Shoutout to Sjasper, Hollow, Arcsi, and everyone who was on my day one team!
For Sherpas: Hey gamers, I wanted to write this document as a reference that you all can send to players that you're carrying. It has descriptions of each encounter and diagrams, I tried making it a one-stop shop. Hope you enjoy!
For New Players: You're in for a treat, VoG is a great raid! The map looks cool as hell, it's fairly challenging, and has tons of loot. What's not to love? Alas, if you're looking for a raid where you can just be ad-clear the whole time, then this is not the raid for you. (Cough COugh, I'm looking at you Last Wish and Deep Stone!) You will, without a doubt, be forced into certain positions whether you like it or not, and you'll have to adapt. So be open-minded and ready to learn!
| Encounter | Kinetic / Energy | Heavy | Armor |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Good GL | Anarchy or Xeno | - |
| 1 | Overload Primary | - | - |
| 2 | Witherhoard or Good GL | Xeno | - |
| 3 | Vorpal Slug | Anarchy or Xeno | - |
| G | - | - | Omnioculus or 6th Coyote |
| 4 | Witherhoard & Overload Primary | Good Rocket* | - |
| 5 | Good Sniper & Good Scout* | Anarchy or Xeno | Quick Super Build** |
* Scout and rocket are just my personal preference, whatever gets the job done, really.
** Changes depending on class. Shards of Galanor, Nezarecs, etc.
These items are not really required per-se, but highly recommended. Also, if you're on warlock, apparently fusion grenades are nutty against Atheon, so Starfire Protocol is also pretty good.
My Example Loadout (S14):
- Code Ignition w/ Blinding
- Overload Palindrome
- Witherhoard
- Shining Sphere w/ ALH & Tracking
- Succession w/ Reconstruction
- Trustee w/ Reconstruction
- Anarchy
- Nezarec's Sin or Phoenix Protocol.
GOAL: Build the vex spire in the middle of the room tall enough that it is able to open the door to the vault for you. Complete this by having all three vex plates in the arena under guardian control for an extended period of time.
LOADOUTS: Anarchy/Special GL if possible. Otherwise, whatever you want to handle cyclopses.
I've given this its own section because while it doesn't count as an encounter according to Bungie's API, it does have a chest at the end, and there is info needed to do this section with ease. Thus, numbering it with a letter.
For a bigger version of the map: right-click, open image in new tab.
The encounter begins right when you spawn. Infinite revives here but no rally flag; as such, have your loadout equipped when you load into the raid.
Split into three teams of two, and assign each team to a plate. They'll need to defend their assigned plate from an endless onslaught of void praetorians, hobgoblins, and goblins. There will also be a cyclops that spawns near each plate that's a pain in the ass, so deal with it promtly and swiftly.
In my experience, the right plate is the hardest because it's the most exposed. The easiest is left, since the plate has a box in the middle.
Also important to note: You can lose progress! If the vex hold control of a plate for too long, the spire will begin to dematerialize. You have to hold the plates for 5 minutes-ish uninterrupted to make it go as quickly as possible.
You'll know you're done once the spire is formed and has a lazer emitting from it, there will also be a message in chat that appears. Go get your loot!
GOAL: Defend the confluxes as they move around the arena, all while avoiding the pools that fanatics drop behind. Survive for long enough, and you win!
LOADOUTS: Witherhoard or Anarchy. Spec for overload champs as well. CWL chaos reach works well here.
For a bigger version of the map: right-click, open image in new tab.
This encounters's dead easy.
The main gimmick for the first three encounters is negation. If certain conditions are met, you can recieve a debuff called "marked for negation." This debuff is harmless on its own, but deadly when the templar does his ritual of negation. However, not all hope is lost if you get marked! There's a cleansing pool in the center of the arena that you can walk through to cleanse yourself of the debuff and keep going.
