Crota's End Brought Challenge Back to Destiny (For 48 Hours)

[@Toadsmoothie]

"ready for the easiest day 1 of our lives?" I regretted that one about 8 hours into bridge.

[@TeamLumix]

"Crota's End but we can only say Lament"

[@experiencemaster1743]

It took us 5 hours to realise the chalice could cross the bridge

[@marvou6811]

​@@experiencemaster1743how? 😂

[@TheWolfboy007]

I remember going into work when you just got to the bridge on stream. I get off of work that night, you were still there. Hubris, Mr. Toad. 😅

[@keithpierce5686]

This is why you don't just assume it's gonna be easy. Lightfall was the weak link and tbh you can't hit a high high on every expansion, it just doesn't work that way. But this is the comeback leading into final shape.

[@xxnijaanarchyxx6095]

i think crota was meant to be killed with swords, it just fits perfectly for him. kinda the same way how you could run 6 touch of malice's on oryx

[@christiangarizio7587]

Make touch a DPS option again 😢

[@ichigozangetsugrimmjozgqp9439]

@@christiangarizio7587it is tho

[@cyclo_17]

something my team did experiment with that I observed was using roaming super attacks to stun lock the boss, but considering the one off super meta I don't imagine too many using let alone testing that when well stacking allows them to just brute force it.

[@BALTDGuitar]

​@@cyclo_17seen a few videos already saying to use burning maul with Phoenix Cradle and switch to hammers when enraged

[@nazarus1283]

​@@christiangarizio7587it is lol

[@joshfx3756]

Great video, glad Sith's situation has improved :)

[@Hitsscan_]

what happened?

[@PG-20]

@@Hitsscan_ family issue, nothing more has been specified.

[@VergilPeterson]

I enjoyed contest mode, until I realized my challenge mode kill bugged out. If I don’t get that emblem, I’m sharding everything I’ve ever collected

[@VAwitch]

Given that a significant amount of players didn't get the triumph/emblem, I hope that y'all get it.

[@SHQCK]

Our group gave up, ran into so many bugs, swords disappearing when we pick them up, rally banner not granting super or ammo, couldn’t bank the chalice in podiums, probably our worst day 1 experience. Enjoyed the mob density and bosses though!

[@Bioshockerlol]

Glad to hear Cyth and their family is doing okay!

[@YoursadowTTV]

My favorite part of Ir Yut's encounter day one, was when i realized that stylish executioner let me wallhack the rooms for wizards and shriekers and I was running scout w gyrfalcons until i found the rooms. Very satisfying surprise.

[@allegedgaming306]

@FalloutPlays Really wanted this video

[@blair6932]

cool fact unsure if you are aware of this, but the shield singer wizards in Ir Yut actually sing when you are near the door which is another way to figure out where they are

[@VRGUILE]

My team kinda had the opposite problem when it came to team members and roles: we had a couple members who do well in mechanics, but are our weakest fighters overall. A good number of our wipes on deathsinger could be attributed to them dying to enemies leading up to damage and us wiping because they couldn't do enough damage individually in dps.

[@lchassefang]

Hope your friend and his family are doing better. Great recap as always.

[@Zargwethekingofzorpalods]

@@thecasualsperspectiveThis gives me "I said bad morning to my teacher" vibes

[@berthein5476]

Can confirm, the lack of contest mode and having to focus and be on top of everything with the chalice mechanic, really screws this raid a bunch. I ran with my day 1 team and my god we failed hard in normal mode. It was all over the place

[@HunterGunther9]

Who would've guessed...the main thing to increase the difficulty of a raid is to add some swinging pendulums for LFGs to struggle. The Architects geometry will always be our arch nemesis

[@sauceinmyface9302]

Say, why was the warpriest damage check so bad, thinking back to it? We had 4 aeons targets per phase with the wizards, along with a potential for 2 more if you finished the taken knights. I wonder if people just weren't adapting fast enough to create ammo back then? I was there for contest, and I remember it being tough, just wondering.

[@Bagel920]

As a professional Ad Clear Player I am happy they still gave me a small role. I was angry that so many people were appropriating my role in Root and putting disrespect on the good name of us Add Clearers.

[@VAwitch]

Agreed. When someone isn't a raiding main, add clearing is a clear role that's usually needed.

[@sirjared2839]

So glad they brought challenge back to this raid. Was the most fun I've had running a reprised raid, and I Iove how hard it was.

[@rinux3847]

My team was really fast at Crota in the first run, but we didnt notice 1 Mechanic, expunge to make things easier, we skipped it all the time and in the end we were stuck for 8 hours straight the next day (we still finished challenge day one) we noticed that expunge exists and we felt so dumb...

