This Destiny 2 Leviathan Raid Walkthrough will show you how to beat the first Raid for power levels 260-280 in Destiny 2. This guide is for the normal version of the “Leviathan” Raid.
Beating the raid awards you with the “Belly Of The Beast” trophy and achievement.
Leviathan Raid Walkthrough
The Leviathan raid was released on September 13, 2017 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET / 6 PM BST.
Before you even think about doing this raid, it’s worth noting that there is no matchmaking and you must find a fireteam of 6 players! All players should be 280+ power at least.
The recommended power level for the raid is 270 but you should really be at least 280 with gear that deals a lot of damage per second (that’s not necessarily the gear with the highest power level). Your overall power level needs to be equal or greater than the enemy’s, otherwise you deal reduced damage and die much quicker. So make sure everyone in your team is 280 power. Assault rifles are generally a good choice. Bring a good mix of weapon types, though. In some sections a sword, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, shotgun or sniper rifle can also work wonders.
There are checkpoints within the raid (one after every big area) so you’re allowed to fly back to the tower to decrypt the engrams you’ve found. However, every time you spawn in you will be placed at the bottom of the temple again on the bridge.
You can skip all but the first Castellum steps by navigating your way throughout the underbelly of the Leviathan. The earliest you can get anywhere in the underbelly is by flipping the switches after Step 2.
*NOTE – This Raid is more about communication and working as a team than any raid that Bungie has released. While possible to do parts as a group of 5, a group of 6 is highly encouraged. DPS isn’t really a factor until the end of the raid. If you are having trouble doing DPS your best bets are the Coldheart (pre-order exotic) or the Merciless (Exotic Fusion Rifle sold by Xur his first week).
After clearing steps 2, 4 and 6 you will receive one of three keys from each encounter. The key unlock chests in the underbelly of the Leviathan. Bungie has also tweeted that the keys you get each week will disappear from your inventory on reset each week so be sure to use them asap.
In Steps 2, 4, 6 and 8 if your fireteam has anyone go down you will have 30 seconds to revive that member or it trips a wipe mechanic. Also note that each player only has one revive to use available per wipe. Also if you take too much time in each step it will also trigger a wipe. Speed and consistency is key.
Step 1 (Castellum Sun Door):
Head up the temple killing adds (only if you are awesome because they normally wont attack you) until you get to the portal that shoots you to the top of the temple.
Locate the relic keyhole holograms (Calus’ Standard) on the left hand side from where you enter the area. Once there designate 3 people to guard relics while 3 others go and retrieve the remaining relics.
The people running the relics should locate one of the three relics in the area (Crossed axe is on the far right side from entering, Chalice relic is straight ahead of where you enter up the stairs and the dog relic is in the far right corner). Once locating the relic you will see a bunch of Cabal guarding the relic. Destroy all of them and the Standard Bearer will appear. He is a Major Cabal. Take him out and you will have access to that areas relic. Take the relic and slam it near the door where the holograms are.
Each time you put the relic in a Loyalty Counselor will appear and is a Psion meditating in a bubble. Run into the bubble if you are guarding the relics and melee him to kill him. That will take the shield off of the Standard Liberator. Take him out before he can take out the relic. Repeat this process three times making sure to keep taking out the Standard Liberators. Once you slam all three relics the doors will open behind the relics for you to proceed.
Step 2 (Pools of Sol / Royal Pools):
Once in the next room there will be pools that hurt you. There are 5 plates. One in each corner of the next room and one in the center. You must step on all 5 plates altogether at the same time to start the encounter. Once you hear a loud audible gong the encounter starts. Everyone must stand on one of the corner plates while one person relieves the next person. Stepping on the center plate will give you the buff “Psionic Protection”. It is best to have the two in the middle rotate with the people in the upper corners of the room first after obtaining the Psionic Protection. Take out the Bather and stand on the plate and the chain where the bathers spawn will start going down. Once relieved you should go back down to the middle and get the buff and relieve the person on the bottom plates. Keep rotating and killing the bathers until all four chains have reached the bottom. You will hear another audible gong signaling all four chains have reached the bottom. Everyone should meet back up in the middle and 4 people should shoot the Canisters on the chains in center room while standing on the center plate while the other two people take out the adds. You only have a certain amount of time to shoot the canisters. If you do not destroy them all you must do another phase. Once you destroy all 9 canisters you will complete this section of the raid.
Step 3 (Castellum Warbeast Door):
Repeat Step 1 for the second door, the one in far right corner.
