The first Raid activity in Destiny history, the Vault of Glass, returns in Destiny 2 with fresh takes on the classic encounters and mechanics. After players have successfully defended the confluxes, they will need to face a puzzle from the Oracles.
The Vault of Glass is a fan-favorite Raid because of its mysterious nature, and many players have spent years trying to find any secrets. The Destiny 2 version is almost identical to the original in terms of appearance, with players still opening the vault in the Waking Ruins on Venus.
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Once Destiny 2 players have completed the first major encounter of the Vault of Glass by defending the confluxes from sacrificial Vex enemies, they will be able to start the Oracles encounter. This encounter requires clear communication and constant focus from all players as they need to solve an increasingly long Simon says-style puzzle from the glowing, white cubes known as Oracles.
Here is a basic rundown of all the steps to complete the Oracles encounter in the Vault of Glass:
- The team must decide which players will destroy the Vex and which players will destroy the Oracles
- Players need to position themselves accordingly
- Shoot the floating Vex Cube to start the encounter
- For each wave, the Oracles will present their sequence twice, and the Oracle-killers need to call out the position in the sequence of any of their Oracles.
- The Oracles will then appear all together simultaneously, and the Oracle-killers must destroy the Oracles in the correct order.
- Keep repeating this until the team has successfully cleared all five waves of Oracles.
- All enemies will despawn, and a loot chest will appear at the end of the fifth wave.
This encounter’s focus lies entirely on the Oracles, with a few Vex enemies appearing to inconvenience Guardians. Damage Supers are not particularly useful, except for quick-use ones such as Nova Bomb, Thundercrash, and Blade Barrage. Support and Stasis Supers such as Well of Radiance, Winter’s Wrath, and Silence and Squall will be much more useful for keeping everyone alive and slowing down the Vex.
For the designated Oracle-killers in the team, Exotic Machine Gun Xenophage is the best weapon as it can destroy an Oracle in one shot. If every Oracle-killer uses it, teams can get through the Oracle waves very quickly. Blasting an Oracle a couple of times with a Shotgun at point-blank range is another good method for destroying them quickly.
As for other weapons, any kinetic energy weapon will do for destroying the incoming Vex. Shotguns, Fusion Rifles such as Plug One.1, and Grenade Launchers such as Witherhoard will be very useful for the players clearing out the Vex Goblins and Minotaurs. Some Destiny 2 players should consider using a Sniper Rifle to quickly destroy any Hobgoblins that spawn on the floating pillars around the Templar’s Well. Warmind Cells are not advised for this encounter as they can destroy Oracles if they detonate.
There are seven possible positions for the Oracles to spawn in the Templar’s Well arena in this encounter. One will spawn in the middle between the two giant columns where the rally banner can be placed. The left and right sides of the arena will have a front, middle, and back Oracle. Some teams may refer to them fully like “front-right” or in a coded shorthand like “R1”. It is worth mentioning that these Oracle names do not need to be called out by any players during the encounter. They are strictly for letting the team know which Oracle a player is watching.
On the left side, the front-left Oracle spawns on a narrow set of steps on the left side of the area where the rally banner can be placed. The middle-left Oracle spawns next to a pillar in the open area where the left conflux was. The back-left Oracle spawns in the small, raised tunnel that leads to where the Templar normally sits.
On the right side, the front-right Oracle spawns by the steps on the right that lead up to where the right conflux was. The middle-right Oracle spawns on the corner of the platform where the right conflux would be. Finally, the back-right Oracle spawns between two pillars towards the back area where the Templar would normally sit.
The encounter is made up of five waves of Oracles, starting with three Oracles and then adding one with each wave, so the final wave has all seven Oracles. Once the encounter begins, the Oracles will appear when the message “The Oracles prepare to sing their refrain” appears in the text feed. Three Oracles will chime and appear briefly around the arena in a specific order. The Oracles will present this sequence twice and are immune to damage.
The message, “The Templar summons the Oracles,” will pop up in the feed, and all three Oracles will appear simultaneously. The players then need to destroy the Oracles in the correct order. The Oracles do not stay for a long time, so the team needs to destroy the Oracles quickly. All players are notified with a message in the feed when an Oracle has been destroyed. Once all the Oracles are gone, the message, “The Oracles recognize their refrain,” will appear, signifying that the wave has been completed. This process repeats for the next four waves, except there is an extra Oracle on each wave.
If an Oracle is shot in the wrong order or the team does not destroy all the Oracles in time, the wave will end, and all players will become Marked for Negation. If they do not get cleansed by running through the pool of light in the middle of the arena, they will eventually die. After a short time, the cleansing pool deactivates once it has been used, so marked players need to go through the pool at the same time to all get cleansed.
Before starting the encounter, the team needs to decide how players will be allocated in positions and roles. This can be done in several ways and is ultimately down to how much information individual players are comfortable with managing, as all players will have to do a bit of add-clearing. Still, not all have to focus on Oracles.
Having at least four dedicated Oracle killers guarantees that none of them will have to focus on more than two Oracles. For example, Player 1 could watch for the front-right (R1) and middle Oracles, Player 2 could watch for the front-left (L1) and middle-left (L2) Oracles, Player 3 could watch only the back-left Oracle (L3). Player 4 can focus on the back-right (R3) and middle-right Oracles (R2) while Players 5 and 6 act as dedicated add-clearers.
Oracle killers need to get into a position where they roughly see both Oracles at once and have Xenophage equipped, and then the encounter can begin. When the Oracles start to appear, the players assigned to spotting them must call out the numerical position in the sequence of that Oracle to the rest of the team. Counting the Oracles’ chimes is also helpful in determining exactly what position in the sequence an Oracle is.
When the Oracles show the sequence a second time, this is a great opportunity to double-check or clarify the exact position. When they all appear, the Oracle-killers need to destroy the Oracles using Xenophage in the order that they just called out while also calling out their number, so the next player knows when to destroy their Oracle.
Using the previous player examples, a wave with an Oracle sequence of L3, Middle, R2 might go like this: Player 3 will say “one” since their Oracle appeared first. Player 1 will then call out “two” as one of their Oracles appeared second. Finally, Player 4 will call out “three” as one of their Oracles appeared third. These three players can then confirm the order on the second run of the sequence. Player 3 needs to destroy the L3 Oracle and say “one” when all the Oracles appear. This will signal to Player 1 that they must now destroy the middle Oracle, and they will call out “two” when they do. Player 4 can now destroy the final Oracle of the wave, and all the Oracle-killers need to prepare for the next wave.
Repeat these steps for each wave, and the Oracles encounter should be over in no time. Once all the Vex have respawned and the fifth wave is over, a loot chest will spawn in, rewarding players with Vault of Glass weapons and armor.
Destiny 2 players can also try the Oracles Raid challenge when it is available to get an extra loot chest and more rewards.
For a greater challenge, Bungie will soon be adding a Master difficulty mode for the Vault of Glass which will offer Timelost variants of the Raid’s iconic weapons.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light and Season of the Splicer are available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.