[@wangchangbackup]

I thought they really nailed it on the damage checks this time around, Ir Yut could probably have a little bit more but Crota was right on the money. Personally I've never been a huge fan of the ball-busting, mathematically precise, "If one person doesn't have full heavy in one damage phase you fail" damage checks - those always felt more like the game just telling you no. Warpriest, for instance, took my team longer than the rest of King's Fall combined; not because we were doing anything WRONG but because we just didn't have the bullets we needed to kill him. We ended up finishing him AS the wipe triggered - if that one sniper shot hadn't finished the job, we could very well still be in there. However, I also don't want encounters to feel like Planets or Nezarec where it's just like... whatever, you can dps this boss with a fusion rifle and it'll be fine.

[@VivaLaFamous]

I wasn’t really excited for this raid, I still haven’t done it yet. Probably because I’ve played it like 100+ times on D1. But I am extremely excited for The Final Shape Raid. I hope Bungie calls all out for their final & closing chapter.

[@Rhukzy]

I was away bc job and got back Sunday morning. Watched the vids on my way home and joined a random lfg and got to Crota in 11h. Managed to get final stands a few times but no kill, so never even got to challenges.

[@EnragedCucco]

You can hear the wizards singing by the doors in 3rd encounter to actually tell what rooms they are in, if you don’t want to use radar

[@Bcmatt25]

I get the point about part of the challenge being not having info in the first 24 hours (17:00 or so) but realistically there are Reddit threads with detailed guides updated *in real time* as the encounters happened. A group my friend was running with had *literally* every mechanic and challenge broken down for them to read by 9pm est on the day the raid launched.

[@life-destiny1196]

IME the reddit guides are not particularly useful; often phrased confusingly or outright incorrect until clarification comes hours later. Better than nothing though.

[@drosdraven9]

What the other guy said, the Reddit threads aren’t very helpful at all, 48 hours is much easier because by the time the next day comes there are strategies set in stone and a lot of cheeses found, (such as perma flag rhulk for an easy final stand or stunlocking crota with burning maul)

[@dirtydanchicago]

I didn't get to finish it on Contest, had things to do the second day, but I did it on normal that Sunday and it was really fun still.

[@SkyeBerryJam]

I feel like fodder enemies should basically just drop, and I don't mean like just thralls, I mean thralls, acolytes and the Sniper if the give has a unique one I forget. They should also spawn in enough numbers to overwhelm you if you're not paying enough attention to them. Something that can kill you if you play poorly, but you can take advantage of with things like skills/perks that activate on kill/rapid killing, even if your allies are also killing the ads. I realize this is hard to do with the tech they have and would probably require a lot of current players to upgrade their system and that's part of why it's not an optimal solution, but it would be amazing and make normal enemies still manageable by new players while providing a more persistent threat to veterans. Kind of think left 4 dead, enemies die easy enough outside a few special ones, but they're so numerous that you have to constantly keep on it or it becomes a problem and snowballs

[@awakenedclaymore8097]

I really enjoy these videos and watching Datto and his team clear great video💪

[@Byronze]

Crazy how different but similar it felt. This is the best reprisal in my opinion.

[@EirTheGhost]

I legit can't fathom how people can't get through thrawl room. It's literally the easiest encounter out of the whole raid. But because it's so easy and people want to speed up a 10 minute encounter that literally tests you patience and coordination to move together as a team, people die, shit gets worse, then the team ends up wiping.

[@WK-gx2zs]

Datto. We all struggle walking down the path; the path of life.

[@seanslaysean7097]

I’m with regular Datto this time, I think overtime the contest mode has become an experience over an “elite club”. I like the idea of the community coming together for two days to just enjoy the chaos of a new raid

[@Maewtwo]

Spent 2 hours on lamps with an lfg group because they wouldn’t just do it normally, they kept wanting to skip lamps, which you can do no problem but they did not have the skills to do so. Joined another lfg and we blazed thru the rest of the raid and I loved it. No contest mode for me but I enjoyed my experience all the same.

[@deltapb]

this was my first ever challenge/contest mode emblem 🙏 beat most of normal with friends and LFG'd for normal crota and challenge mode, definately harder than other raids i've tried but i got some good lfg teammates and we did challenge mode in 3 hours. feels good

[@fast-jake3030]

The reason why most LFG teams fail at abyss is because of the ludicrous hit boxes on the pendulum’s Especially the very last lantern

[@SirShadeyy]

I never would have thought Crota would be so challenging, ever.

