Destiny: Crota's End Raid Guide for Normal and Hard Mode

Destiny Crota guide — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Destiny‘s first expansion, The Dark Below, introduced the game’s second six-player raid: Crota’s End. Set deep below the surface of the Moon, players face armies of Hive in the pitch-black darkness as they fight and puzzle their way to the chamber of the warrior-god Crota, son of Oryx.

Much like the Vault of Glass that shipped with Destiny, Crota’s End is equal parts firefight gauntlet and brain teaser. Problem-solving is just as important as raw firepower, and we strongly recommend that you and your assembled group of raiders try to tackle Crota without assistance your first time through. It’s much more fun that way.

Diving down into Crota’s Netherworld

There’s nothing challenging at all about starting the raid. We’re mainly including this here for the sake of giving you a complete picture of how Crota’s End plays out.

When you first spawn into a new playthrough, you’re on the surface of the Moon at the precipice of a cliff overlooking the yawning pit known as the Hellmouth. To get started, simply proceed down the hill and stand on the circular plate near the edge of the cliff. This causes a platform to slowly materialize right in front of you, extending out above the Hellmouth. Once it’s fully formed, follow the path to the end and drop through the circular opening on the floor of the platform.

A few tips before you start. Try to get as many people in your group up to level 30 as you can before you even attempt this raid. Level 30 is the difficulty rating for Crota’s End on normal, and the final sections of the raid involve facing off against level 31s and 32s. It’s also a good idea to go in with your best gear equipped. Just like the Vault, there’s no XP to be earned in Crota’s End, just loot. So don’t worry about leveling your stuff up here.

That’s it. Welcome to Crota’s End. It gets much tougher from here.

Hard mode tips: Nothing special here. Just jump in the hole.

Navigating the pitch-black Abyss

Before you start to tackle this first challenge, it’s important to understand what the Abyss is and how it works.

Your team starts on a circular, well-lit platform surrounded on all sides by darkness. There’s a single path leading to a cylindrical structure that emits a white glow; these “lanterns,” as they’re called, are scattered throughout the Abyss. We’ll talk about their purpose in a moment.

As soon as you step out of the circle of light that you initially spawn into, a “Weight of Darkness” debuff is applied to your character (the text appears on the bottom-left side of the screen). The effects increase as you spend more time in the dark, up to a “Weight of Darkness x10.” The base debuff prevents your character from using any jumping abilities beyond basic jumps, but WoD x10 also prevents you from sprinting.

Now, back to the lanterns. It’s possible to free yourself from WoD temporarily by standing close to a lantern. The stacks slowly drain away as you bathe yourself in the white glow. There’s a catch, however. Lanterns “activate” when any member of your group gets close enough, and they’re only live for about 10 seconds before they explode with killing force. You can tell an explosion is coming when you see the white glow shift to an orange hue.

The trick to navigating the Abyss, then, is to move as a group from lantern to lantern, lingering long enough to either wipe away WoD completely or bring it low enough that it won’t stack up to x10 during your sprint to the next lantern. It’s vital that the group sticks together, and takes care to not activate a lantern until everyone is ready to approach it. Communication is key. You shouldn’t be spending more than four or five seconds at a lantern before you move on.

That’s not all, though. While you’re trying to navigate your way through the darkness, melee-only Thralls and exploding Cursed Thralls spawn in from every direction. So you’ve got to keep the hordes at bay while you’re constantly on the move. Players that reach a lantern first should spin around and fire into the crowd of Thralls that are no doubt chasing anyone who’s lagged behind. And everyone should always arrive looking past the current lantern to spot the next one.

It’s also important to keep an eye out for pits spread throughout the chamber. They’re typically placed in strategic locations between each set of lamps, and they need to be avoided (falling into one means death). Call them out when you see them, especially if you’re at the front of a run to the next lantern. The revive timer in the Abyss lasts 10 seconds, and it’s tough (but definitely not impossible) to come back if one or more party members go down between lanterns.

