Destiny 2 - Leviathan Raid Guide (for New Light Players)

In this guide, I'll explain how to complete Destiny 2's very first raid, the Leviathan in a beginner friendly way!

Complete Guide To Leviathan Raid

Introduction

• Located on Nessus, Leviathan ship.
• 750 power recommended.
• 4 total core encounters.
• 1 boss fight.
• Exotic raid quest.

Important Note: All images were found on Google. These are not my own screenshots.

Since New Light players already start at power level 750, this raid isn't nearly as difficult as it was in 2017. Nowadays, the class you choose and the weapons you equip aren't quite as important, but here are some tips that can make the raid journey a bit smoother.

• Any subclass for Castellum.
• Nightstalker for Royal Pools - Plenty of adds to tether.
• Bottom Tree golden gun with Celestial Nighthawk for Pleasure Gardens - Deal damage to the hounds.
• Any subclass for The Gauntlet.
• Bottom Tree golden gun with Celestial Nighthawk for Calus' Throne Room - Deal damage to Calus.

• Any subclass for Castellum.
• Nightstalker for Royal Pools - Plenty of adds to tether.
• Bottom Tree golden gun with Celestial Nighthawk for Pleasure Gardens - Deal damage to the hounds.
• Any subclass for The Gauntlet.
• Bottom Tree golden gun with Celestial Nighthawk for Calus' Throne Room - Deal damage to Calus.

• Any subclass for Castellum.
• Nightstalker for Royal Pools - Plenty of adds to tether.
• Bottom Tree golden gun with Celestial Nighthawk for Pleasure Gardens - Deal damage to the hounds.
• Any subclass for The Gauntlet.
• Bottom Tree golden gun with Celestial Nighthawk for Calus' Throne Room - Deal damage to Calus.

Castellum - Any.

Royal Pools

• Kinetic: Hand cannons, auto rifles, Mountaintop.
• Energy: SMGs, shotguns, fusion rifles.
• Power: Machine Guns.

Pleasure Gardens

• Kinetic: Any.
• Energy: Fusion Rifle, shotgun.
• Power: Machine Guns, Rocket Launcher, Swords.

The Gauntlet

• Kinetic: Any.
• Energy: Fusion Rifle, shotgun.
• Power: Machine Guns, Rocket Launcher, Swords.

Calus' Throne Room

• Kinetic: Any Fast weapon with a lot of ammo.
• Energy: SMGs or any other fast weapon with a lot of ammo.
• Power: Whisper of the Worm, 1K Voices, Xenophage...any high damage exotic weapon.

Important Note: 3 of the 4 core encounters rotate weekly, The Gauntlet, Pleasure Gardens and Royal Pools. Calus' Throne Room is always the same.

The Castellum

With the intro out of the way, let's get to the first "encounter" in this action packed raid:

When you enter the Leviathan and pass the rows of enemies, which you shouldn't shoot, you will enter a large area with a bunch of doors. One of these doors will have a symbol on it and an outline of a staff-looking thing on top of a triangle. This is where you should be.

• Split your team into two groups of three.
• Team 1: Stay at the triangle and keep all enemies away from it.
• Team 2: Search the area for Major Centurions that will drop the staffs that need to be placed into the triangle. This team will also need to kill councilors.

• Team 2 will go search for the Centurion and will kill it. When it dies, it will drop a staff. One player will pick it up and carry it back to the triangle in front of the door. You need to bring three staffs to the triangle to complete this encounter.
• Team 1 will keep all Cabal enemies away from the triangle. If Centurions reach the triangle, they will steal the staffs and you will need to get another one to make up for it.

So, eventually in the bottom left corner of your screen, a text will appear "A councilor has appeared".

A councilor is a psion that is inside of a bubble and it needs to be melee'd to be killed. Do not let them go. You need to find them and kill them.

Once you have found all three staffs, you have completed this encounter and can move on to the core encounters.

Important Note: This encounter is repeated after every core encounter, bringing it to a total of 4 playthroughs. Keep in mind that the mechanics do not change. However, the location of the door does.

The Royal Pools

So, you've made it to your first encounter, Calus' Royal Pools! This encounter is full of Bathers, chains, orbs and lanterns. Buckle up!

There are five plates in this area, two on the left, two on the right and one in the middle. Two players will go to the left, right and middle. One player will be on each plate on the right and left sides. In the middle, two people will stand on the central plate.

This encounter involves a lot of running and communication to work, so listen up! To start the encounter, have everyone stand on their plates. Then, you will notice that a chain in front of you will start pulling itself. Also, a buff will appear in the bottom left of your screen and it will have a number. Pay attention to the number, it's important. As it gets down to zero, a Bather will jump out of the chain and you need to kill it. This is where the people in the middle come in.