[@tuoritto]

I did really enjoy the remaster. I completely despised Ir Yut though for the absurd lack of room for mistakes (on day 1 anyway). If someone with E lightened dieded, that's pretty much gg. Or even someone holdong the chalice. Or you held the chalice for too long. Or you took it too early that once. You need to build a lot of momentum and it gets ruined within moments, which I didn't find very fun. Also, how are we supposed to tell which room has what on Master mode, since they usually disable the radars for that..? You can't always what's inside at all...

[@connormcateer7125]

24:50 that’s so true, the thing with the don’t wanna do anything players. My clan meant to day 1 attempt but 3 people just couldn’t make it. So we LFG’d 3. All 3 were people who didn’t wanna talk and 1 even said at the very first encounter “I’ll take add clear.” One even had the balls to be the reason for the wipes and then leave after we didn’t get the clear. I know for a fact these people wanted an easy root of nightmares style day 1 carry without having to hold their own. And it’s frankly annoying what RoN has done to the community in making people lazier. Why even play if you don’t want to quite literally play the game?

[@generalSarbina]

Yeah, Abyss is definitely proving to be a problem for some players. If you have a player who just always takes forever to complete the jumping puzzles of any raid, you are NOT getting to the bridge encounter.

[@rainman4905]

Loved the raid. I hope the final shape raid is just as hard if not harder!

[@meliodasD2]

You got what you wanted hope ur happy

[@rainman4905]

@@meliodasD2 i was, salvation's edge was great!

[@thealonedrifter8502]

Everything felt pretty good and pretty fun to do after wipes while Crotas sword mech made things grind to a halt. Needing 4 wells and heal nades and still be at the mercy of rng just did not feel good after hour 3

[@MrGenovation]

19:00 This is the second channel today to refer to the current year as "2022." Unless I'm being gaslit, the current year is 2023. Please tell me I'm not being gaslit.

[@TheBoyInTheBush]

Imagine if they added Alakul in the lanterns. Like he just appears at a random lantern and just fades away

[@perlatapatia4334]

I went all the way to crota blind (took us like 30 hours and 2 lfgs). We got stuck at crota (so we gave un and watched videos), but it was the most fun I have had in a while.

[@DarkSoulsReject]

I have had moments where my team got stuck on the abyss in normal mode ngl. And while I did have my complaints about the chalice being involved in every encounter I've gotten used to it so it's not really a big deal to me anymore.

[@birdman206]

I personally do well in day 1 raid scenarios. But I’m always stuck in the LFG teams with people who either can’t just stay alive or learn to listen.

[@ItsYent]

I wonder did anybody pull their Ethernet cord out at the perfect time

[@jpfunions]

As someone who is in between the casual and higher tier experience i feel that 48 is good spot for all. However bungie needs to include rewards for the 24 hour windows. An animated version of the content emblem would be perfect. Maybe giving the raid exotic guarantee in 24 and a still high but reduced percentage on 48 like if one person on the team gets it everyone does but if no one then sorry try again

[@ryanstudham640]

I wish D2 had a better process for onboarding players into raids. I would love to try a contest mode but I don't have a clue what damage strategies other than "I got gjally" look like, let alone what situations benefit them.

[@RotatingBuffalo]

A different D2 youtuber named Aegis recently made a pretty comprehensive series about DPS strategies and general theory leading up to the raid race. It's admittedly very long, but if you want to learn damage strategies inside and out, I can't think of a better way.

[@babatunde9992]

​@@RotatingBuffaloexperience is better than watching a video, lots of these accounts be posting the most meta shit and say nothing else works, the bequest sword isn't the only way to one phase crota!

[@life-destiny1196]

@@babatunde9992 someone has never watched an aegis video and it shows. in fact he specifically recommends a DPS strategy in the Crota prep video that is meant to sacrifice some DPS for ease of execution.

[@ecrespo2000]

Crota contest was by far the worst lfg experience I’ve ever had. I was stuck on bridge for 8 hours before giving up.

