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Destiny 2 Deep Stone Crypt Raid Guide: How to beat every encounter
Destiny 2's latest Raid is now live, and it introduces all the interesting gimmicks and intense shootouts you'd expect. Here's what you need to know to master the experience and take home the loot
So, you want to take on Destiny 2: Beyond Light's raid, the Deep Stone Crypt? Good, because it’s great. You're about to embark on a spectacle and chaos-filled ride with some excellent loot for rewards.
However, there's a long way between you and that final chest. So, get your fireteam together and get to Europa. We're going raiding.
The Basics
Get ready, Deep Stone Crypt is a wild ride
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The Deep Stone Crypt is based entirely on one idea. Players will be taking up the mantle of three different roles, all with different focuses. Players can pick up colour coordinated nodes that will grant them a job in an encounter. The three roles are:
- Operator (Red) – This role 'does things'. That sounds vague, but it means that they are usually executing a specific action by shooting something.
- Scanner (Yellow) – This role 'sees things'. Their job is to call out highlighted elements that other players can't see.
- Suppressor (Blue) – This role stuns bosses. When this appears, a boss has to be stunned so other players can perform different actions.
Encounter 1 – Frostbite Sparrow Race
Ever thought you'd have a Sparrow race in a Raid?
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You're here: you and your team have arrived at the Deep Stone Crypt. Your first experience should ease you into it as it's more of a pre-encounter than anything else. First off, run into the building in front of you and kill all the enemies. After you have, a hatch will open. Follow that path and you will eventually get to a bubble with six pikes. (Note: using a Sparrow is much easier than using the Pikes for this.)
You will notice once you leave the bubble, you will get a debuff called Frostbite. If this stacks to 10, you die. So your goal here is to travel bubble-to-bubble before you succumb to the cold. Once you find a new bubble, get in and kill any enemies you see. Do this for five bubbles, kill the big robots at the end, and have your team run into the newly opened room.
If in doubt, track left and follow the threats
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As a general hint: the bubbles tend to be in your left-ish direction, so if in doubt, head that way. Also, follow any bombs (be careful) or lights you see in the blizzard. These are good indicators you are on the right path.
Encounter 2 – Crypt Security
Crypt Security is where things start getting hectic
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Okay, now you are at your first, honest-to-goodness encounter. First off, split your team into two: as you will notice there is one room that is brighter and one that is darker. Put three players on each. One is the dark team, the other is the light team. On these teams, one player will have to agree to be the scanner and one player will agree to be the operator.
To start the encounter, the operator for the light team will pick up the node from the terminal. This player will then run to their left and shoot a glowing red panel on the door. This will open it. There should be another door to your right in the small red room. This will open the doors to the basement. Don't enter just yet. If the operator is in the basement for too long the room will catch fire and kill them so wait until you get call-outs from your team.
Everyone else is upstairs killing enemies. On the dark side, an enemy with the scanner buff will spawn. Kill it and pick up the scanner. The scanner will then run around the pillars in the rooms, which have glass floors. Through them, you will be able to see panels. If any are glowing yellow, call them out to the operator (Teams may devise their own call-outs for the panel locations, but if you'd like an easy map, here is a popular one.) There will be two for the scanner to call out.
You will need to learn how to use callouts effectively
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The operator should now enter the basement and shoot the two panels that were called out. The dark team scanner will then put the scanner in the terminal and the light room scanner will pick it up. They will perform the same job, looking for two lit up panels through the glass floors. (Note: Servitors will spawn periodically. When they do, kill them immediately. You can't use the terminals while they are alive.) Make the call outs and the operator will again shoot the panels.
Once this is done a damage phase will start, with the six tubes in the middle now exposed. Hold your horses though; if you shoot the incorrect tube, you will kill your entire team. Instead, the operator will run to the downstairs terminal and send the operator buff upstairs. The other designated operator will pick it up. The scanner will then send their node down and the previous operator player will pick it up. On the pillar next to the terminal, there are six fuses. One of those should be glowing yellow. Call out which one, as it corresponds to the Light or Dark room. Once the call has been made, players upstairs need to lay into the exposed fuse. Once it is blown, another fuse downstairs will glow. Rinse and repeat.
Make sure you don't shoot the wrong fuse!
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After about a minute, the fuses will bring up their barriers again signaling the end of the damage phase. The downstairs person should send the scanner node back up, while the other operator should come down and let the basement player out. Then, you do it all again until all six middle fuses are blown.
After that congratulations! You have your first raid loot.
Encounter 3 – Atraks-1
This is where the Raid really starts to get difficult
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This encounter will likely be the one that separates the teams who will get the raid done and those who won't. This is complicated, so pay attention.
The teams will once again be split up into two teams of three. There will be a Space (you heard that right) and a Basement team. There will be one designated operator who will be in Space, and two scanners – one for each team.
