Serial key puzzles and dragons hack tool

Lately, I’ve been seeing people making complaints about the DL DPS Simulator on various points, most of which are either criticisms of how the sim is doing things (it’s not perfect, I agree) or are from a misunderstanding of how the sim functions. From what I see, it's mostly the latter.
First, a little background of myself: Some of you may know me as Khalid or K from the maincord. Currently, I’m one of the contributors to the DPS sim, whenever I get free time. Like most of you, I had my own complaints about the sim back then (the builds were woefully out of date or were never worked on).
The sim being a project run on Github meant I could make the changes I wanted to see. So I did that and headed over and made my changes. I first started out doing updates on specific units (one of my earlier builds was the S!Celery with S!Luca SS build that is still going strong).
Eventually I started working on complete overhauls/updates of entire elements, from the top of the chart to all the way to the bottom) to make them up to date with the current geameta/knowledge, which I think some of you may have noticed when entire elements suddenly jump up/down out of the blue pre-2.0
Enough I want to go straight to the point and address some points people make about the sim, hopefully to clear some things up, in no specific order:
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Why is nearly everyone using frostbite?

There are multiple reasons for this:

• Nothing resists frostbite (yet)
• All frostbite-inflicting skills apply a 21 second long frostbite. This is in contrast to other afflictions like poison, burn, or paralysis, which are 15 seconds or less (with exceptions)
• Even without the frostbite affliction Karina and Xander skill shares are incredibly strong depending if the user is capable of capitalizing on the bonus damage from having lots of buffs on them.
• His Clever Brother (20% frostbite punisher) is a 4 star wyrmprint. In a lot of cases, there aren't many worthwhile 4 star prints to use. An extra 20% punisher with a 50-80% uptime is incredible value for a single 4 star print slot.

You can expect to see something similar happening once Flashburn becomes more available as a skill share option along with a Flashburn punisher or similar print.
If you still don't believe it, seeing is believing, and you should try it for yourself before knocking it down.
Ironically, I noticed that the same people who want people to keep an open mind about character choice and builds are the same people who aren't welcoming the frostbite setup.
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Why is nearly everyone in light built for Daikokuten?

Version 2.0 has indeed buffed up Daikokuten by that much. Even I didn’t believe it at first but seeing it ingame is a sight to behold.
While I will most definitely want to try and make a character stand on their own to showcase their own performance, Daikokuten is just too good to not use. Daiko’s damage, along with light agito weapons’ dragon bar filling s3.2 and G!Mym's skill share is one hell of a combo here.
And the DPS sim being a DPS sim... you get the idea :)
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The sim is unrealistic.

This is correct. It IS unrealistic. There is currently no scenario in-game that exactly matches the sim’s, which is as follows:

• The target is stationary
• The target does not attack
• The adventurer has no external buffs or teammates supporting them, other than a vague “team DPS” value.
• Some team buffs are not considered (team SP haste, team energy, team inspiration, team skill damage buff, and Marth’s Last Boost)

The sim is intended to showcase each unit’s best case scenario given the above scenario.
If you want to see how a unit does if we force them to do nothing, you can simulate that in the custom sim by changing the “dumb” value under Conditions (press the Conditions button)
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You keep mentioning the custom sim. What's that?

It's the script used to simulate a unit's DPS, but in a fancy and (somewhat) easy to use interface.
There are two main parts in the custom sim:

• Settings, which consists of the equipment, coabilities, and the ACL. The first two are self explanatory. ACL is where you "program" the adventurer on how to perform their actions. Click on the "ACL Guide" button for more instructions.
• Conditions, where you are able to set various values such as an external strength buff, doublebuff intervals, or external affliction sources.

It takes a bit of learning to use, but is a very good tool to learn to use if you want to get more serious with making your own good builds.
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The sim makes no sense to me on how it came to these numbers

My best advice here is to check the custom sim (click Customize in the DPS chart) and check that unit’s kit in the wiki or ingame to see how that character functions. If you still don’t understand, ask around, maybe over in the theorycraft channel in maincord and someone should be able to help.
The custom sim also has some neat features that you might want to check out to help you with this:

• Log

This lets you see the exact rotation used by the unit in question, along with the buffs and afflictions, down to the millisecond.