Step 4 (Pleasure Gardens):
Once you get into the next room you will be in a room with a bunch of dogs and cabal patrolling around the ground. You will need to take out all the enemies to spawn two Prism Weapons. Two people need to grab the prism and stay on top of the cliffs above while everyone else drops into the safe room in the back. Once in the safe room 4 Royal Spores will spawn. Each of you need to grab a spore and you will need to work your way around guided by the two people with weapon prisms to glowing flowers. When the people with the spores are near the flowers they will open up and the people with weapon prisms will be able to stand in the beam of light and shoot the flowers to buff everyone. You will need to sneak from flower to flower building your buff until you have at least x55 buff and start taking out the major dogs. You will need to get back to the safe room between each round of damage on the dogs and repeat but be warned that each round gets faster and faster before they get restless. You will need to defeat every major dog in the room before you can complete this phase of the raid. It is best to use swords and supers (Shotguns would be the next best thing) on the dogs for this part.
Alternatively, just damage (but NOT kill) the dogs. Get at least x48 spores for this. Then have each of the 6 players look for a different dog. 1 player = attacking 1 dog. Get detected on purpose and bring the dog’s health as low as you can, but DO NOT kill them for this strategy. What this does is that they don’t grow restless. Only killing a dog causes them to grow restless in the next round. This way, you have more time looking for spores. You should be able to get their health down to 20% or so in one round. Then in the second round you repeat the same thing, this time killing all the dogs by taking down their remaining health and thus finishing the section. You can do it with this method in two rounds if all goes perfectly. Really the key difference between the two strategies is that in the first one you reduce the number of dogs right away which makes it easier to go around the map but they will start running and get more unpredictable. With the second strategy, you’ll still have to deal with all the dogs in the second round but they won’t grow restless so you have more time to collect spores.
Step 5 (Castellum Crossed Axes Door):
Repeat step 1 for the third door, the one to the far right.
Step 6 (Gauntlet):
Once you get into the Gauntlet room there will be four pillars. Each pillar points to a symbol with arrows facing down underneath it. To start the encounter you will need to stand on the four pillars. It is recommended to have two people on Chalice and two on Dogs while the other two pillars are manned by one person each. Continue to defeat the enemies that spawn until the Majors show up. Once the Majors appear and are taken out there are two orbs that can be interacted with, one at Dogs and one at Chalice. One person (the extra at each place) grabs the orb and they are teleported into the outer ring which is a gauntlet race. Each person outside the race must stand on a plate that was used to start the encounter while the person in the race works their way around clockwise. They will come to a wall with 9 holes and all will be green ringed but one. The runner will have to call out if that ring is on the top row, middle row or bottom row. Two people on the outside have to shoot the arrows at the same time that are NOT in the row the runner call out. Once they shoot the arrows a Psion will appear and the guys on the outside will need to run and melee their Psion and hop back on their plate to shoot the next set of arrows. If done right the circles will all turn green and an orb will appear for the runner to collect. They collect the orb and proceed through all four gates to be teleported out. Once teleported out the people with the orbs will need to dunk the orbs into the center chalice. You will need to make three runs to dunk at least 5 orbs. Once 5 orbs have been dunked 6 orbs will appear by the chalice inside and everyone grabs one. They will all be transferred into the race and have to run it together grabbing orbs along the way. 4 people will need to make it out of the race and dunk their orbs to complete the encounter.
If the wrong arrows are shot you can still pass through and hopefully make it to the next set of circles to get the buff. If this happens more Psions will appear in orbs outside and will need to be shot by the players still on the outside. If only one of the two orbs gets dunked Elites will spawn and need to be taken out before starting the next phase.
Step 7 (Castellum Chalice Door):
Repeat step 1 for the final door, the one straight ahead from the start.
Step 8 (Emperor Calus – Final Raid Boss):
We’ve already reached the raid endboss called “Emperor Calus”. The boss has a ton of health and it’s going to be a rather long encounter with no room for error.
At the start of the encounter, shoot the golden cup of the boss. He will then spawn lots of adds. Kill them for their ammo. After a short while, 4 enemies with white bubbles around them will show up (two on either side). Don’t kill them yet! These enemies have symbols over their bubbles. Do take a look at those white symbols, they are of great importance in the step to come.
Right after the enemies in white bubbles show up, you are teleported to a hallucination area with a huge skull in front of you.
At this point your team basically has to split up into two groups of 3.
The first 3 pick up the glowing orbs in the skull hallucination to be teleported back to the boss room. The other 3 must stay in the hallucination and should each take a different lane – one on the left, one in the middle, one on the right.
