So the Leviathan Raid for Destiny 2 has been out for awhile. By now, I've personally completed the Raid 26x* on PS4 Normal, 5x on PC Normal, all 4 Challenge Modes many times, and only 1 real Prestige Raid (that I was only unable to complete the Calus portion of due to leaving for a Wedding) attempt on PS4 due to the Low Incentive. From that experience, here is my guide for how to complete the Leviathan Raid and some best practices. Now that all of the Challenge Modes and Prestige is out, I consider this guide complete. (*Updated after Warmind due to some changes, note the *'s)

Recommended Power Levels: Normal 270; Prestige 300.

Power Level Note: Keep in mind, like all other Destiny 2 content, the Normal Leviathan has a 25* Power Advantage Cap, so being at 295* Caps your damage resist to +12%*. So after Power Level 295*, the Normal Leviathan Raid will never change in difficulty. However, Bungie decided to put a Hard Cap on the Prestige Leviathan at 300, so no bounus are gained after 300. This information has not been announced/talked about by Bungie, but rather been discovered through extensive testing by Reddit users.

Res Tokens: During each encounter other than Castelium, players will only receive 1 Res Token. Once a Res Token is used, that player can no longer Revive another Player. Upon each death a timer is initiated, if a Res isn't performed by the end of said timer, the encounter will wipe. On the Prestige Raid, if a player dies, their Res Token is also removed, meaning you now have less than 6 Revives like you had in the Normal version (possibly only 3, if each death was by a player who still had a Res Token), and deaths are much more punishing, even though they aren't as much so as Destiny 1's Permadeath.

Rewards: Rewards up to 385* (will always drop containing a Legendary Mod) can be obtained throughout Leviathan on both Normal and Prestige once per Class* (Bungie made a change where you can only gain rewards once per Class per week, so if you run multiple Characters, run 1 of each Class) per week from each encounter (Royal Pools, Pleasure Gardens, The Gauntlet, and Calus). Your first completion of the Castelium Entrance (no matter when you do it during the Raid) will drop an up to 380* Power Legendary Engram, Shaders, and Tokens. All other chests guarantee* you Tokens and an up to 380* Power drop. Each of the 3 leadup Encounters, Royal Pools, Pleasure Gardens, and The Gauntlet also drop a random Key that goes to one of the Treasure Chests located in the Underbelly. These Chests have a high chance to drop Exotic Engrams at up to 380* Power. You can either visit the Underbelly during the Raid (if you know the secret tunnels well) or visit them after the Raid is finished. If you return to the Tower, you can go under Hawthorne and find sweeper bot Benedict 99-40, he will give you Raid Legendary items for 20 Tokens (he will only sell them if you completed the corresponding Raid that week*), but they will be at your Rare Power Level Softcap, whatever that Power Level is. *He now also sells specific items you may be missing at 340 Power for Tokens for each Raid/Raid Lair per week, but keep in mind only Raids you have completed are in the Loot Pool. He is also who you seek to update your Raid Quest and continue on it throughout.

Challenge Rewards: We have now seen all 4 Challenge Modes launched for Leviathan. For each encounter completion of Challenge Mode you get an extra Rewards Chest, this time with more Tokens (11 I think), an Emblem, 7k Glimmer, and an up to 380* Power Legendary drop. Royal Pools Emblem is called Splish Splash. The Gauntlet Emblem is called Two Enter, One Leaves. The Pleasure Gardens Emblem is called Good Dog. The Emperor Calus Emblem is called Take the Throne.

Castelium (The Entrance)

As you enter the Raid for the first time you will run up a winding staircase and find a double man cannon. Use this to skip to the Entrance of The Castelium. After winding through the hallways you will preceed out into the actual Castelium. This is a place that without using the Underbelley (a place I will describe later) you will have to return to after the completion of each encounter. The Castelium has 4 major doors, these are the doorways into the 4 major encounters locations: Royal Pools, Pleasure Gardens, The Gauntlet, and Throne. Each doorway is represented by a symbol. The Royal Pools are represented by a a large Sun symbol, and is located right as you walk in the room. The Pleasure Gardens are represented by a Beast (henceforth known as Dog), this area is located in the center of the room on the left. The Gauntlet is represented by two Axes intertwined, it is just in front of Pleasure Gardens down a flight of stairs on each side or off the ledge overlooking it. And lastly the Throne is represented by a Chalice (henceforth known as Cup, only because it's easier to quickly say), it is located on a balcony just to the left from Royal Pools and between it and Pleasure Gardens. Knowing these locations will become extremely important. Eash week the Raid will rotate which of these Encounters start the Raid, so while in Week 1, it was Royal Pools, Pleasure Gardens, and Gauntlet, it has been a different order each week. Throne will always be last. So, for this first encounter, find the Entrance that has both enemies and a Glowing symbol. This indicates it is the encounter you need to do. You will need to split into two groups, ideally 2 (Strike) and 4 (Defend).

• Defend Team - These players will stay near the door you are trying to open. Their job is simply to kill any and all ads that spawn in the area. During this fight be mindful of an enemy known as a Standard Liberator. If this enemy is allowed close enough to your Standards (the Flags with your corresponding Symbols on it), he will steal all of the Standards you have obtained so far. Be mindful as well of a prompt that appears and says a Councillor (henceforth known as Old Men, thanks GB Crew) has appeared. 1 player will need to quickly kill this Old Man (just run up and melee), because while he is alive, the Standard Liberator's will be impossible to kill with a Shield around them. After a Standard is planted, near the plate a buff will be granted called Force of Will that will grant players bonus damage. Leaving the small location will remove the buff, it isn't very important though.
• Strike Team - Figure out which Battle Standard needs to be obtained and then go to that location. In a Triangle around the plate of the door you are trying to open, there should be a spot for 3 symbols, one of which is showing, go to that location. Once there, clear all of the ads, if there are no ads, you are at the wrong location. Once most of the ads are cleared, a Standard Bearer will appear. He is tough to kill but two Guadians should make quick work of him with Power Weapons and Supers. Once he is killed, that plate should spawn the corresponding Standard which can be picked up and ran back to your entrance. Once there just slam the Standard into place by holding down your Action button (reload button). Then repeat this process until all 3 Standards are in place. This should open the entrance to the encounter you are about to face...

Suggested Loadouts

Roaming Supers are preferred. Warlocks struggling to survive may try a Devour build. This is an easy portion of the Raid though, so really anything goes. You likely want harder hitting Power Weapons like Shotguns, Fusion Rifles, and Cluster Bomb Rockets. Auto Rifles and Scouts are preferred for Primaries.

This image is pretty good at displaying where each of these doors are, they even included their Guide to the encounter on it.

Royal Pools

The Royal Pools, also known as Baths is a pretty straight forward encounter. Again there are 4 Plates, each in the 4 corners of this Arena. This encounter also has the Bath House in the center of the room. You will notice an Orb hovering over each of the 4 plates, and 1 over a plate in the center of the Bathhouse. These Orbs grant a buff called Psionic Protection. This stacks starting at 50, and for every second you stand in the purple Psionic Pools, it will count down by 1. To start the encounter you will need to divide into 2 teams, Right and Left. On each side a player will go to a Plate on either the Upper or Lower Plate. The two remaining players on both Right and Left will start in the Bathhouse. To keep from dying before jumping on the symbols, each player will stand just off of the symbols in safe spots like on the Vents next to the Plates. One of the two players in the middle will walk over and grab an Orb before the encounter starts and quickly move to the Concrete path just on the outside of the Bathhouse. The other player will signal all players to step on their plates and each player will do so until the Bathing Ritual begins.

Bathing Ritual (Phase 1)

Players in the middle will then proceed to the Upper Plates on their respective sides. Those sides will spawn a large, rather naked Cabal called a Bather. He will be tough to kill, so use Power Ammo and Grenades liberally here (especially if you have Pulse Grenades). Once the player from the middle is at the Upper plate, the player from that Plate will proceed towards the Bathhouse and obtain an Orb for a new stack of Psionic Protection. Once that is obtained he proceeds to the Lower Plate to relieve that player, then that player goes to the Bathhouse to grab a Psionic Protection Orb and relieve the Upper Plate player. This Triangle continues until all of the Chains directly in front of each Plate is all the way down. Keep in mind Bathers will continue to spawn at each Chain, and they are very dangerous. If a player dies, have the person in the middle quickly res and relieve that player, even if they just left that side, and continue the rotation. Once all Chains have gone all the way down (there is a White Tire looking thing that connects each chain, it needs to go all the way down) a horn will sound. This signals Phase 2. All players need to proceed directly to the center of the Bathhouse.

Phase 2

Once all players are in the Bathhouse, you will notice a few things here. The Center Plate will now give a buff called Force of Will. This signals that the Bells (Canisters with Purple Liquid) are damageable. There are 3 on the Upper Left, 3 on the Upper Right, and 3 on the Back. Utilize Power Ammo and Auto Rifle to destroy these Bells. Keep a mindful eye on your Psionic Protection, as when it runs out, you will all start to slowly die to the Pools again. To slow this down Warlocks should put up Healing Rifts in the Center of the Bathhouse on that Plate towards the end of the cycle, this should give players a few extra seconds. If you have multiple Warlocks, have another Warlock or two pop their Rifts as Empowering earlier in the Phase to more easily take out Bells.. While all of this is going on, Bathers will also be spawning inside the Bathhouse. Have 1 player at a time leave the Plate to use a Roaming Super against these Ads. Make sure to call out who is Supering, so that no more than 1 player is at any given time. When done return to shoot Bells and tell another player to Super. If at any time your Psionic Protection runs out, quickly leave the center area to the safe sidewalk area and kill Ads. If you do not kill all of the Bells, then at the end of this phase an Old Man will Spawn on the Plate, Melee him. Then another smaller Psion will spawn up in the air that can be shot. Go back to positions and restart Phase 1. Repeat until all Bells are destroyed and the encounter is complete.