• Graph

This graph shows you the unit’s DPS over the course of the entire simulation period, along with team buffs and afflictions. The sim isn’t great at showing DPS spikes, so you can check them out here.
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Why is Durant so high?

Due to the sim’s own scenario (see previous question), it favors self-buff spam units by allowing them to go wild and stack as many buffs as they possibly can, allowing them to constantly stay at their peak damage output.
I don’t expect this point to change any time soon.
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Why does the DPS sim not count Overdrive and Break states?

This is actually hard to implement in a way that makes sense. As a compromise, until there’s a solution, it simply applies any Overdrive punisher abilities at 35% efficiency, and Break Punisher abilities at 15% efficiency.
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I don’t have X for this unit’s build. Can I use Y instead?

80% of the time, the answer is probably a solid no.
If you’re missing one piece of the puzzle, the entire build may not function as intended (eg, using a Daikokuten build with Gala Thor or Cupid instead of Daikokuten). You will want to change the build around and find what works best with what you have available.
Try to understand what the build is going for, and then make your changes.
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Why is X unit not using one or both of their skills?

Sometimes, that’s just how things go. For example, Catherine’s s2 gets stronger at 3x stacks of Perfect Escort (from her S1). However, her standard attacks also get stronger with every stack. Using s2 resets your Perfect Escort stacks to 0, and you have to cycle back up to 3 stacks to finally do decent damage again with her standard attacks.
For example, let’s take Catherine. Her S1 powers up both her standard attacks and her S2 with each stack of Perfect Escort. You’d think you want to get to 3x stacks of Perfect Escort and blow up the enemy with an S2 as soon as it’s ready, but consider the standard attacks getting weaker after every S2. To bypass that, she never uses S2 in the sim until at the very end for a big dps spike. In practice, there would be a lot of nuance on when to use S2, but I do believe using it on break is a good idea.
Sometimes, the time spent in the skill’s animation is just not worth the time not spent charging up your better skills (eg, Incognito Nefaria pre-2.0’s s2)
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Why are healers being run as DPS? They shouldn’t run as DPS!

I have two points for this:

• There is currently no content where you actually need a healer to run with a full healer setup except for auto, where the sim doesn’t apply
• If people are playing well enough, chances are, the occasional S1 heal is probably more than sufficient to keep everyone at max HP. At that point, you’re nothing more than dead weight. Might as well run something, right?

Of course, you can run something like P!Siren or Gaibhne & Creidhne, depending on what’s available or the team composition. But this is a DPS sim and we’re here for the DPS :D
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I don't like the new DPS sim. The old one was better.

I keep seeing this statement but I don't understand it lol. It's literally the exact same sim, with the exact same people working on it. Nothing changed, other than what was needed to be added to accommodate for DL version 2.0's additions (5x print slots, affinities, etc).
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The DPS sim is a tier list

No, it’s not. Use whoever you love to play as. I put a lot of work in making sure the "low tier" characters be as best as they can be on the DPS sim. If you love to use off-meta characters, do consider the builds used in there!
Or if you think the build can be better or are lacking certain key pieces of the build, head over to the custom sim and make your own builds!
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Why did an adventurer suddenly jump up or down the chart?

There can be many reasons for this, which can be one or a combination of the following:

• New weapons, wyrmprints, dragons, or shared skills were released
• Skill rotation optimization (ACL)
• Equipment optimization
• Bug fix

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How buggy or accurate is the DPS sim?