[@Jaspicygaming]

The first encounter showed how ppl dont pay attention and cant ad clear to save their lives. I had to 4 man the 1st encounter

[@benjaminaltube8731]

In the end of the video elitist datto kinda escaped the mind prison there Love to see it

[@dogsbreakfast4952]

Man contest mode is NO joke !!!!! Raid is so much easier now

[@ThatFalloutGod]

>Crota was a fun raid in D1, so I was happy to get it back here. >Rewards are good, but the hand cannon is a fucking disappointment being a 180 instead of a 140. Fuck Bungie for that one. >The reworks were all great for Contest, but the Chalice just makes the first half of the raid a goddamn drag. We get it, Chalice and shit, but just let us blitz through the hallway and bridge encounters if we're good enough. >World's First races should be on Saturday. Bungie has no excuses about working on Saturday, they're a multi-billion dollar company crying about having to either move some schedules and/or compensate some employees for two days a year. Put it on Saturday and make it 24 hours. >People who cry about "difficulty" are correct in that there's not enough to do that's difficult. Bungie should add things into the game with worthwhile rewards (especially cosmetics) for top-tier shit. But when you have people like Salt constantly crying and talking out his ass about wanting to ruin the game to make it something it literally never was and was never meant to be, that's when people should, rightfully, get pissed and bash them for their shit takes. >"pOwEr CrEeP" still doesn't exist in (PvE) Destiny outside of a handful of instances in almost a decade, but people conflate something being good among a litany of shit, and parrot people on KZbin, so here we are. Contest Mode proves even further that the issue isn't with what the players can do with the tools we're given, but with the fact that Bungie refuses to create high-tier shit for sweats to do. Grandmasters were supposed to fill that void, but now we've done them for years and they're easy due to that knowledge and experience.

[@takensteak4485]

The lfg experience for crota is definitely a struggle bus depending on who u get in your group, anyone competant and u can easily get a sub 40 clear but with incompetent teammates itll take easily 2+ hours

[@clintonchico9547]

I finished crota on day 1 in d1. I remember getting hung up on the boomers in the towers at first.

[@CD23_06]

Honestly the whole “bad taste for hardcore raiders” bit can f*** off. Crota was a great raid and frankly if it’s “too easy” then you can always add artificial difficulty by restricting your loadout but it’s impossible to go the other way. Let people have their fun, do your thing and add restrictions if you want. Hell ask Bungie to add a master+ mode with extra level restrictions or the challenges (challenge mode) if you really care. But let’s not gatekeep raiding for everyone else.

[@Tom-rc2rl]

Sorry to hear about the family emergency your team mate is going or went through. Not going to pry, just hope it is settled

[@kingbenjamin8197]

My take on the 48 hours vs 24 is kinda just "eh same people clear it no matter what imo" we cleared Crota once in the 24 I went out to dinner teammates went to sleep we played again the next day and got the challenge done. If you made it 24 again all that happens is teams like ours don't dip out and have a social life/normal sleep schedule that weekend we just clear it and hop straight back in and play the average like 12-16 hours of runs into one sitting. I really don't think the extra day is meaning much tbh I think the people able to clear it are clearing and the people who aren't good enough aren't suddenly doing way better dmg or surviving better based off the extra day of play time/the guides being out there are guides posted the moment the leaders in the race beat an encounter if guides are all that mattered 24 would be just as easy as 48.

[@iamotaru]

God bless your friend and his family

[@wjt764]

Datto saying that ‘the win that matters is only in 24hrs because that’s when you have the least info possible’ is unfortunate given that almost always the teams that win are the ones that have several people online ‘scouting’ everyone else on twitch to help figure out the mechanics as fast as possible.

[@daninjadasinful1139]

Why dont Bungie make contest mode act like Trials taking away super and energy when swapping exotics.

[@212thBeehiveMan]

Byf made me into a warlock

[@malcolmhushbeck9678]

Crota hit puberty

[@lordbuntcake]

Players: try to pull the ethernet cord again Crota: *oh I don't think so*

[@_banandio_9488]

I can’t believe the annoying kid from dares got his own raid

[@Mental_Warlock]

​@@_banandio_9488twice

[@knoxx5553]

Crota hit me

[@TostEZ28]

for 48 hours

[@Geechi_]

I do think Bungie 100% intended Crota to be killed w/ swords. Not sure if they tested other options or if successful teams did something other than swords on day one but it matches the theme and spirit of D1 so well. The title is called “Swordbearer” & they did a sort of sword rework this season.

[@Tomahulk]

Pretty sure there's a 15% buff to swords against crota. I don't know if that's been confirmed though

[@rustyshackleford67346]

i always think of drifter saying “hive!”, bring a sword

[@deltavalley4020]

my team used acrius for all the bosses and that worked well

[@Tomahulk]

Yeah everyone on our team that had acrius used it for crota, those without it ran with lament

[@AshiroFlo]

I think they intended for banner of war to play a main part but didnt see the bug with it so we had to result to wells again

[@ultima8229]

I would love the [REDACTED] Final Shape race to be like Last Wish and just obliterate even the most experienced teams. I'll never forget waking up the morning after the LW started and realizing that everyone was STILL stuck on Riven and Queenswalk.

