Power [Still] Matters by DeeJ

As Lord Saladin prepares to make his return to the Tower, we've heard from many warriors of the Crucible who are wondering if power still matters. The Taken King has changed how we play Destiny, and Iron Banner is no exception. In summary: Your Light will absolutely make you more dangerous in the Crucible endgame. If you demand to know exactly how, there are better men (more interested men) like Senior Designer Derek Carroll to provide the math that supports a more exact tactical analysis.

Here he is with the numbers. Please give him a warm, competitive welcome!


Howdy, all. Derek here with some pretty pictures for your reading pleasure.

Iron Banner is about to kick off for the first time in Year Two. With it comes a brand-new curve for all power-enabled Crucible playlists.

The Power Curve is a way of measuring the damage you do to players with a differing Light level. There's a lot of secret math that gets done behind the scenes that I’m not going to get into, but for the purposes of this article, you may assume that every 10 units of Light equals 1 Level on the following graph. For example: If I’m sitting at 280 Light, and attack someone with 300 Light, my disadvantage would be a delta of 2.

Anyway, check it out:


Looking at this graph that compares our previous curves, you might say, “Wait, we hated the first Iron Banner curve! The one for The Taken King one looks really close to the first one! What's wrong with you?”

There are a ton of answers to that question, but the one most relevant to this week’s Crucible events is that the bottom of the curve is still 10%, which is the important element for punishing players who are woefully under-leveled. There’s just a lot more room between full-power and full-sadness, given that there’s a lot more room between a new character and an endgame player in The Taken King.

Let’s zoom in to the top of the graph:


This is the part of the graph where most competitive players will find themselves, so it’s worth noting that the Power Curve for The Taken King is more aggressive than any previous release for the first 3 levels or so. This means that, assuming everyone in your match is close to max-level (or “your level”), minor differences in power will matter more than ever. We’re assuming that matchmaking will do its thing and keep skills close, so your gear will give you the edge (or hold you back) when playing in power-enabled playlists.

I’m sure this article will lead to many more questions, but hopefully you now know the differences between How It Was and How It Will Be.

Share and Enjoy!


Thanks for the lesson, Derek!

May the Light shine upon you, Guardians. You'll need it.

Good luck in there.