Now onto the actual encounter instructions. At the start of the encounter, there will be one conflux in the back of the room. Defend it. Eventually it will despawn and be replaced by the two other confluxes on left and right. Defend those. Soon after that, all three will come up. Keep defending for long enough, and it's over.
Other things of importance:
- The cleansing pool only lasts for 3 seconds-ish after someone triggers it, so you'll need to gather everyone who needs cleansing around the pool before running in as a team. Afterwards, it goes away to recharge for a bit.
- There are yellow bar wyverns and overload champs. One anarchy takes care of the yellow bars. No cheesy tips for overload champs; stun them, then super them.
GOAL: Destroy 5 waves of oracles by shooting them in the order that they spawn in.
LOADOUTS: 2x Xenophage. Everyone else: ad clear loadout with oracle-popping weapon of choice. Witherhoard works well here!
For a bigger version of the map: right-click, open image in new tab.
This encounter is not dead easy. Each wave has one more oracle to keep track of than the last; starting with 3, ending with 7. You must enter all 5 combinations correctly to progress.
Start by positioning the players as shown in the diagram. This will be your typical reset spot for oracle callouts. One player on each side (left/right) should have xenophage; they're in charge of hobgoblins that spawn on the fringes of the map. Other players simply do ad clear.
Clear comms when the oracles spawn. The oracles will appear in the order twice, before they all spawn for real. Oracles can get complex, but don't worry! here's what you do:
- When each oracle spawns, it makes a "bong" noise. At the start of each wave, begin to count those sounds in your head.
- If you see an oracle spawn while you're counting, call out that number.
- You are now in charge of destroying that oracle when the time comes.
- When input begins, oracle one starts by popping their oracle and calling out "One!". Then, oracle two does the same and calls out "Two!". Then three, then four, etc. etc.
Typically for each wave I'll use the first round of oracle appearances to get a general idea of what oracles on my side are even needed, and use the second round to confirm their position in the order. Then, execution. Afterwards, we collapse back to our idle spots, and repeat till done.
Example cycle:
My team's on 4th wave, so there's 6 oracles to keep track of. On the 5th bong noise, I see the lower right oracle spawn. I callout "Five!" to let my team know I see it. I stand near it, ready to blow it up when it's my turn in order. After I hear someone call out "Four!", it's my turn. I blow my oracle up and call out "Five!" so that the next player knows they're good to go. Once all oracles are down we're all done, we get back into position for wave 5.
Other Notes:
- You'll know you've typed in the passcode completely once "the oracles recognise their refrain" appears in game chat.
- If you fail to type in a passcode correctly, the entire fireteam gets marked for negation.
- If you don't type in the passcode in time, the entire fireteam gets marked for negation.
- The pool can only be used 3 times before it fucks off, so be sparing with the cleanses.
- Failing to type a passcode properly does not advance the encounter; you'll need to cleanse and give the same passcode another shot again. Same passcode, just do it right this time.
GOAL: Use the Aegis to bring down the templar's shield, and kill it.
LOADOUTS: 1x Xeno. Everyone else, whatever you use for taniks, i.e.: Anarchy/Vorpal Slug. Preferably a long-range primary. Well required, bubble preferred. (S14: Breach and Clear recommended. Otherwise, divinity.)
I'm not linking a map for this encounter, you all should be well familliar with the area by this point.
The main gimmick for this encounter is the aegis, relic, shield, whatever you want to call it. Get familliar with it, as you'll be using it for the rest of the raid. Here's a quick rundown of its moveset:
- Shoot - Light attack
- ADS - Heavy attack
- ADS in air - Slam attack
- Hold melee - Bubble shield
- Super - Super cool ball of light attack
The encounter starts after someone picks up the aegis where the cleansing pool used to be. The templar will then just spawn just south of the cleaning pool, in the middle of the arena. Get everyone in position for oracles.
