Raid

"Some evils you cannot fight alone. Join with other brave Guardians to quest deep into the heart of Darkness and confront threats beyond imagination. Steel yourself. You will be tested to the very edge of your strength."

— Grimoire Description.

Raid is a game mode of Destiny. Raids are 6-player cooperative assassination missions that are of high challenge, and require communication between players to succeed. They involve specific quests for groups of fireteams. No waypoints or explicit objectives are provided. Raids typically involve epic, climactic encounters against various bosses, culminating in intense final battles against legendary bosses across the Destiny series.

Overview

Raids differ from Strikes in a few ways:

• 6 player fireteams, as opposed to 3.
• No matchmaking. A player must form a fireteam beforehand or search on an LFG (Looking For Group) site.
  • In Destiny 2, as of Season of the Wish, players with Guardian Rank 5 or higher can use the ‘Fireteam Finder’ in-game LFG system to create or join posts and find teammates for any activity, including raids.
• Raid enemies will have abilities not found elsewhere in the game (i.e. unique enemies, debuffs, etc).
• Strikes last roughly ten to fifteen minutes, whereas raids can take up to several hours, usually only if players are new to the raid or during the initial few days following the release of a new Raid.
• Raids have no objective markers. A player must find out where to go and what to do by themselves.
• Raids can be dropped and picked up at a later time in the week. Players don't have to finish them in one sitting, but they do have to finish it before their checkpoint expires every Tuesday, relative to your timezone (10AM PDT).
• Players will have the opportunity to acquire gear and weapons specific to a raid once an encounter is complete. The gear that drops from the raids will often have perks specific to that raid and are intended to make the raids easier if a player chooses to equip a piece of armor or a weapon from that specific raid, although they are not bound to that activity.

Difficulty

Two difficulty levels exist for raids: normal, and hard (Master). The normal mode must be completed before the harder ones can be attempted. This means that players who have completed the normal difficulty cannot take players through the hard mode even if they are the fireteam leader. The normal mode is designed to teach players raid mechanics, and how to operate as a team. The hard mode provides tougher enemies, additional objectives and a harsher death penalty.

A special difficulty known as contest mode is available as the only difficulty for the raid during the first 24 (48 for newer raids) hours after a raid’s release. It is intended to be incredibly difficult beyond master mode and to provide challenge to the best raiders in order to create an exciting race for the “World’s First” completion of that raid. Beyond forcing all players to a lower light level cap regardless of each player’s individual light level, enemies are tuned to be more aggressive, and bosses often have significantly increased health and damage resistance over the other two difficulties. The unique rewards are generally cosmetic in the form of an emblem or stat tracker, though recent contest mode raids have also rewarded a guaranteed drop of the exotic weapon for that raid.

Destiny

• Normal Mode: Players need to wait 30 seconds before a teammate can revive them. Each encounter has easier objectives and enemies are easier to kill. Weapons and armor dropped from normal mode raids drop at a lower Light cap than hard mode raids.
• Hard Mode: Players cannot be revived at all during an encounter (with the exception of self-reviving Sunsingers) but will automatically respawn if the fireteam progresses to the next checkpoint. Also, more difficult obstacles are included, such as additional objectives, harder-to-kill enemies, etc. The Light cap for items dropped in the hard mode is higher than the normal mode, and some weapons and armor pieces may drop that are exclusive to the hard mode, such as the 'Harrowed' armor and weapons from King's Fall and the Spliced armor from Wrath of the Machine.

Destiny 2

• Normal: Players need to wait 5 seconds before a teammate can revive them. However, each player has one revive token, allowing them to revive only one teammate per encounter.
• Prestige: Exclusive to Year 1 Leviathan raids, which are currently in the Destiny Content Vault and inaccessible. Players lose their revive token on death. Otherwise identical to Hard Mode from Destiny.
• Master: A mode added to all Destiny 2 raids from Vault of Glass's reprisal onwards. Enemies have increased strength, durability, and occasionally have stronger variants within the raid. Completing encounter challenges on Master difficulty awards an Adept weapon. It is only available for the latest raid and the current weekly rotator raid.

