With the reintroduction of the classic Vault of Glass raid, long-time fans of the Destiny series are hoping that other past raids will be making a comeback with fresh mechanics and enemies over the course of Destiny 2's lifecycle. The return of the Vault of Glass raid saw the classic activity get several updates and quality of life changes that made the whole raid enjoyable and fresh for both new and old players, while still giving into the nostalgia for those who had done the raid back in Destiny. However, one raid in Destiny has always been seen as the dark horse of the franchise: Crota's End.
Crota's End could be one of the returning raid coming to Destiny 2 in the near future, if Bungie is going in order of raid release dates. And while Crota's End has a dedicated fanbase behind it, it is certainly the weakest of the four Destiny raids in terms of length and difficulty. For this raid to come back as a full six-man raid instead of being reworked into a Dungeon, there will need to be some tweaks made - but this could be the perfect opportunity to finally fix Crota's End.
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Updating The Stills
Crota's End is comprised of four main sections: The Stills (commonly referred to as The Abyss), The Bridge, Ir Yut, and Crota himself. The Stills is actually one of the more iconic and interesting encounters in Destiny history. Players drop into The Stills from the Hellmouth, and as they venture into the dark, Thrall-infested cavern, they accumulate stacks of Weight of Darkness. As the name implies, Weight of Darkness lowers the player's movement speed and capabilities, stacking up to 10 times. The numerous "roaming supers" might actually be able to circumvent this, assuming they get a buff to help with more damage output in Destiny 2.
Players can alleviate Weight of Darkness by standing near lamps, but once a player comes near a lamp, the lamp slowly drains until it eventually explodes, so players have to time their lamp stops well or risk killing themselves and their team. Once players navigate the maze of lamps, they have a stand-off where they must defend a plate while a bridge forms. This may be one of the encounters that would change very little. The opening to Vault of Glass did not feature many changes in Destiny 2 outside of some minor enemy spawn adjustments, and The Stills may be no different. If anything, the final fight on the bridge plate may want to be fine-tuned a bit.
When players are defending the plate and waiting for the bridge to spawn, they are doing little other than just fighting wave after wave of Hive - ranging from Thralls all the way to Ogres. Outside of adding Champions to this encounter, which could very well be Unstoppable Ogres, more could be done to make the bridge-forming part of the encounter more engaging. Adding Champions alone could make this encounter much more deadly, depending on what the season's Champion mods are. As it stands, only one player needs to be on the plate for it to keep the bridge forming. The requirement is that only one player must make it across the bridge and go into the light for the encounter to conclude, making it far less team-oriented than it ideally should be.
An easy fix would require multiple members of the fireteam to successfully make it to the light for the encounter to conclude, meaning the team would have to focus down the deadly targets (like the Ogres that spawn on both sides of the bridge) or risk a wipe. Ideally, some other mechanic would be added to the bridge-forming section of this encounter to make the fight more than just "stand on the plate and hold shoot" the entire time. With the changes to Ward of Dawn's durability, Titans would likely want to rethink armor stats to keep the Bubble up as long as possible.
Revamping The Bridge
The Bridge encounter, not to be confused with the bridge that was made seconds prior to getting here, is a bit more complicated than the one that was just built. The fireteam must get everyone from one side of the bridge to the other without letting the Annihilation Totems activate, causing a wipe. Much like the previous encounter, a plate must be stepped on to form the bridge (there being one on either side of the bridge). While the bridge is forming, the Annihilation Totems will begin charging, and players must stand beneath them to keep them from going off. On the side that players entered on, Swordbearers will spawn. When defeated, they will drop a Hive Cleaver that players can pick up.
Players cannot cross the bridge (when formed) without having the Cleaver equipped, and only one player can traverse at a time. For the entry-side of The Bridge, there's a whole lot of standing on plates and shooting adds. Players will essentially take turns forming the bridge and ferrying one another across while keeping the Annihilation Totems in check. Enemies will spawn on each side of the bridge, but generally there are no major threats to be taken care of outside of the Swordbearers and the Gatekeepers on the other side that can only be killed with a Cleaver. If it were to come back, Warmind Cells would likely trivialize this encounter, even in their weakened form.
