In the months since D2 has launched, there's been a lot to complain about, but one thing I am constantly agitated by and seem to not see very many people talk about is how bad strikes have become. I'm gonna be talking about power level, mechanics, length, grindability, modifiers, and general design; all of these areas are severely lacking, especially compared to D1. In the D2 base game we had 5 Strikes (I'm an Xbox player, can't speak on the PS exclusive strikes), similar to D1: The Arms Dealer- A pretty alright strike, with a bearable dunking mechanic throughout and it's not too long, though it reuses almost all of the play areas, and introduces us to one of the first major problems, Boss Damage Phases. This isn't exactly something new, but it's become more and more prevalent and annoying, though this strike uses it fairly mildly, with Zahn only shielding himself twice, and these are skippable with enough DPS and do not require you to clear all of the ads to progress. The only D1 Strikes that used this mechanic were the Echo Chamber and the Revisited Strikes (not counting Shield Brothers and Dark Blade, who leave the room but don't require an actual mechanic to bring them back [you could argue killing ads in the Shield Brothers]). Every other strike had a boss that was damageable at all times. Savathun's Song- Another alright strike, and it has mostly unique play areas, although this one can feel very enclosed at points and might drag on a little long. It uses a variant dunking mechanic throughout, and the crystals serve as both a unique locking mechanism and a cool plot device. The boss shields itself from damage for most of the strike, forcing you to waste time clearing all of the ads, and is basically just a big Shrieker, but other than that, no real grievances. The Inverted Spire- My personal favorite D2 strike, and one I think they could learn from. This one uses almost entirely new play areas, you're able to completely bypass all but the critical objectives, and the boss is masterpiece, opting for a true multi-stage fight where he is always damageable, has unique abilities, and uses ads as a supplementary experience, not a main objective. This is the only strike I find myself playing regardless of the modifiers. Exodus Crash- This one blows. My personal least favorite strike they've ever created, just barely edging out the Wretched Eye. It starts you in a long area for vehicle use, and introduces the Energy Spike mechanic, which will basically be discarded immediately. It uses Fanatics as brutal traps for players speeding through, which is a confusing move in a vehicle oriented area. Then you're met with the horrible Overcharge Shank enemies (who explode, slow, and ground you, as well as conduct the electrical effects through the ground, and have far more health than the average shank) while being forced to defend a tiny plate against overwhelming ads for far too long, being interrupted midway through and completely stalling progress to defeat two large servitors. Once you finally make it through this you are dumped into the Exodus Black area to grab some Energy Spikes, stalling for time without providing any kind of meaningful encounter in what should be an entirely bypassable area. The Walker fight is fine, if a bit low stakes (and slow to spawn), the dark ship interior has a unique aesthetic and provides a jumping section to reach the boss, but is so short it's basically nonexistent, and then you are dumped into the garbage boss arena. Every part of this floor is succeptible to the Overcharge Shanks, which spawn extremely frequently here along with large waves of ads, meaning you have no safe haven. On top of this, you are faced with a boss who is invisible, can melee, stomp, and blast you with a shrapnel launcher, comes and goes frequently, (while not technically dividing this into discreet damage phases, this makes it hard to pinpoint and damage him, and once you do get a bead on him, he'll simply teleport again) and will not hesitate to run into your entire fireteam and murder all of you while you're slowed. It's no surprise to me that this one's been removed from the Heroic playlist, and I hope they take a long hard look at it. The Pyramidion- Another decent one. This one uses Vex plates and confluxes throughout, and has some cool laser beam obstacles, which are still completely evadeable while zooming through, though they're maybe a bit strong. There are very few spots where the enemies are overwhelming, and the strike goes fairly quickly. The boss fights includes a couple problems, such as: Sparse cover that also disappears, a boss that completely shields himself from damage while still being able to shoot you, and a huge wave of lethal ads right as the boss enters his frenzy and removes all cover. I also wanted to touch here on modifiers. In the base game, outside of Nightfall time modifiers, we only had Momentum, Prism, Attrition, and Torrent (which might be paired