At the start and every 2-3 minutes or so, you'll need to deal with a wave of 3 oracles. Run it back, just like you did last encounter. Once the oracles are over, get ready for DPS. Here's how your typical damage phase works:
- Well & bubble pop maybe 10 meters away from the templar before damage begins. Aegis + 4 others stand in these to do damage.
- Aegis uses its super attack (which should be charged by now) to pop the templar's shield and start DPS.
- While everyone starts emptying slugs into the boss, the xenophage player runs around the arena and looks for a glowing ring on the ground he can stand in. This is where the templar is going to teleport to, and by standing in it you prevent him from teleporting, essentially extending DPS.
- This ring will move several times throughout damage, so don't stay still for too long!
- In the middle of DPS, one player will be detained in a vex bubble. The detainee cannot shoot themselves out, so they should yell like hell to let their team know they're detained. Teammates shoot them out, and then everyone continues DPS.
DPS phase ends once the templar is able to teleport to one of his rings. When he does, his shield will come back, meaning you'll need to wait for aegis super to come back up. Usually this means dealing with another set of oracles while waiting on aegis to charge up again.
Rinse and repeat the Oracles/DPS cycle until the templar is dead.
At the moment I am unaware of an enrage, but will update if I find one.
Other things of note:
- Oracles are on an independent timer from everything and will spawn during DPS if you take too long. It's really damn hard to deal with both Oracles and DPS at the same time, so unless you're confident you'll melt the templar before oracles blow up, fall back and get ready to deal with oracles after only one or two DPS extends.
- The fanatics return in this encounter, and their pools will mark you just like the first encounter. Unlike D1, the shield does not cleanse here, so you'll need to go to the pool in the middle to cleanse again.
- Aegis slam attack one-shots oracles.
- The encounter wipes if the aegis is dropped and not picked back up within 7 seconds.
- That said, it is viable for the aegis player to drop the shield for a few seconds to pop some anarchy shots off before picking it back up. Aegis super & ability charges will reset each time it gets picked up, meaning you won't have shield or super for a while, but sometimes that extra DPS is worth it.
GOAL: Get past the gorgons to the exit.
LOADOUTS: Invis. Omnioculus is good here.
Another weird thing here, where it's not really an encounter but also kind of is? W/e, numbering it G.
For a bigger version of the map: right-click, open image in new tab.
This "encounter" is pretty simple. Get past the gorgons to the exit without letting them see you. Gorgons are essentially beefy as fuck harpies with a cool different texture! If they see you, you get the Gorgon's Gaze debuff and you wipe after like 5 seconds, so stay hidden.
You don't have to run the entire team to the exit; in fact, my day one team found that running a team of 3 with one omnioculus seemed to do pretty well. Everyone else just left and rejoined on the runners after they got to the next load zone/jumping puzzle.
GOAL: Juggle the Aegis thru portals to kill 6 shielded minotaurs in Mars/Venus. Then, defend an oracle for a short period of time.
LOADOUTS: Witherhoard, favorite RL. Ad-clear super. Cheesy CWL Chaos Reach build is good here!
For a bigger version of the map: right-click, open image in new tab.
This encounter was a challenge on day one, but is pretty piss easy now as long as everyone knows what to do.
Gimmick introduced here are the portals. When you first enter the vault, you'll be in the present, but once you start the encounter portals will activate that will take you to the past and the future. In my opinion, past and future aren't really good callouts for the side rooms since if you really think about it, either of the rooms could be the past... or the future. Solution: call the arid room Mars and the overgrown room Venus.
At the start, have three players on each side of the room, left/right. Encounter starts when you damage any of the ads in the vault. A gatekeeper (hydra, no shield) will spawn in the middle of the room on the red dot. It'll then teleport around until you kill it, and drop the aegis once you do.
