Destiny 2: The Final Shape is here, and its story propels Guardians into a direct conflict with The Witness. After the first mission, players finally manage to enter The Traveler’s Pale Heart, before the second tasks players with finding Crow after he goes off the grid while on a scouting mission.
The conclusion to the opening level sees Guardians reunited with Cayde-6 for the first time since his death in the Forsaken expansion. While the conversation marks a touching moment for both characters, there is no time to rest on our laurels.
While investigating a darkness anomaly in The Pale Heart, Crow has gone missing. The Guardian quickly discovers that he has been separated from his Ghost Glint, so it’s a race against time to find him and reunite the two.
Here’s everything you need to know about completing the second campaign mission in The Final Shape – Temptation.
Step One: Confront the Tormentor
Starting things off with bombast, our first major enemy will be a Tormentor.
Head through the Traveler’s version of the old tower foyer and jump off the platform in the middle of the balcony railing. For this mission, a Scout Rifle like Hung Jury is very useful, particularly on Legendary difficulty. There are long sightlines and slightly cheesy ways of minimizing danger if you have a gun with solid range.
The path is pretty linear, and you will quickly come to a larger open area where some cabal enemies will spawn. Take out the weaker Cabal adds from your raised location and then jump down and head immediately right.
You will come to a Prismatic Flare in the ground, so use this to fill up your Transcendence meter. Then head back the way you came and you will find two Bound Attendants that need to be killed, so become Transcendent and get them out of the way.
This will then spawn the Tormentor, who will start marching down the main road toward you. The best strategy here is to pop the shoulders from range and head back to the Prismatic Flare you used previously. Wait for the Tormentor to get to you and stay on the balcony with the Flare.
It can’t follow you up, and you should be able to cycle between using and recharging Transcendence in relative peace. Just back up whenever the Tormentor hurls Void discs, and the fight quickly becomes trivial on both difficulties.
After it dies, recharge your Transcendence meter one more time and head up the main road. There will be two more Bound Attendants to kill, which should be fairly simple, and then you’re done with the first part of the mission.
Step Two: Solve the dials and enter the cave
After defeating the attendants, the path is relatively linear again, so progress until you come to an overlook. Ahead of you, you should see a large cave blocked by Darkness, with three beams in front of the entrance.
These beams are a hint that there are three puzzles to solve. After dispatching the enemies in front of the cave, turn around, head back up the hill, then turn left to get to the first puzzle area. All three are marked on the map, but it is best to start here.
Each location has a large conduit, and the premise for deactivating it is relatively simple. Essentially, each functions as a clock face with eight sections. On the first dial, one section will have a beam of darkness, and it is your job to rotate the hand so that it stops in that section.
To do this, players can turn it clockwise and counterclockwise. Unfortunately, this is not possible until getting the Psionic Insight buff. To grab this, kill the Taken Psions that spawn in the area and the buff should be applied to your character, allowing you to turn the dial.
One major mechanic to be aware of is that this is a stacking buff. So, if you kill three Psions and get three stacks, when you rotate the dial it will also move three sections in your chosen direction. This can be useful if you need to move the dial further, so just be aware of how many you need to get it in the right place.
On the first dial, you only need to match the “hand” to one section. This increases to two for the second dial and three for the third. After each successful section, adds will spawn, starting with Cabal in the first two instances, before flying Grims spawn at the third dial.
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Follow the road down from the first dial to find the second, then rinse and repeat to progress through. After completing the second one, you should be able to see a Prismatic Flare by the side of the road. This allows you to become Transcendent to take out the single Bound enemy that spawns between the second and third dial.
After completing the third dial, head over the nearby bridge to the original Cave, where Crow is trapped. A boss will spawn on your arrival, so be prepared to jump into an occasionally annoying, though relatively simple, fight.
Step Three: Defeat the Pillar of Denial
The next major boss in this mission is the Pillar of Denial. When he spawns, two Taken Blights will also appear. He will shelter himself in one of these, so they do need to be destroyed. His health is also split into four, so each time you burn a quarter of his health, new blights and adds will spawn.
The best strategy here is to head back up the steep hill to eliminate as many adds as possible from a distance. When only the boss remains, head in and take out the Blights as quickly as possible before running back to the top of the hill and picking off the next portion of the boss’ health from afar.
After that, the fight becomes relatively easy. The major element of risk comes when destroying the Blight that the Pillar of Denial is in. On Legendary difficulty, this can quickly spell death, so keep moving and don’t be afraid to back out if you need to recharge. As the boss tends to stay inside the Blight, he is a minimal threat if you leave.
After killing the boss, the entrance to the cave will open up and you’re ready to move on to the next part of the mission.
Step Four: Defeat the Enlightened Omen
After heading into the cave entrance, Guardians are quickly presented with a rally point in preparation for the next big fight against the Enlightened Omen. Fortunately, this is also a relatively easy fight if played correctly.
After rallying, walk slightly forward and pop the Witness affliction by shooting it. This will allow a Prismatic Flare to appear on the ground, making the fight a lot more winnable than it otherwise might have been in such a confined arena.
The encounter plays out in three waves, each deploying Bound enemies that must be killed. The general gameplay loop here will be this:
- Shoot and kill the Grims who spawn on the left and right of the arena
- Pop transcendence and use grenades to kill the Bound enemies quickly
- Spawn the next wave
For the first two waves, you shouldn’t have much trouble. The third wave will spawn the main boss of the fight, the Enlightened Omen. Tactics here will be much the same, so become Transcendent, then use your Super and special grenades to burn down the boss.
The Grims will keep spawning with Bound enemies; taking them out quickly is important. If the enemies start to get on top of your health bar, don’t be afraid to back off and hide behind the lip of the cave wall where you came in. Defeat the boss and head through the opening at the back of the area.
Step Five: The Witness appears
From here on out, no fighting is left in this mission, so sit back and enjoy the story. You quickly find that Crow is inside an afflicted part of the Traveler that The Witness nefariously refers to as an incision after he takes over your Ghost (briefly).
Follow the ethereal bird as it marks out the path forward. It’s all straightforward platforming, but look for red lights if you get lost (similar to The Whisper mission). You will come to a series of statues, so hang around for some interesting RP before you eventually find Crow standing in front of a veiled statue.
After some brief dialogue, the mission concludes, and you can successfully move on to the third part of the campaign – Exegesis.
For all other missions in The Final Shape, check out the full mission list here. To learn more about what else is new with Destiny 2: The Final Shape, check out the new Exotics, what each edition of the expansion gets you, and when you can dive headfirst into the new raid.