[@TheFonz8]

I agree but they’ll never do it

[@Lachlan_McDougall]

It’s also REALLY hard to hit that balance. To hit a balance where only a couple teams are capable of completing it but no one else. 1% harder and No one finishes it, 1% easier and 100,000 people finish it.

[@charlie-vw7zw]

Salt will still get 1st lmao

[@Captain_Yata]

@@charlie-vw7zw And THAT is why I don't wan't that

[@burstpanther6352]

Last Wish was only really like that because of the power level changes, people have to character delete farm in order to even compete. That's just not that way it should work.

[@flaemflyer]

Surprisingly, I used Xbox LFG to get 1 more person at Crota for my first run, and got one the most GOATed raiders I’ve ever seen on LFG. We ended up beating Crota, and then beating challenge mode in a bit over 5 hours

[@SpaceElvisInc]

Happy for you, 90% of my lfg pulls for the entire 48 hour couldn't pass the chalice or just died before damage phase

[@DarthDookieMan]

If this was within the last few hours of the 48 hour contest window, you may have encountered me falling asleep at the keyboard while having chalice due to being up for 28 hours…. sorry.

[@GoatedAtNFS]

@@DarthDookieManyou should order some of that caffeine noodles from japan LOL

[@Spartan-sz7km]

2 years ago I was picked up by an lfg to help clear rhulk, did it first try For crota's end this same group called upon me to help, feelsgood

[@Gtxgoldennugget]

@@Spartan-sz7kmthat gangster feeling when the bro’s need you

[@matthewwynn1074]

I can kind of understand where uncoordinated LFGs struggle in the maze. If people aren't used to raiding, they get overlapping or confusing comms. I've seen more than 5 times at this point, "I thought someone said take!"

[@Fire4ward]

What usually happens is someone says “take it” and no one says “I took it” so it ends up getting passed around twice instead of once. Also people fall in the holes quite a bit and/or get hit by the lanterns WITH chalice.

[@voltus20]

​​@@Fire4wardthis is it. The first couple of tries with an lfg this is exactly what happened. As soon as we focused up and put out numbers and callouts for each person, so number 1 grabs chalice, calls out for number 2 when ready, number 2 takes it from them, calls out for number 3 when ready, number 3 takes it from number 2, so on and so forth, the encounter became just a matter of looking out for pendulums and pot holes. That strategy also inadvertedly gave us the challenge triumph for Ir Yut, since we always had a rotation for the chalice that went through every player before repeating since the beginning lol.

[@sauceinmyface9302]

As a sherpa, I just set up a 1-6 rotation to keep people accountable and organized, even if it can be done with 3 people I think.

[@michealtorres8773]

I also noticed people moving ahead faster than the rest of the team leaving people behind to kill thrall at 10xs darkness and wonder why they wipe so much 😂

[@sauceinmyface9302]

@@michealtorres8773 Yeah, people move at different speeds between amplified, grapples, eager edge, regular swords, how much darkness they had when they left. It strings the team out and results in chaos.

[@riskrunner4532]

Its crazy that they were able to turn a Strike mission into an actual raid!

[@babatunde9992]

It's crazy how its not crota anymore. Just like lake of shadows and all these other things with the same name but a whole different experience

[@Thatfpsguy]

It's still meh tho, the raid is still a joke

[@GoatedAtNFS]

it’s still a strike, especially with all the buffs in D2

[@Spartan-sz7km]

​@@Thatfpsguyraids are all jokes after contest mode is over

[@LearnedSophistry]

@@Thatfpsguythat’s all raids after contest is off, hardest part probably being getting a team together to play

[@ajbolt7]

Crota DPS without well stack was one of the biggest challenges for my team on day 1 and I love how much theorizing we needed to do to solve the problem. We only had 2 wells and normally Crota easily destroyed both very early into damage phase. However, we realized the Burning Maul could keep Crota staggered for its duration which made our first well last MUCH longer. With that, our 2nd well was generally enough to keep us alive for the final parts of damage. HOWEVER when we realized that you literally can’t stagger Crota on final stand, things seemed completely screwed. We tried Phoenix Cradle to spread restoration around when our wells ran out but it wasn’t enough to survive. Tried Boots of the Assembler but too sporadic and not strong enough heals. Then we realized that Sunspots with Phoenix Cradle, while they only give Restoration x1, can actually REFRESH Restoration x2 if you have it. And Resto x2 was enough to survive Crota’s repeated slams. So adding a warlock’s enhanced healing Grenade and then keeping resto x2 up via sunspots throughout final stand ended up being the last piece of the puzzle that we needed to take down Crota. The sheer volume of strategy we needed all throughout the encounter was great but the puzzle that was DPS without well stacking was absolutely the most satisfying to solve. Took us 25 hours & 41 minutes to clear Crota’s End. It took me some serious effort to convince my teammates not to look up additional info, but we maintained our individual experience. That’s what matters to me, running the raid blind and solving it yourself. 48 hours allows for some people to go and just follow guides, which is unfortunate, but I’m glad it at least allowed my team to continue the blind run experience of Day 1.

