Destiny Atheon Hard Mode Comprehensive Guide

Destiny Atheon Hard Mode Comprehensive Guide by collinmurphy

Listen up, Guardians, We’ve got a VIP Time’s Conflux hiding out in the Vault of Glass for you to destroy. Your ghost has the details.

Ok, so Atheon is one badass boss. I’ve never cheesed him, and have killing him many times on hard mode on all 3 classes. He deserves your respect. This fight can take 10 minutes or 3 hours depending how your team does. So before you even set your dirty guardian boots onto his sacred glass throne, you’d better be ready for the fight.

Pre-Fight

• Be at least level 29, preferably 30. 28s need not apply in my opinion, but ymmv. Just know they will be doing about 40% less damage to everything. Keep in mind 29s should probably not hold the relic unless necessary as they will be unable to 1-shot the hobgoblins in the past and will need help on both portals.
• Have maxed-out oracle killing weapons – the best one being Corrective Measure. Next up are Atheon’s Epilogue, Visions of Confluence, and Fatebringer. My only issue with Epilogue is that you will run out of ammo all the goddamn time and syntheses are better spent on heavy so I use Fatebringer.
• Have 3 level 30s in your group, if possible. Not necessary, but if you can’t 1-shot the hobgoblins, you should expect the “easy” portal to not be that easy.
• Have at least 10 Heavy Syntheses, but 20 is better; you may not need all of them, but better to have them. I’ve blown through 15 on a rough night :(
• Know all aspects of the fight before going in.
• Chose your Exotics and review your sub-class perks. Take a minute to think about which ones will help the most (see class-specific tips for help).
• Begin chanting “I will live. I will live.” If you die, your DPS goes to zero. If you live you can still help. There are a lot of mistakes you can recover from in this fight, but dying isn’t one of them.

Ready to go? Great, let’s do this.

Fight Opening

Some people like to take a few potshots at Atheon at this point, but honestly, it’ll only piss him off and draw fire. Occasionally, people will get damaged or killed by doing this, and really you’re not doing any damage to him anyway. Just take cover behind a pillar and wait for him to pick his teleport targets. It is fairly important to remain stationary and avoid jumping at this point because if you are not teleported, you will be detained, and if you are detained mid-air, you are dead and it’s probably a wipe.

An ideal place to take cover is behind the pillars next to each portal. This has the added benefit of activating the portal while you are detained.

Home Team

If you are not teleported to the past/future you are on the home team. You will be detained. Fire 4 maxed icebreaker shots to easily escape, or just use your primary. Be sure to help your allies out if they are having trouble; this is a team effort after all. On the home team you have 3 responsibilities.

1. Don’t die
2. Open the portal for the Away Team
3. Kill all Supplicants

You can achieve all of these objectives at once from the pillar in the middle of the appropriate sync plate. Stand on top of it and you will be free from potential supplicant explosions, you can dps all supplicants, and open the portal at the same time. Supplicants spawn 3 at a time and alternate directions RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT. Count them as you kill them sometimes they will hide.

Tips for home team.

• Be aware. Were there supplicants left from the last rotation? Take them out quickly, don’t just run blindly to the pillars.
• Count. Were only 2 people teleported? If you see 4 of you out here, the answer is yes, and you need to implement a contingency plan (See Below).
• You can tell where the away team was teleported from your minimap. Top of the map=Right. Bottom of the map=Left. Easy way to remember it is the Future(Right) is in front of you and the Past(Left) is behind you. Communication still helps so if you are confused where the away team is, just ask.
• Help out the other side. You should always be killing supplicants unless they are all dead. If there are not supplicants on your side, shoot the ones on the opposite side.
• A well-placed grenade or rocket on the side of the gate can occasionally take out all the supplicants on a side.
• Keep track of spawns. If supplicants are headed to the gate the portal team is about to come out of (listen on comms or count the oracle kills in the killfeed), it’s time to bust out the heavy weapon. They are walking right into certain death and only you can help them.
• Someone can stand on top of the portals frames to kill supplicants as they spawn. Just get out of the way when Atheon wakes up.

Away Team

If you are teleported to the past/future you are on the Away Team. First off, get oriented. Where are you? If you see Red desert you are in the past (left portal), if you see green jungle you are in the future (right portal). Let your Home team know so they can head to the appropriate portal. Next up, a level 30 should pick up the relic. If you don’t have 30s, this could get dicey, but it’s doable with help.

Responsibilites:

Relic Holder:

1. Stay Alive. More important than killing that Minotaur is staying alive. If you’re Praising the Sun, you can be slightly more aggressive with a self-res up. Otherwise, stay alive because you dying is a wipe 90% of the time.
2. Kill Enemies. See the portal-specific guides below.
3. Cleanse Allies. After the bad guys are dead, you are your portal team’s mother. Nag the shit out of them. They will be too busy zoomed in killing oracles to pay much attention to anything other than your soothing voice. Make sure they are moving while shooting. Let them know if they are focusing oracles out of order. Tell them if they’ve missed one. Talk them through staying together for cleanses. Let them know where the next cleanse will be (middle, stairs, portal, etc). It is your responsibility to make the best use of your time’s vengeance.
4. Leave early if possible. If you did everything right, your team will be in front of an open portal when the final 2 oracles are spawning and your team will have just been cleansed. Reward yourself and your team for a job well done and leave the portal early without time’s vengeance. It will give you some time to setup and make the most of your 30-seconds of awesome. The oracle-killers will finish off the last two oracles and run to you for the final, outside the portal, cleanse, where-ever it may be.