Suggested Loadouts

Hunters should be running Arc Strider. Arc Staff is very good here and I recommend either Raiden Flux or Lucky Raspberry. If you have the Orpheus Rig Boots, running Nightstalker can also be very valuable to generate Orbs when a lot of Ads are around. Titans, get use to me saying this, Striker Earthshaker with Pulse Grenades. Atium War Rig and Alpha Lupi are both good. You need to be using this build the entire Raid. Warlocks, same thing, get comfortable as a Stormcaller on the Elements build. Arc Souls are extremely good for teams inside Rifts. Here, be using a Healing Rift though (if you have 2, have the first Warlock use an Empowering Rift to take down the Bells faster). Crown of Tempest is probably your best Exotic here, but Eye of Another World is also fine and so are the Lunafaction Boots. For weapons I would bring 450 RPM Auto Rifles (Uriels Gift, Origin Story, or Prosecutor) and the Merciless Fusion Rifle if you have it. A normal Fusion mixed with either Sweet Business or Coldheart is also good. I also personally like to run a Nameless Midnight Scout for the Explosive Rounds, but both Better Devils and True Prophecy HC's are good here as well.

Here is the link to that other Guide's Image I've been posting, though it doesn't show the Symbol locations, which are extremely important for Prestige.

Prestige Mode Changes and Strategies

Changes - Bathers were renamed to Oiled Ceremonial Bathers. Their only change appears to be that they now drop oil on death, that removes 5 Psionic Protection per second instead of 1, so don't stand in it if possible. Also, more Bathers spawn during Phase 2. If you fail to destroy all of the Bells in Phase 1, 4 players will see a Symbol on the Center Plate (Keep in mind that Sun is the Middle Plate in the Bathhouse, and the bottom Right is 2 Spear Dudebros, which honestly makes Axes diagonally a bit confusing but whatever, I will also refer to that symbol as Dudebros in my own Raids). Players must go to that Symbol in order to start the next round, so all players need to know where each Symbol is at beforehand. A Burden of Worthiness Debuff is given to all players until the next phase is started. You seem to have about 10-15s to start the next phase correctly or it will wipe the entire team.

Strategy Changes - Try to 1 Phase the Bells if possible, as the random Symbols on after a failed Phase 2 is confusing. If you don't make sure every player knows where each Symbol is and gets to their's quickly. Clearing Ads as quickly as possible is even more crucial here, as more Ads spawn in Prestige compared to Normal.

Challenge Mode

Challenge - At least 1 player must stay in the Bathhouse Pool at all times, or the Challenge Fails.

Strategy - In practice, my original strategy just took too much precision. So since the Right side players have less of an angle to view Ads, continue the rotation per normal on Right. The Mid player that normally rotates will just stand in the pool and clear Ads from the Bathhouse. Have you strongest two players on Top Left and Bottom Left. These players have the hardest job. They need to start the encounter per normal, and keep a keen eye on their Psionic Protection, once they kill 2 Bathers, or notice only 10 Psionic protection and have recently killed a Bather they need to bail and run towards the Bathhouse. They need to quickly grab a Psionic Protection Orb and get back onto their plates. Don't worry if you are this player and have to waste your Super to wipe Ads upon returning if they are overwhelming, go ahead and do so. It is possible you may return to a waiting Bather.

Note: The biggest key here is right side NOT picking up the Psionic Protection buff if either left side player comes to grab it, they are the priority, and taking it from them causes Chains to roll back too far and often causes a team wipe. It is also required to 1 phase kill all of the Bells. If you don't it is unlikely any player will have enough Psionic Protection left to stay in the pools long enough for it to return to attempt a 2nd phase. If you are having trouble 1 Phasing the bells due to DPS, try leaving 1 player, ideally the original middle player out of middle while everyone else is in middle to clear Ads, then jumping in at the last 10 seconds and standing towards the front of the room where the two bells are so that he isn't knocked off by the spawning Old Man. He will then need a re-up ASAP.

Pleasure Gardens

This is the encounter that seems to have given the most players the most trouble. So I will try my best to explain how it is done. The first thing you will do when you enter the room is clear all of the Ads. There will be dogs and Beast Handlers. Beast Handlers will frequently drop Power Ammo, so keep that in mind. Once all of the Ads are cleared you will notice several things in the room. On the opposite side of the room from which you entered is a Dome, this Dome is known as the Safe Room. The Safe Room has two doors on the bottom floor that will currently be shut, two stand on each side overlooking the room which now have Prisms sitting on them, a Giant Manhole that is covered, and 3 red dots above said Manhole. Those 3 dots indicate how many opportunities your team will have to enter the safe room. It also keeps track of those opportunities if one is used. Around the room, you will also notice 8 Stands, each with a small pink flower or two coming out of them. These are extremely important (see the image below for their locations), as they are the Spores we will discuss later. Note their locations. One is in the Tree's, Rocks, and 3 others on both the left and the right. On the image below, take note of Near Left, as I will be referencing that as L1, Mid Left as L2, and Far Left as L3. The same goes for R1, R2, and R3. There are also 6 locations where beams of Light are hitting the rocks up in the air. Before starting the encounter, realize that once the encounter starts 6 Beasts will also spawn and start roaming this room. Their patrol routes are denoted in the image below. Notice also on the image that 6/8 Spores are circled. This is to denote that once a damage phase is initiated, Beasts will return to these locations. Assign 1 player to each of these 6 locations for DPS of that Beast. Note they are L1, Trees, L3, R1, R2, and R3. To start the encounter divide into 2 groups. Prism Team (the guides) and Ground Team. Have Ground Team stand on the Manhole or near it. Then Prism Team will proceed to pick up each Prism, one on the Left, one on the Right.

Prism Team

Be very careful when the encounter starts, as Beasts will be leaving underneath the Saferoom. If you jump to a Prism Location (Beams of Light) too early, a Beast will detect you. Your goal is to, as quickly as possible identify the Spores that are active, and get into position near them. You will need to be the guide for the Ground Team to navigate around any Beasts to the Spores. Let the Ground Team know if any Beasts are pathing towards them and give them the go ahead to run to a Spore when it is safe to do so. Shoot said Spore with your Prism when all of the Ground Team is next to the Spore, and then look for a Beast Handler on the ledge on your side. One will spawn each time on each side, every time a Spore is detonated. If two Spores have been destroyed, two new Spores will appear, so after your Beast Handler is killed, quickly locate the new Spore on your side. Each time 4 Players are near a Spore when it is detonated, you will receive a buff of 12 called Empowering Spores. You will receive stacks smaller than 12 if less than the 4 players are present, so ideally, don't shoot the Spores until all 4 of the Ground Team players are present. Beasts are very hard to damage at under 36 stacks, and thereby are extremely easy to damage if you obtain the max of 60 Empowering Spores. If a stack of 60 Empowering Spores is obtained go immediately to Damage Phase.

Ground Team

When the encounter starts you will either fall down or should jump down into the lower level of the Safe Room. On the back wall you will see 4 Pollen. Each of the 4 players will need to grab a Pollen. While holding a Pollen, players will not be able to double jump, but you can Sprint. As a group, get together and listen for your Prism Team to call out which Spores are active. Head to the nearest Spore called out, or the easiest for the team to obtain (you will learn which ones are easy and which ones are hard, Note: L3 and R2 are the hardest). Proceed as a group, listening to the callouts of that sides Prism holder. Stay as close together as possible. Ideally, if one player knows where each Spore is located best, follow said player. Stay away from Beasts, as being seen by them will trigger the Damage Phase early. When told by the Prism holder, run to your Spore and wait for him to shoot it. You should see Empowering Spores x12 if you did it correctly. These stack up to 60. If you obtain 60, go directly to Damage Phase.

Damage Phase

For Damage Phase, each player will go to their own Beast that was assigned earlier. It is ideal for Prism Team to go for their sides furthest Spore's Beast, or L3 and R3 Beasts. Do as much damage as possible to your Beast. Use Grenades and Power Weapons, and Supers if you have to. You will have a pretty short period of time to damage your Beast, roughly 30 seconds. But if you are outside when that time runs out, it will kill you. To negate this, after about 15 seconds of DPS, run back towards the Safe Room and jump down the Manhole. If anyone dies outside the Safe Room, DO NOT res them until after the Safe Room reopens (they will be rekilled instantly and a res wasted). DO NOT kill your Beast until all 6 of the Beasts can be killed at once. For each Beast killed, the time to hunt is decreased. Continue to restart this process until all Beasts are able to be killed in the same Damage Phase. When this is possible, if your Beast dies, ask who needs help and then proceed to that location. If you need help, tell others your Spore location, not who you are.

Suggested Loadouts

So, since Datto just went over Weapons for you guys, I'll quickly touch on those as well for those that didn't watch. For reference, Beasts have about 460k health.

• Power Weapons: The hardest hitters here are you Cluster Rocket Launchers, both Sins of the Past and Curtain Call (219k damage per rocket, 2 of which can be fired in just 4s), but beware that Rocket Launchers are easily the most dangerous weapon to use due to self murder habits of being too close to enemies, or enemies walking up from behind. Hawthorn's Shotgun is my personal favorite of the bunch (196-215k damage in just 2.3s, the only problem is the near 6.5s reload time). Another great DPS option is Merciless Fusion Rifle (roughly 302k Damage at 60 stacks in 1 Mag in 6.5s). The It Stared Back Sword is also an ok choice (36k Damager per Swing at 1.3s per swing at 60 stacks, or 216k damage in 6.5s).
• Class Abilities: Pulse Grenades... Just throw Pulse Grenades. On Warlock, be a Stormcaller with, you guessed it, Pulse Grenades. An Empowering Rift on Elements with Arc Souls is also pretty good help for DPS. You can also Trance to help someone else's Beast if that is needed, so make sure you Landfall that Beast. Strikers... I mean Titans, or whatever, I already told you your on Striker this entire Raid right. Earthshaker is again your Double Pulse friend, and Smash ain't too bad either. Note: Be aware of Datto's advice about Rally Barricade removing your Stacks (I've never seen it, but if it happens to you call it out so your team doesn't wipe their Beasts, or they can help you). Same goes for Hunters Evade. Hunters, this is the Nightstalkers time to shine. Pull out those Voidwall Grenades and Smokes and hit your Beast with a Tether and both of those. It will put a real hurt on him.

Here is the link to that other Guide's Image I've been posting, though it isn't very correct as far as how the room is laid out so that is why I didn't post it.

Prestige Mode Changes and Strategies

Changes - There are now 8 Dogs. What this means is there are actually 2 Dogs now Patrolling the main street in front of the safe room and up and down the middle patch between Right/Left, so you need to use the Saferoom to move between sides now. See image below for new Patrol routes. This also means that there is now an extra Dog at L2 and Caves.