Ice Breaker (no scope fire, for the most part), Fatebringer, and any weapons that have the Firefly perk (makes enemies downed with a precision shot explode) are extremely useful during this stretch. One exploding enemy often unleashes a chain reaction that takes out the surrounding Thralls as well. If you’ve got Ice Breaker — which makes enemies explode with or without a headshot — just spin around when you’ve got a big group behind you and hip fire one shot into the crowd. Most of the time, that’s enough to take them all down, or at least enough to make the rest manageable.

You know you’ve reached the end of the Abyss when you reach a plate similar to the one you used back on the surface of the Moon to start the raid off. As soon as one person steps onto it, the final Abyss sequence begins, with a bridge that slowly forms just beyond the plate while Hive spawn converge on your team.

During this sequence, designate two or three people to focus on the Thralls and Cursed Thralls. One or two others should look out into the darkness for Ogres that spawn; these need to be taken down immediately. The final player should help with the melee attackers, but mostly watch for a group of approaching melee Knights. Just like the Ogres, these need to be dispatched quickly.

If you want some insurance, have one player leap up on top of the rock that’s just to the left of the final lantern (when you’re facing it from the bridge plate). The jump is possible even with WoD stacks preventing you from double-jumping. Only the Ogres can attack the player camped out on the rock, so have that player focus on them, preferably with an Ice Breaker or other high-damage, long-range weapon.

After a few minutes, the bridge forms and all WoD is wiped away. At this point, everyone should disregard the Hive — which continue to spawn — and get across the bridge. Keep running straight toward the white light until you get your reward for completing the section and a load screen pops up.

If you’re having trouble navigating the Abyss, you can find a rough map right here (thanks Reddit!). Note as well that there’s a chest to be found in this section of the raid. It can spawn in any one of several small chambers that are tucked away in the darkness. There’s an easier way to get it, discussed right here, but note that the chest has been patched to only drop Radiant Energy/Shards now (Radiant materials are needed to upgrade gear earned from Crota’s End).

Hard mode tips: The basic flow of the Abyss remains the same in hard mode, but everything moves a lot faster. Weight of Darkness builds up at around twice the rate that it did before; expect to generate at least four stacks during your initial sprint to the first lamp, for example. It still drains at the same rate.

The big difference in hard mode is every player needs to be able to take care of themselves. There’s no need to wait for revive timers since there are no revives in hard mode, but every fireteam member you lose is one less to hold the line during the final bridge encounter.

A few other changes: All Cursed Thralls, Knights, and (in the case of the bridge encounter) Ogres are majors (yellow health bar), which makes them much tougher to kill.

The “insurance” tip suggested above, of jumping up on a rock near the final lamp, is extremely helpful here. Try to get two Guardians up there and have them focus all their fire on the Ogre. That should be enough to take it down. Even if the rest of the team wipes, the Guardians on the rock should be able to stay alive and make the final run to complete this section of the raid.

One other note: The Abyss chest that spawns in one of the handful of rooms spread throughout the chamber can’t be collected a second time in hard mode if you already got it during a normal runthrough.

Crossing the bridge

The goal of this next section is pretty straightforward: You’ve got to get your team from where they start (we’ll call it side A) to the other end of the room (side B), by building a bridge that spans a pit separating the two halves of the room. As the previous sections of Crota’s End already taught us, standing inside the round plate on the floor at the edge of the pit’s drop-off starts the bridge a-building.

It’s not nearly that easy, of course. For starters, Hive spawn in — starting with Thralls and Acolytes, but eventually adding in Knights as well — as soon as the bridge starts to build. What’s more, the bridge only builds while a player stands on the plate, but doing so also causes two “Annihilator Totems,” on the left and right sides of the bridge plate, to glow red. Leave them alone for more than 10 seconds or so and the whole team gets wiped out.

The Annihilator Totems can be halted by having at least one Guardian stand on the plate underneath each one while the bridge is materializing. In other words, building the bridge requires a minimum of three Guardians: One on the bridge plate and one apiece on each of the two Annihilator Totem plates.

That’s not the end of it, however. In order to cross the bridge, you need to be holding a sword. You get one from a Swordbearer Knight that spawns shortly after the bridge starts building. What’s more, the sword is the only thing that can damage the Gatekeeper Knight that spawns on side B after the Swordbearer is taken down. But much like the Blades of Crota swords from Patrol mode, the Swordbearer’s blade only lasts for a brief amount of time.