Raid Lairs

Raid Lairs are a Raid activity that debuted in Curse of Osiris. Like Raids, Raid Lairs are six-player activities that feature puzzles, challenging bosses, and exclusive loot, as well as Normal and Prestige difficulty options. Where Raid Lairs differ is their length: they are designed to be shorter encounters than full Raids: Eater of Worlds is approximately the same length as Crota's End, while Spire of Stars is slightly longer. Raid lairs were vaulted with the release of Beyond Light.

Fireteams and checkpoints

Players need to assemble their fireteam before entering a raid. If desiring to begin from a specific checkpoint in a raid, ensure that the Fireteam leader holds that checkpoint.

There is a checkpoint for every encounter completed, allowing players to return to the raid on other days, within a week (see lockout below). Players should agree upon how much progress they will make in each session if they don't plan on completing the raid in one session.

Lockout

Unlike all other activities, the Raid game mode employs a weekly lockout for earning loot. This means two things:

1. Players have until the next Tuesday to complete the raid, otherwise their progress will be wiped and they have to start over.
2. Players cannot earn new loot from the raid more than once a week per character. Separate characters on the same account can each play the raid and still get loot; this means an individual player can earn loot from a raid (including chests) a maximum of three times (for three characters) per weekly lockout.

In Destiny 2, with the release of Season of the Haunted, loot lockout is removed for the latest raid and the current weekly rotator raid, enabling targeted farming of drops.

Rewards

Completing a raid rewards players with items not found elsewhere in the game. For example in Destiny, Ascendant upgrade materials are common in chests, used to upgrade Legendary equipment, and some chests also have a chance to have an exotic weapon. Each encounter also rewards a raid-specific legendary weapon or piece of armor. Completing the raid on a higher difficulty mode will yield the best rewards, such as armor upgrade materials or Adept weapon variants. Aesthetic items such as shaders, emblems, ships and Sparrows are also given.

In Destiny 2 as of Beyond Light, raid chests may now drop 3 to 5 Spoils of Conquest, depending on the raid being played, which can be spent on extra loot at a vendor upon completing the raid in all raids from Deep Stone Crypt onward, or on vaulted raid exotics at the Monument To Lost Lights.

Content vaulting in Destiny 2

When Beyond Light was revealed, it was stated that many destinations were going to be 'vaulted' as part of the Destiny Content Vault, or DCV. This included all raids other than Last Wish and Garden of Salvation. When Bungie Day and Moments of Truimph 2020 came around, the weekly raid reward lockouts were removed for the soon-to-be-vaulted raids, and players could farm as much as they wanted. The armor from these raids were given the Season of Arrivals max infusion cap, and so were the weapons and armor from Garden of Salvation and Last Wish. As of The Witch Queen, no expansions or raids will be vaulted, starting from Shadowkeep, allowing players to experience and play the The Light and Darkness Saga in its entirety.

List of Raids

Destiny

Raid	Light Level at Release	Location	Expansion	Enemy Races	Bosses
Vault of Glass	130	Ishtar Sink, Venus	Base Game	Vex	The Templar Atheon, Time's Conflux
Crota's End	150	Ocean of Storms, Moon	The Dark Below	Hive	Ir Yût, the Deathsinger Crota, Son of Oryx
King's Fall	290	Dreadnaught, Rings of Saturn	The Taken King	Hive Taken	Warpriest Golgoroth Ir Halak, Deathsinger Ir Anûk, Deathsinger Oryx, the Taken King
Wrath of the Machine	370	Plaguelands, Earth	Rise of Iron	Fallen	Vosik, the Archpriest Siege Engine Aksis, Archon Prime

