Dungeons are an endgame activity playable by up to three players.
Overview
Dungeons are Raid-like activities that feature unique mechanics and bosses throughout. They are longer than Raid Lairs, but remain shorter than proper Raids, and can take less than an hour with a sufficiently coordinated fireteam. The first Dungeon, The Shattered Throne, debuted in Forsaken and was made available as an always accessible activity in Shadowkeep.
Difficulty
Dungeons are often much simpler and less strict than raids in a variety of ways. During encounters, fireteam members can be resurrected infinitely and the encounter will only wipe if all members are dead at the same time. There are no revive tokens or timers for light to fade. Furthermore, players can self-revive after 45 seconds. Unlike raids, bosses will never enrage and allow for as many damage phases as necessary to kill them. Mechanics are generally simpler and every encounter is designed to be solo-able without the need for glitches of any kind, though having teammates can help speed up the process drastically.
Beginning with Grasp of Avarice, all dungeons released going forward would feature a master mode available several weeks after release on the newest or weekly rotator dungeon. Core mechanics remain largely the same, and the largest changes consist of higher light level enemies, modifiers such as surge, threat, or overcharged weapons, and higher boss damage resistance. Similarly to raids, champions are added to some encounters and artifice armor may drop from certain dungeons.
The Vesper’s Host dungeon featured a contest mode period for the first 48 hours it was available in which mechanics such as revive tokens or boss enrage was copied over from raids. Enrage placed timers on non-boss encounters and capped boss damage phases to three, and a hard wipe would occur if one or more players were dead for more than 2 and a half minutes. Similarly to raids, clearing contest mode rewarded a unique emblem as well as a guaranteed drop of the Icebreaker exotic sniper rifle.
List of Dungeons
List of appearances
References