‘Destiny’ Guide For Crota’s End Raid Changes And New Challenge Modes

Destiny: Age of Triumph brought an upgraded and tweaked Crota’s End Raid to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players. This guide will cover what those changes entail, along with how to complete the new Challenge modes that were added.

Don’t expect any major changes to Crota’s End. The mechanics of the Raid remain much the same, but Bungie did add some tweaks to prevent players from trying to exploit their way through. The new Challenge modes for Ir Yut and Crota will only be active while Crota’s End is the featured Raid for the week.

Traversing the Abyss

No major changes to the starting section of Crota’s End. Players will still drop down into the Hellmouth and be tasked with making their way from lantern to lantern while fending off Thrall and Knights. The “Weight of Darkness” debuff is still present, and players will need to stand next to lanterns to remove it.

The only change comes at the very end of the Abyss when standing on the plate to materialize the bridge. Thralls, Knights, and Ogres still spawn to attack players while they try to hold the plate. However, they are now joined by a couple of wizards to prevent camping on top of certain rocks or pillars.

Chest Location

There is a chest located between the ninth and tenth lanterns in the Abyss. It is alongside the right wall where players will need to jump onto a rock to reach a doorway.

Crossing the Bridge

The bridge was easily the most exploited part of Crota’s End, so it is no surprise it receives the most attention with the Destiny: Age of Triumph update. Bungie has made significant changes to force a full fireteam to follow the intended mechanics to cross.

As before there are three plates on each side of the chasm. One fireteam member will need to stand on the center plate to build the bridge while two others stand on the plates on either side to activate the totems. Remember, if players step off the totem plates while another is on the center plate, then they will glow red and eventually kill everyone.

Once the bridge plate is activated, a wave of enemies will spawn including a Sword Knight. Kill the Knight and have one player cross the bridge with the Sword. Once across, kill the Gatekeeper Knight with the Sword.

The remaining players will stay on the starting side and repeat the process until three players are across. The first three across will stand on the plates on the opposite side and hold that position. The remaining players on the starting side will kill a Sword Knight, cross the bridge, and then kill the Gatekeeper until five have been killed.

This is where the major change comes in. The bridge becomes permanent once five Gatekeepers are killed, and a host of Swords are spawned around the center plate along with a host of Knights. Killing these Knights lights up the 10 statues leading out of the area and opens the door.

The encounter requires five Gatekeepers to be killed, which means a fireteam with a minimum of five players is required. It remains to be seen if Destiny players find new and innovative ways to get around this.

Thrallway

This encounter is unchanged. Destiny players will need to clear Thrall along with Shriekers to enter Crota’s chamber.

Chest Location

The chest remains at the end of the Thrallway and still requires players to race to beat doors that close after a period of time.

Ir Yut, The Deathsinger

The Ir Yut encounter remains the same. Destiny players have around 2 minutes and 20 seconds to kill the Wizard. First, kill the Knights at the doorways, then the Wizards protecting the Shriekers, and then the Shriekers protecting Ir Yut. Now the Deathsinger is vulnerable and can be attacked.

Challenge Mode

The first Challenge Mode for Crota’s End adds more to do before killing Ir Yut. Destiny players will want to go through the encounter just as before, but kill everything that spawns except the boss wizard. A message will appear stating “Ir Yut shrieks in fear.”

This triggers another wave of minions to kill in the main chamber. This includes two Major Ogres from the side doors of the chamber and three knights each in either tower. Killing everything in this wave will spawn a Sword Knight in the middle of the chamber. Kill this Knight, pick up the sword, and go hit Ir Yut with it to complete the challenge. This is a one-shot kill on her.

Facing Crota

The Crota encounter remains largely unchanged. For the sake of keeping this article at a reasonable length, those that aren’t familiar killing the boss should check out this guide that explains the mechanics.

The major change to the encounter is Crota will now spawn an Oversoul every time he regenerates his shield. This provides a little extra difficulty to the encounter as the Oversoul must be shot and destroyed before moving on.

One minor change is an invisible wall that was added to the ledge in front of the crystal chamber by Bungie. This prevents players from standing in what was an unintended safe spot for most of the encounter. The other tweak is the Major Knights that spawn in the towers have been downgraded to regular “Red Bar” Knights.

Challenge Mode

The Crota Challenge Mode is fairly straightforward. A player in a fireteam can only pick up the Sword to kill Crota once. They cannot drop it and pick it up again or pick up a second Sword that is dropped by the Sword Knight.

There is no requirement for every player to hold the sword, so a well-coordinated Destiny fireteam should still kill Crota in two to four rotations.

Loot

Successfully completing the Crota’s End Raid and both challenges will reward players with one of the new Exotic versions of Raid weapons like the Fang of Ir Yut, Word of Crota, Abyss Defiant, and Oversoul Edict. There is also the new Age of Triumph Ornament, which can be applied to Raid armor.

Players will receive Raid armor up to 400 Light when completing the 390 Light level Crota’s End Raid whether they complete the challenge or not.

Note that the Crota’s End Raid can be run multiple times during the week to receive rewards now. Meaning, you should be able to get all four of the Exotic Raid weapons with four or more completions.

[Featured Image by Bungie / Activision]