Strategy Changes - If you can get enough stacks to kill in 1 phase, players should be assigned to each of the Left or Right Dogs (R1-3, L1-3). Once your Dog is killed, all players should crash as quickly as possible to both Trees and Rocks Dogs, depending on which side they are on (Left Side goes to Trees, Right goes to Rocks). If you need more than 1 rotation, get your dog low, and once he is easy to kill go help with your side's extra Dog. Note: The team I was on thought it was easier to Crash on R2 rather than Caves, and had a dedicated Caves player rather than R2. You may think the same.

Challenge Mode

Challenge - No Prism Holder can shoot more than 1 Spore per Round.

Strategy - There are a couple of valid strategies here.

1. If you have good DPS, you can just have each Prism Holder get 1 Spore for a 24x stack, and then kill all Dogs.
2. If you want, you can do multiple phases with the same Prism Holders at 24x stacks.
3. Lastly, you can shoot a Spore, kill your Beast Handler and then have 1 player meet you at the saferoom and swap that Prism and Pollen. New Prism Holder gets into position safely while the new Pollen holder rushes to meet up with the Ground Team (or consequently do both Right and Left side, and swap both Prisms at the same time from the Saferoom). Then attempt to get as many stacks as possible at a max of 60x. Note: This also works if you do both Spores on each side and then do a double swap in Mid, and might even be faster. This is how Datto did it and they were able to hit 60x.

My team will probably use Strategy 2, if not now, in the future. I'm not sure we have the DPS for a 24x stack kill but we are going to try it. I know we can at 36x. As a side note, I also want us to do the swapping and attempt a 60x just for the giggles. Good luck to everyone attempting this.

The Gauntlet

Gauntlet is probably the most mechanics heavy encounter of the Raid. There are actually very few enemies here, other than yourself and your teammates. When you get to the top of the elevator you will look out on what looks to be a Japanese Game Show set (which could also kind of describe the entire Leviathan Raid honestly). Notice 4 Platforms in the air, in all 4 corners of the room. Each one has one of our symbols (Dog, Sun, Cup, Axes) on it, and directly in front of it, 3 Arrows with the same symbol above it. Notice also that both Dog and Cup have what looks like a Teleporter (because hint, that's exactly what it is) underneath their arrows. On the other side of the wall where your Arrows are, there also appears to be an American Gladiators style running track with 9 large tubes at each symbol. Notice also that each set of Tubes has that Symbol above it as well. Now that you've seen everything in the room we are ready to start The Gauntlet. To do so, have 4 players stand on each of the 4 Platforms (ideally these will be your 4 Platform Holders I will explain in a sec).

Ad Clearing (Phase 1, 2, and 3)

Split up into two teams, Runners and Platform Holdrs. Each Platform Holder will be assigned a specific Symbol (Dog, Sun, Cup, or Axes). They will be guarding those spots from Ads. Runners will be positions at one of two places, either Dog or Cup. The Runner/Platform Holder at both Dog and Cup need to work together to clear the Ads as quickly as possible on their respective sides. The easiest way to do this is to run next to the teleporter and each watch a side for Ads as they spawn from the doorways on both the right and left of the Symbols near the Guantlet track. Once Ads are cleared there turn your focus to the symbols nearest you (if you were right side of Dog look towards Sun and help clear those Ads, if left help clear Axes, etc). Platform Holder at Sun and Axes need to stay back and clear as many Ads as possible while staying safe, help will arrive shortly (or if you are a bada**, you just handle your business, ie put your strongest players at these positions). After a short period of time (plenty of time to wipe most if not all of the Ads) a Gong will sound. This is to let you know that an Imperial Centurian is inbound to each of the 4 Platform locations. He will spawn out of either of the doors on the right or left that the other Ads spawned from. Use either a Super (if it's cooled down) or Power Ammo to quickly dispatch him. If one of the solo Platform Holders is struggling players should quickly crash on that Centurian to kill him as quickly as possible. Shortly after the Centurian spawns, an Orb will spawn at both Dog and Cup. Runners designated for those positions should call out that they are picking up the Orb, and do so at the same time. While this is happening, each of the Platform Holder should jump on top of their now in air Platforms. When both Runners are teleported, this starts The Gauntlet Phase.

The Gauntlet (Phase 1, 2, and 3)

• Runners - Runners will spawn into The Gauntlet. As soon as your Plateholders as standing on their Platforms (only the one you are looking at matters, so Dog/Cup to start), you will see 1 of the 9 Circles is lit up in Red. If you noticed earlier there are only 3 Arrows on the outside, so for this instance, they only need to know which Row and what Symbol you are at. So a callout here would be Dog-Bottom (see what I did there) and Cup-Top if the bottom and top rows are what both those players see (Note: Runners also need to clarify which of them will be calling first, so that they aren't talking over each other). Once a callout is made and your Plateholders do their job, your entire grid should go Green and reveal another Orb where that Red Circle was. To further clarify, your original Orb is basically a Bomb, so collecting these new Orbs, will reset it's charge. If the players on the outside Do Not do their job correctly, or you callout incorrectly, the grid will go red, and no Orb will be present. Don't worry, you can miss one Orb, just don't miss another, or you will die a pretty explody death. Ideally, this won't happen and you will preceed on to the next symbol. Callout again the Symbol-Row. You will do this 4x on each Gauntlet run. After your 4th Grid, you will run towards a Fireworks display with an Orb. Run through said Orb and it will transport you back outside into the original room. Run back to the Elevator and hold the Action button (reload button) on top of the Elevator and the Bedpost looking Golden prongs. One will fill for each Orb delivered. The team will need to deliver 9 Orbs to finish The Gauntlet. After this is completed, you will start the next Ad Clearing Phase. After the 3rd Gauntlet Phase you will go to the Final Gauntlet. Each subsequent Gauntlet Phase will become increasingly harder due to less and less flooring to maneuver on, so keep that in mind.
• Plateform Holder - After jumping on your Plate, keep in mind what Symbol you represent. Runners will start to call out your Symbol or the one directly to your right, so keep both of these in mind (Dog has Dog/Sun, Sun has Sun/Cup, Cup has Cup/Axes, and Axes has Axes/Dog). Platform Holders will be further divided into two teams, Uppers and Lowers. Dog/Cup are your Uppers. Sun/Axes are your Lowers. Whatever the Runner calls, you will be shooting the opposite of that. So what this means is that when your Runner calls Dog-Bottom (hehe) Dog will shoot Top Arrow and Axes will shoot Middle Arrow (if say it's Dog-Top, Dog shoots Middle and Axes shoots Bottom). When a Runner passes through your Symbols Grid, an Old Man will spawn right in front of your Platform. Just simply jump off as quickly as possible, punch the Old Man, and then quickly get back to your Platform and in position on top of your Platform (Note: If you cannot make it back to your Platform do not worry, just shoot the next symbol to your right from where you are, and then quickly jump back on your Platform). If a wrong callout is made or a bad shot made, the Grid will turn red instead of Green, and a random Psion will spawn that needs to be shot at times. So look for him. If a Runner dies, another Centurian will spawn randomely at one of the 4 Symbols as well, otherwise, there should be no Ads other than the Old Men that need punching. Runners will each do 4 Rotations, which means everyone should shoot 4 Arrows. Once both runners are out of the Gauntlet, jump off of your Plate and return to positions for Ad Clearing Phase. There will be 3 Gauntlet Phases, on Phase 3 you will notice your Platform moving up and down as you stand on it. This is to try and throw off your shots, but it shouldn't, it's rather easy to shoot through, just be cautious. Once the 3rd Gauntlet Run has been completed run to the Elevator and prepare for the Final Gauntlet.

The Final Gauntlet

At the Elevator 6 Orbs will Spawn, each player will now need to grab 1. Players should divide into 2 teams, Dog and Cup. Dog Team consists of the Dog Runner, Dog Plate, and Sun Plate. Cup Team consists of the Cup Runner, Cup Plate, and Axes Plate. Once Orbs are grabbed by players, they will be teleported into the Gauntlet. Dog Team should move to the Left side of the Gauntlet, while Cup Team should move towards the Right. 4 Orbs will spawn on each Grid. This means that only 4/6 players can grab an Orb each time (keep in mind, these are Bombs and you need to reset the charges), so we need to rotate who grabs an Orb. To do this, you need to predesignate who will be skipping each time. My preferred method is to have Runners skip Orb 1, Uppers skip Orb 2, and Lowers skip Orb 3. Then on the final Orb, the fastest 4 players grab the last Orbs (Note: Another strategy is to again have Runners skip 4). As soon as Orbs are seen, players not skipping should callout which Orb they are grabbing, so other players know not to grab that Orb. Dog Team should show preference to Left sided Orbs, while Cup Team should show preference to Right sided orbs. Orbs in the Middle are first called first dibs (which is how all should work as well). Players who are skipping should announce so after Orbs are obtained, so right after picking up Orb 1, Dog Plate and Cup Plate should say "Skipping" (and so on). Once players grab or run past all 4 orbs you will again see a small fireworks Finish Line. Make sure you run through this Finish Line and pick up another Orb of the 4. If no Runners died during Phase 1-3, only 3 Players need to make it to the Elevator and Slam their Orbs. If a Runner died, all 4 players must make it to the Elevator. If more than 2 Runners died, The Gauntlet is impossible to finish, so just wipe and start over. Again, 9 Orbs must be Slammed into the Elevator to finish The Gauntlet. Once this is done, you are finished.

Note: If a player has died during the Final Gauntlet, Res that player before Slamming your Orb if you are the first player out of the Gauntlet, this will allow your team to finish if the appropriate number of players survive with an Orb.

Suggested Loadouts

For Running Warlocks I suggest the Transversive Steps. You are already the slowest Class because your movement speed is very slow which is bad for Gauntlet. These should help some. I would also suggest the Stomp EE5's for Hunters for similar reason's, though they and the Dunemarchers for Titans are far less necessary. For weapons I highly suggest a Scout Rifle, and in particular either the Nameless Midnight or the Mannannan SR4 if you are a Platform Holder (a Coldheart works as well). Any burst damage Power Weapon is good for everyone here, though I personally dig both Merciless (my preference) and Hawthrons. Literally any Super works, but Pulse Grenades make quick work of Ads at the doorways, and roaming Supers cook the Centurians. But again, there are very few Ads here, so do whatever you want.