[@AtheK10]

Stag rifts saved my team because we only had 2 wells too. Just had to space out the heal nades a bit.

[@collinpeters2874]

I completely agree. I understand where the higher level players are with only wanting a 24 hour contest, but 48 hours gives other people a chance to continue running the raid blind. I love day ones for the puzzle solving and hardships. It's what makes them rewarding even if u don't manage to complete the raid. It still takes some high level players to get the job done, so I appreciate the added time to contest.

[@lordwhippleton9734]

Relatable we had only 1 well XD

[@LOVEMUFFIN_official]

This was my first Day 1 Raid. I am only mediocre at the game, so relegated myself to watching from the sidelines, but I was able to coach my friends through the new encounters in Twitch chat. After Gatekeepers encounter though, they invited me to join them in the actual raid call as a coach, and then when we were getting into wee hours of the night, I was actually invited to cover a tap-out and actually got to play! We weren’t ever able to clear Contest Crota and progress to Challenge Mode, but it was one of my favorite D2 experiences and I am looking forward to attempting Final Shape’s raid experience in whatever way I can.

[@scottylikeamelody]

You have a lot of time to improve and hopefully compete

[@rossbrown608]

Crota takes +35% damage to swords, so yes Bungie 100% tailored Crota’s optimal dps strategy to swords intentionally!

[@mateominiati5256]

Regarding the 24-48hour debate. I feel like 48h is the sweetspot. It allows people on different timezones or with other responsibilities to still get a shot at completing the raid in contest mode, People in the UK are getting the raid start at 6pm, which is pretty late, and would mean for them to stay up through the night and into the next day, even worse for people farther east. My team took about 18 hours to get both of our clears. 8 during friday, and 10 during Saturday and was comprised of people from various different timezones. Didn't look at any guides or streams through most of it, our only peek was at bridge encounter, to figure out how to get our 6th person across. For me, 1st day one clear, outside of the joke that was RoN, so I am very glad I got to experience this with my friends

[@Z-ro-gs8hz]

I 100% agree with the whole shift that this has made especially after the difference between this and Root of Nightmares. As my team had half HALF of the team thinking it was gonna be easy and I was there going "Guys, it's contest mode. This is GOING to kick our asses whether you wanted it or not.". Half the team rage quitted from the first encounter, we got a new 3 and it took us 2 tries because of the buff timer and getting accustomed to the chaos of the pendulums taking people by surprised. And for those 5 it was their first contest mode try at a contest mode. It was a lot of fun and hilarious getting hit by the pendulums and people falling into the pits. All in all, great fun and looking forward to the contest mode and giving it a try and trying for a contest mode completion.

[@Spartan-sz7km]

Honestly I feel so vindicated lol. I was telling ppl that root of nightmares was easy, almost a handout to boost people's interest in day one raiding for final shape. But crotas coming in clapping people. 1.2% success for challenge is kinda insane

[@CreationsVibration]

And all it took was adding hot potato

[@Spartan-sz7km]

For the 48hr/24hr stuff, I really don't care for how many people get the emblem. For those that actually care about the differentiation, raid report already does that. I'd rather take the 48 hours and have more people experience contest mode raiding than 24hrs just to feel more special

[@Atlas_Enderium]

What I enjoyed the most about this contest raid experience was that my team figured out (on our own, without looking anything up) that Renewal Grasps were a Godsend for the Crota encounter. We kept running into the issue of Crota breaking Wells and killing us in final stand, but one of our teammates, a hunter main, said why don’t we try to forgo using tether and instead use Renewal Grasp duskfield grenades for the super long and large AOE 75% DR, especially since we already had Tractor Cannon for debuffing. Turns out, that DR also applied to the wells. We got our Crota kill only a few wipes after making the switch to it and when we got back to Crota in challenge mode, we only had one wipe before getting the clear since we already used a challenge strategy to break Crota’s shield.

[@cowsaysmoo51]

I really liked being the "scout" for Ir Yût on my team. I wish it didn't require Wish Ender to actually SEE what is in the rooms, but I enjoyed the almost peaceful non-combative role of checking rooms and making the callouts.

