Destiny Crota’s End No Cheesing Guide

Destiny Crota’s End No Cheesing Guide by GenericDreadHead

Here’s my guide to doing Crotas End with No Cheesing/Glitching with the “Centre Method”.

I’m posting this guide so that players of all skill levels can start to approach the Raid in such a way to prepare them for the Hard Raid. If you like to Cheese, go ahead, it doesn’t bother me. But if you want to do the Raid “legit” than feel free to give this a shot. We’ve gotten the whole Raid down to 40 mins (incl toilet and smoke breaks) and this week will be going for 30 mins or less (here was that run last week for proof: http://www.bungie.net/en/Legend/PGCR/2/4611686018432202852/2305843009216633385/1377471184?_)

I’ll be streaming both of my runs tonight (Warlock and Hunter), if you wanna check it out my Twitch channel is http://www.twitch.tv/genericdreadhead/profile (Run 1: 9pm GMT, Run 2: 10pm GMT), not a shameless plug, just there if anyone wants to see it happen live (and listen to some tipsy Irish lads joking haha) Our team is usually 2x Warlocks and 4x Titans for out main run and the 2nd run is 2 of each of the 3 classes. For all runs we are almost all level 31 (except maybe a single level 30 the odd time)

The Abyss

Recommended Weapons: Fatebringer. ARs with decent damage. Murmur. LMGs (especially Corrective Measure or another with “Expect more ammo” and Super Good Advice)

Recommended Class Loadouts: Hunter: Bladedancer, Don’t Touch Me Exotic, extended invisibility. Titan: Defender, Helm of Saint 14 Exotic Warlock: Sunsinger, Light Beyond Nemisis, angel of light, AOE grenades.

Guide Take your time. Wait 20 feet before you trigger each lamp until all 6 of you are together. Have the 1st 2 players who make it near the lamp fire backwards to cover the others as the move and fire forward. Get used to staying together and NOT setting off lamps in the 1st half and the lamps explode quicker as you move along so practice makes perfect. If you have Bladedancers with Don’t Touch Me have them stay last so they can quickly revive anyone who goes down. As soon as a guardian goes down players should be clambering over each other to revive them. Don’t pretend like it’s nothing to do with you and start to proceed to the next lamp – Don’t be that guy. This entire section is all about patience and calm. Try not to speak about shooting thralls or getting killed by thralls unnecessarily – It’s needless chatter polluting the airways. Activate the bridge platform (FYI you do not need to stay on the platform once activated but my team choose to so as to maximise the use of Grenades, Rockets and Supers). Save your supers for as long as possible as the first 30 seconds are pretty straight forward. Have 1 player wait by the bridge area shooting back towards the activation platform (they need to be ready to run – ideally Sunsingers or Bladedancers). Kill the Orges ASAP, usually handy if you have some G-Horns or Icebreakers. Aside from Ogres you need to prioritise Cursed Thralls and Knights as those can one-shot you obviously.

The Bridge

Recommended Weapons: Any decent primary is ok. Snipers/Fusion Rifles. Ice Breakers are a must if you have them. Plan C and Pocket Infintity are good for killing Knight Majors and Sword Bearers. Solar Heavy weapons.

Guide Assign 3 Home and 3 Away Players. When using the Sword I prefer R1, R1, R2 but many people swear by R2 only. Whatever works for you as long as you’re timing it right so the Gatekeeper is NOT hitting you. If he’s hitting you, change approach (or you could be lagging, if you’re lagging go over 1st as you’re the biggest liability)

Away Team: All 3 wait at the bottom of the main stairs (by the tomb) and shoot the sword bearer. Don’t kill the 1st sword bearer too quickly as the bridge will not be ready in time. Usually it takes about 30 seconds. The Away team should consist of 1) your weakest players 2) Sunsingers 3) Hunters. In that order. Weakest players are most susceptible to not killing the Gatekeeper so at least if they mess up the 1st run with a sword you can quickly wipe and restart without losing too much time and having to constantly play catch up trying to kill 2 Gatekeepers (easy for some, very hard for others). If you have a Sunsinger, kill you gatekeeper and then let the mobs kill you just outside the bridge platform. This way the existing mobs and sometimes the new gatekeeper will shoot your dead body. It will also mean the 2nd and 3rd Gatekeepers will stand near the bridge platform. When the 2nd (or 3rd player) gets up with the sword, if they fail to kill their Gatekeeper, you can quickly self res, grab the sword and finish him off.