This image is pretty good at displaying where each of these Platforms are and general room layout, they even included their Guide to the encounter on it.

Prestige Mode Changes and Strategies

Changes - Three notable changes were made. No player can Run more than once. Psionic Projections now spawn seemingly randomly throughout the room during Gauntlet Phase. And during the Final Gauntlet there are now only 3 Charges, rather than 4.

Strategy Changes - No player running twice makes the Gauntlet phase rather complicated. The easiest solution I can come up with is to have your best 2 players be Runner 1 & 2. Their jobs are going to be extremely complicated (otherwise everyone's job gets complicated). For phase 1, proceed per normal, with the only change being that if you aren't punching an Old Man from a Platform, you need to be vigilant about watching your area's (your Platform and the one to your right) Psionic Projections. For Phase 2, the first Runners will swap with the Uppers and now be the Upper Shooters on Dog/Cup Platforms. Dog/Cup Platformers will be the new Runners. For Phase 3, the original Runners will then swap with the Lowers on Axes/Sun and be the new Lower Shooters on Axes/Sun. Axes/Sun Platformers will be the new Runners. Final Phase is actually easier to understand. You once again break up into Team Sun and Team Dog. This time however, since there are only 3 Orbs, one Team at a time will grab the Orbs. Start with Team Dog grabbing Orb 1, then Cup on Orb 2, then Dog again on Orb 3, and Cup on Orb 4, and Dog again on the Final Orbs. Everyone should try to make it to the end if possible. As always, Res players who have died before Slamming if time is a concern.

Challenge Mode

Challenge - No player can stand on the same Platform Twice after the fight starts.

Strategy - This change completely changes the normal strategy for Gauntlet, but brings it more in line with how Prestige Gauntlet already works since no Runner can run twice there. To complete this, there are two easy strategies.

Strategy 1

Using our normal strategy, you can have 3 players on each side, Cup/Dog. Players 1 starts as the runner, Players 2 starts as the Dog/Cup Upper shooter, and Players 3 starts as the Axes/Sun Lower shooter. Run the Gauntlet per usual. On Gauntlet run 2, all players must rotate to a new role. Players 3 are the new Runners, Players 1 are the new Dog/Cup Uppers, and Players 2 are the new Axes/Sun Lowers. For Gauntlet run 3, all players must rotate to the last role. Players 2 are the Runners, Players 3 are the new Dog/Cup Uppers, and Players 1 are the new Axes/Sun Lowers.

Strategy 2 (The Datto Way) - This is now my preferred way of doing the encounter, it's much easier to teach players how to do it.

Since launch of Leviathan, Datto has done Gauntlet a bit differently than the rest of the community, and it might be paying off. His way of normally doing Gauntlet seems to be much easier for Challenge Mode specifically. What Datto does is have a Dog and a Cup team. Each team has a Runner, Platformer, and Psion Killer. Similar to our approach, the Platform Holder shoots Upper while the Psion killer always shoots Lower. When a Runner picks up the Orb, the Platform holder for Dog/Cup will stand on that Platform, they shoot the designated arrow per usual for Upper and then quickly proceed to the next Platform, and follow the Runner around the Gauntlet. The Psion killer shoots Lower, and then waits for the Old Man to spawn, killing him as quickly as possible, and then following the Runner as best he can. Doing it this way for Challenge Mode, you will need to rotate these 3 positions each time. Gauntlet 1, Player 1 will be Runner, Player 2 Platformer, Player 3 Psion Killer. For Gauntlet 2, Player 1 will be Platformer, Player 2 will be Psion Killer, and Player 3 will be the Runner. For Gauntlet 3, Player 1 will be Psion Killer, Player 2 will be Runner, and Player 3 will be the Platformer.

For both strategies, do Ads Phase and run The Final Gauntlet per usual.

Throne (Emperor Calus)

So you've murdered some Naked Cabal just trying to take a Bath, Bested the Beasts and their Handlers, and beat a Japanese Gameshow like the real MXC Champ you are. Now you are ready to face Emperor Calus, just please do not Punch his Old Men, he doesn't like it when you Punch his Old Men (you'll get this in a minute). Before starting the fight look around the room. This is the Throne Room. You will notice Emperor Calus is just hanging out drinking from his Goblet, he just wants to be friends. Screw all of that, shoot the Goblet out of his hands. He isn't going to be very happy. This starts the Emperor Calus fight...

Throne Room Ad Clearing

Ads will start to spawn, some Psions, some Phalanxes, some dogs, some Legionaries, and most importantly Centurians called Incenerators. These are extremely heavy hitting Majors. Divide up into two teams again, 3-3. The first team Throne Team will need to conserve their Supers for reasons explained later. The other team, Face Team, will need to burn their Supers to clear Ads. Roaming Supers are preferred for all players throughout this fight (Strikers/Arcstriders/Stormcallers). Clear the entire room of Ads, leaving none behind. Soon thereafter, 4 Old Men will Spawn, one on each of the Symbols Platforms. DO NOT PUNCH THEM. If you do, when Throne Team returns to the room, it will start with 4 Incenerator Centurians and 4 Psions. They are very hard to kill, and it makes this section of the Raid 4x harder on the Throne Team. Just don't do it, no matter what. Keep in mind Emperor Calus has an Eyebeam attack that will quickly destroy your health if you stay out in the open too long. Emperor Calus will then Clap his hands (prompting videos like this gem). This will teleport all Players into the Shadow Realm.

Shadow Realm and Skulls

• Throne Team - After being teleported, quickly run forward and jump over the short barrier and grab 1 of the 3 Orbs. This will teleport you back into the Throne Room. Coordinate beforehand which of the 3 Orbs you are going to grab so that no 2 players try and grab the same 1 (a good rule of thumb is to grab the Orb of the side you will be on in the Throne Room, explained here in a sec). Once back in the Throne Room, split into 3 positions. One on Right, one of Left, and one to float between the two. Again be mindful of Emporer Calus' Eyebeam attack at all times. Ads will start to spawn from Middle, Front Right and Front Left. Shoot them when you can if you are on Right/Left, and always if you are the floater. Keeping Ads off your Right/Left teamates is your job as the Floater. Face Team will quickly start calling out Symbols (Dog/Sun/Cup/Axes). They will only callout 3 Symbols, so you need to determine which Symbol wasn't called out. Dog/Sun are on the right, Axes/Cup are on the left. If your Symbol wasn't called the player on Right or Left must run to that Symbol's Old Man and Punch him as quickly as possible. This will happen 4 times. After each Old Man is killed, Emperor Calus will send out an Explosive Attack towards 1 of the 3 players. This is easily avoidable but you need to pay attention to it, as getting hit by it will severely damage or kill you. After the 4 Old Men are punched chain your Supers to Clear the Ads remaining in the room. Once cleared, get to cover to prevent any teammates from taking Eyebeam damage. Some teams prefer to drop a Healing Rift here in a second, but I don't, I think it's a waste of a Rift, but if a player is low on health, it can prevent a needless death. But if you wipe Ads correctly and stay to cover, it is unnecessary. Either way Calus will start to Clap his hands and the Ground will turn to Lava and slowly start burning away at your health. Calus will be given an Overshield, so your job is to take it down. While this is happening, Face Team is obtaining a Force of Will buff, you should start seeing it rise in the corner of your screen. Leave Calus's shield at low until you hit about 10-20% of your health and have at least 60 Force of Will buff (we usually try to push 80 though). Then finish taking down Calus's Overshield. This will allow Face Team to teleport back into the Throne Room for Calus DPS Phase.
• Face Team - After being teleported, wait back for just a second for your Throne Team to jump over the barrier to their Orbs. After this is done quickly get into position. Players should be in 3 positions, Left/Middle/Right. Pretty quickly after you get into position look towards the Calus Shadow Face and you should notice one of our 4 Symbols on his Forehead (Cup/Axes/Dog/Sun). From Left to Right each player must callout which of the 4 Symbols they see. The Symbol you do not callout will indicate to your Throne Team which Old Man to Punch. If done correctly a new barrier will appear. Immediately after noticing which Symbol is yours look forward for in air Councilors who can be shot. Players should shoot these diagonally (Right shoots Left, Left shoots Right). As soon as the 2^nd Symbols appear 3 ground Psions also appear. These are the priority, because while not killing the Councilors will result in a wipe (definitely make sure to kill them), these ground Psions are very dangerous because of their Psionic Wave attack which will launch you into the air and kill you. Quickly dispatch both versions of Psions while remembering to call your correct Symbol on time. There will be 4 Symbol callouts on each rotation, and on the 5^th Pull you will only need to kill the Psions. After this 5^th Pull get ready for Skulls Phase. When Calus’s Face starts spitting out Skulls, if possible have a Titan lay down a Rally Barricade (if he is wearing Alpha Lupi the health regen is a nice bonus) and a Stormcaller lay down an Empowering Rift with Arc Souls. Both of these will combine to give you a much higher stack on Skull kills as this is the determining factor in how much damage you will do to Calus in the next phase. Kill as many Skulls as possible (use Auto Rifles preferably like Sweet Business or Coldheart, or any other Auto, and use the Barricade to reload between Mags, a Pulse Grenade if extra is useful just in front of your feet as well). Once your stacks are high enough or you run out of time, Throne Team will end the phase. When this happens Orbs should appear that will teleport you back into the Throne Room.

Note: Reddit has found out that Force of Will stacks beyond 100 DO NOT add a higher damage % to Calus, as this is the upper limit. So if you hit 100, just bring your team back, there is no need to push beyond this amount of FoW stacks.

Calus DPS Phase

As the Face Team is being teleported back into the Throne Room, Throne Team should be getting into position near the Sun Platform while killing as many Dogs that have spawned as possible. Once all players have gotten into position by the Sun Platform jump onto it in unison (you will be moving Clockwise, so Sun/Dog/Axes/Cup). A Titan should use a Rally Barricade at the front of the Platform and a Stormcaller should use an Empowering Rift with Arc Souls as well (ideally players from Throne Team). All players should then use their Power Weapons to do as much DPS to Calus as possible, utilizing the Rally Barricade for ammo reload. Also make sure to throw any Grenades available as often as possible (especially Pulse Grenades). Whenever Calus raises his arm, all players should jump off of the Platform and proceed to the next Platform. On the next Platform, if there is an available Barrier and Rift, another player/players should use those here as well. Again unload any Power Ammo if you still have some and then move on to your secondary DPS weapon (like Coldheart, Sweet Business, or another Auto Rifle). Do this until all 4 Platform have been used. If Calus is death, congrats you finished the Leviathan Raid, if not, then proceed back into Ad Clearing Phase and repeat until he is dead.