So in order to get one member of the team across, you’ve got to build the bridge completely, then finish off the Swordbearer (which regenerates health if left undamaged for too long), then have your sword-wielder cross the bridge and quickly kill the Gatekeeper. A new Gatekeeper spawns for every Swordbearer defeated, so it’s important that there’s always one Gatekeeper killed for every sword-wielding Guardian sent across the chasm. More Hive spawn on side B as well, but only the Gatekeeper is a sword-required kill.

Once three Guardians are across to side B, the whole process continues as before, but in reverse. Side B has a bridge plate and Annihilator Totems that roughly mirror the layout of side A. So side B builds the bridge while side A deals with the Swordbearer, sending Guardians across one at a time to take on the Gatekeeper once the bridge is built and the sword is in hand. If you’re on side B waiting for the sword-wielder and a Gatekeeper starts to chase you, just head to one of the Totems, as they won’t chase you there.

You don’t actually need to get all six Guardians across to complete this section of the raid, though it’s a big help. Once the crossing is done — either because all six are safely on side B or because everyone left on side A is downed — the entire group should huddle up and start killing Hive. The Annihilator Totem on the left is a good spot to form up, as there’s a good amount of cover to be had. Prioritize targeting Knights and Wizards as they spawn, but what you’re really looking for are Ogres.

If you last long enough after everyone’s on side B, two Ogres will spawn, one on the left and one on the right. Once that happens, all fire should focus on one, then the other. As soon as the Ogres are down, the entire scenario is over. Any downed players on side A are automatically revived and the bridge automatically forms, allowing anyone to cross. There’s also a reward that should pop up as any other Hive forces de-spawn after the Ogres are taken care of.

Hard mode tips: This whole sequence is relatively unchanged from a strategy perspective. If you do happen to be playing with sub-32 characters, make them take the sword across last. There’s a good chance they won’t survive that long, and even if they do, your 32s are going to do the real damage once it’s time to defend and wait for the Ogres to appear.

While the scenario is unchanged, it’s also undeniably tougher. The level 33 enemies pose a major threat to all players, regardless of their level. And much like the Abyss, anything more threatening than a Thrall or Acolyte is a yellow health bar-bearing major.

Survive the Thrallway

There are two ways to tackle this next, relatively brief section, which amounts to a short jaunt down a wide, snaking hallway. The easy way is really easy — just kill everything and keep advancing, then push through the final door to stop Hive from spawning — but it doesn’t end with your team earning a chest. The chest always contains Radiant Energy or Shards, which can only be obtained from Crota’s End (and are likewise only used to upgrade Crota’s End gear).

Which brings us to the hard way. At the end of the hallway is a room with a large pit in the middle that you need to drop into to reach the next section of the raid. Directly across the room from where you enter, on the other side of the pit, is a large door. The chest is behind that door, but you can’t get back there once the door closes.

The hallway itself is flooded with Thralls and Cursed Thralls (they have a different name here, but that’s what they are). There are also two Shriekers (the diamond-shaped floating Hive enemies that fire purple homing blasts once anyone gets too close). To get to the end of the hallway and reach the chest before the door closes, you’ve got to kill both Shriekers while not letting any of the Cursed Thralls explode.

This part can be extremely chaotic when you send the full team of six Guardians down the hall at the same time. The first Shrieker in particular is easily sniped without anyone even having to enter the hallway (avoid the death blasts it releases after you down it). For the second one, a group of three or four Guardians — preferably including one Hunter who can go invisible — should proceed carefully down the hallway, leaping from one rock formation to another. The Thralls can only get you if you’re on the ground, so using these stone markers is key.

The Hunter should just keep moving forward, preferably while invisible, and trust the rest of the team to take care of the Shriekers. If the door does happen to close all the way, just make sure to not enter the final room — the one with the pit — since doing so triggers a checkpoint. Just let the Hive take your party out and try again.

All you need to do is get one person into the room with the chest. Even if the door closes, it just re-opens when the rest of the party gets close. This whole sequence is easily skipped by just fighting your way through and ignoring the chest, but it’s not too hard to grab this one after you get the hang of it.