When your buff number is low, someone else will come to your plate to switch with you. The people in the middle will go to a plate on the left and right sides and will swap with the player that's on the plate already. The player that is leaving their plate will run to the middle and grab the orb on the central plate to refresh their buff. Then, they will run to the other plate on their side and swap with the person on that plate. This whole encounter is a cycle of switching positions, running to the middle and running to the other plate to swap positions with someone else.

Eventually after a lot of swapping and running, you will all head the the center and there will be 9 purple lanterns on the ceiling. Destroy them all very fast! If you have a Nova Bomb or Sun Hammers, use them now. If you destroy them all first try, you beat the encounter! If you didn't, just go back to your original positions and repeat the first step!

With that out of the way, collect your loot and move back to the Castellum. After another round of that, it's time for your next encounter!

Pleasure Gardens

So, you defeated the Bathers in the Royal Pools? Well, the challenge is just getting started. Welcome, to The Pleasure Gardens!

As soon as you enter the garden, you will see a ton of Cabal enemies. Kill them all to prepare for the encounter. Once all of the adds are dead, head to the golden dome-ish looking building. Jump on top and you will see two crystals. Divide your team into two groups. One group will have four players and the other will have two. Pick up the gems to start the encounter!

Once the gems are picked up, the entrance to the safe room will open up. Have the Ground Team drop down into the room. There will be four orbs on the back of the wall. Each of the four players will need to pick one up. Once picked up, you will see two doors on the side of the safe room. Outside of the safe room are the Royal Hounds. These beasts will start howling if they spot you and they will wipe your team if you don't kill them fast enough, or reach the safe room in time. Yes, if you don't defeat the dogs in time, you can head back to the safe room to avoid death. Every player needs to make it back though.

Now you may be thinking, "How do I kill six Royal Hounds when they have that much health?!" Don't worry, this raid isn't that cruel. Around the map, there are spores that give you a damage buff. What you need to do is gather your group of four and head to the spore that the gem player calls out. The spore will be on the left or right side or in the middle. Once you get to the spore, have the gem player shoot it to give everyone the damage buff. Make sure everyone is close enough to the spore though so that they get the buff. Just avoid the Beast! Now, how do you know which spore to shoot?

These two players are the key to the success of this encounter. One player will cover the left side and one will cover the right side. You will see glowing mists on top of some rocks. Those are the spots where you should shoot your gem. When you see a spore that is glowing, tell the Ground Team where it is and how to get there. Just make sure to tell them about the Beasts and where they are, so they don't get caught. After the spore has been shot, a Centurion will spawn and you must kill it. It will spawn out of a door on the top of the arena.

Try to shoot as many spores as you can, so that you can deal as much damage to the Royal Hounds as possible. Trust me, they have a lot of health. Once you think your stack is high enough (your stack is the buff on the bottom left corner of your screen), go find a dog and destroy it! You could assign one to each player, or you could just go find one and kill it.

Important Note

There is a helpful map in the image section. It details the locations of the spores and the dogs.

Once all dogs are dead, you've defeated the Pleasure Gardens! Next, move on to another Castellum encounter and then move into the next encounter, The Gauntlet.

The Gauntlet

Now, you've reached Calus' final challenge, The Gauntlet! This a thrilling encounter full of parkour and Cabal Champions!

This arena will have four symbols around the room, just like in the Castellum:

• Sun.
• Axes.
• Dogs.
• Cup.

At two of these symbols is a little orb spawner in front of some arrows. There are also two plates at these two symbols. The other two symbols don't have orb spawners, but they do have plates.

Split your group into two teams, one team of 2 and one team of 4.

Each runner will go to a symbol that has an orb spawner at it. When the other team stands on their plates, the encounter will begin. A bunch of Cabal enemies will spawn on your side and you'll need to kill them all. Once the Centurion is dead, an orb will spawn at your symbol. Walk into it and you will be transported inside the Gauntlet. Get ready for the fun part!

You will see a grid of 9 circles. Above these circles is a symbol. One of the circles will be glowing red too. You need to tell the outside team what the location of this circle is and what the symbol is. For example, if you saw the red circles on the left middle and the symbol was Axes, you would say, "Middle, Axes." This way, the outside team would know what arrows to shoot. Once the barrier is down, run through the circle that you called out because it will have an orb in it. This orb is important because it will keep you alive so that you can get to the end of The Gauntlet.

Important Note

Do not say left or right because the call-outs don't function that way. All that matters is which row it's in, top, middle or bottom.

You need to run through four walls while avoiding some obstacles and running through the correct orb each time. Once you get outside, run to the center and slam your orb in the middle elevator room that you came up in. Now, repeat that a few more times and eventually everyone will do it.