No software is bug-free, but we strive to have it working as closely as possible as in-game, and that means going as far as simulating ingame bugs (eg, Zhu Bajie’s longer than intended s2 buff, Victor’s weird burn punisher on his stage 3 of s1) or weird behavior (Lathna’s extra hits ignoring Cat Sith and attack rate)
Accuracy-wise, it’s very accurate, given the rules and assumptions the sim is operating in (a stationary sandbag that does not attack you).
Do note that the sim is coded by humans. The general workflow of a new character is as follows:

1. Datamine the game files
2. Verify the datamined info with how the character behaves ingame
3. Translate how the character in question operates into code
4. Test said character in custom sim and make sure everything is correct (check logs for damage and timings)
5. Done

As you can see, the accuracy is entirely dependent on our understanding of the character in question. Simpler characters would be straightforward to translate into code, but someone with unique mechanics and effects (eg, Meene or G!Zena) would take a while until they’re ready and may even need a few bug fixes after they’re “done”.
And sometimes, the bug can be just a typo in the code. We’re human after all. :)
Some notable bugs/oversights that were fixed in the DPS sim recently:

• FS buffer time is now considered (the time between the tap and the FS marker showing) This caused sword units to no longer prefer c2fs or c3fs as a combo.
• Timing of some weapon FSs have been fixed (some were 1-2 frames faster than they should be)
• Daikokuten was doing more hits than intended (he’s still best light dragon form though)

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I know it's a long post, but I hope this might cleared up some things about the sim for you. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here.