Destiny 2

Raids

Raid	Power Level at Release	Location	Expansion	Enemy Races	Bosses
Leviathan	270	The Leviathan, Nessus Orbit	Base Game	Cabal	Royal Beasts Emperor Calus
Last Wish	550	Dreaming City, The Reef	Forsaken	Taken	Kalli, the Corrupted Shuro Chi, the Corrupted Morgeth, the Spirekeeper Riven of a Thousand Voices
Scourge of the Past	640	The Last City, Earth	Season of the Forge (Forsaken)	Fallen	Ablazed Glory, Kell's Scourge Insurrection Prime, Kell's Scourge
Crown of Sorrow	740	The Leviathan, Nessus Orbit	Season of Opulence (Forsaken)	Hive	Gahlran's Deception Gahlran, the Sorrow-Bearer
Garden of Salvation	940	The Black Garden, Moon	Shadowkeep	Vex	Consecrated Mind, Sol Inherent Sanctified Mind, Sol Inherent
Deep Stone Crypt	1220	Rathmore Chaos, Europa	Beyond Light	Fallen	Crypt Security Atraks-1, Fallen Exo Taniks, the Abomination
Vault of Glass	1300	Ishtar Sink, Venus	Season of the Splicer (Beyond Light)	Vex	The Templar Atheon, Time's Conflux
Vow of the Disciple	1520	Court of Savathûn, Ascendant Realm	The Witch Queen	Hive Scorn Taken	The Caretaker Rhulk, Disciple of the Witness
King's Fall	1550	Dreadnaught, Saturn	Season of Plunder (The Witch Queen)	Hive Taken	Warpriest Golgoroth Ir Halak, Deathsinger Ir Anûk, Deathsinger Oryx, the Taken King
Root of Nightmares	1770	Essence, Earth Orbit	Lightfall	Cabal	Zo'aurc, Explicator of Planets Nezarec, Final God of Pain
Crota's End	1790	Ocean of Storms, Moon	Season of the Witch (Lightfall)	Hive	Ir Yût, the Deathsinger Crota, Son of Oryx
Salvation's Edge	1965	The Pale Heart, The Traveler	The Final Shape	Cabal Dread Hive Scorn Taken Vex	Herald of Finality The Witness

Raid Lairs

Raid Lair	Power Level at Release	Location	Expansion	Enemy Races	Bosses
Eater of Worlds	300	The Leviathan, Nessus Orbit	Curse of Osiris	Cabal Vex	Argos, Planetary Core
Spire of Stars	370	The Leviathan, Nessus Orbit	Warmind	Cabal	Val Ca'uor

Pantheon

The Pantheon was a limited-time raid boss gauntlet challenge introduced in Into the Light, that took place from April 30th, 2024 to June 3rd, 2024. The activity consists of several existing raid boss encounters with a handful of minor changes added to increase its difficulty. Each week, the enemy power level is raised by 5 levels above the player, beginning with 5 levels and ending with 20. In addition, the activity is given various different modifiers.

Pantheon	Release Date	Power Penalty	Bosses	Reward Choices
The Pantheon: Atraks Sovereign	April 30th, 2024	5 levels	Golgoroth The Caretaker Zo'aurc, Explicator of Planets Atraks-1, Fallen Exo	Eyes of Tomorrow Touch of Malice Exotic Cipher Ascendant Shards (3)
The Pantheon: Oryx Exalted	May 7th, 2024	10 levels	Golgoroth The Caretaker Zo'aurc, Explicator of Planets Atraks-1, Fallen Exo Oryx, the Taken King	Eyes of Tomorrow Touch of Malice Exotic Cipher Ascendant Shards (3)
The Pantheon: Rhulk Indomitable	May 14th, 2024	15 levels	Golgoroth The Caretaker Zo'aurc, Explicator of Planets Atraks-1, Fallen Exo Oryx, the Taken King Rhulk, Disciple of the Witness	Eyes of Tomorrow One Thousand Voices Collective Obligation Touch of Malice Exotic Cipher Ascendant Shards (3)
The Pantheon: Nezarec Sublime	May 21st, 2024	20 levels	Golgoroth The Caretaker Zo'aurc, Explicator of Planets Atraks-1, Fallen Exo Oryx, the Taken King Rhulk, Disciple of the Witness Riven of a Thousand Voices Nezarec, Final God of Pain	Eyes of Tomorrow One Thousand Voices Collective Obligation Touch of Malice Exotic Cipher Ascendant Shards (3)

List of appearances

• Destiny (First appearance)
  • The Dark Below
  • The Taken King
  • Rise of Iron
• Destiny 2
  • Curse of Osiris
  • Warmind
  • Forsaken
    • Season of the Forge
    • Season of the Drifter (Mentioned only)
    • Season of Opulence
  • Shadowkeep
  • Beyond Light
    • Season of the Splicer
  • The Witch Queen
    • Season of Plunder
  • Lightfall
    • Season of the Witch
    • Into the Light
  • The Final Shape