Those 3 in the skull hallucination are NOT allowed to pick up the orbs while being teleported into the skull hallucination. You will stay in the skull area for now. Each player should take a different lane – one to the left, one in the middle, on to the right. Your buddies will have to pick up the orbs which teleports them back into the boss room. Your job in the skull hallucination is to look at the skull’s forehead and shout out what symbol it shows. EACH of you 3 will see a different symbol! So decide an order in which you’ll call out the symbols (player 1 always says his symbol first, then player 2 says his and then player 3). The symbols correlate to the ones you saw above the enemies in white bubbles before getting teleported. There are 4 possible symbols: chalice, animal, sickles, sun. Players 4-6 outside must melee the enemy in the white bubble with the symbol that’s missing. For example: if the people in the skull room see a chalice, animal and sickle – it means that the people in the boss room must melee the enemy in the bubble with sun symbol (because that’s the one missing of the four possibilities). Repeat this procedure 4 times in a row. As you do this, the skull will pull you towards it bit by bit. There are stones in front of you, those are actually ramps and MUST BE AVOIDED! If you hit a stone ramp, the skull will suck you in and you die. There are also enemies spawning that you must kill instantly (psions and white bubble enemies)! This is why each player should take a different lane, so you can concentrate on different enemies. Kill the enemies really quickly, otherwise they will launch you into the air and you get sucked into the skull. Also avoid jumping during this section.
After calling out your symbol 3 times and your teammates in the boss room meleeing the bubble-enemy under the missing icon, the purple skull hallucination will start shooting mini-skulls at you. It’s extremely important you kill as many of them as possible. They act as damage multipliers, so killing more skulls makes you deal more damage to the boss. Use auto-rifles for this with lots of ammo in the magazine. Ideally, you would destroy 60+ small skulls. After the skulls stop spawning you need to pick up an orb (each player taking one orb) and get teleported back to your buddies to the boss room.
IMPORTANT: While you shoot the skulls, the boss (where players 4-6 are) is lighting up and powering up a wipe move. Players 4-6 must shoot the boss to bring down his shield and stop him from doing his move. However, it is extremely important to know that ending his move stops the mini skulls from spawning (for Players 1-3). What this means is that you want to wait with shooting down the boss’ shields as long as possible. If you do it too early the people in the skull area cannot get a high enough multiplier. Have only 1 person shoot at the glowing boss, two at most. Or shoot down his shields as much as possible with just a tiny bit of health remaining and do the final hit just as he starts glowing very brightly. Be warned though, if you wait too long he will wipe the team with his move. Timing is super important in this part. If you do it right you can get a x80 multiplier or above and kill the boss in two phases. Also note, that while he powers up the move, Players 4-6 in the boss room will continuously take damage. They should avoid being hit by small enemies and after destroying 4 white bubbles with the symbols, just hide behind pillars to let your health refresh. If your health is in the red before the powers up his move, you will die.
Now there are 4 platforms lighting up in the corners of the room. All 6 players need to jump on THE SAME platform at around the same time. This will allow you to deal damage to the boss, he is otherwise immune to all damage by you! With all players on one platform, start shooting the boss in the head. If you killed enough mini-skulls earlier you should be able to take out 70% of his first health bar. You must take out at least 51% of his first health bar, otherwise the game ends and you all die. While on the platforms, the boss uses a fire attack (can see fire around his fist before he uses it). When he does the fire fist, immediately jump in the air. Otherwise it wipes everyone standing on solid ground. Once the boss turns immune, jump to the next glowing platform (remember there are 4 total in the room). Set up an order for the platforms beforehand. You should go clockwise, for example, starting with the bottom right, then bottom left, top left, top right. Your titans can put up a shield (not the super, the big barricade one) and your warlocks can use their damage buff.
Now repeat this procedure a few more times until the boss is dead. After taking his first health bar down, his chest will be his weak spot.
Also, for the players inside the skull hallucination, there will be some floor tiles missing the more often you get teleported in there. So you need to watch out for missing floor tiles, for the stone ramps, kill the enemies super quickly, and also look at the symbols on the skull’s head and call them out for your teammates.
If a player dies in the hallucination, he can no longer call out his symbols, as a result everyone in the team will die. The people in the skull room have the harder job and absolutely aren’t allowed to die. If one of them dies or says the wrong symbol, the entire team dies. If the people in the boss room melee the wrong enemy, the team dies.
Repeat until the boss is dead, it’s going to take 3-5 rounds. The fight takes good communication skills and a lot of practice.
Raymond says
Step 4 is so irritating
Jacob says
Step 4 is bullshit I hate this shit