Note: If and when Calus goes below 2/3’s health and goes into his Robot Phase, DO NOT move onto the next platform until he finishes because he will immediately shoot said Platform no matter how long you have been on it. Even if you are getting an Immune, stay on that Platform until he aims to shoot at it and then proceed to the next Platform.

Sugested Loadouts

Throne Team(A lot of this will look similar, but there are a few key differences, look for the *)

• Hunters: *Hunters aren't the most useful here in the Throne Room, but if you've found yourself in that position, strap on your Arc Strider, because your going to need it. In the Throne Room, Ad control is the most important skill. I highly recommend a Combat Flow build from the Warrior tree. The Dodge/Melee/Health Regen between pillars is extremely useful here. Bait Psions and smaller Ads into a Melee and Shadestep into cover. When all of the "Old Men" have been killed it's time for that old Arc Staff to shine. The two best Exotics here are either Raiden Flux or Lucky Raspberry.*
• Titans: The Striker Earthshaker tree is going to be your best friend per usual. Double Pulse grenades in near broken right now, they do far more DPS than really anything. They are as much damage as a full blast from a Sins of the Past rocket with all of it's Cluster Bombs hitting. I guess Fist of Havok isn't terrible either. *Use it after the "Old Men" have been killed to clear Ads.* Note: When using an Auto Rifle, Actium War Rig is very good. Otherwise Crest of Alpha Lupi can be pretty useful. *Use the first Rally Barricade during Calus DPS.*
• Warlocks: Stormcaller is probably the most important Class in the Calus fight. Arc Souls and Pulse Grenades. Your Stormcaller should just be on Elements all the time. Both Empowering and Healing Rift have uses throughout the Raid, but at Calus, Empowering is your friend as it will both boost your entire team's DPS by 15% plus the damage of each players Arc Soul. If you have 2 Warlocks and you are 1st Rift on DPS phase, use Eye of Another World (may also want to spec your Mods to Arc), this will allow you to get another Rift by the time you hit Pillar 4 or 2 Rifts per DPS phase allowing your team 3 Rifts with just 2 Warlocks. Same goes if you are the only Warlock. If you are Rift 2, you can use either Crown of Tempests or Lunafaction Boots. Oh, and you also have Stormtrance, one of the best Ad controlling Supers, so there is that too. *Use this after "Old Men" have died to clear Ads.* *Some players also prefer to use a Healing Rift in the Throne Room during Calus' the Ground is Lava Phase, though I don't think it is necessary.*

Face Team(A lot of this will look similar, but there are a few key differences, look for the *)

• Hunters: A hunter in the Face room has several Options. He can run Golden Gun with Nighthawk, Arcstrider for Orb Creation during the opening phase and after DPS phase, or my favorite Nightstalker for Orb creation during the opening sequence and if using Orpheus Rig (Note: Tether only adds to Calus DPS from Kinetic and Elemental Weapons, not Power Weapons, we do not know if this is a bug or not, but it is how Tether works on Calus, so I don't really recommend it, and if you do use it, wait until later in the phase when players are using their non Power Ammo to do damage). *You can also use Vortex grenades at your feet for the skulls.*
• Titans: The Striker Earthshaker tree is going to be your best friend per usual. Double Pulse grenades in near broken right now, they do far more DPS than really anything. They are as much damage as a full blast from a Sins of the Past rocket with all of it's Cluster Bombs hitting. I guess Fist of Havok isn't terrible either. *Use it during Ad Phase to create Orbs.* *Make sure to use a Rally Barricade for Skulls and any Platform at Calus DPS that doesn't already have one up. Also throw your extra Pulse just in front of you late into Skulls, as it will kill the approaching Skulls players missed.* Note: When using an Auto Rifle, Actium War Rig is very good. Otherwise Crest of Alpha Lupi can be pretty useful.
• Warlocks: Stormcaller is probably the most important Class in the Calus fight. Arc Souls and Pulse Grenades. Your Stormcaller should just be on Elements all the time. Both Empowering and Healing Rift have uses throughout the Raid, but at Calus, Empowering is your friend as it will both boost your entire team's DPS by 15% plus the damage of each players Arc Soul. *If you are on Face Team, you likely have 2 Stormcallers and are Rift 2 on Calus DPS, you can use either Crown of Tempests or Lunafaction Boots. Make sure you use a Rift at Skulls* Oh, and you also have Stormtrance, one of the best Ad controlling Supers, so there is that too. *Use this during Ad Phase to create as many Orbs as possible.*

Weapons (All of Datto's Numbers were taken at 70 stacks, but reflect what I've seen in game as well at higher stacks)

• Sniper Rifles seem to come out consistently on top of DPS charts, but they are pretty high on the difficult to use scale. Their DPS ranges from up to 373k but are generally around 298-323k due to missed Crits. I recommend the guns Show of Force and Borealis.
• Linear Fusion Rifles come in just behind Sniper Rifles and are much more friendly to use due to their lack of a Scope. Their DPS ranges from 306-340k. I recommend the Tarantula, but Man O'War is fine.
• As long as you are using Rally Barricade, Cluster Rocket Launchers are also very good, but it has a wide variance due to the way Cluster Bombs work. Your DPS range here is between 250-330k damage with an average around 275k. Make sure to aim for his dangly bits, as those tend to have a higher chance of larger damage numbers. These Rocket Launchers also have a weird upside/downside to them. On one hand, it is very easy to accidently kill yourself with them, and on the other hand, especially if you are on Throne Team, you may have a lot of Power Ammo just sitting on Platforms from Old Men kills, which translates into extra Rockets and DPS (it is frequent when using a Sins that I actually get off 12 or so Rockets per DPS Phase on Throne Team). Sins of the Past and Curtain Call are the Rocket Launchers we are talking about. No other Rocket Launchers are worth using.
• The last most frequently used Power Weapon is the Merciless Fusion Rifle. Only hitting body shots things look pretty dire for it at only 210-225k damage in 14 shots. But, as Datto found out, you can actually hit Calus for Crit Damage with Merciless and at 50% Crits you land at 315-337k damage, which is highly competitive to the other weapons on this list. So aim for his head if you plan to use Merciless.
• For secondary DPS (keep in mind all of these were with a Rally Barricade, reloads will drastically reduce this Damage, more so for guns needing to reload more often, ie typical Auto Rifles), Sweet Business takes the crown at between 500-617k damage over 3 Platforms. Keep in mind this may run you dry of ammo. Coldheart is a very close 2nd at 480-550k damage over 3 Platforms. But hold on, a typical 450 RPM Auto can actually also somewhere between 500-575k damage (increase that to up to 600k for The Number due to it's Glass Half Full type perk) on 3 Platforms. In closing, Auto Rifles are very good for your secondary DPS option at Calus.
• Combos: Sweet Business/Mannanan/Show of Force, Nameless Midnight/Coldheart/Tarantula, Origin Story/Uriel's Gift/Sins of the Past, or Ghost Primus/The Number/Merciless (and any combination of any of these weapons that makes sense and doesn't include 2 Exotics obviously).

Alternate Strategy to Calus

My personal Raid Team uses an alternate strategy for the Calus fight. Instead of 3-3, we actually run 4-2 (the 4 on Face Team). We've found that the extra person in Throne Room is rather unnecessary, and that 2 skilled players can handle Throne alone. What this does is puts a player on Right and Left in Throne Room, and creates a duplicate symbol for players in the Face Room to callout. Make sure you still callout the duplicated Symbol so the player next to you knows when it's their turn to call. After the first Symbol call each time players visit the Face Room, the Duplicate player can say he is the Dup and then be skipped, as he will always be a Duplicate. This allows players on Face Team less likelihood of being bopped off the map due to Psions, and a cushion if that does happen to a player. If a player does get bopped and only 2 Symbols are called, make sure to kill both remaining Old Men per usual. It will correct on the next Symbol set. Use a Res and you will again be 3v3. What this also allows is much higher Skull stacks (we routinely hit above 100 Skulls, and as high as 120). This is how my group has been able to 1 Phase Calus. Note: If you cannot 1 Phase Calus still, do not bring him below 1/3 health. He has a new mechanic in the Throne Room where he spawns a large Lava pool that is very hard to avoid. Just back off damage at around 35% health if you cannot kill him in that 1st phase.

We really enjoy killing Calus in 1 Phase. So try this if you are bold enough. (Note: This doesn't work on Prestige)

This image gives you a good idea of what the Throne room looks like and a couple images of the Face Room below. The Orb'd Psions in Image 2 are "Old Men". This also has their Guide... they even mispelled Calus for you, ha.

Prestige Mode Changes and Strategies

Changes - When players are teleported into the Shadow Realm there is no longer a static Face/Throne Team. The player that punches the Old Man will be suddenly teleported from Throne Team into the Shadow Realm to join Face Team, and at this same time another random player will be teleported back into Throne Room from Face Team.

Strategy Changes - Since players will suddenly be teleporting back and forth, this pretty much forces a 3-3 strategy, and 4-2 is out the window. Start Shadow Realm per usual. Now, have 1 dedicated player on the original Throne Team set as the first Symbol Puncher, kill ads if possible but just stay alive to watch for symbols. Have the number 2 puncher use their Roaming Super now. Make sure you use it early enough for it to be gone by the time the 2nd set of Symbols are called. Thone #3 needs to focus on clearing Ads as fast as possible. This player now needs to stay alive and listen for Symbols, as he is now the Puncher, as the first Puncher has joined the Face Team (look for your Symbol as soon as you teleport while also looking at your footing avoiding ramps, you also now call out Symbol last and head to middle if possible), and a new Throne Team member has joined at random. When a Face Team member is teleported, if you are still on Face Team, look at which player you are, if you are the leftmost player, move Left, same with Right. Still have the Left player call first, and the Right player call 2nd. Still shoot diagonally, and clear Psions as quick as possible, there is likely only two of you to kill Ads as the new Face Team member can only shoot as he is avoiding ramps, which is very little. Now, back out in Throne room, for Symbol 2, Puncher 2 should be ready and safe (inside an Old Man bubble if need be), and Puncher 3 should be using their Roaming Super. This process should keep going on each Symbol. The first teleported player back to Throne Room will be Puncher 4, and the last two teleported players should use their Supers (if available) to clear Ads in the Throne Room during Symbols 3 & 4. Because of the decrease in possible player count to 3, and the sporadic nature of who may or may not be on Face Team at Skulls, I would only count on getting between 70-85 Skulls and doing a 2 Phase of Calus. For this reason, if you do have enough DPS to hit more than 67% of his health in 1 Phase, just leave him at just above 1/3 health anyways and count on a 2 Phase Kill. A 1 Phase for Prestige is very difficult, and I only recommend it's attempt by the best of teams.