To spice this activity up and make it more engaging, there should be another mechanic in play other than the Annihilation Totems to keep players engaged. It's a pretty mindless job to just stand on the Totems and shoot enemies until it's your turn to cross the bridge. Moreso, The Bridge was infamously skippable, and while the Age of Triumph version of the raid made it a bit harder to solo this encounter, it was very much still possible. Though to be fair, the community makes it a challenge to solo as many Destiny raid bosses as possible on a regular basis, so perhaps that isn't too much of a concern. Still, there needs to be some other point of engagement for this activity, otherwise it's just an idle shooting encounter that would be completely trivialized by the likes of Riskrunner, Warmind Cells, or Trinity Ghoul.
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Racing the Clock with Ir Yut
Ir Yut's encounter is all about efficiency and speed. Once Ir Yut begins her song, players have three minutes and ten seconds to take down several high priority targets, lower Ir Yut's barrer, and take down the Deathsinger. When entering the chamber, players have to hunt down the Wizards that spawn on each side of the chamber and defeat them. Once they are taken down, Shriekers spawn that must also be killed. Once the Shriekers are down, Ir Yut's shield will be lowered allowing players to burn down the boss.
This encounter is meant to be a straight DPS test, with only the Ir Yut challenge making it more mechanically focused. To complete the challenge, every enemy other than Ir Yut must be defeated. When that is done, a Swordbearer will spawn, and when defeated it will drop a Cleaver that Ir Yut must be killed with. If Bungie wants this encounter to be the DPS test for the raid, then it would be a bit difficult to change much here. It's one of the more interesting raid encounters in the franchise, but that doesn't mean there's not room for growth and change. WIth the rise in high-damage Destiny 2 weapons and builds, it may be time to shift from a pure DPS encounter to a DPS/mechanic blend.
Slaying the Son of Oryx
Crota's fight has a lot of room for growth. Thematically it is a fantastic fight: slaying the sword-wielding Hive prince with a sword. However, unless you're doing the Crota challenge (where each player can only weild the sword once), it gets a bit uninteresting for anyone not playing the role of Swordbearer. While the encounter is active, players can only regenerate health by picking up the Chalice, which can be passed from player-to-player. Players will coordinate attacks on Crota to bring his shield down, many used Gjallarjorn for this, and with Gjallarjorn coming back, it may be the best choice again. The Swordbearer will then use the Cleaver to damage Crota, and once a damage phase is over, Crota will summon the Oversoul which must be defeated within 10 seconds or the team will wipe. This is essentially the gist of the encounter.
Much like The Bridge, there is a bit too much idle time in this encounter, especially for anyone that isn't the Swordbearer. There needs to be something more for other players to do. There are some adds to fight here and there, especally when you get to the Ogre phase, but generally it's a lot of waiting around for Crota to be in position for the damage phase again, and then taking down the Oversoul. While the mechanic of not healing is unique, there needs to be more mechanics to make the encounter more engaging for the other members of the fireteam, whether that's doing something while Crota is immune or doing something to keep Crota's shield down while damage is going on. Hopefully if Crota's End comes back as a six-man activity, Crota himself will be retooled to make the fight a lot more interesting.
Raid vs. Dungeon
At the end of the day, Crota's End was one of the shorter raid experiences in Destiny, and could be done relatively easily with less than six players. This is why many fans were hoping that it would be reprised as a Dungeon. Not much would have to change for that to take effect outside of some health changes and minor tweaks to mechanics. However, instead of taking the easy route and just making Crota's End a Dungeon, Bungie could very well give Crota's End the raid treatment it deserves and invest in making the encounters more interesting and complex, worthy of it being a six-man activity. With multiple Dungeons coming out after the release of The Witch Queen DLC, it's certainly possible that Crota's End is one of them. Still, there is a returning Destiny raid on the way too, so perhaps Crota will finally have his time to shine.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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