While everyone focuses the gatekeeper, you should have other players standing on the plates behind the portals to start activating them. This is important because in order for the portals to be active, two conditions must be met:
- Corresponding portal plate must be fully activated and controlled by guardians
- No gatekeepers are active on the playing field
Once the portals are open, send one player into each. They'll see ads spawn on the purple dot in each of their rooms and a conflux in the middle. Back to tower defense, don't let anything sacrifice. It's just a bunch of goblins to start, and witherhoard takes care of them pretty easily. Eventually, you'll have a major spawn, and thus the juggling begins. Here's the rundown:
- A shielded minotaur will spawn in either mars/venus, and a wyvern in the other room.
- Wyvern player can just melt it using supers/heavy, no big deal.
- The minotaur player needs the aegis to pop the shield, so you'll need someone to run it in to them.
- Once the aegis is there, the two players melt the minotaur, and then the player originally positioned in the room grabs the aegis and runs it back outside.
- Another player without the debuff will then grab the aegis from the first runner and run it into the other room.
- Minotaur/Wyvern spawns always swap every round, so you'll need to run it across every time.
- Repeat this cycle until you've killed 6 minotaurs.
Now, you may ask "Hey Azure, why not just have one aegis runner do everything and everyone else ad-clears? thats so much more simple!" My rebuttal: Teleport Destabilized. When you use a portal, you get a debuff that prevents you from using the portal again for 45 seconds. As such, we have to swap out like this.
Other important things:
- You can drop the aegis like most other items in the game, using scroll wheel! Or whatever your weapon select is bound to.
- Aegis still has the 7 second despawn timer and wipe mechanic, so be aware.
- If you have the debuff in main room, you're on ad clear. Your main resting spot is on the plate behind whatever portal you just came out of. You and your other plate buddy are now in charge of mowing down the overload champs that spawn in the back of the room, and goblins that spawn on the side.
- Have the second runner wait outside the portal the first player comes through. They should grab the aegis, then hop across the gap, and go right in the other portal. This, in conjunction with the previous point, should always leave you with two people guarding each portal.
Once you've killed the 6 minotaurs, the confluxes inside Mars/Venus will despawn, and be replaced by a center conflux in the main room. Everyone converges on this. Pretty simple ad clear. First wave is just ads all three directions, second wave has shielded minotaurs, third wave has wyverns. If you survive it all, you're done!
GOAL: Shoot lots of oracles to get to DPS, then kill Atheon.
LOADOUTS: Anarchy, Sniper, Scout. Super regen build is highly recommended. Nezarecs, Shards of Galanor, etc. Nighthawk is also good.
For a bigger version of the map: right-click, open image in new tab.
Final encounter. Get ready for a damage check.
No new gimmicks here, just a culmination of everything you've learned. So be ready.
The encounter starts when you break the box in the middle of the arena. Harpies will spawn in the sky and also come out of the gate in the back of the room. Ad-clear these for a few seconds. (Protip: every time you kill an entire wave, another spawns in its place. Leave one harpie up so that the next wave doesn't spawn. )
Then the encounter really starts.
You'll see two messages in chat: timestreams and supplicants. When this happens, three players picked at random will be teleported into either Mars or Venus on the white dot in the diagram. One of those three should grab the aegis and call out where they've been teleported. Those three players then clear the small amount of ads in the room and book it to the back of the room, where the purple box is in the diagram.
Whevener a player is in the same room as the aegis, they will recieve the "marked by the void" debuff, which won't kill them, but slowly obscure their vision with a black aura slowly encroaching from the edge of the screen. This buff cannot be removed, rather dealt with. The aegis can hold down their melee button to activate the cleansing bubble, which will reset the marked by the void debuff, and granting players vision again. Typically as the aegis, I'll cleanse once everyone makes it to the back of the room, and then again before each oracle wave.
While this is happening, supplicants will begin to pilfer out of the gate in the back of the main room. Players who didnt get teleported should immediately hop up to a safe spot away from the supplicants. When the aegis player calls out either mars or venus, one player should hop on that portal's plate, to activate the portal for the other players' return. Don't worry, the box on the plate is in fact a safe height from supplicants, but only if one player is standing on it at a time. You can pop an anarchy on the ground around it to help clear suppies. Take care of ads between oracle callouts.