This team is vital to the success of this encounter. When the runner calls out the symbol and the circle, you need to shoot the arrows that the player didn't call out. If the runner said, "Bottom, Cup." You would shoot the middle and top arrows. To make sure this goes smoothly, always help the person to your right with the arrows. Also, you need to be on your plate to shoot the arrows. There is a catch though, when the runner runs through your symbol, a councilor will spawn at your orb spawner. It must be killed and you need to quickly hop off and punch it. Then, get back on and help your partner with their arrows.

Once you all get teleported inside, only three of you need to make it to the end. Also, call out which player is taking which orb so that you don't bump each other out of the way. Once you win the race, you can collect your loot, complete one final Castellum run and defeat the final boss, Emperor Calus.

Calus' Throne Room

Now, you've made it through all of Emperor Calus' challenges. Get ready to take on the big, bad beast himself in this epic final encounter.

When you shoot Calus' chalice out of his hands, the encounter will start. Three sets of Cabal enemies will come out at you. Some from the right, some from the middle and some from the left. Once all of them are dead, four councilors will spawn on four different plates, but ignore them for now. Calus will clap his hands and he will send you to the Void World. Time to divide into teams of 3 again!

Once everyone has been teleported to the Void Realm, there will be three orbs and they were created for you. Jump inside them and you will be taken back to the Throne Room. Here, have two players kill enemies and one player punch the councilors. Also, watch out for Calus' attacks. The player that is punching the councilor's has a very important job and they need to listen to the Void players. Each Void player will call out a symbol. The councilor puncher's job is to punch the councilor that wasn't called out. For example, if the void players called out, "Axe, Cup, Dog." You would punch the councilor on the Sun plate.

Eventually, Calus will build up a shield and will start damaging the Throne Room Players. Get his shield really low, but don't break it yet. This is because the Void Realm Players are getting a buff that will give you extra damage, and destroying the shield will cut them off. Once they say there done, destroy the shield and get ready for damage.

When you get teleported to the Void Realm, you and your two teammates will stay. Once the other players have left, walk forward to the wall, but don't jump over it yet! Look at Shadow Calus' forehead to see a symbol. Call it out from left to right, meaning that the player on the left will shout his symbol first. Once they are called out, kill the normal psions and kill the floating councilor psions too. Once you see another wall ahead of you, jump over the one your on now and repeat the same steps. Watch out for the ramps and kill the psions before the launch you in the air.

Once you get to Calus' head, he will start spewing out skulls. This is where an auto rifle or machine gun comes in handy. Destroy as many as you can and as fast as you can so that the Throne Players don't die. Once you get to a reasonable amount of skulls, the Force of Will buff, tell the Throne Players to destroy Calus' shield. Then, jump out and head to either the Sun plate or the Cup plate. It's time for the Boss Fight!

Either choose Cup or Sun, and get everyone together. Call 1, 2, 3, jump on and have everyone get on at the same time. Then, shoot Calus and destroy him! Now, there are four plates where you can do damage, but you probably won't need them all anymore because of the high-damaging weapons in the game. Also, Calus has three health sections. Once one is destroyed, the damage phase of your plate is extended and you don't have to move to the next one. If you don't break a health chunk on your plate, get off when Calus starts summoning a solar flare on your plate because it will kill you. If you started on the Cup plate, move in this rotation: Cup, Axe, Dog, Sun. If you started on the Sun plate, move in this rotation: Sun, Dog, Axe, Cup. Once you get his health all the way down, he will do a final stand and you need to destroy his shield before he kills you. Once he goes down, you've completed the Leviathan Raid!

Rewards

This is all of the loot that can be earned from this raid:

• Each encounter drops Calus Tokens, which are redeemable at Benedict in the Tower Annex.
• They also can drop Legendary engrams.
• They also drop Raid Keys, which are used in the Underbelly.

Kinetic

• Ghost Primus (Auto Rifle).
• Midnight Coup (Hand Cannon).
• Alone as a God (Snipe Rifle).

Energy

• Inaugural Address (Pulse Rifle).
• Mob Justice (SMG).
• Conspirator (Scout Rifle).

Power

• It Stared Back (Sword).
• Sins of the Past (Rocket Launcher).

Each class has it's own armor set too.

Final Impressions

So, now that you've completed this raid, here are some extra tips:

If you received the quest, Imperial Invitation from killing Cabal on Nessus and completed the steps before the raid step, completing the raid will allow you to start the exotic quest to earn the Legend of Acrius Exotic Shotgun.

You can use the keys to access chests in the Underbelly.

You can tackle the Prestige version, which introduces some small changes to each encounter's mechanics.

Source: https://gameplay.tips/guides/7828-destiny-2.html					

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