Hard mode tips: The best thing you can do in the Thrallway on hard mode is not bother with the chest. Just grab it in normal mode, since, like the Abyss chest, you can’t double-dip if you got it on the easier difficulty.

The hard mode difference here is you’re facing three Shriekers instead of two, and the Shriekers respawn if you don’t take them all down and get to the final room quickly enough. Stick to the same basic strategy of staying off the floor as much as possible. It helps to have a Hunter go invisible, to better avoid the Shrieker death blasts.

Not having to worry about the chest removes the ticking clock from the equation, so just focus on clearing the Shriekers and punching one Guardian through to the end chamber, at which point everything de-spawns.

The song of the Deathsinger

You’ve reached the final chamber in Crota’s End, and the second-to-last sequence in the raid. Congratulations. Two rewards down, two more to go.

It’s best to define the layout of the chamber in terms of a compass. We’ll say that your raid group starts out in a small room that’s accessible through a doorway at the southern end of the main space, on the ground level. Proceeding north down the short hallway from that starting room leads to a courtyard, with a small set of stairs providing access to the larger portion of the chamber.

Stairs leading up to the second story are accessible on the east and west sides of the room. There are doorways on the second level at the top of each set of stairs (southwest and southeast corners) and a pair of towers that you can only get into by jumping, in the northeast and northwest corners. There’s also a windowed room situated just above the courtyard through which you can see a floating wizard; that’s Ir Yut, your target.

When you first enter the main chamber, a kneeling pair of Knights flanking the courtyard’s small set of stairs wake up and start to patrol. Ignore them as your team splits into two groups of three, with one making for the east side of the chamber and the other, for the west side. Two members of each threesome should get into the tower on their side of the room and take aim on their side’s southern, second-story doorway. The third runs through the doorway to attract the attention of a Hallowed Wizard inside (yellow health bar), then runs back out and gets into their group’s tower.

The wizards, once riled, come out through each doorway, exposing themselves to weapons fire from the groups camped out in the towers. It’s a good idea to take out some of the Hallowed Knights that are running around near each doorway, but the wizards are your priority. Each threesome needs to take down their wizard, then clean up any Knights and other Hive milling around by the doorway.

Once the wizards are gone, one or two out of each threesome need to head to their side’s doorway (watch out for Acolytes and additional Knights) and take out the Shriekers that are just outside the central chamber where Ir Yut is while the folks in the towers continue to focus on Knights. Clearing the Shriekers opens up Ir Yut’s chamber, at which point everyone should converge their and focus fire on the boss wizard.

Here’s why the sequence plays out the way it does: The Shriekers aren’t a threat (and likewise, can’t be killed) until the two wizards are gone. And the force field keeping Ir Yut’s chamber protected only falls after both Shriekers are gone. All of this is made trickier by the fact that the area is swarming with Knights, Acolytes, and Thralls. There’s also an invisible time limit; Ir Yut starts singing as soon as you enter the main room. Let her sing too long and the whole group finds out very quickly just why she’s called “Deathsinger.”

There’s a couple things you can do to help tackle Ir Yut once the central chamber’s shields are down. For one, keep an eye on the main room. There’s typically a large group of enemies, mostly Knight and Acolytes, that gather in a group at the base of either the east or west stairs (it’s usually west). You want to move in on Ir Yut from the opposite side.

What’s more, there are a couple of high ledges that can be leaped on top of inside of Ir Yut’s chamber. You’re exposed to weapons fire up there, but the horde of melee-only Knights and Thralls can’t get to you. Try to get two or three members of the group up onto ledges before they start attacking Ir Yut while the rest of the group focuses fire on the wizard from just outside of her chamber and, again, attacking from the side that is opposite the one where most of the main chamber’s Hive gathered.

Once Ir Yut is dead, you’ve got to mop up the remaining forces. It’s important not to relax just yet. There’s still a lot of threats all over the place, and the Ir Yut’s chamber isn’t particularly safe. Once she’s gone, the group should retreat to either of the two towers in the northeast/west and slowly, methodically clear the room. The time limit goes away after Ir Yut falls, so there’s no need to rush.

