So to start off, I think the idea of grandmasters is really good. I think the guaranteed masterwork materials is also a very good idea. I now have 20 ascendant shards and 100 enhancement prisms between my character and postmaster. However, I think there are a few issues with the game's interpretation of "difficultly" and creating an environment where build crafting would be the way to success, as we were told in this TWAB: https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/48930 So two points here: 1. Bungie's idea of difficulty is to crank up enemy health, crank up their damage, reduce our damage in a post precision damage sandbox, and then add on a buuch of modifiers. So now we're in an environment where it takes 4 hand cannon precison shots to kill a red bar, and yet a red bar hobgoblin with almost perfect accuracy can one shot us if we are technically airborne on stairs due to a modifier. That's not fun or hard. That's just annoying. That's just a bunch of bullet sponges and high damage. To me, that's completely artificial. It encourages everyone to just sit back and team fire, rather than let their build shine, which leads me to my next point. 2. Build crafting is not the way to success in grandmasters. In fact, they're currently designed in a way to limit builds. Because of everything in the first point, the safest and most effective tactic is [i]always[/i] sit back and team fire. That's it. And all the really flushed out builds with warmind cells or charged with light require kills to keep them going, sometimes rapid kills. While this isn't impossible, the only builds from those options you can safely use are the ones that work while you're sitting back and team firing. You will likely get one shot before you kill a second red bar if you try a close quarters build. The bullet sponge factor of all the adds makes builds like this pretty much worthless in grandmaster. On top of that, exotics weapons and exotic armor can't have any seasonal mods and our anti champion mods are both chosen for us and take a slot on our weapon. I have an infinite charged with light build with my Ikelos SMG with surrounded and a few armor mods. But is it even remotely effective in grandmasters? No. Because I have to get close to adds, get multikills on super bullet sponges, and sacrifice my surrounded spec for an anti champion mod to even justify bringing it in. When I look at what grandmasters should be in my eyes, I like to compare it to Dark Souls. For those of you that have played it, think about the first time you soloed each boss. The boss wasn't a total sponge and it didn't one shot you unless you had like no health. But, it was still difficult. It was difficult because every boss had different fighting styles, openings, damage, combos, etc. To overcome them for the first time you had to be patient, confident, and capable of adapting to a new fight and come up with a tactic to bring it down. And you could do this with [i]any build in the game[/i]. Sorcerer? Done. Black Knight cosplay? Done. All strength? Done. Pyromancy? Done. And all the other hundreds or thousands of combinations the game has to offer. You could use any of them on any boss. So far grandmasters feel like you're directly sabotaging yourself by taking on Darkeater Midir with a wooden club and shield. It's possible, but you'd [i]really[/i] like to bring your claymore instead. Edit: I'm not necessarily asking for "Dark Souls with guns." I just think the difficulty of Dark Souls is much more real and less artificial, and it doesn't limit the player. Good steps for Destiny would be: 1. Making anti champion mods available for all exotic armor and non-heavy weapons; 2. Making an anti-champion mod slot where the mods are free; and 3. Cranking up player damage to address the "bullet sponge" factor all enemies seem to have so more builds reliant on kills are more viable. These three changes would allow many, MANY more builds to be viable in endgame content and perhaps allow strategy and builds to outshine sitting back and team firing.