To start the encounter, pick up the glowing ball towards the back of the middle room. A whole bunch of Atraks-1s will appear. Kill enemies for a few seconds, and then at the back of the room, elevators will drop down. Players going to Space, get in these and get yourself to orbit. The teams are now set up.
Going into Space is a cool and rewarding Raid gimmick
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Both will kill adds for a while until Servitors spawn. There should be one for each player, although the space Servitors generally take longer to spawn. The downstairs team should kill two Servitors and leave one alive. The upstairs team should kill all of theirs as soon as possible. While this is happening, an enemy holding a buff will spawn somewhere on the map; the operator downstairs, the scanner upstairs. Once the three Servitors upstairs are killed, the scanner has the buff and another player is holding the operator buff, kill the final Servitor. [Note: you have all the time in the world here so play calmly. Don't force this process.]
Once that is done, all of the Atraks-1s will begin to glow. Your window of time here is fairly short. The scanner will look around the room and then make a call on the boss that is glowing yellow. The three players will go to that boss, and after a small countdown, lay into the projection (continue to hit it after Atraks-1 disappears, damage counts longer than you think.) While this is going on downstairs, the player holding the operator buff should send it upstairs.
Space team, after finishing your damage, the designated operator should pick up the node at a nearby terminal. As soon as that is done, the scanner has to send their node downstairs, where the downstairs scanner will pick up. The downstairs team will again be looking for the highlighted Atraks to do damage before they wipe everyone.
Upstairs team, in the spot where the Atraks-1 once was, there should be a glowing ball. A player who is not the operator needs to pick it up, or it wipes the team. Once collected, a ticking debuff called Atraks-1 Replication will begin to count down from 40 seconds. If this ticks down to zero, this player will die. To reset the buff, the operator will have to shoot the glowing orb above the player. This will take the debuff off, where the player will then have to pick it up again to reset it. The easiest way to do this is having a designated area towards the back of the room where players come to the operator to get their debuff reset. Otherwise, the operator will be trying to shoot players running around the room. Be kind to your operator, they will save your life.
Operators: turn around and shoot the panels behind you and send all of the elevators back downstairs.
Keep on top of your comms and know your role inside out
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Downstairs team, do your damage on the identified Atraks-1, and then one of you pick up the debuff. The player who does has to then go upstairs to Space. The scanner then sends the node back up to Space via the terminal where the upstairs scanner should pick it up. Atraks-1 will start to glow again, so identify the highlighted one, and do your damage again. The player who doesn't have a buff and is not the operator now needs to pick up that orb up. The scanner then sends it downstairs once more. The two remaining downstairs then identify the correct Atraks-1 again, do damage, and then pick up the debuff. That player then goes to Space.
Operator, you are now dealing with four debuffs so be sure to be calm and orderly managing everyone's resets. Once the fourth player with the debuff gets upstairs, everyone gathers around the operator. Reset the debuffs once more and then the operator will make a call to one of the airlocks. There are four: one upstairs and downstairs on each side. The operator shoots the panel of one and all the players with Atraks-1's Replication get inside. Operator, shoot out all their buffs and have all the players run out of the airlock before it closes, jettisoning the debuffs into Space.
The two players who came up to Space then have to go back down. The upstairs scanner should make sure they have the node before doing so.
Then, rinse and repeat until you get to the last pip of Atraks-1's health. When that happens, you enter the final stand. At this point, all of the Atraks-1 replications will spawn upstairs. All players must report to Space immediately. They will all start to do the wipe attack, and the scanner will have to call out which is highlighted. There are many more Atraks-1s upstairs now though, so make sure you are hitting the right one. Follow your scanner closely here.
Continue to run from highlighted Atraks-1 to highlighted Atraks-1 until they no longer have any health. Once that's done, congratulations! You've finished one of the hardest portions in this raid.
Encounter 4 – Space Walk
Perhaps one of the coolest moments in Destiny history...
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This is one of the more unique moments in any raid ever and – honestly – players should just take in the moment. This is a jumping puzzle, where you are generally heading upwards. Enjoy the view and the music.
Encounter 5 – Taniks, Reborn
Suppressors, this encounter is riding on your focus and poise
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Suppressor, your time has come. This is the first encounter where all three roles will be in the rotation. To begin, set up your team into three twos, a primary for each of the roles and a back-up: two operators, two scanners, and two suppressors. Start the encounter by getting close to Taniks, and then kill enemies. Eventually, Fallen carrying all nodes will appear. Call out their location so the correct player is picking up the pre-agreed node.
Once everyone has their node, continue to kill enemies until you hear an alarm. When you do, the operator should see red panels light up next to stations on the walls. There is one on each far wall and one on either side of the yellow cylinder on the ceiling towards the middle of the room. The operator will then shoot a panel. Once that is done, two bombs will spawn at stations not shot.
