The return of the legendary Vault of Glass Raid was highly anticipated by hundreds of thousands of players (Steam charts counted over 187,000 concurrent players on Saturday) and was completed by…well, probably a lot less than 187,000 people. We didn’t know a whole lot about what the Raid would entail, but many were hoping that Bungie would make some changes to the Raid, so that it wasn’t the same exact experience as the version of Vault of Glass in Destiny 1; if you were one of those that were hoping for a bit of change, then you were definitely not disappointed as this experience was vastly different from the previous version of the Vault of Glass, but how different is it in Destiny 2? Oh, and by the way, there’s some pretty big mechanic spoilers for the Vault of Glass Raid, so if you don’t want to know about it, then I would go do the Raid first and then come back and read this! This is also not a full guide on how to complete the Vault of Glass Raid in Destiny 2, but just a quick rundown of the biggest differences between the original version and the reprised Raid.
Building the Spire
So, the very first encounter, before you even get into the Vault of Glass requires you to build a Vex spire in order to open up the Vault. This was very simple in Destiny 1 as you basically just had to stand on some plates and kill some Praetorians, but in Destiny 2, it’s a bit different. The mechanics are exactly the same, but the catch is that the Praetorians have some new friends now: a massive yellow bar Cyclops on each plate that will immediately one-shot anyone they hit (at least in Contest Mode). While the rest of my team and I knew that Contest was going to be tough, we were not prepared for how much everything hurts even in the first encounter; we basically got shredded for a solid 10-15 minutes before we figured out a solid plan of action. After we figured out our strategy of sticking a couple Anarchy shots on the Cyclops and the plates while using Breach and Clear, we got it down pretty quick.
Confluxes
The Confluxes encounter is essentially the same thing as Destiny 1, however instead of protecting a middle, left, and right Conflux, you are defending a single moving Conflux with a whole bunch of ads to clear, as well as some Overload Minotaurs and everyone’s favorite: Wyverns. Let me tell you, Wyverns are the most annoying part of this entire Raid. Other than that, the encounter is more or less the same as D1, so you should be solid.
Oracles
The biggest change about Oracles is that the order you shoot Oracles matters, so be sure to coordinate with your team to ensure that everyone knows which Oracle to shoot, and more importantly when. This will absolutely be the biggest downfall of your team if you can’t get your team coordinated – that’s the biggest difficulty in this Raid is coordination.
Templar
The Templar mechanics are mostly the same from the original Raid, except now you have to also worry about shooting Oracles in the same order again after each teleportation phase, luckily there’s no Wyverns or Champions involved in this encounter, so it should be easy enough once you get your team coordinated.
Gorgons’ Labyrinth
Going through the Gorgon maze is the same as how you’d do it in Destiny 1, except the path is a bit different now. All you really need to do is hop onto some rocks and then go through a cave and you’ll be good to go. Just make sure that the Gorgons don’t spot you, or you’ll be dead on arrival, because they have a lot of health.
Gatekeepers
So, Gatekeepers is probably the most different encounter from Destiny 1 out of all of the encounters. When you start the encounter, it seems like the same encounter as the original Vault of Glass, but you’ll soon discover that it is much different than what we expected. Thankfully, there are no Oracles in this encounter. What you need to do is have 2 Guardians enter each Vex portal to determine which side has a Praetorian with a shield that needs to be broken by the relic, and which side has a Wyvern (yay!) that needs to be killed immediately (use Stasis and Deathbringer to wipe these out instantly.) If you are on the side with the Praetorian, you’ll need to have someone else with a Relic come in and take out the Praetorian, drop the relic, the previous relic-holder stays behind in the portal (because they are now locked out for about 45 seconds), rinse and repeat for a couple rotations and then you’re good.
Atheon
Atheon is also quite a bit different than the original Vault of Glass, and once again we’ve got some Oracles that need to be shot in order! Once you start the encounter, you’ll need to take out some Harpies (leave one alive on each side and they won’t keep spawning), once that’s done then Atheon will send a random team of 3 players to either Mars or Venus (call this out immediately!) who will need to shoot more Oracles in order. This works in kind of the same way that the War Priest worked in King’s Fall where one person (or an entire fireteam) that didn’t get teleported needs to call out which Oracles to shoot, but the issue here is that the callouts will be mirrored, so my suggestion is to have the teleported players run to the back of the arena and turn around to make the callouts easier. Make sure to pick up the relic once you get teleported, so that you can cleanse everyone on your team. After you cycle through three rounds of Oracles, you’ll need to go through the portal that the other team has opened by standing on the correct plate (Left for Mars, Right for Venus), hop through the portal, cleanse everyone, and then start damaging Atheon. Make sure that everyone is keeping an eye out for a debuff that will detain you; if you get this debuff, hop away from everyone as soon as possible, because it will trap whoever is close to it and render them useless. Do all of this until Atheon is dead and you complete the Raid – it’s easily possible to hit enough damage for a 2-phase, but most people will probably need 3-4 rounds of damage.
Overall, I was incredibly surprised with how different Vault of Glass was this time around, and I’m glad that Bungie decided to switch things up in a way that forces everyone to be coordinated, though I still don’t like being bombarded with Champions and super beefy ads all the time.
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