While all of that is happening, oracles begin to spawn in the main room. The two outside players who are not moving to activate the portal should hop high up along the back wall and get ready to call out a sequence of oracles. The callouts we use are a combination of "Close, Far" and "Left, Right, Middle" (i.e. Close Mid, Far Right, etc.) The people calling out the order of oracles only really need to call out the first two in sequence, the third oracle can be deduced using process of elimination.
Now for execution.
The players in the side room shoot the two oracles in order first, and then the remaining oracle. Inside players only have 7 seconds per round to break the oracles, so Aegis player can drop the shield to help snipe if needed. After each oracle wave, aegis player should use the cleanse to restore their teammates' vision. Immediately after one oracle wave ends, another set of callouts will appear in main room, no breaks. Ultimately there are three waves of oracles total before DPS begins.
Congratulations, you've made it to damage.
The absolute second the third wave of oracles is popped, even before the other three players return, everyone is given the "Time's Vengeance" buff which allows them to damage atheon and also grants increaded ability/super regen. The three players stationed on the outside should pre-damage with anarchy while waiting for the 3 inside players return.
As Aegis inside, I'll cleanse my teammates one last time right next to the portal before running through, just to make sure everyone has fresh vision. Once all 6 players are back outside, group up on the floating platform in the middle and load into atheon with supers and anarchy.
Many things to keep track of here:
- Well and Bubble should be popped as soon as possible, preferably during predamage if there is a player with either already positioned outside.
- Since ability regen is buffed here, use your supers for damage here, tagging atheon with anarchy in-between supers.
- If you're the well player, fusion grenades are also pretty fucking busted against atheon for some reason. Toss a bunch his way.
- If you're the bubble player, nine times out of ten you'll have to take the aegis from the runner, and you're in charge of it during DPS. Speaking of...
- One player needs to be in charge of aegis during DPS, since vision will be obscured during damage if not cleansed. Cleanse ability regen is infinite here, so you can hold down bubble the entire time.
- The aegis player can drop relic for a split second to cast a super, but should pick it back up ASAP.
- Alternatively, they can swap with another player while they cast your super.
- Weapons/Supers will go through the bubble, but sometimes things will hit the shield's physical model and screw things up. As segis, I find it's best to stand in the back of the group, and hold cleanse while facing backwards. That way, everyone's still in the bubble behind you, but the aegis's hitbox is totally out of the way.
- When Atheon does his reaching into the air animation in the middle of DPS, one player will recieve the "detain imminent" debuff that counts down from 5 seconds. That player should GET THE FUCK OUT from the platform. Jump to the side, behind, anywhere. Just get away.
- Unlike third encounter, this detain chains with other players. So, if another player is caught in your detain, they get their own detain bubble which they can also catch people in. Chain reaction.
- Therefore, if the detainee fails to move away, everyone in the platform can get detained. This is a wipe, since the detain kills you at the end of its timer, if you're not busted out by someone else by then.
- Here's how to handle it: Once the detainee far enough away and detain is activated, aegis player should stop cleansing, jump up and use their super to pop your bubble, then immediately go back to cleansing. Then detainee can rejoin everyone and continue DPS.
When the buff's timer is over atheon goes immune again, so everyone should go back to hiding on safe ledges/pillars and clearing harpies/supplicants. 30 seconds later, 3 more players get teleported in, and the cycle begins again. Rinse and repeat this Oracles/DPS cycle until atheon is dead.
Atheon's enrage is after the 4th DPS phase, so you'll need to damage at least a quarter of his health every DPS phase. Good luck.
Once he's dead, run up the stairs to collect your loot!
- Shoutout to Destiny Raider for making the diagrams I used in this guide. Hope you don't mind that I modified them a tiny bit.