Destiny Ishtar Sink Nightfall Guide

Destiny Ishtar Sink Nightfall Guide by Nolskog

Hello again, I’m back with another quick write up to help people with the newly released weekly and nightfall strikes, which will net you a quick 9 strange coins and a random loot drop(legendaries, exotics, ascendant materials) plus an XP boost of 20% in everything for the remainder of the week(cryptarch, factions, crucible, vanguard, character xp, etc). I did both the weekly 28 strike and nightfall in under an hour, including how to actually get it done and dieing a few times on weekly, so it’s really easy this week.

So this weeks strike is in Venus, Ishtar sink, the one where the final boss is a Hydra. Let’s do the same run-down as last week.

Reminder

These monsters will all be level 28, so unless you’re also level 28, there’s a damage handicap. Three levels below, so 25, will deal 50% less damage to everything. 26 will deal 29% less damage to everything, and 27 will deal something like 15% less damage to everything. It’s doable at 25, but it’ll take much longer and be a bit harder, if you aren’t able to do it, try leveling up first!

Modifiers:

It’s self explanatory for the most part, harder and more aggresive enemies, no flinching, die and return to orbit, but most importantly,SOLAR weapons will do extra damage. That’s the fire/flame elemental damage on Snipers/Fusion/Shotguns/Rocket Launchers/Machine Guns and some primaries as well. Have one of these, especially necessary for taking out the last boss and making everything quicker.

What to bring:

You’re going to need SOLAR weapons like I said before. Solar damage will do 3x damage, so there’s no need for arc/void damage for captains/minotaurs as you’ll do more damage simply using solar. Also use fusion rifles over snipers for shields, as fusion rifles don’t crit and have a higher base damage.

You will need to buy extra ammo cartridges just in case. If you have any weapon that generates it’s own ammo, like the icebreaker sniper rifle, definitely bring that along.

First room – Three waves of servitors

You start off outside, skip this as it’s public and not necessary, head inside. First part is dealing with three waves of servitors. As soon as you’ve killed one the next and all it’s adds will spawn, so it’s easier to clean all or most adds on the first servitor then spawn the next, etc. They spawn from top left and side right, mostly. It’s easiest done just staying outside the door you come in from and backing up if under pressure. Just clear them out little by little and you should be done in under 5-10 minutes. Hardest part of the strike, to be honest. After you’re done with three waves, stealth vandals and yellow bars will start coming from the top stairs. They have to get all the way where you are so easily pick them off while they’re running towards you.

Second Part- Various rooms and staircases

The first room after going up the flight of stairs have some flanks and some vandals. You can actually skip this room very easily after killing shanks. Vandals will start going down the inside stairs towards you and you just have to jump up and to the right. Next few areas are easily done and ** CAN** be skipped, but we had some problems with enemies coming from behind us so I don’t recommend. There’s going to be a hallway with dregs/vandals first, then an outside area with vex goblins, then a room with more dregs/vex that you can skip by going down the stairs to the left, but I prefer you’d just kill them and be cautious about it, no risk.

After going downstairs there will be some harpies, easy to kill. Outside this room, there are goblins, snipers to the right and minotaurs. We just improvised this zone, pick them off little by little and mow down the minotaurs. If you go all the way down towards the ruins, 5 goblins spawn in the small corridor, so unless you kill them really fast you can’t skip minotaurs because they’ll surround you. We rocket launched goblins and skipped minotaurs, but it’s a much better idea to play cautious.

Third part- Goblin Farm spot and Final Boss

No we arrive at the vex goblin farm spot, hit them with a few nades and rocket launchers and they’ll be dead fast. If you don’t have a lot of killing power, have one guy stay back as they’re high level and hit hard, especially when there’s 15 of them.

Now we arrive at the final boss. We happened to find yet another exploit which makes this very easy. You’re two most powerful players(high level+solar damage weapons(snipers/rocketlaunchers) are to stay at the cliff edge and start picking off minotaurs so the nexus spawns. No one has to jump off the cliff.

Staying on the cliff makes it easy to kill the boss, but the game trys to stop this by spawning a fairly strong axis minotaur right behind you, at the entrance of this last cave system, right behind where the vexx goblins spawn outside near the cliff. We did the weekly by simply focusing it and having one player shoot it until it gets near the pillar inside the cave on the left(looking at it from the end to the start, so final boss entrance behind you) and then havign that player loop around the pillar and shoot the minotaur in the back while it focuses on the other two players on the cliff edge. This is risky because you have to kill it fast or you’ll be in trouble. This minotaur would spawn every 25-30 seconds, to you have to do everything really well to chip life off the hydra and not die to the minotaur.

Luckily, while doing the nightfall itself, I found a much easier variation of this strat. You’re going to want the lowest level/player with the worst weapons to stand right behind where the minotaur spawns, at the entrance of this last cave system(about where the last of the vex goblins spawn) and shoot at the minotaur when it spawns. It then follow this third player to the outside cliff where the vex goblins normally are. You can easily lure the minotaur outside and then kite it from corner to corner of this outside passageway, jumping over it when you get to one of the ends. Do this until the final boss dies. It’s faily easy, use the bends in the passage to dodge the minotaur’s missiles and never get close to it or you’ll probably die from a ground pound. If you mess up and your teammates have to kill him, another minotaur will spawn RIGHT AFTER, and it will be a bit harder to deal with, so please make sure the player that lures the minotaur doesn’t mess up.

The other two players simply have to chip at the boss’s health, if he’s focusing on them the splash damage will kill them, so make sure the two cliff players are playing cautious and slowly chipping away at boss’s health with solar damage(snipers, rockets, hunter/warlock solar nades/machine guns).

Boss should be dealth with in 5-10 minutes maximum, depending on damage output.

Loot:

XP Bonus for the whole week(get this done asap), and a possibility of exotic weapons/armor or ascendant materials. I was personally given a legendary shotgun, and my teammates both got 7-9 ascendant energies(whoever gets this many fragments is a lucky boy/girl).

End:

That’s it, hope I’ve helped. It was a fairly easy run and most should be able to do this alone, but I’m sure the tip with the minotaur will make it a lot easier for a few. Last week’s thread had a fair amount of success, so I’ll do these every week if this one helps people too. I’ll be doing all the weeklys/nightfalls as soon as they come out, so I’ll try and get the guides on reddit asap to help people get it done on the first day.

Good luck with the strike, guardians.