Well folks, the end of an era is upon us. By tomorrow, a huge chunk of content from the past 3 years will be removed from Destiny 2 to be repackaged and sold back to us later make way for the new DLC. With it goes 5 raids (okay fine, 3 raids and 2 raid lairs), more than we ever had in Destiny 1. About 3 and a half years ago, I did a series of posts ranking the various Strike, Arena, and Raid bosses based on a simple question: How much of a pain in the ass are they to fight? Far from the most objective criteria, but worth considering nonetheless. Well, I figured I’d do the same again at the last minute before over half the list becomes completely irrelevant. So:
11) Kalli- Of all the bosses in both Last Wish and D2 raids in general, Kalli is by far the least painful. Very straightforward mechanic- look at symbol, find plate with symbol, stand on plate with symbol, shoot bitch in face, hide in closet, repeat. Kalli herself teleports around the arena, but is more of a nuisance than a threat. Occasionally the stars will align and she’ll fus-ro-dah you off your plate as it shifts or into a kill zone, but other than that the worst that happens is when your team doesn’t have a proper system for the doors and you die repeatedly during DPS. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve wiped more than 3-4 times total on genuine attempts if we weren’t doing challenge, so I feel comfortable putting her at the bottom.
10) Morgeth- Narrowly edges out Kalli on account of one thing: The whole orb-pickup mechanic, despite being semi-consistent and predictable, is Confusing. As. Fuuuuuuck. Literally every group I run this with has a different strat, and inevitably someone screws up the order or the person who’s supposed to cleanse doesn’t get there in time. Fortunately, even on a scuffed run there’s a mile-wide margin for error, and Morgeth has embarrassingly low HP for a huge Taken Ogre, so once you get to DPS pretty much anything will gut him without even needing to aim. Side note: I wonder if there’s any relation between Morgeth and Vorgeth or if Bungie just got lazy with boss names.
9) Argos- BIG SCARY HYDRA. Who was designed around a two-primary sandbox. This is the only raid I did with any consistency in Y1, so I have the most experience with him under the old system. The hard part for my teams, ironically, was DPS. I’m pretty sure you were supposed to be doing most of your damage with the skulls, so your team had to go out of their way to stockpile extra ones where you were doing DPS. I had a lot of runs end with literally fractions of a second to spare when we killed him. Still, everything else was manageable, the previous encounter was worse, and he’s a total pushover now, so I’ll put him right here. Side note: Tethering the metric fuckton of Harpies with old Orpheus Rig was one of my favorite parts of D2 raids.
8) Insurrection Prime- Metal Gear Prime is one of the coolest bosses in Destiny by far. He’s one of the few Raid bosses that’s an active threat, and you can actually play against his attacks if you can target the glowing orange bits. Tanks in a raid is still awesome (since the Drake appears so sparingly in this game despite being plastered all over the pre-release marketing). And of course, he’s still cheeseable because you’re that bad at one of the easiest bosses in the game. The painful parts: The sniper Vandals all over the rooftops. The inconsistent movement and aggro. People not understanding CAP. People not understanding that CAP changes during DPS. The fucking shield generator in his sweaty robot armpit. There’s enough here to put him over Argos, but he’s otherwise the least painful of the final bosses.
7) Shuro Chi- I like the idea of a boss who you have to face with burst DPS in several segments, rather than just one long, protracted Whisper-dumping phase while the boss stands there like a lemon. Shuro Chi herself is another low-threat boss (unless you’re doing her challenge, which catapults her to the top of this and every list), and the hordes of ads are a blast to tear through with chained supers. Of course, if you’ve done this fight you know how absolutely stupid the puzzle phases can be. I’ve bitched in the past about how randomness can kill raid teams, especially pick-up groups. Sometimes you get through both puzzles no problem, sometimes you get multiple repeated plates per room, one person steps on the wrong plate and suddenly everyone’s panicking, trying to swap places, jumping over plates and locking themselves out of them early, someone dies cause they stuck to their plate too long, your ad control players try jumping on and now it's too late your team just wiped. These situations can happen multiple times in the same attempt, and that sort of randomness can make Shuro Chi a major pain in the ass if you’re unlucky. But the opposite is true as well, and the rest of the encounter is pretty easy, so she’ll round out the bottom half.
6) Calus- Probably my least-faced Raid Boss in D2, honestly. Didn’t have much time to raid in Y1, even less time to be properly equipped for it, so I didn’t get a Leviathan run in until well into CoO, and even then we just skipped straight to Calus and I didn’t do the full raid until MoT last year to get Acrius. So uh, now that I’m done discrediting myself: Calus (and Leviathan in general) set the trend of randomized symbol callouts, one of my biggest pet peeves in D2 raid design. Fortunately, you really only need 3-4 people who know what they’re doing, the rest can just be stuck on ad control, which honestly I’ve done every time. Once you get to the damage phase, even in the Y1 sandbox it was easy to just melt him with Coldheart/Nighthawk. Honestly don’t have much else to say since I don’t have as much experience with this boss as I should, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and put him right in the middle. Seems fitting for the first raid boss to be there as a sort of benchmark.
