Destiny 2’s The Witch Queen expansion came packed with challenges for players to tackle, starting with the Legendary campaign and a Power Level grind up to the cap. One of the most interesting additions, aside from the well-done Legendary campaign, is the Vow of the Disciple Raid released on March 5. Vow of the Disciple is not necessarily a hard Raid byDestiny 2standards, but it does have its own set of challenges to face in the form of relaying information to other players.
One of the greatest blocks in the Raid since day one has been theCaretaker encounter, and the reason is that this particular boss acts as a DPS gate where dealing enough damage each phase is crucial to not wipe at the final stand. Furthermore,Destiny 2’s Caretaker encounter is notoriously lacking Special and Heavy ammo drops, which are important when it comes to DPS. With so many active roles in the fight, the Caretaker is hard for many groups because of how the obelisk portion of the encounter goes hand-in-hand with players taunting the boss. However,Destiny 2YouTuber Vendetta managed to complete the encounter solo, rapidly switching loadouts based on what they had to do.
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Why Destiny 2’s Melee Builds Often Break Raids
This solo feat was achieved with lots of strategy and trial-and-error, but a clever move on Vendetta’s part was to use thesunset Mountaintop Kinetic grenade launcherwith Sticky Grenades to open the door leading to the Raid’s symbol room. The player collected symbols and navigated the room with an Eager Edge sword combined with the Titan’s Lion Rampant to increase maneuverability, skipping the taunt phase by completing the obelisk offerings in seconds.
For DPS, Vendetta switched to the Wormgod Caress Exotic arms to deal damage with Shield Bash when the Caretaker was weakened after being hit with a One-Two Punch shotgun. Using Magnetic Grenades with the Echo of Undermining Fragment also helped to dish out enough damage, but hitting for over 900,000 damage per-Shield Bash is what allowed Vendetta to reach the final stand phase. At that point, the player usedDestiny 2’s Witherhoardfor additional damage over time and defeated the boss using a linear fusion rifle.
Vendetta is renowned for completing ridiculous challenges in Raids, such asdefeating four Raid bosses with seven Throwing Hammersprior to The Witch Queen’s release. Completing the Caretaker encounter solo was no easy task, especially considering fullDestiny 2teams often fail at this step. This was the world’s first completion of Caretaker solo, which is great but poses a question as to how much longer the meta can take so many broken melee builds.
Another example comes from theBehemoth Titan destroying bosses with the Super’s Stasis crystals, which can be shattered for max damage through correct positioning. These melee builds are perhaps too strong on many occasions, and while they are niche - not necessarily something that a wholeDestiny 2team would use, they are outliers for broken combinations that revolve around Exotics like Wormgod Caress and Synthoceps. Overall, the Exotics themselves are not strictly the problem. Although they are very powerful, the fact that melee damage can scale so high with a lot of specific perks and combos can be aggravating when trying to balance the meta, and there’s a chance Bungie will hand out some nerfs in the near future.
Destiny 2is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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