Crota’s End Challenges this Week: Rotation & Guides

Crota’s End returned triumphantly to Destiny 2 thanks to its fan-favorite armor, new perks, powerful weapons, and Necrochasm. With so much to obtain, many Guardians are looking for every way to maximize rewards in this new raid.

The easiest way to get more rewards is through Raid Challenges, which rotate weekly and offer double loot. So, how do you complete them? What are their rewards? And what is their rotation? Today, we’ll cover all that and more.

Crota’s Challenge this Week: September 17, 2024

The Crota’d End Master Challenge this week is… ALL OF THEM, as  “Crota’s End is the featured raid.

Art	Raid Challenge	Encounter	Description
	Conservation of Energy	Enter the Abyss	Guardians must alternate between depositing the Chalice of Light in a podium and Enlightening a lamp.
	Precarious Balance	Cross the Bridge	Guardians cannot step on the bridge while it is fully built.
	Equal Vessels	Ir Yût, the Deathsinger	All six players must rotate the Chalice of Light buff in the same order throughout the entire fight (each player cannot hold the Chalice again before all five other players have).
	All for One	Crota, Son of Oryx	Crota's overshield must be destroyed in full within about three seconds.

Power Level Requirements

If you’re interested in farming Crota’s End’s challenges, make sure your Guardian has the proper Power Level (including your Artifact’s bonus Power):

Crota’s End Master rewards

Completing the Master difficulty version of a raid is tough, regardless of how skilled your Fireteam is. Luckily, achieving this feat is still worth it because of the numerous cosmetic and gameplay-oriented rewards each Master raid offers.

Challenges in Normal mode

Completing a raid challenge on the normal raid difficulty setting grants double loot for the encounter in which the challenge is completed. Additionally, doing a Crota’s End challenge for the first time awards a triumph, which gives the currency needed to obtain Necrochasm (Essence of the Oversoul).

Challenges in Master mode

Every armor piece that drops from Master mode raids (not just challenges) will drop with spikier stat splits than its normal mode counterparts. Master raids also offer a weekly focused stat, which helps a ton when looking for armor with a specific distribution.

In addition, if you complete the challenges, you’ll be rewarded with an Enhanced Adept raid weapon, which will drop following a knockout system. As confirmed by Bungie:

Each week, the armor drops you get will have a particular stat focus, and if you also complete the weekly challenge on Master, you’ll get an Adept weapon. The Adept weapon you get is random but drops work on a knockout system—you will get a new one with every challenge you complete every week until you have unlocked them all.

As we implemented with the Root of Nightmares Adept weapons, the Adept weapons you get in Crota’s End also allow for weapon enhancement—this will give it a weapon level, creation date, and Memento socket.

These are all the Enhanced Adept weapons that can drop from Crota’s End’s Master mode:

Art	Name	Type	Archetype	Rarity	Ammo?	Element?	Requirements	In loot pool?	Ammo	Element	Tier	Excels	Source	Craftable?	Requires	Released	Slot	Can be Crafted?	Best of?	Top Perk?
	Abyss Defiant	Auto Rifle	High-Impact	Legendary	Primary	Solar	Free-to-Play	Yes	Primary	Solar	A › Strong	PvE	Crota's End Raid	Yes	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Energy	Craftable	Top-tier	Incandescent,Sword Logic,Reconstruction
	Eidolon Ally	Auto Rifle	Rapid-Fire	Legendary	Primary	Kinetic	Free-to-Play	Yes	Primary	Kinetic	B › Average	PvP	Crota's End Raid	No	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Kinetic	No
	Fang of Ir Yût	Scout Rifle	Rapid-Fire	Legendary	Primary	Strand	Free-to-Play	Yes	Primary	Strand	A › Strong	PvE	Crota's End Raid	Yes	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Kinetic	Craftable	Top-tier	Sword Logic
	Oversoul Edict	Pulse Rifle	Rapid-Fire	Legendary	Primary	Arc	Free-to-Play	Yes	Primary	Arc	S › Best	PvE + PvP	Crota's End Raid	Yes	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Energy	Craftable	Top-tier	Voltshot,Sword Logic
	Song of Ir Yût	Machine Gun	Adaptive	Legendary	Heavy	Arc	Free-to-Play	Yes	Heavy	Arc	A › Strong	PvE	Crota's End Raid	Yes	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Heavy	Craftable	Top-tier	Voltshot,Sword Logic,Reconstruction,Bait and Switch
	Swordbreaker	Shotgun	Lightweight	Legendary	Special	Strand	Free-to-Play	Yes	Special	Strand	A › Strong	PvE	Crota's End Raid	Yes	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Kinetic	Craftable	Top-tier	Sword Logic
	Word of Crota	Hand Cannon	Precision	Legendary	Primary	Void	Free-to-Play	Yes	Primary	Void	A › Strong	PvE + PvP	Crota's End Raid	Yes	Free-to-Play	Season 22	Energy	Craftable	Top-tier	Sword Logic