The scanner will then have to look at the four boxes in the middle of the room. There are two on the left and two on the right, all fairly close to one another. Two should be lit up, so call those out (Common call outs are Left 1, Left 2, Right 1, Right 2.) Players who are not doing anything should run and pick up the bombs before they explode. Once they do, a radiation debuff will start to count up. If it reaches 10, the player will die. To mitigate this, other players can walk up to a carrier and just take it from them. These players are trying to deposit the bombs in the previously called boxes.
Keep an eye on your radiation levels, and bombs dropping into play
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Before they can do that though, the suppressor has to stun Taniks. To do this, the suppressor must jump between three areas around the room. These are denoted by floating balls. There is one on the right, one in the middle, and one on the left. To suppress Taniks, just tickle him with your weapon while standing under one of the balls. Taniks will be glowing blue when it is time to shoot him. Once all three are done, players will be able to deposit the bombs. Obviously, their radiation is ticking up, so be as fast as humanly possible, suppressor – everyone's counting on you.
After this, you have done a phase. Easy enough right? Well, there is one wrinkle... After the third suppression is shot, a random role will be deactivated. The player who is rendered useless will have to call it out and then run to a terminal and swap with their designated back up.
Don't get blindsided by one of your team's roles being disabled: plan ahead
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You do this process six times, as things slowly get more and more heated (literally). After a sixth time, players need to collect around the middle of the room, above the grey hatch on the floor. That will then open, and players will have to sprint to the end of the corridor. Ignore enemies; ignore everything. You're about to crash-land on Europa. Get into the final room to finally reach safety.
Well done! You're on the final boss.
Encounter 6 – Taniks, the Abomination
Here he is; the Abomination – a fusion of mechanical nightmare-fuel
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The final boss is remarkably similar to the last encounter, just over a bigger space and with a damage phase thrown in to complicate matters. Keep your three teams of two intact, two players for each role.
Before you start the encounter, situate your teams. The area where the rally banner goes is ‘Spawn’ or ‘Home’: this is where the operator will be. To your left, you will see an area with a blue light: this is where the scanners go. To the right is an area bathed in orange light: this is for the suppressors. There are two boxes to deposit bombs in each area. Decide what to call these now. Spawn left or right, Blue left or right, or Orange left or right should suffice.
To start the encounter, approach the pile of burning rubble in the middle and you will see Taniks has fused to a heavy Shank – that's a hell of a crash landing! To start, just kill enemies. Eventually, Fallen carrying the role nodes will spawn. Kill them and pick your up designated role.
Taniks will then start to move towards one of the areas. During this time, the scanner looks around the map to see which boxes are highlighted. Once Taniks is parked up, his four boosters will light up. Shoot at them until two bombs fall off. (Note: Taniks will start to do a big purple beam attack. If your screen begins to glow purple, move – you are about to be killed.)
Players who are not the operator or suppressor will pick the loose bombs up and head towards the called out boxes. Generally run as a pair, as it's likely the walk will be too far to go until your radiation reaches ten and kills you. Swap when your radiation gets to around seven, just to play it safe.
This encounter requires patience, focus, and persistence
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Suppressor, there should be three balls around Taniks that you will need to shoot to open the boxes for the bomb carriers. However, hold off on the third suppression until players are ready to dunk, as you could accidentally deactivate your operator, which can lead to a wipe.
Operator, you have to be on the ball. As players run, they will become trapped in a bubble. You need to shoot that bubble to free them. It's generally best to try and find a position where you can see both running teams so you can free them immediately. Time is of the essence.
After this is done, one role will be deactivated. If that is you, swap with your partner accordingly.
Then reset. Do the same again, try to make sure you are sweeping up enemies as they can get out of control if left unchecked. Once you've done this process again and deposited two more bombs, everyone should congregate back towards spawn. Taniks will spawn in the middle. At this point, pop any Titan bubbles you have to get the Weapons of Light buff. Eventually, Taniks will start flowing with electricity and scrap metal will begin to spin around him. Run into the ring around Taniks trying to avoid the whirl of debris around him. Once in, pop a Well of Radiance and begin laying into Taniks.
Eventually, Taniks will do a big animation and boop all players outside of his whirlwind. Run back in, again, avoiding the traffic of scrap metal and continue hitting him with everything you got until the end of the damage phase.
Congratulations to anyone that manages to quiet Taniks once and for all
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Then, do it all again.
Eventually, you will whittle down Tanik's health to the last portion. A big suggestion here is if it looks like you will hit this, try to save any damaging supers or a little bit of heavy ammo. Taniks will begin teleporting around the map and you will have to continue damaging him. Give him everything you've got left because after he teleports for the fifth time, he will wipe your team in a heartbreaking so-close-yet-so-far run.
However, if you manage it, congratulations! You've beaten the Deep Stone Crypt. Well played, Guardian. Enjoy your well-earned loot.