Relic Holder Tips:

• R2 is your friend. It should be your primary form of attack. I usually only ground pound initially then it’s all R2.
• Your super will 1-shot an oracle. If it is up in time, let your team know to ignore that oracle and kill it yourself.
• In desperate times, you can drop the relic and switch to your primary/heavy by pressing or holding triangle. You will have a very short time to help. Do not move during this time so you can pick the relic up within 5 seconds. If you are doing this please let your team know.
• In my experience, the best number of cleanses is 3. One at the top of the stairs after the enemies are dead, one on the vex circle in the middle, and one as close as possible to the open gate.
• If using The Middle Platform method (see below) to reach the middle platform you must turn left after coming through the gate from past/desert/left and right from the right/future/jungle portal.

Oracle Killers:

Responsibilites:

1. Help your relic-bro before the 1st oracle spawns. Usually this entails shooting rockets at the Minotar on the right/future/jungle portal. Don’t be stingy. This could be the run you kill Atheon. Fire 2 rockets at him. Syntheses are cheap/easy to get.
2. Kill the oracles. Oracles gain health the longer they are up. If you can stay on top of them as they spawn, you’ll have an easy time with them.
3. Listen to your relic carrier. They will be your mom for this portal-run. Do as they say. Don’t piss off your mom.
4. Stay together. After the enemies in the portal are dead, if all 3 members of the team are together, it makes cleansing very easy.
5. Walk single file through the portal. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment, but its best to avoid glitches. Don’t run or jump through the portals.

Oracle Killer Tips:

• Know the Oracle Spawn Points. If you catch an oracle when it spawns you can kill it much faster. They always spawn in the same places in the same order.
• Count. Are there only 2 of you? If so you’ll need a contingency plan (see below) and let everyone know.
• If using The Middle Platform method (see below) to reach the middle platform you must turn left after coming through the gate from past/desert/left and right from the right/future/jungle portal.

Past/Desert/Left

Past is the “easy” portal. If you are level 30 with the relic, I prefer to kill the hobgoblins without help. An invulnerability shield from a grenade or stray bullet at the wrong time can be fatal. I recommend running down the stairs then single jumping for a ground smash (jump+r2) to take out 2 or 3 hobgoblins at once. Usually the hobgoblins won’t even notice you until shots are fired or you double jump. Boost/Double jumps can also get you caught mid-air by 2 hobgoblins meaning you are dead.

If you’re relic holder is 29, I recommend helping them kill the enemies.

Future/Jungle/Right

This portal is the harder portal. The relic carrier will need lots of support from the oracle killers with the Minotaur at the begining. Heavy weapons are best. Sometimes this tricky vex from the future will hide on the left behind the wall. This is the hardest position to deal with so be ready for it.

Back Outside the Portal: The Shoot The Boss Phase

Ok guys, the hard work is done, time to put some hurt on this glass behemoth. There are 2 main strategies I think work best, and 1 strategy that isn’t so hot in my experience.

General Tips:

• Take Time to Aim. Sounds dumb, but take the time to aim for Atheon’s Tickle Spot. You do a lot more damage. Firing blindly and hitting him still does damage, but if you wanna get this done fast, take the extra time to line up your shots.
• Do not use grenades. Grenades will cause Atheon to move and this will make everyone have to re-aim. Ideally he should stand there shooting you and you will stand there shooting him with no one moving. You are invulnerable in the shield, he is not. Time he spends moving is time you spend not killing him.
• Don’t let the Supplicants pile up. If you are taking a lot of machine-gun fire, those are supplicants and as they pile up, you chance of living goes way down. Consider dedicating a gunslinger to supplicant duty. Permanent Golden Gun makes short work of them.
• If you have a titan shield and they are using weapons of light and illuminated (they should be), pick up the weapons of light buff by running through his bubble. It doesn’t always do anything (grumble…bugs…grumble), but when it does it makes a big difference (like 35% more damage for everyone)
• As the Relic holder, if you are able to set up early and have Time’s Vengeance, feel free to take a pot-shot super at Atheon before throwing up your shield. This give you free damage. Only do it if you have time though, otherwise you risk wiping everyone.

The Middle Platform This is the most common strategy I’ve seen. The Relic Carrier heads to the Middle Platform between the gates and puts up his shield, everyone joins him for an all-you-can-shoot buffet for 30 seconds. It has the benefit of not having to worry about supplicants, but there is the DRoD (Dreaded Rock of Doom). This is the rock on the left side of the platform. If Atheon shoots it, the splash damage can penetrate the relic shield and kill anyone too close to it. It has claimed more guardians than Sepiks Prime.

To minimize the effect of the DRoD, do not stand near it. The Relic Carrier should be positioned on the right side of the platform with the shield not touching the DRoD. Some say you should try to cover the front of the platform with the relic shield, but I haven’t seen much difference.

