Its a great idea. An exotic geared toward improving a Defender's fireteam support capabilities. However, in its current state, the helmet is confused, misguided, and ineffective. In short it is simply a bad exotic.
If you don't believe me, or have a dissenting opinion, read this:
[spoiler]
[WARNING! Long Post Alert!]
The helmet seeks to boost the performance of a fireteam which is being buffed by the Ward of Dawn. To do this, it increases the duration of the Weapon of Light and Blessing of Light buffs. There are several problems with this approach.
First, the Blessing of Light rarely expires at all, but serves as a space magic bullet proof vest. A shield to absorb damage and buy you time to kill the enemy.
Instances in which Blessing of Light is favored over Armor of Light consist of scenarios where guardians are sure to take fire. The Blessing is not intended to make them invincible, only keep them alive while beyond the protection of the (near) invincible Ward of Dawn while they empty their mag into the enemy.
By that time, the Blessing has been severely damaged or destroyed entirely by enemy fire. The guardian has not only emptied their magazine but has also begun to take damage, and the logical thing to do is to retreat back into the ward, reload and heal, and charge back into the fray with a loaded weapon and an overshield on top of their full health.
Because of this, extending the duration that the Blessing of Light lasts makes little sense, as it is frequently restored anyway due to its soaking up of damage. The only instance in which increasing the duration of the Blessing would be of any use at all, would be if the guardian was not planning to return to the ward. In such instances the ward does that player little good, and they could probably do just fine without it anyway.
Now with Weapons of Light, extending the buff's duration makes a little more sense as the increase in damage is not something that can be destroyed by the enemy.
However, unless the guardians are -again, not planning to return to the ward- a five second boost in performance time is a negligible advantage. While it does have its use in scenarios like the final fight with Atheon, it is entirely useless or unnecessary in the entire rest of the game.
No weapon aside from Bad Juju and a belt fed machine gun can even BE fired for 15 seconds (Oh Black Hammer, I miss you!). Every other gun will have to be reloaded, lessening the benefit of the buff. The guardian too, is seldom able to trade fire with the enemy for 15 seconds straight (in situations where the Ward's protective benefits would be called for). Guardians will have to reload, find cover and heal. And once again, the most logical place to do that is almost always within the Ward of Dawn, (refreshing the buff in the process).
The Glasshouse's exotic ability is also inefficient, as it buffs both the Blessing of Light buff [i]and[/i] the Weapon of Light buff, but does nothing to change the fact that only one of these can be selected.
The perk "Illuminated" is so clear of a choice to accompany the Glasshouse, that there really isn't any other good option. This perk also boosts the performance of the Blessing and Weapons, but again does nothing to change the fact that only one can be selected.
So in consuming the exotic slot to wear the Glasshouse, the Defender is ever only able to take advantage of half of its exotic perk. An exotic perk which really doesn't do anything to boost fireteam performance or survivability in 99.9 percent of encounters.
In addition to all of this, the helmet's additional perks are scattered in focus, lack synergy, and lend practically nothing to the tactical approach of fighting outside of the Ward. Rain blows is completely pointless for the helmet. And while Quintessence Transfer has more usefulness, Inverse Shadow is a vastly superior choice.
The helmet's boost to intellect is a solid choice, and thankfully it can be altered by shaders now. Both are good things. But the Glasshouse has literally nothing else going for it.[/spoiler]
In order for the Glasshouse to be effective in its approach to boosting performance when [i]OUTSIDE[/i] the Ward, it does need to retain its Blessing/Weapon focus, but it needs to allow both to be equipped simultaneously.
The helmet needs to grant one as a free perk, allowing the other to be chosen in the guardian's loadout. The increased buff time is ...[i]something[/i], but allowing both to be equipped simultaneously would actually be useful, and would give the support oriented Defender an option aside from an Orb build with the Crest of Alpha Lupi.
The extra perks on it also need to be changed. Rain blows has little use in a scenario where you are shooting at enemies from the ward rather than fighting them in it. Inverse Shadow would be a much better choice.
In all, the Glasshouse is useless. Completely useless in 99.9 percent of gameplay. Allowing it to grant both Blessing and Weapons would give it a unique ability worthy of its exotic slot, and would lend significantly to the Defender's support role.
When the time comes to bring the Glasshouse into the fold, and raise its stats to year 2 levels, I hope that such changes can be considered.
[u]TLDR SUMMARY:[/u]
Glasshouse is pointless. Its current buff duration increase needs to be replaced with the ability for both Blessing and Weapons of Light to be granted from a Defender's super.
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