotten shores area. Be careful because one of them is a named yellow lvl 18 and will take some time to kill solo.

These two spots are great for the kill 10 hive ultras bounty as you get 6 per pass (3+3). Orbit out and repeat once more, bounty complete.

I laughed my ass off when a lvl 4 player followed me down to where the 3 are in the first area and got utterly destroyed. I 1-2 shot each enemy in the head with my cannon and quickly revived him (I was 24ish and I think my hand cannon was in the 230s on damage).

[one2thr]

I dont know where you were at but, at the location im talking about alls you have to do is walk to the wall thats directly out side of that
particular room and wait for 2 or 3 seconds and theyll spawn back, as long as no one kill the fallen above.

[RadioActiveTwinky]

Noooo.... I've been farming here since a week after the loot cave patch. Now there going to patch it out.

[SmokingMonkey]

I'm liking the game, I never got into Halo and I've never played any MMO games. Very cool making your own character to take into the crucible instead of just tweaking classes.

It's a shame people would waste a cool game by exploiting something like this or the OG loot cave.

[clarettrick]

Still a useless spot ever since the patch the drop rates for legendary engrams are alot less. I play the game properly and before the patch I was getting legendary engrams no problem but ever since the patch nah all rare and uncommon engrams and I haven't had a single legendary engram since sooo.

For the people doing enjoy being bored for a few hours and getting nothing

[LethalButterfly]

It's patched

[Majin-vegeta]

no its not I just finished doing it.

[xActionBasturdx]

Loot caves arent even worth it anymore...mind as well do the vangard tiger playlist...at least you get a blue engram or better for finishing it and i've gotten more legendary from there than i ever got from farming areas

[SojournUK]

That is true for lvl 24+ players.

[Tex117]

Yeah, I don't see the point of this after level 24 or so. Your time really would be better spent grinding up your Vanguard Rank and purchasing legendary gear. It would take around a week.

[UnHoly_One]

I didn't understand the problem even before they made the level 24 strikes give you guaranteed gear.

I think the people complaining probably were too damn impatient to browse the stores and realize they could buy everything with a minimal time involvement.

[SojournUK]

Gotta get to 24 first!

[CertifiedGamer]

This isn't a loot cave because Bungie adjusted the enemies to respond every 40 seconds which is the reason the original loot cave stopped being the loot cave.

[SojournUK]

They missed here, it's still 6 sec. I prefer Mars for grinding personally so I'll give these stairs a miss.

[MinnesotaFatts]

Shit guys, here we go again.

[Lancey77]

OMG - Whoever wrote this article has to spoil it for everyone else. Yes people knew about this but it is not as well known and the old loot cave.

People may say well shouldn't be boosting anyway but the fact is I've started a new character my 2 mates are level 28 and I've now reached level 21 with the new character (thank god I've done have to listen to the story any more). I'm unable to play with them as the strikes they complete are to high for me to be anything but a hindrance. So this little cave was nice as it was a little boost to catch up with my mates.

Everyone knows strikes offer more than farming but as mentioned this was a little helper to get me back to my old level I had on my old character.

For me Destiny is a great game but needs tweaking across the board as there are a lot of common sense decisions Bungie have failed to think about.

Once again - Thanks chump for spoiling things for everyone else.

[CuddlyREDRUM]

I tried this and didn't get the best results. Also, periodically enemies spawn near the building to get to The Divide, which makes this even more troublesome. There is a glimmer farming area near here, actually it connects with this underground area, that may be a better idea.