This sounds great, but how do you complete Crota’s End challenges, let alone on Master difficulty? Read on as we cover all four in detail.

Master Challenges: Guides & Loadouts

Art	Raid Challenge	Encounter	Description
	Conservation of Energy	Enter the Abyss	Guardians must alternate between depositing the Chalice of Light in a podium and Enlightening a lamp.
	Precarious Balance	Cross the Bridge	Guardians cannot step on the bridge while it is fully built.
	Equal Vessels	Ir Yût, the Deathsinger	All six players must rotate the Chalice of Light buff in the same order throughout the entire fight (each player cannot hold the Chalice again before all five other players have).
	All for One	Crota, Son of Oryx	Crota's overshield must be destroyed in full within about three seconds.

1.  Conservation of Energy Challenge: Enter the Abyss

Navigating the Abyss can be rough on your first couple of attempts, but once you do it a couple of times, it gets significantly easier. This is all flipped on its head with Conservation of Energy, which requires you to spend most of the encounter with ten stacks of Weight of Darkness.

To complete Conservation of Energy, your fireteam can only Enlighten one lamp per podium of Light you use. This means you must alternate between Enlightening a lamp and depositing the Chalice of Light in a podium, and it also means that you’ll need to pay much more attention to Engulfed in Darkness’ timer.

Completing this challenge requires your fireteam to stay together; even just one member skipping ahead can result in a wipe, as the people who are stuck behind have little to no opportunity to cleanse themselves of Weight of Darkness.

If you’re more comfortable with the encounter space and the position of holes and swinging lamps, having your fireteam run Tractor Cannon or an Eager Edge sword for extra speed can be helpful when avoiding the wipe timer. We also recommend creating a system for keeping track of when you either deposit the buff or enlighten lamps, as remembering what you did last in the moment can be tough. Many teams decide to both deposit and Enlighten at the same lamp, skipping the rest entirely. Although it’s a popular strategy, you can use different systems instead if they work better for you.

Recommended Loadouts

Especially on Master difficulty, loadouts are extremely important in this encounter to prevent unnecessary deaths from random ads. Invis Hunters (either on Nightstalker or Assassin’s Cowl), throwing hammer Titans, and Vesper of Radius Warlocks are all extremely powerful here. Also, keep in mind that, up until the final plate, every enemy you face will get up close and personal with you. As a result, we recommend close-range weapons like SMGs, shotguns, and swords.

As long as you’re vaguely familiar with the encounter space, Conservation of Energy shouldn’t be all that difficult. Just remember to stick together as a team to prevent needing to run back and revive someone, and you should be set.

More Destiny 2 Raid Challenge guides:

• Root of Nightmares Challenges
• Vow of the Disciple Raid Challenges
• Vault of Glass Raid Challenges

2. Precarious Balance Challenge: Cross the Bridge

Precarious Balance doesn’t add too much difficulty to this encounter, but it shouldn’t be underestimated. Failing this challenge is perhaps the most devastating of the bunch simply because of how long this encounter can drag on.