If you have a titan, he can put a bubble up at 1 second left in Time’s Vengeance and everyone can just sit in the bubble and wait to be teleported (Be sure to shoot the detain shield and not the titan shield if you are detained and not teleported). If you do not have a titan, you should leave the middle at 3 seconds to take cover. The relic carrier should be the last to leave.

The Back Wall This strategy allows you to avoid the DRoD (Dreaded Rock of Doom), but supplicants can reach you in the back and kill everyone just as fast. After coming through the portal (hopefully early), the relic carrier will run to the back wall at the door where you spawn. Everyone joins them there and shoots the boss. You can follow a very similar strategy to The Middle Platform with either a titan bubble at 1 second or everyone taking cover at 3 seconds. Stay frosty for supplicants guardians. Don’t let them get the Hexakill.

The Everywhere This strategy involves no one inside the shield and everyone doing DPS from all around. If Atheon so much as looks at you, run for cover because he’s out for blood. In theory, it is the fastest way to down him as everyone can use Heavy and the Relic Carrier can super him, but in practice it usually leads to people not getting to cover fast enough and dying or not noticing supplicants and dying. Works well on normal mode, however.

Extra Cheddar-White Fondue with String Cheese Sticks for Dipping

For the sake of completeness you could try to cheese him. It will take you either a very short time or a very, very long one. I don’t recommend it. They’ll eventually fix all the easy-kills and you’ll be left useless and crying in the corner talking about the good old days when you spent 8 hours cheesing Atheon Solo.

Celebrate and EXPLORE

Take a minute to congratulate your teammates. You guys just did some serious teamwork. Talk about any clutch moments people had. Was someone a good leader? Did someone CRUSH oracles or Supplicants. Did your lv 28 just kill everything? Take a minute to discuss.

Next, you’d better goddamn explore. You better believe that timer is stuck at zero for a reason. HELP FIND OUT WHY. People said there was no 5th chest right up until the moment someone discovered it on video. Keep looking, Guardians.

Class-specific tips:

Titans

I highly recommend weapons of light with illumination for the extra damage buff. You help everyone do 35% more damage. You can put up this bubble at the very back of the middle platform (if using the middle platform strategy) or at bottom of the staircase on the back wall (for back wall strategy). You are also responsible for putting up a bubble around the team as times vengeance ends.

Be aware of where you are dropping your bubble. I would strongly discourage putting one up on the sync plates as sometimes supplicants will use your glorious thunderdome as a suicide bombing zone making it difficult for you to kill them/open the portal without also dying.

If you already have a defender for weapons of light, consider a striker for flashbang grenade. It can disable hobgoblins shields.

Hunters

I recommend Gunslinger as Golden Gun is amazing for taking out oracles and supplicants. If you have Arphysageatesdgsge Symbiote even better. You can 1-shot oracles if you catch them as they spawn. Be sure to take a few seconds away from DPSing the boss to clear out any stray supplicants before times vengeances wears out. You’ll still have it if you’re teleported this way.

Warlocks

I like Sunsinger here and trying to be the relic carrier. If you die, you can always self-revive which makes you an ideal relic carrier.

General Tips

• Coordinate your heavy synthesis. Try to have the team coordinate their uses of heavy synthesis. That way you’ll have one “strong” attempt where everyone has heavy and one or two “okay” attempts where only some people have heavy.
• When Teleported, turn 90 degrees to the left to get oriented quickly.

Contingency Plans

Generally these don’t pop up unless someone has died. Don’t have No Backup Plans, Use a Plan C(ontingency).

2 Guardians Teleported

If only 2 guardians are teleported you have 2 options. Either send a 3rd person through the gate (preferably a gunslinger) immediately after it opens for a shot at Time’s Vengeance or just kill enough oracles to leave early (no Time’s Vengeance) and wait out the next teleport cycle.

Detain while Teleported

If you are teleported and see one of your fellow members is detained, the relic carrier and help get him out quickly. Alternatively, just help him out. Keep in mind, however, that on the past/left/desert portal, this will alert the hobgoblins to your presence so the relic carrier should be extra-careful.

MinoRAWR

This is when the minotaur decides he isn’t quite ready to give up on life. He will spontaneously gain large amounts of health or revive. If this happens frequently it is usually a lag/desync issue. I recommend going to orbit, selecting a new fireteam leader (one with open NAT to be safe) and starting the encounter again.

Portal to Nowhere

To minimize the chance of not making it through the portal, make sure you walk through it single file. No jumping no running. Be careful which side you walk back through because you could end up with an angry Atheon shooting at you.

TELEPORTED….or not

If you see TELEPORTED in your killfeed and are not teleported let the team know they will only have 2 people inside.

Don’t Bump the Shield

Don’t bump the shield bearer when he is shielding everyone. It can bug out and turn off the shield or just cause someone who was protected to now be dead.

Hope you enjoyed the guide. Remember to pray to RNGeesus, and go shatter that throne.

Feel free to hit me up on PSN(PS4) Name: Psyestorm

TLDR: Kill Atheon, get loot.