Destiny 2’s newest mode is Gambit Prime, added in the Season of the Drifter. This mode has drastic changes that’ll throw typical Gambit strategies out the window.
Learning how to excel at Gambit Prime is going to take some time. Thankfully, Lars Bakken, the creative lead on Season of the Drifter and Gambit Prime and Robbie Stevens, senior designer, have offered tips to survive our first few rounds.
Get your armor first
The more pieces you wear, the more Gambit Prime armor perks you’ll earn.
If you’re playing as an Invader, each piece of Invader armor grants a certain amount of Invader points. Each new perk has a point threshold you’ll need to reach before it activates. Your focus should be on acquiring a full set of gear and a full role’s worth of perks.
You earn Gambit armor by cycling between Gambit Prime and the new PvE activity: The Reckoning. Completing The Drifter’s bounties will always be an easy avenue to start your journey toward new armor pieces.
Spending Supers and Power Armor
The enemies in each wave of Gambit Prime are more powerful. Higher tier enemies with larger health bars will spawn in regular waves, among the fodder enemies.
Saving your Super to melt the Primeval won’t cut it anymore. You need your entire ammo cache throughout the match, to tear through each wave of enemies as quickly as possible.
You’ll also want to focus on the High-Value Target, which will spawn every round. It’s an easy way to net a handful of bonus Motes, according to Bakken and Stevens.
Think before you bank
Stealing Motes from the enemy bank is a new feature in Gambit Prime. Doing this requires careful strategy to ensure your Blockers stay alive for as long as possible. You need at least two Blockers to start and maintain the drain of the other team’s bank.
“Send a mix of Blocker types to maximize their draining potential,” Stevens said. Blockers are getting a big boost in power, both in their updated enemy types and their new Gambit Prime mechanics.
Dropping only a small Blocker isn’t worth it anymore. Summon Blockers in groups instead of dropping one and moving onto the next battle. If you can drop two medium Blockers and two small Blockers at once, you’ll create a constant drain for the enemy team.
“The small [Blocker] can shield other Blockers, so dropping a large and small at the same time will force the opposing team to clear the small before they can take out the large,” Stevens said.
Playing as your role
Consider your role before you select your loadout in Gambit. For example, if you’re using the Collector set (which lets you drop a percentage of your Motes when you die) then you can run a shotgun without fear of ruining the game for your team.
Because of the armor set system, a team of players should all have different loadouts. Sentry players want a close range weapon for Blockers and a long range weapon for taking out Invaders. Invaders can be comfortable using low ammo weapons (like linear fusion rifles or sniper rifles) because they’ll regenerate ammo while wearing Invader gear sets in the enemy arena.
Pick a role and armor that suits your playstyle. Each piece of gear will enhance your abilities and give you an edge.
Mixing and matching roles
You can also play two classes at once. When you complete Gambit matches of Drifter bounties, you’ll earn an item called a Synth for your specific role. Use these Synths in the new Reckoning mode to earn armor pieces.
You can also pop Synths outside of The Reckoning to gain some points in that specific role. Like we mentioned before, you’ll earn perks through role points. So if you’re wearing a full Reaper armor set, you can actually remove a piece, keep all the perks, and use an Exotic instead if you have a Reaper Synth active. It’ll cover the Reaper role points you lose from that missing armor piece.
Alternatively you can mix pieces of Invader or Sentry gear and start to multi-class. If you don’t care about some of the later perks on a role, you can switch it up to hybridize yourself.
Gambit Prime is a faster, more challenging mode than the original Gambit. Thankfully you have advice straight from the people who made it. Go out and make the Drifter proud.