Taken Essence

A Guardian Infused with Taken Essence

Taken Essence is a shard of Taken power briefly wielded by Guardians in various activities. It first appeared in the Last Wish Raid, and later appeared in the Astral Alignment activity and the Vow of the Disciple Raid.

Overview

Taken Essence is essential for removing many obstacles of Taken origin. It appears as a black and white sphere suspended in the air, surrounded by gusts of wind. When acquired, the wielder is covered with the same glowing black texture common to Taken.

Gameplay

Acquiring Taken Essence moves the player's camera to third person. Their weapons and active abilities become unusable, replaced by new powers. The player can shoot a fairly damaging bolt of energy with the "fire" button. This attack has a long range and rate of fire, but isn't very fast. The player's grenade icon will have been replaced with a generic purple colored bomb icon. With the "grenade" button, the player will emit a burst of energy around themselves.

In the Last Wish raid, the Taken Essence is obtained by killing the Eye of Riven, first encountered during the battle with Shuro Chi. In this case, the wielder's Super will charge on pickup, and they can use it to burst next the boss and reset her song. During the encounter with Morgeth, the Spirekeeper, the essence's explosion is used to free Guardians trapped by Umbral Enervation. This disperses the essence, which that player cannot pick up again for a long time. During the Vault and the battle against Riven, the essence's explosion is to be used on the correct areas to make the encounter progress.

In the Astral Alignment activity, Taken Essence was used during the "Collapse Taken Rifts" section. It was acquired from the Eye of Xivu Arath and had to be brought to one of the various Taken rifts around the arena. Entering in contact with a rift caused a detonation automatically, closing the rift and dispersing the essence.

During the Vow of the Disciple raid, the Essence's explosion is used to destroy Taken spheres that make all nearby enemies invincible. Detonating will not disperse the Essence, and the wielder will have to use it multiple times.