[@Thatfpsguy]

You don't need wish ender tho, you can just use your mini map

[@smittywerbenjagermanjensen5152]

@@Thatfpsguyeven then you barley have to use that. Only the 3/4 (right-hand) tower you NEED to use your mini map. Every other wizard can be seen clear as day

[@cowsaysmoo51]

@@Thatfpsguy I meant using Wish Ender to physically SEE what is in the room, rather than using radar. I wish you could lay eyes on the shrieker/wizard without Wish Ender. Also I knew about the radar thing before I went into my first run but I completely forgot about it when we got to that encounter (thanks to a couple beers)

[@Thatfpsguy]

I would rather not waste the exotic slot tho tbh, sleeper, thunderlord can both 1 phase with ease, I think wasting the exotic slot just to do somthing I can do without it is kinda pointless

[@sourakotsos]

​@Thatfpsguy I usually use wishender to check where they are, just because sometimes the mini map does not show me a shrieker in the room. Then, just switch back to Leviathan's breath and pick the heavy bricks.

[@TerryBogurt]

I get the wanting it to be 24 hours it makes the whole experience more face paced more frantic as you just have to adapt with little information but it's brought up here too you have to still execute it properly still all the information be damned you still have to be good to actually complete which is why I don't believe 48 is that big of a deal compared to most

[@BlinkLegendz]

finally my opinion has arrived

[@kilianbalter]

Not sure what you're talking about in the Damage Check section. Ir Yut and Crota were both 2 phase-able, and Crota Final Stand wasn't a damage check at all, really just a survivability check. We spent hours on Crota 5+ Final Stand wipes, came back with 1 more Well and beat it in 3 runs, 1st try on Final.

[@domnom4]

Our opinion has arrived

[@fettuccine9896]

Lfg groups be like “hitting all the lamps is so tedious we should just use the chalice deposits to extend our time and keep moving” then wipe 7 times in a row when we could’ve been done if we just did it normally.

[@McDan1el]

One thing to consider with 24/48 hour splits - is time zones. For me we start at 6pm not 10am like in US and that has a huge difference. I know our team had things going on the Saturday so we did our first clear on Friday night, then regrouped for Challenge on Saturday night. We could have done it

[@lopsidedfisherman8733]

Watching this raid race live with your team was so fun because I was expecting it to be a competitive Speedrun, and it ended up being a massive slog fest and was very fun

[@Achroon1]

Fallout is creaming over this vid rn.

[@CarlSmith-id8wj]

Another note on 48 hours being the new norm for contest, I think Bungie also wants to encourage people to not destroy their body by going for an insane amount of consecutive hours. I'm not gonna argue with anyone on whether or not the "prestige" of a sub-24 hour clear is more or less valuable than one's physical/mental health. I just think Bungie wants to let people experience contest mode without torturing themselves and going an entire day without eating or sleeping.

[@memeaids4766]

honestly the people complaining about this raid's difficulty are the same people that eager edged into the pendulums in Abyss. This was a breath of fresh air for Destiny. Hope this is kept up in final shape.

[@Kabob24s]

I think that the issue teams were having with abyss simply came down to impatience. It was so easy to get frustrated after failing a 10 minute encounter and it was so punishing if a player died. Half the time they’re rez would be way behind us and we would have to stop and send someone back to go rez them. Many time this led to even more deaths as people were rushing to juggle the chalice and catch back up to the group. On top of this because the final plate to so long to finish it was IMPOSSIBLE to clear the encounter unless everyone was up when you got there.

[@soraneptune4178]

3rd day 1 raid now where I repeat the following sentiment : "toggle able contest mode please" Contest mode is a much better "hard endgame experience" than master mode, would much rather have toggle able contest than have master mode.

[@bowiebazinga2019]

My group made it to Crota and we just couldn't get past him. The RNG part of the fight of whether he destroys a well or not, and sometimes his invulnerable shield wouldn't break, even with 3 swords and a tractor cannon. It was rough and it left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I can objectively say it is a good raid

[@sirberg4599]

I think 48 Hours of contest mode evens the playing field between America and the other timezones a bit. I am living in Germany and 24 hours was always a struggle, as the daily reset is at 7pm here. We did loose a few day one raids due to just being sleep deprived. But with 48 hours my team and I can play until 1 am, then go to sleep for a bit and then come back and finish the raid the next day. Love the commentary and thoughts by the way

[@fransonferguson2979]

They can just give a 24 emblem and a 48 hour emblem ........how hard is this ..now elites can feel better