Hard mode tips: Here’s another situation where very little is changed but everything is much harder. The big difference is the Deathsinger’s song, which reaches its final, Liturgy of Ruin phase (at which point the team has 30 seconds to kill Ir Yut) much more quickly than it did on normal.

Beyond that, expect to encounter more enemies, and tougher enemies, all at level 33. The sped-up timetable for Ir Yut’s song means you’ve got to get it all done that much faster as well.

It’s extremely helpful to bring a Titan with the armor boost on Ward of Dawn. The weapon damage buff is helpful, but there are a lot of melee enemies running around Ir Yut’s chamber, and being able to dip in and out of the bubble for what amounts to a free, instant health refill is a huge advantage.

Ending Crota

Here it is. The big cheese. Crota.

To start the fight, you first need to have everyone gather around the large, green crystal in the center of Ir Yut’s chamber. This causes force fields to materialize on the right and left, locking you into the chamber while Hive spawn in. After 10 or 20 seconds, the force fields disappear and the Hive outside attack in force. Mostly Acolytes, with two melee Knights on each side. They’re easily repelled.

By now, you’ve probably noticed that everyone in the group has the “Presence of Crota” debuff. While active — and it’s active for the length of this fight — health regeneration is turned off completely. Any weapons or abilities that regenerate health work as normal, but Destiny‘s natural healing doesn’t trigger. Unless you’re holding the Chalice of Light, that is.

The Chalice is collected in the main chamber; it’s visible as a bright, white light sitting atop a pedestal at the northern end of the ground floor. You can’t miss it. As soon as the Hive attacking Ir Yut’s chamber are dealt with, one player should head downstairs to grab the Chalice and bring it back to the group. Healing abilities reactivate as soon as you grab the Chalice from someone, and it’s enough to completely refill your health bar (unless you take damage), even if someone else grabs the Chalice a second or two after you do.

Then there’s Crota. The big guy spawns on a second-story platform at the northern end of the room as soon as your team does their “gather ’round the gem” thing. He fires arc blasts at anyone that gets too close, and he swings his sword in a big, sweeping arc (one-hit kill) at anyone who really gets too close.

Once the Hive are cleared from the Deathsinger’s chamber, the entire group should camp out at the top of the western set of stairs, since none of the Thralls on the ground level venture up to attack. Two members of the group, preferably armed with Ice Breakers, should hang back and focus all of their attention on the northwestern tower.

First, two Knights armed with the Hive equivalent of grenade launchers spawn (“boomers”), lobbing AoE blasts at the group. They need to be dealt with immediately. A short time after those Knights appear, a third, armed with a sword, leaps off of the tower and rushes the group (“bridge Knight”). Just like the ranged Knights, take this one out quickly.

Meanwhile, the remaining four players should focus their attention toward the center of the chamber, near the Chalice spawn, to watch for a Swordbearer (just like the one from the earlier bridge encounter). Its sword is needed to damage Crota, but the timing for killing it varies according to the situation.

It works like this: The sword is the only thing that can damage Crota’s health, but only gunfire can take out Crota’s shield (at which point the big guy kneels down for a few seconds, giving the sword-wielder an opening to start chopping). Timing and communication is absolutely key here.

Once the Swordbearer spawns, pepper it with body shots until it rushes the western position. Headshots stagger the Swordbearer, which is why you want to hold off on those until it’s close. But you’re also under a time crunch and sometimes the Swordbearer doesn’t cooperate. It’s very much a call to make in the moment. Crota eventually moves to the east side of the chamber, and the idea is to get at least one go with the sword in before he does.

Once a member of your group has the sword — the highest-level character, to maximize damage — the wielder should run to the space between the western tower and the platform that Crota’s standing on. There’s a rock that can be leapt onto and used as a platform to reach Crota in one jump. The sword-wielder needs to get on that rock and wait.

While all of that is happening, the rest of the team (except for the two covering the western tower) should lay into Crota with primary weapons only. You can use heavier stuff if your group is more level 30 than 31, but it’s not ideal. Maintaining a steady damage-per-second (DPS) is important, because Crota’s shield regenerates almost instantly if he goes undamaged for more than a second or two.