To complete Precarious Balance, the bridge cannot be fully formed while people are crossing it. All this means is that you’ll need to jump to the other side once you’re about halfway across, but the timing here can be extremely unforgiving.

Even disregarding the challenge itself, there are tons of strategies for how to get everyone across the bridge in this encounter. For the purposes of this challenge (and to reduce the number of people crossing the bridge to the bare minimum), we recommend adopting the strategy of Enlightening five people before even crossing the bridge once. Then, have one Enlightened player grab a Sword, and have them and the Chalice holder cross the bridge together. All you need to do from here is have one person at a time cross with the Sword, leaving the Chalice in the podium at the far side of the bridge until all six Guardians have crossed.

The only issue with this strategy—especially on Master difficulty—is that it’s extremely hard to recover if anyone with Enlightened dies. However, we think that the difficulty of adopting a different strategy with the challenge outweighs that of this one, so you might just need a couple of attempts to complete this.

As for the challenge itself, have whoever is crossing the bridge at the time stand on the center plate (ensuring no one else is on it). Then, simply run across the bridge. With a double jump at the end and a couple of Sword swings, you should make it with ease.

As for when you construct the bridge from the opposite side, have the person on the center plate give a countdown for when they’re stepping off. The person crossing should base when they start running off of this countdown.

Recommended Loadouts

Lastly, loadouts are pretty standard here. Make sure you have some anti-barrier weapons to kill Knights (and maybe some blinding weapons/abilities for Gatekeepers), and your fireteam should be fine.

3.  Equal Vessels Challenge: Ir Yût

Equal Vessels is extremely easy if you prepare right, but it can get extremely chaotic if even one person doesn’t know what they’re doing.

To complete Equal Vessels, your fireteam must rotate the Chalice of Light through all five other members before it comes back to you. This means you need a specific rotation for the Chalice, and the order cannot be broken during the encounter.

Strategy-wise, we recommend rotating the Chalice through each Guardian once (and only once) per DPS phase. This means that you can easily keep track of who needs it and when, ensuring that the rotation never goes out of order or becomes uneven in later phases.

Here are a couple of tips to help make this rotation even smoother: First, have the last person with the Chalice each phase dunk it into the lower podium. This should allow you to make every phase identical when it comes to rotating the buff and obtaining Enlightened. Second, remember that not everyone needs to get enlightened; they just need to hold the Chalice. Because of this, we recommend giving the first four (or five, if your damage isn’t good enough to two-phase) people Enlightened, then rotate it as quickly as possible through the fifth and sixth.

Recommended Loadouts

Loadouts here are exactly the same as normal; this challenge does nothing to combat difficulty, so it shouldn’t be too big of a deal. Overall, Equal Vessels really isn’t too bad. As long as you solidify an order of Chalice rotation before you begin the encounter, defeating Ir Yut should be smooth.

4 . All for One Challenge: Crota

Defeating Crota is often considered easier than defeating Ir Yut, and comparing the two challenges reflects that.

Completing All for One requires your fireteam to destroy Crota’s overshield in one go. This is what a good amount of teams already do, so this realistically isn’t an issue for most.

Typically, you’ll need two or three Swords to take down Crota’s overshield and begin DPS. In the case of this challenge, you’ll want to immediately start loading Guardians up with Swords, ensuring you keep an extra person Enlightened to destroy the Oversoul.

Because some members of your team will be holding onto the Sword for a while, it’s important to know exactly how it works. The Sword won’t disappear from damaging regular enemies, only if you damage Crota. It will, however, despawn if you drop it, so be sure not to swap weapons.

Recommended Loadouts

Loadouts here are the same as the normal version of this encounter; use The Lament, Legend of Acrius, or Falling Guillotine for DPS, and have someone equip either Tractor Cannon or Tether, if possible, for damage.

Before you go…

Crota’s End is one of the most appealing raids right now, mostly because of its strong Origin perk and unique Perks (including Sword Logic. Don’t be surprised if its Master Challenges become one of the most popular endgame activities this season.