5) Constipated Mind- Supplicants. It had to be Supplicants. Just... Supplicants. Despite my hatred of blind callouts, I pretty much always take the eyes team because it's easy. The weird, inconsistent Minotaur spawns are annoying, but it's easy enough to spray them down when you do find them. The Constipated Mind itself is pretty easy to DPS, especially with Divinity. But SUPPLICANTS. Most of my deaths, wipes, and failed runs have come from going around a corner and getting blown up by a Supplicant, or a horde of the running me down when I have no teammates nearby. At least in Atheon you could hide on top of a pillar and they couldn’t hurt you, but good god are they awful here. As for the rest of the encounter: It's a bunch of moving parts that require a bit of precision (few things are more irritating than running out of your buff as your teammate is running the mile from center to the relay), but it's nowhere near as punishing as the rest of the top half of this list. Oh yeah, and for some reason the giant Harpy has a stomp attack, because Bungie is just so proud of that revolutionary mechanic every boss gets.
4) Big Chungus- This reminds me of the Oryx fight, on account of just how many moving parts there are throughout this fight. You got the waves of mixed blessed/normal ads. You’ve got the Crystals constantly rotating around the room. You’ve got the Ogres. You’ve got the mini Big Chungus that requires both players to melee at the same time, then shoot the boss’ hand while he’s attacking to get him to kill it. And don’t forget to swap your buff every minute, and don’t forget to refresh your other teammates’ buffs after they melee their mini Big Chungus. And then you gotta go to whichever boss is the ‘real’ one, and then you gotta remember to destroy the Crystal which is still up, and then you gotta remember to switch again, and then you gotta shoot his hands, and then not shoot his face, and then, and then, AND THEN- And on top of all this, the entire raid is built around three teams of two, which gives a higher chance for one team screwing up, and makes it harder to support a team that’s struggling. So even if you and your partner are doing fine, one guy screwing up can screw the whole team harder here than most other encounters. Raid bosses are meant to be culminations of a Raid’s mechanics, and Big Chungus does so in one of the most painfully literal ways.
3) Riven- Hoo boy am I gonna catch some flak for putting her at number 3 (I said the same about Atheon at number 8 in D1). Yes, I know if you do her legit she’s one of the most mechanically complex bosses in both Destiny games. There’s blind callouts, symbol reading, buffs, debuffs, ordered ad clearing, platforming, and tiny mistakes will instantly wipe the team. But it should go without saying (even though I’m gonna say it anyways) that she’s just so ridiculously easy to cheese. At least pushing off Atheon relied on his not-always-consistent movement and having a lot of AoE grenades, and pulling the cable on Crota involved a lot of waiting while you reconnected the host. Riven is just ‘stand here, dump rockets/grenades/THE GUILLOTINE down her throat.’ Followed by some basic platforming. Even if you get the wrong side you just use the ‘Joining Allies’ spot to hop over to the other side. I struggle to even call it cheese since it isn’t really an exploit of mechanics (other than ‘Joining Allies’ which isn’t even always necessary), this massive magical space dragon just has the toughness of a wet paper towel. She’s the ‘Parrying Lord Gwyn’ of Destiny (hyped ultra-difficult boss trivialized by basic game mechanic). That said, pretty much every tool for cheesing her has been nerfed (until spin-to-win sword came out this season which is now getting nerfed too), so it could actually be kinda annoying trying to cheese her- my last LW run with my clan had us literally spend like 45 minutes on her because we just couldn’t get that last 5 percent of her health. So I’ll still treat her with the respect she deserves (as much as I can, ranking bosses on how much of a pain in the ass they are) and put her in the top 3.
2) Sanctified Mind- Is it easy? Yeah, kinda. Is it tedious, frustrating, inconsistent, random, constricting, overly long, and checks damn near every box for an annoying-ass boss fight? Absolutely. Whether it's motes falling off the edge, the worst possible platform being destroyed (my least favorite mechanic in any boss by far), a random shot from a Cyclops OHK’ing from a mile away after it dies, Goblins teleporting a half mile straight to the pylon, the general slowness of the Tether and it's tendency to pick up extra players, several people shooting and turning on/off the tether boxes at once- basically every phase and mechanic in this fight is specifically designed to be as stressful as possible at every moment. And he gets bonus points for having what is probably the single stupidest, most tedious, biggest pain-in-the-ass Raid triumph, challenge, or achievement ever in Stop Hitting Yourself. I don’t care that you and your MLG pickup group got it flawlessly first try without any real strategy, it's still bullshit.
1) Val Ca’our- Look, even if you think Riven was too low at #3, it's hard to deny that even she isn’t anywhere near as much of a pain in the ass as Val Ca’our (I’ve found my hill and I will die on it). This encounter has a ridiculous amount of precision needed from every player, blind callouts, randomly selected roles, mechanic after mechanic after mechanic, standing on plates with no cover, hordes of ads flooding every square inch of the arena, timed orb passing, and a wipe timer leaving no margin of error whatsoever. Even if the DPS phase itself is easy (just shove Wardcliff deep up inside his rectum), just getting there is a massive pain in the ass- and God help you if one of the balls decides to just clip through Calusbot’s hand when you finally get all the mechanics down. Or miss a single ball after you successfully DPS. I never did Spire of Stars in Y1, so the fact that I still struggle with him much more than Argos or Calus should be pretty telling. Fuck you Val Ca’our, fuck your ships, fuck your ads, fuck your orbs, and FUCK YOUR WHOLE FUCKING RAID FOR NEVER DROPPING ME THE FUCKING SLEEPER CATALYST.