Note: These changes have made Calus significantly harder. So don't be discouraged. Some of the best Destiny players in the world are struggling with it, even knowing how the mechanics work.

Challenge Mode

Challenge - During Calus DPS, all 4 Plates have to be activated simultaneously. This means only 1 Plate DPS, rather than 4.

Strategy - To increase DPS, which is drastically needed, it is advised to go 4-2 to increase your Skull stacks in Face. Hopefully you can get to the cap of 100 (it doesn't stop there, but damage no longer goes up past 100, so just stop there). Have 1 player stand on each Platform and the two remaining players stand with the on Sun with the original player. If you only have 1 Warlock, make sure that player is in the group of 3 on Sun, and using an Empowering Rift (as all Warlocks here should be using). If other Warlocks are used, have them solo a Platform (ideally with Lunafaction Boots, dipping in and out of their Rift). All other Solo Platformers should be Titans with Rally Barricade if possible. Try to also have 1 Titan on Sun for the Rally Barricade. If you have Hunters, hopefully they have Celestial Nighthawk, and send them to Sun with the Empowering Rift. Your goal here is to drop as much DPS in as short of a time as possible, so drop all of your AoE nades as soon as the DPS cycle starts, you will only have about 10 seconds. Killing Calus will likely take you anywhere from 2-3 Cycles. If it is taking you more than 3 Cycles, your DPS is too low, and you will likely not finish the Challenge. You need to increase DPS, either by stacks in Face, or weapon usage on DPS. I highly recommend either Sins of the Past or Curtain Call for your Power Ammo slot for this Challenge Mode (Advanced users will also know how to manipulate Wardcliff to gain more Rocket Ammo if you have time).

Bonus: The Underbelly

This is a somewhat secret location to the Leviathan Raid. It houses both shortcuts to each encounter, secret chest locations and small encounters to unlock, and a secret code to be unlocked. That sequence is 1-5-3-2-4-6. Here is a couple quick video guides on the Underbelly Checkpoints and Key locations, and how to find the Lever Puzzle.

This image is also a great resource to understand how the Underbelly works and looks in 3D.

Awesome work, Lives. Thanks for putting this up, extremely helpful.

Now we can begin the real debate - what's the best nickname for the Bathers? I'm liking calling them Yakuza.

Awesome guide! I've completed the raid a few times, but I don't see a lot of guides / videos compile everything in one spot. Thanks for putting this together. Also, the videos are really helpful for visual learners. Datto is a well-known PvE player in the community; he also has guides on best weapons / loadouts for various portions of the raid for max DPS / survivability.

One of my clanmates calls them the chop-chops. I've also heard her call them the Ginsus.

@sravankb Oh man, Chop-Chops is pretty A tier.

We can have that fight when you write the Thrones loadout section but for my money and as a team suck guy pretty much exclusively, the best loadout for that role is dual auto rifles+linear fusion rifle. Uriel's gift is the best weapon against the psions because of high impact rounds and automatic fire. With Uriel's gift you will never get bummed off into space. Pair it with Sweet Business for skull killing and damaging Calus. Last but not least linear fusion rifles are the easiest shot to land on Calus and don't require reload abilities like rocket launchers but if you have instant reload options they can compete with the best of them. They're very versatile and friendly weapons for this specific fight.

I'm really happy this raid accommodates a lot of different loadouts for different encounters. It is high above all the other Destiny raids in that regard.

@sravankb: It's funny that you mention Datto's DPS videos, I had just updated the Pleasure Gardens section with his DPS video on that before I read this, haha. I also plan on including his Calus video for that fight, but I won't be able to do that until tomorrow. Off to Raid myself tonight.

@pyrodactyl: I don't know how I feel about Double Auto's personally, but I agree that is a viable play (and while I agree with Sweet Business's validity, after trying it myself, a loadout with it just feels weird, ie I don't like Sweet Business). Did you not read the post I made this morning over here. I definitely mentioned Linear Fusion Rifles as a viable option. Several of my guys love them on Calus.

It Stared Back does more DPS than Merciless on the Warbeasts. From your description is sounds like the other way around.

Merciless is 34K in 13 seconds. It Stared Back is 36K in less than 13 seconds. There is also the part where the sword can swing way more than Merciless can shoot. At 24 stacks, you only need a sword and a grenade to kill a Warbeast while full Merciless gets it only below half.

I will also share my loadout as consistently doing the highest damage to Calus: Sweet Business / Conspirator / Sins of the Past.

@zevvion: In my opinion It Stared Back is one of the worst (of the top most used weapons) Pleasure Gardens Power Weapons unless you are consistently getting low stacks at 36 and under. If so though, it is decent because it has good sustained DPS due to no need to reload. Merciless rips through It Stared Back in two scenarios.

1. You only need to run through 1 Magazine. DPS of Merciless is 46.5k for 6.5s vs that of ISB at only 36k. Where Merciless loses that edge is with a reload, dropping it to 34k DPS, just shy of that of ISB. A couple scenario's can happen. You likely won't need more than 1 mag of Merciless to kill a Warbeast, thus higher DPS.
2. You can also use a reload canceler like Markman Dodge or Rally Barricade (being aware that these may be glitched and could remove all of your stacks entirely). This actually drastically increases Merciless' effectiveness and increases that DPS because of how Merciless works. This can happen on any character, even Warlock due to the Lunafaction Boots and a Rift.

In my opinion, and the way I put it in the guide, for the Warbeast DPS, spiking damage is much more important than sustained damage. Which is why I personally actually prefer a Hawthrons Shotgun. It has a DPS of 85k for 2.3s. While there is no doubt that Sins of the Past and Curtain Call tower over it in DPS, it is just far too dangerous and easy to kill yourself with due to the fact that if one cluster bomb hits you, you die. With enough stacks (48+), it is very easy to drop a mag of Hawthorns, a Pulse or Voidwall Grenade (Plus my Shadowshot before all of that on Hunter) and quickly switch to Coldheart or literally any other Auto Rifle to finish your Warbeast in under 10s. That leaves you with about 10-15s to go help another player struggling to kill theirs. That is why I will recommend a Hawthorns/Auto(Coldheart) combo for Pleasure Gardens every single time with either a Stormcaller/Striker/Nightstalker. If you don't have one though (or it isn't leveled), a Sins of the Past is great, just be careful, and either a Merciless or Sword like It Stared Back will do it a pinch because they are ok for DPS.

@hestilllives19: If you are the type of person and group that consistently gets 48-60 stacks and kills the Warbeasts in one round, then you don't need Merciless for anything other than saying you did it a few seconds faster than the guy next to you. If you somehow get less than 48 stacks, It Stared Back defeats Merciless in DPS.

If you are preparing for the less optimal scenario, It Stared Back is better. Another way to look at it is if you get 48 stacks, you don't need a Power Weapon anyway. A grenade and SMG kills them quite easily. The only situation where Merciless is better than It Stared Back is the situation where you don't need it to begin with.

Edit: Also, if racing your teammates at 48-60 stacks to see who can do it the fastest is your goal, then both Sins of the Past and Hawthornes are better at that anyway.

@zevvion: If you are consistently getting stacks of 24 or less, you are doing the encounter wrong to begin with. That is the first thing you need to fix, not your Weapon selection. But that is besides the point. Say you only get a 24 stack (because with less than that you are just wasting ammo even trying to damage a Beast). You are better off not trying to 1 phase those Beasts anyways. In that regard you are better off saving some of your Power Ammo in hopes that you get a larger stack on the next run, and reloading later in the Safe Room. So I would burn a Grenade, a Mag of Power, and then my Super, which should easily put my Beast under half if not more, and then safely getting back into the Safe Room in time. Under this scenario, you will likely be using 2-4 of your Phases to kill the Beasts, and honestly for me, maintaining low health without killing my Beast is the concern rather than my sustained DPS, so I will likely ignore my Beast after this and help with others. In other words I never need more than 1 Mag of Merciless or Hawthorns, for any reason, at any stacks, it is either a waste of Ammo, or higher DPS without the reload so I just won't even attempt to reload it manually. If you don't have any other option, sure, use a Sword, but that would be my last resort, not my first.

My point about higher stack is that not all players will be as experienced as all others. At 36+ Stacks, I already killed my Beast in 5-8s while some Sword user (haha) is still hacking away at his Beast. This poor Sword user will need my help, as a player not using a Sword, to come over and finish his Beast for him with my trusty Hawthorns (that I reloaded on my way to him, or on my Hunter just Evaded and reloaded) and my extra Pulse Grenade (if I'm on my Titan), so that we do not fail the encounter.

Also, to everyone else, the guide is almost finished. I will work on Calus this afternoon, but Gauntlet is done.

To add my two cents on this, I think one-phasing the dogs with three stacks has many different solutions. I used to sword them quite a bit, now I rocket them. Merciless is viable too. I think the most important component is some kind of DoT grenade, which really helps soften them up. Once you hit them with a pulse or a vortex, you're pretty good however you choose to engage them. Just whatever you do, don't super them (with few exceptions). :)

Well I don't think this is going to get finished today. Pretty upset at the way the Giant Bomb Forums works sometimes. It's kind of my fault for not copying it somewhere else, but I just spent 2 hours finishing the Calus Guide, and it was done. When I hit save it acted like everything worked fine and then everything was gone. I just don't have the will to redo all of that right now...