[@pearson674]

people complaining about chalice mechanics because they finally have to do something in a Day 1 experience was so funny. My team didn't even get to attempt Challenge because we took 13 hours to get to Deathsinger and then took a 11 hour break before coming back and finishing her pretty quickly, but then taking another 10+ hours to beat Crota(I had a full team of friends until we took a break then had 3 LFG randoms that actually pulled their weight)... I personally LOVED the difficulty and I really hope that The Final Shape raid is EVEN HARDER

[@RyuArubireo]

People will forever joke about you getting 2nd multiple times, or stomp on you for being 100+th in raid races, but you being the amazing content creator that you are, a great player and someone so understanding of people's struggles, I do not care if you are second, third or nowhere near the podium: You're Datto, one of the few reasons I kept on playing this game early on, and just this gives you the right to stand proud, cuz I know I ain't the only one thinking that.

[@EccentricWilly]

I haven't seen an example of simping to this degree in a while lol

[@RyuArubireo]

@@EccentricWilly thanks, but that's called "showing support".

[@TheRealCake]

NPC simpin

[@Herb..StateOfGeorgiaOwnsFSU]

Cringe 😂

[@rogoth01themasterwizard11]

i did the raid after contest was over, mainly due to health reasons (herniated disc in my back last week and I couldn't sit down for longer than 20 minutes before being in agony and having to constantly keep things moving to prevent seizing up), and if I ignore the whole damage output being higher than contest, or damage taken etc, from a mechanics perspective, I found it extremely easy, I did it as part of a LFG group where there were only 2 people in the group with any real raid experience (myself and the group leader) the rest of the people there were either pvp mains (forever guardian rank 6 bro), a new player who had never set foot in a raid before and a couple of guys who were there after coming back to the game last season and wanting to get that nostalgia boner tugged on by bungie, overall it took a decently long time for a normal mode clear but not too long as to be problematic, and everyone was able to execute things properly, also, on the wizard boss encounter, I was the one tasked with the callouts for the wizard locations and honestly, having to interact with the radar was fun, not overly problematic and for the most part 100% accurate. as a side note, i wish 'contest mode' for raids was done on a global scale, and not based exclusively on the moronic west coast USA model, because as it stands the only place i was able to get a day 1 clear finished in time was Root of Nightmares, i have come close on about 6 different occasions in the past (crown of sorrow i missed out on because of the moronic timezone change over so by the time i killed galrahn it was technically outside of the contest timer so it didn't count as a kill for the emblem), and you have no idea how frustrating it is to come home from work, deal with family stuff and life stuff in general, get some sleep after a hard day, and wake up the next day to find you only have 16 hours for your contest mode and not actually 24 hours because of the moronic timezone shit.

[@brandonhawkinson9209]

IMO: Honestly after all the dust has cleared and the honeymoon phase for the raid is over, i think this raid was done somewhat poorly and somewhat lazily. The gimmick ( chalice) they based the whole raid around is the hardest part and very annoying on top of just spamming as many enemies the game can fit is just.. meh. Its easily the worst of the reprised raids, ir yut and Crota arent that bad and actually have mechanics, but that first half really brings the entire raid down.

[@Real28]

Crota after contest mode is basically a dungeon. On par with Ghosts of the Deep. Contest mode, completely the opposite Also, there are mega threads on Reddit basically relaying the strats of the top teams LIVE. My teams have always gone in blind, whether it be day 1 or 2. That's the fun of it. I don't think Root made people soft. But the Abyss is ruining a certain kind of player. I also think some of the chalice deposit spots are poorly designed, as they can't be seen if it's on or not but only from a specific angle. When they all have the little lights around the rim and then 2 of them those lights are buried under the map or smashed against a rock face, you end up going "wtf where did we miss it?!" And then next time "stumbling" on it feels bad. That's poor design to me when the first 3 were all relatively clear once you found it. 2 of them can spawn in places where you memorize it, or just happen to walk over it. That's not good.

[@lucifer6028]

I want oryx ornaments back, or just all the raid armors of triumph from D1 brought back like they did with Crotas Armor set.

[@davidgraham2939]

23:10 I want my day 1 emblem i am extremely frustrated clearing both raids took 31 hours and im just not allowed the emblem i guess, needs to be addressed asap.

[@MakutaOfficial]

"People are just struggling moving down a path" So, goddamn, true.

[@MaybyAGhost]

Interesting that you say that you thought the "Englighten everybody first" strategy was only viable on Bridge AFTER contest ended. Because during contest it was after our team tried this strategy for the first time after 5 hours of doing relay race that we actually beat it!

[@ZeDuoThough]

I don’t think we should gas up Bungie for giving us what we know and expect. In regards to day 1s