specifically with Timewarp: Zero Hour? I'm not 100% sure), which is an abysmally small amount compared to D1's list. Why could they not reuse the old mods? Most of them were absolutely fine, and would have been a welcome variance. Prism wasn't too overwhelming, and forced fireteams to communicate and vary their damage types, but Attrition and Momentum are awful. Both of these are health handicaps, which is already more than necessary. While Attrition is manageable as long as you are getting kills, Momentum is not just inconvenient, it makes some parts nearly impossible, especially at the current state of the game. When the game first launched I didn't have too many complaints other than Exodus Crash, the huge chance of repeats, and the amount of time required for the bare bones rewards, but as time has gone on, things have gotten exponentially worse. With Curse of Osiris, we get deep into the crap. We're met with two "strikes", both of which are just recycled story missions, with the horrible Infinite Forest making up the first section of each, and sporting absolutely no difference from their mission counterparts aside from higher level enemies. (I'm gonna cut my analysis of the DLC strikes and put them in a comment because I'm hitting the character limit, but it's generally negative). And now with Warmind, we've received two more recycled story mission "strikes". While these strikes don't stink quite as much as the two from CoO, they're not exactly top notch, even if they do give their bosses a better setting than being slaughtered and forgotten over the course of a story mission. Now on top of those low-effort recycles, we have some new modifiers to be included in Heroic strikes. The three burns have been renamed to Singes, and boost elemental damage by 25%. Then, we have three advantages: Brawler, Grenadier, and Heavyweight. These are all welcome, and actually feel balanced, but the last group kills any hope that they may have actually thought about or even playtested these new modifiers. For the disadvantages, we have Glass, Blackout, Iron, and Grounded. Grounded isn't especially brutal, as long as you aren't in an area where you are required to jump. Iron isn't exactly the worst thing in the world, but can make dealing with even ads tedious or difficult, not to mention bosses. The real problems come from Glass and Blackout. Blackout removes your radar, AND also increases enemy melee damage by 20x, making strikes a huge pain in the rear, especially something like Strange Terrain, where you have a sea of thrall coming at you from places you can't see and now have no way to know of, and any of them could one hit kill you, and even murder you in just a few hits while in your super. The worst offender, though, is Glass, which halves your health and shields, but doubles recharge rates. While I can see where they thought this would fit, forcing you to use cover and caution even when fighting small enemies, it ends up being a god awful death fest, especially when fighting enemies who match the burn. With Glass active, most bosses can 1 shot kill you at any time, making just about every boss fight hell, especially something like Exodus Crash, which had to be removed after this was implemented. These disadvantages are a sucker punch to the mouth, and an especially harsh one after raising the base difficulty of strikes in the first place. Some combinations produce an unbearable experience, and all of this makes grinding strikes not only unenjoyable, but an annoying, unrewarding experience that I desperately avoid. While the difficulty of strikes originally seemed fine to me, now the balance is shifted so far that I have no interest in doing more than 3 a week. Heroic strikes should NEVER be higher power than the Nightfall. If balancing them breaks the content license or whatever, they could just change the nature of that achievement; they've already done it once. Or they could divide the Nightfall into separate playlists or difficulties for people who don't own the DLC. Strikes are in an awful place right now, and one of my biggest hopes for the future is that 1) They become unique, seperately designed experiences; 2) They are scaled to a reasonable difficulty, and give reasonable rewards, not this overpowered challenge for some underpowered garbage; 3) They stop artificially extending Strike time by forcing us to stop abruptly and fight ad waves or perform mechanics, and allow us to constantly damage the boss while dealing with any challenges; 4) They make modifiers unique (as in don't lump multiple negatives into one), and fair for any possible combination in any possible strike; and 5) They geniunely put time and effort into any future strikes, and try their best to give us a unique, fun, replayable experience. I absolutely loved most D1 strikes. I want to feel that again, and I know it's possible. Please, Bungie, just take a good look at them, and I know you can make them enjoyable again.