@hestilllives19: You're missing the point I was making. Merciless one mag dump helps speed things up at 48 stacks. Anything lower than that, you are slower using it than a sword and at 24 stacks or lower you will have trouble killing your Warbeast. At 48 stacks however, you don't need Merciless anyway, at any point. You can use whatever and kill your Warbeast. The only benefit Merciless has is if you are self-imposing a challenge who can kill their Warbeast the fastest (at high stacks). Since that isn't necessarily to complete the encounter, I'll just take 3 additional seconds killing mine than you would yours. Why would that matter? What matters more is if the Warbeasts glitch out and spot someone for no reason at 24 stacks and you can't kill yours, or barely, while I can easily kill mine still.

Additionally, if you're trying to race who kills the fastest, you should use cluster bomb rockets anyway. I also have no idea who you are playing with that can't kill its Warbeast in time when using a sword, but they sound like terrible players. Mine would be long dead before you had a chance to even ask where mine is at.

Either way, none of this really matters because as I've said before if you have enough stacks, you don't need any particular weapon. Heck, you don't need any weapon at all. Grenades alone kill them. Which is why it's a bit silly to tell me I need to use Merciless in that case. I don't need it in that case.

Edit: By the way, it sounds like you're not getting the damage numbers. At 24 stacks you're saying it takes 2-4 rounds to kill them? It's one, I've done it. That is the point of why I'm saying this. The numbers show It Stared Back deals more DPS and it does.

@zevvion: Zev, I'm not sure why you are still arguing this. Sword do less damage within the period of time it takes both Merciless and Hawthorns to do damage when a reload is not a consideration. There is no question about that, it is a fact, no matter what stacks you are at. Swords don't do more or less damage at 24 stacks than those other weapons do. It is the same %. At 24 stacks, A sword is capable of dealing 218k damage after 10 Swings in 12.8s. Whether or not a Titan with Double Pulse Grenades can kill a Warbeast in 1 Cycle at 24 Stacks with a Sword isn't the question at all, which seems to be what you are stuck on. Is that possible, absolutely. Will every player here on the GB forums be capable of that, absolutely not, are you, absolutely. Can I kill a Warbeast at 24 stacks with either a Hawthorns or Merciless on literally any character, absolutely. Can I do it with a Sins of the Past, well, easily. But the question is will the vast majority of players be able to accomplish that same thing on a consistent basis. Absolutely not. Which is why I said I wouldn't recommend even going for a kill on a Warbeast in 1 Phase if we only had a stack of 24 (that is unless I was with my Raid Group or a mix of players I know are top tier Raiders that I can trust each one to kill their own Warbeast). The name of the game is overkill when it comes to Gardens, and at 36+, I'm pretty confident anyone can kill a Warbeast with the Weapons I suggested because they have a higher spike damage. And Swords are the least competitive Power Weapon in that market for spike damage.

I guess I don't understand the argument here. It's that in a worst case scenario for Merciless (using zero reload enhancements and running at 24 stacks) it only does 215k damage in 13.2s compared to a Swords 218k damage in 12.8s. A scenario in which neither weapon is enough damage to kill a Warbeast might I add. Keep in mind a simple Evade from a Hunter, Luna Rift from a Warlock, or a Barrier from a Titan reduces that same Merciless DPS time down to about 9s. And Hawthorns does 186-204k in 11s reduced to 4.6s using the same method. It Stared Back's only advantage is it's higher ammo capacity, ammo regen, which creates it's sustatining damaging ability for possibly longer than that time period of 12.8s if enough ammo is regenerated. It's literally the only viable Sword for this type of scenario in Destiny due to it's perks.

In the group I've been running with, I've been the only person punching councillors during the Calus fight. Having two people solely focused on adds makes it easier for everyone to stay alive. The key to doing it solo is just to keep moving at all times. Run up towards the councillors as the team calls out which symbols they see, and adjust your running as you eliminate possibilities. Then just run straight back to the back of the room (where the entrance is), staying behind pillars and cover to regain lost health, and repeat. It might take a few practice runs to get a hang of it, but I haven't died once doing this the last couple times our team took on Calus.

If a team is having issue keeping people alive in the throne room, and someone feels confident about being able to do this, it might be a strategy worth trying.

@hestilllives19: Perhaps I am not clear. My argument is this:

It Stared Back deals more DPS than Merciless does over a period longer than 6,5 seconds. This is a fact. That's basically it. You take anything over 6,5 seconds and Merciless deals less damage. If you can kill the Warbeast in 6,5 seconds, you don't need Merciless to kill it anyway. You're making it sound like you need to kill all 6 Warbeasts by yourself. You have 25 seconds to kill one Warbeast, not 6. If you're taking 6,5 seconds and I am taking 8,5 seconds, that doesn't matter. We both do it in one phase which is what matters. And it is when you need more time to kill them that the DPS starts to matter more and It Stared Back performs better there.

Guide is complete finally.

Changes for the Prestige Raid have been added. Since the Prestige Raid just came out today, and I haven't had the chance to do it myself, these strategies may change or be altered over the next couple days/weeks. If you have any suggestions for better Prestige Strategies, I'm all ears.

@hestilllives19: I didn't look at your changes, we are doing it blind.

What we did for Gauntlet was have one Super Floater. You'll want this to be people with good coordination. They will switch every single rotation to a new role. For example, they start as floater and will run the charge, next round they will be at Beast shooting bottom, round after that they will be at Axes shooting top. The others will have fixed positions except when they are running. For example, always at Axes shooting top, but will float and run once.

Then just have a fixed rotation how you're going to do that. As for the last round, you want the three fastest people to skip second and fourth gates, so they'll pick up the finish line orb (as they might pick it up accidentally anyway).

For dogs, we did one phase of damaging your own dog until it is almost dead, then the next phase is all damaging the extra dog on your side until it is almost dead (any members who failed to damage their dog the first phase for whatever reason will do that now instead), then on the third and last phase you kill your own dog, then all collapse on the extra dog on your side.

This Prestige doesn't seem very hard apart from having increased health and damage on adds. If you have people that are having some trouble dealing with that, it is considerably more challenging.

@zevvion: That's pretty funny considering what I had already wrote as a strategy for Gauntlet.

"Changes - Three notable changes were made. No player can Run more than once. Psionic Projections now spawn seemingly randomly throughout the room during Gauntlet Phase. And during the Final Gauntlet there are now only 3 Charges, rather than 4.

Strategy Changes - No player running twice makes the Gauntlet phase rather complicated. The easiest solution I can come up with is to have your best 2 players be Runner 1 & 2. Their jobs are going to be extremely complicated (otherwise everyone's job gets complicated). For phase 1, proceed per normal, with the only change being that if you aren't punching an Old Man from a Platform, you need to be vigilant about watching your area's (your Platform and the one to your right) Psionic Projections. For Phase 2, the first Runners will swap with the Uppers and now be the Upper Shooters on Dog/Cup Platforms. Dog/Cup Platformers will be the new Runners. For Phase 3, the original Runners will then swap with the Lowers on Axes/Sun and be the new Lower Shooters on Axes/Sun. Axes/Sun Platformers will be the new Runners. Final Phase is actually easier to understand. You once again break up into Team Sun and Team Dog. This time however, since there are only 3 Orbs, one Team at a time will grab the Orbs. Start with Team Dog grabbing Orb 1, then Cup on Orb 2, then Dog again on Orb 3, and Cup on Orb 4, and Dog again on the Final Orbs. Everyone should try to make it to the end if possible. As always, Res players who have died before Slamming if time is a concern."

So we basically had the exact same idea on that, just we shoot Upper/Lower backwards from each other. In practice we struggled a lot on Gauntlet last night but we only really tried it for about 20 min, without proper High Cal or Explosive Round weapons for everyone (Note: Something I beyond highly recommend for Prestige throughout the Raid). My guys were getting really stressed out about getting killed by Ads that seemed much stronger (and I think we were having a weird server connection issue, every Ad was teleporting all over the place). We started running 3-3 for Ads towards the end and that actually seems to work better (it actually spawns less Ads on the other side and you can wipe 1 Section quickly, leave 1 Player with Super to deal with the Centurian, and the other two quickly start dispatching the 2nd section and wipe it's Centurian). I may end up rewriting that section if that turns out to be better than 2 Dog/Cup and 1 Axes/Sun. We spent another 30-45 minutes just dicking around because someone would die in a stupid way during Ads Phase, and we only had about an hour and 15 minutes to work on the Prestige last night.

I don't expect Dogs to be any kind of issue at all. We never have problems there, not even Week 1, it was our easiest section. Quick question though, do you have any idea what would happen if you just purposely burned Spores by shooting them with nobody around? I was think about this yesterday. If the Dog routes make getting to a Spore difficult, wouldn't it be easier if you just burned a Spore, killed the Beast Handlers, and then moved on to an easier Spore to get to?

@hestilllives19: You can't do that because spores are dormant until a player gets close to them. Dogs are always an issue for inexperienced players because some can't deal enough DPS. I can kill my dog in one round with 24x, others can't even get it to half in that time.

Thermite Grenades are grossly OP in the Gauntlet. You can deny one of the ads that come in through the doors. Your grenade will be back up with Siegebreaker and Hallowfire Heart when they finally get through it. Meanwhile you're also constantly regenerating health due to the grenade kills. Yes, Pulse Grenades do more damage and you can have two, but the utility of Thermites makes me prefer them over Pulses except on bosses.

As for the projections, they don't randomly spawn in. On Normal if you didn't kill the Councilor in time, a projection would spawn. They spawn guaranteed on Prestige, that's the only change about them. What we did was after you shoot the arrow and the light turns green, you go to punch your Councilor as usual while your buddy kills the projection. It's pretty foolproof.

@zevvion: I've been wondering about that because that's what I though until a week ago when I destroyed one shooting at a Beast Handler. I didn't think my team was close enough to activate the Spore but maybe they were, either way they weren't close enough for us to get any stacks from it.

I prefer to just run Double Pulses. The Ads will still walk out and 2/3 waves will be entirely cleared by said Pulse and a few Uriel's shots. If you have a Pulse on each door (Right/Left) and another player helping on whichever door needs it, you can quickly dispatch the 3 waves. It also only seems to spawn 2 waves of Ads if none are killed, so there are less Ads to wipe on your second Platform area as a Team of 3. 1 Player heads back as soon as the Gong happens to Super or Heavy the first area's Legionary, and the other two wipe your 2nd area. Then proceed as usual. No idea why we were struggle bus'n with the Ads so much last night but going 3-3 really helped on Prestige.