One player in the group firing at Crota should be designated as the caller, letting the sword-wielder know when the big guy is at 50-percent shield, then 20-percent shield. 20-percent is the wielder’s cue to leap in and attack Crota with an R1/R1/R2 combo (that one does the most damage). Once the combo is complete, the sword-wielder needs to immediately turn around and get back to the rock.

As Crota starts to stand up following the first sword attack, he’s temporarily enveloped in a gold shield that makes him invincible. It only lasts for two or three seconds. There’s usually enough time to bring Crota down for a second sword attack before the sword disappears, and this is where the team wants to lay into him with the heaviest weapons they’ve got (rocket launchers, especially Gjallahorn, Hezen Vengeance, or Hunger of Crota are extremely useful here).

If the team does it right, Crota’s shield disappears far too quickly on the second strike for the caller to stick to the 50-percent/20-percent shout-outs. The sword-wielder should have just enough time to get back to the rock and turn around before they’ve got to leap back in and attack Crota again. It’s still important to communicate, though, so the caller should continue to keep the sword-wielder updated, especially if Crota’s not going down as quickly as he should.

If everything goes off smoothly, there should be enough time to get in two attacks with the first sword before Crota moves off to the east side of the chamber. At that point, the foursome focused on the Swordbearer should draw its attention and keep its health low (it regenerates if left untouched for a few seconds), but avoid killing it while Crota’s still on the eastern platform. Wait until he starts to move back to the center, then kill the Swordbearer and repeat the process described above.

Once the second sword is done, the entire group (tower watchers included) should make a beeline for the ground-level passageway that you first entered the room from, prior to the Deathsinger fight. Head all the way back into the room that you dropped into from the Thrallway and watch the door leading back to the central chamber you just came from.

You do this because two Ogres spawn, on the east and west sides of the chamber, every time two Swordbearers are taken down. The starting chamber that you dropped into from the Thrallway is a great bottleneck; you’re still susceptible to Ogre fire, but it’s much easier to manage.

Once the Ogres are down, head back into the central chamber. Crota is probably above you, on the western platform, so it’s important to run and move up the eastern set of stairs, back into the Deathsinger’s chamber. Expect to encounter lots of Thralls and Cursed Thralls along the way, as well as boomers in the eastern tower. Hop past everything you see until you reach the Deathsinger’s chamber, then mop up the Cursed Thralls (especially) and any other enemies harassing you there.

After the Ogres are gone and the Deathsinger’s chamber is clear, head back to the western platform where you started this whole encounter and repeat the Swordbearer/chop Crota process. If your team is running tight and communicating well, it shouldn’t take more than four swords to topple the big guy.

There’s one other element to this encounter that everyone needs to be mindful of, however: Oversoul. After the initial wave of Hive are dealt with in the Deathsinger’s chamber and the Chalice is in hand, Crota summons an Oversoul whenever a member of the team is downed. At that point, the giant, exploded planet in the sky (it kind of looks like an eye) releases an enormous, green orb of energy.

The team needs to focus all of their fire on that energy field immediately. If it stays up for too long (five seconds or so), the entire team wipes and you’ve got to start the encounter over again.

Crota also starts summoning his Oversoul at regular, very short intervals if he’s not defeated by (roughly) the fifth sword. That’s this fight’s Enrage timer, and it’s very difficult to win once it starts. Unless Crota’s only got a sliver of health, it’s usually best to just wipe once Enrage begins.

That’s all there is to it. It’s not actually all that difficult, provided you’re playing with a team that communicates well. It might take a few attempts before everyone gets the hang of how the timing flows throughout the fight, but keep at it and you’ll bring Crota down once and for all.

Hard mode tips: The big change in the Crota fight: No Chalice. This means that unless you have some gear ability that refills health — any armor with the Infusion perk (restores health when you collect an orb of light) or exotic guns like Red Death and Suros Regime — you’re not recovering any health at all for the length of this fight.

In addition, the boomers in the tower are now majors, and the bridge Knight that spawns after you down them is replaced by a Hallowed Wizard (yellow health bar). Crota also lets loose with his Oversoul on a constant basis (like he’s enraged) once you get him down to a sliver of health.

We haven’t managed to take down the big guy in hard mode yet, but this excellent strategy posted on Reddit seems like a good plan.