That was not meant to mean Projections happen randomly without reason, just that their spawn-in locations are random, which appeared to be the case yesterday when I wrote this. I think people have figured out there are 3 possible spawn locations that the Psionic Projections can manifest. As far as normal mode Psionic Projections go that makes sense. I looked up several times why the Psionic Projections would spawn and nobody seemed to know. I've honestly never had one on my section ever spawn, so it makes sense that being too slow to punch the Old Man is the cause because I'm pretty vigilant about punching my Old Man and getting back to my platform.

Hell of a guide lives. Great job!

Whoof, we finished that Prestige Raid finally. That really is a lot harder than the Normal one. In fact, last week when we couldn't clear it in time, we did a run of Normal and we were disgusted at how easy it was.

Seems like we're the first ones of the Giant Bomb clans on the Discord to clear it. We had half Cerberus Wolves half Murder Birds I believe. Good community to run with.

Congrats on the clear. That's awesome!

@zevvion: Yeah, I don't know if we will clear it anytime soon. My guys are super soured on the entire thing.

Zevvion pointed something out on Discord that I apparently wasn't aware of. Raid Challenges launch today for Royal Pools. I will be keeping a close eye on that and updating the Guide to reflect the changes.

https://twitter.com/Bungie/status/925127612074147840

We finished that Baths Challenge. You get an emblem hilariously named 'Splish Splash'.

It spawns a second chest with a guaranteed drop, so you can get two drops from the encounter. Good to complete your Raid sets. Mine is already complete though outside of Prestige, but that sounds undoable for the average group anyway.

Challenge Modes for Royal Pools, The Gauntlet, and Pleasure Gardens now added and updated. Good luck to anyone attempting Pleasure Gardens this week. It will be extremely easy for many, and extremely difficult for others that don't have more than 2 players that know how to use the Prism Weapons.

@hestilllives19: Your guide has an error. Challenge mode for Pleasure Gardens is no single Prism wielder can detonate more than one spore each round.

You can just have the exact same Prism wielders for more than two flowers provided you go to the safe room after a x24 stack. A new round starts after that. It's very easy.

@zevvion: That must be a new discovery. I was looking at all of that stuff at 4am (like 11 hours ago) this morning when people were just finishing. They were saying at that time that it was only once, not once per round. I assumed they had tested exactly this and actually waited for several people on Reddit to confirm what you are saying was indeed failing the Challenge. Have you done this method yourself? They could have been wrong, it had literally only been out an hour or so at the time I saw all of this and I haven't done any of this testing personally yet. I hope this is true in a way, as I agree it makes this Challenge a cakewalk which will make it easy to do for me on PC with anyone since I still need the loot there, haha.

Edit: It looks like you were correct, at least according to Datto. I'll update it. I want to try it this way tonight with the group, though this does seem to really trivialize this Challenge.

@hestilllives19: I did do it this way, yes. I got the info from Reddit two hours after the Challenge was released.

It is the most trivial challenge by far. Competent players will have no problem killing their dog with a 24 stack. On top of that, you can just two-phase it if you have anyone that can't deal enough damage in time. Baths was probably the most annoying and Gauntlet the most fun.

@zevvion: Yeah, Baths was... we got it done I guess, in the sloppiest form I've ever seen, but we did it. I really like Gauntlet too. I think my group enjoys running the Datto method much more now anyways after doing it, it's just easier, and easier to explain to somebody new to just shoot Upper and run to the next Platform. We did it that way last night with my Bro-in-Law who had only finished the Raid once. This Pleasure Gardens Challenge is pretty trivial, it's more about you not overdoing it than anything, which seems pretty funny, I would have preferred something else, but I honestly can't think of something great for that encounter. I'm literally terrified next week's Calus is going to be something awful like punch every Psion every single time, so the Throne Room is an absolute Madhouse. I really hope that isn't it.

@hestilllives19: Calus is probably just: 'Don't have the same puncher twice in each round'.

@zevvion: I hope not, literally making Challenges its impossible not to Complete on Prestige is kinda dumb. Gauntlet already threads that needle a little too closely. Due to the automatic teleport of said Old Man Puncher in Prestige, I really don't think it's that.

@hestilllives19: Alright, let me say my actual guesses in order of I think most likely to least likely:

1. Can't pick up a teleportation orb more than once at the start and end of Shadow (meaning if you picked up the teleportation orb at the start, you can only pick up the one at the end in the second round and vice versa).

2. Whoever punches Sun, can no longer punch Sun for the rest of the fight. Same with everything else.

3. You need three unique punchers across four callouts.

4. Have to activate the plates during damage phase in a specific order. For example, have to start at the last Psion plate you punched.

5. Challenge fails if more than two people are in the Throne Room at any given time.

6. Can't damage any skulls.

7. Have to one-phase Calus. Challenge fails if you get teleported twice.

8. Can't have more than a certain amount of people on a plate during damage phase.

9. No one can die.

@zevvion: Man I kind of like love that in a bit of a Sadistic way. If you had to remember the order in which you Punched the Old Men that would be kind of awesome and terrible. Though I don't think that would work since you often punch the same Symbol multiple times in a given rotation, but if the Symbol you had to clear each time was guaranteed to be different (this would also make Throne Room a bit easier, since by Old Man 3 & 4 you'd pretty much already know which one to punch everytime rather than waiting on callouts), that would be a fantastic Challenge Mode idea. I kind of wish the Old Men worked like that now.

@zevvion: I guess the actual Calus Challenge was similar to your number 8... Considering you can't have more than 3 on any Plate since you have to activate all 4 simultaneously. Kind of a boring Challenge Mode, but seems like it makes Prestige Challenge pretty hard actually since if forces you to do 2-3 phases more or less due to 4x less time to do DPS.

@hestilllives19: As far as I understand it, the Challenge is: 'You cannot damage Calus unless all four plates have been activated'.

In which case you can actually all do damage from one plate. You activate three, all move next to the fourth and wait for Calus' first attack, then jump on the fourth together activating it without losing time. Seems to me like that should be the preferred way to do it since you can stack Arc Soul, Barricade and Rift for every single person instead of having Rift for two people here, Barricade for two there but no Rift etc.

I have yet to do the Challenge though. Maybe it is actually that one person needs to be on each plate, in which case it wouldn't be possible. I am curious.

@zevvion: Hmmm. That's interesting. That's not what I had heard early this morning, but it sounds plausible. If that indeed works, then you are correct, and burning three first and all 6 jumping on 1 Platform would be preferable. Everyone this morning thought you had to have at least 1 player on each Platform at all times. It will be interesting to see as this is tested more throughout the day. It's always interesting to see how the ins and outs of a Challenge Mode changes throughout it's day of release as people hone in on how it actually works from the point of getting it to work once.

@hestilllives19: We ended up doing it the proposed way through Reddit since we didn't have a lot of time and people didn't want to experiment. But we had people die on one plate at one point and no one was standing on it. Didn't fail the challenge, so I assume my theory should work.

@zevvion: Your theory doesn't work. I made my guys try it. Well, technically it does, but it wastes too much time. So the actual Challenge seems to be to have all 4 players activate Platforms at the same time. Everytime we had 1 player activate a Platform before others it gave us a Challenge Failed. So to do 6, all 4 Players would need to jump up and then run to the needed Platform, which would waste too much time since you only have about 10 seconds before he shoots. We did 2-2-1-1 and kept failing but only had about 40 minutes to try. We kept either getting too much or just barely not enough to 2 phase him, it was awful. But part of it was my guys not telling me a few things that we are going to change. Basically my other Warlock never had his Rift since he was using it in Face, so I would have been better off 3-1-1-1 and using my Rift with the other Group giving us all Arc Souls and Empowering. That would have been the extra tiny bit of DPS we needed to 2 phase. 3 Phasing kept screwing us due to the lava and us doing too much DPS. Our most frustrating run was our last, when we did 65% damage in Run 1 and backed off on purpose, but nobody had Power Ammo on Run 2 but me so we put him at the smallest amount of health I've ever seen before wiping. Then King ran out of time and we had to jump off for the night. It really sucks only having 90 min or so to Raid on a Weeknight. We should get it done tonight though pretty easily, just a few minor adjustments. I think going 3-1-1-1 is the way to go though, after doing it a couple different ways last night, especially if you have 4 Titans like we did.

@hestilllives19: Ah, I see. Too bad it doesn't work, but at least the challenge remains intact this way so that's cool.

We wiped a few times because we had one person who hadn't done Shadow yet but had to, so it's understandable. We got it done pretty easily after a few tries. We had two players on both front plates, one Warlock one Titan and we had two Hunters on the back plates. Rift + Soul + Barricade + Clusters + Pulse Grenades = wreck. I did over a million damage in a single phase.

I always tell people to keep doing damage and don't attempt to prevent the lava strike phase. It really, really doesn't and shouldn't matter. You can tell where he is targeting and while it covers a significant area, there isn't a single area in that room where you have to be. So just don't stand there. We have wiped so many times in the past because people insisted to not do as much damage as possible; then something goes wrong and we can't do enough damage to mop up.

I actually get upset hearing you say your group tried to prevent it. It triggers me. It doesn't matter, do max damage. Any throne room kill team should have no issue handling it. If they do, they need to get more experience with it, because it's honestly only a minor inconvenience.

@zevvion: I mean, yes and no. I can navigate around it, but it makes getting to Psions much harder because it often cuts off normal paths to said Psions, which leaves you with less time to wipe Ads across (I find Cross Shooting in Throne is much easier to control Ads as well, you generally only miss 1 or 2 Psions) and on your own side. Especially if you are running 4-2, DPS for 1/3 in a Phase shouldn't be a problem (you should be getting 80-100 Force of Will each time), since my team can do about 75% on a good run. I'd rather stop just shy of 1/3, not because of the lava itself, but because of the issue with Ads the lava creates. That is obviously unless you are trying to go for the kill, I've had many times where we just powered through or tried to, like yesterday trying to 2 phase or normally trying to 1 phase, where we just left Calus with a Bee's Dick.

As long as everyone is doing their job, and you communicate what is going on, leaving him with 1/3 health if you have to go two rounds shouldn't be a negative issue though.

@hestilllives19: I don't know what to tell you. It doesn't affect my capabilities in the throne room at all. I'd rather have him at 1% health with lava strike than at 33% health without it.