Home Team: Titans where possible, Sunsingers if not. 1 player takes the bridge platform, 2 others take a totem each. Hold off the mobs and kill EVERYTHING with guns. If you have Helm of Saint 14 this can be a great help to blind enemies if you’re getting overrun.

As soon as you have 3 people over,

Home Team: Get off their areas and move to where the Away team were (bottom of the stairs). Best thing is to jump up on the pillars and kill Acolytes 1st as they are the main ranged enemies you have to face. Away Team: Take a totem or bridge platform each and call out where the Gatekeeper is for the players coming over.

Once player 4 is over, have them stay on the bridge platform and snipe back at the swordbearer. Once player 5 is over, have them act as a support moving back and forth between totems helping to clear mobs so totems don’t get over run. Once the 6th player is over, all move to one side and kill the Wizard/Ogre nearest you (usually to the left). Then snipe the wizard/Orge farthest away. Staying in a group will allow you to kill Knights quickly to avoid being sword-killed and let you revive each other quickly.

The Thrallway

Recommended Weapons: AOE Grenades are a must Any decent primary is ok. Fusion Rifles. Rocket Launchers, as soon as the 1st Shrieker is down shoot 1 rocket ahead. Same with the 2nd Shrieker.

Guide ALL players should change their subclass abilities to be as much Armour and Agility as they can get. Assign 2 Runners, in case 1 dies. Ideally they should be Bladedancer hunters with Don’t Touch Me. If you don’t have Hunters, use Sunsingers for self-res. These 2 just need to run and jump as fast as they can. As soon as you start have the 2 runners throw their grenades. The other 4 need to go Mobs -> Shrieker -> Mobs -> Shrieker – MOBS!!! As soon as the 1st Shrieker is down have all 4 other players throw their grenades as far forward as possible down the hallway. If you’re not gonna make it, don’t cross the final threshold. Wipe and retry, if you enter the room with the big bit down, you’ve gone to far and won’t get to retry. It’s important that the runners just run and make sure they get past the Thralls and jump across the big pit to get into the room at the opposite side where the 2nd exotic chest is. If you kill the 2nd Shrieker and the doorway is already closed, wipe before you cross the threshold between the Thrallway and the room with the pit.

The Deathsinger

Recommended Weapons: AOE Grenades. VoC, Fatebringer, Vex. Fusion Rifles, Ice Breakers, other decent sniper rifles. Gjallahorn, Dragons Breath, High Impact LMGs.

Guide: Have 4 players (ideally your best equipped snipers) stand at the back of the room (where the moon is and where Crota spawns). Have 2 players “kite” a wizard out each (going into the room, seeing the wizard move and running out and back to where the other guys are). All 6 players kill the wizards and you will probably notice that one side of the room has a much bigger mob, this usually happens to us on the right (when looking from the back towards the glass death-singer room). Have 3 players stay at the back harassing these mobs and have 3 players go into the easier of the 2 entrances and kill the 1st Shrieker (this is usually the left side for us). Once the 1st Shrieker is down, those 3 need to run back to other 3 and have all 6 proceed towards the the 2nd room, clearing mobs and using AOE grenades as necessary. Once the 2nd Shieker is down, take a step back (so as to avoid it’s death blast) and start killing more mobs. About 15 seconds later, proceed into the room. If you have Titan Bubbles with Weapons of Light or Blinding Abilities use them now. Right about now the Deathsinger should be beginning it’s song. As she’s singing, jump up onto the ledges above the doors at the back of the room with the crystal piece (hopefully you can see her from here). Unload everything you have into the Deathsinger (heavy ammo, grenades, supers etc). Once the Deathsinger is dead, stay where you are and kill mobs. Once the majority of the mobs are clear, jump down and start next to/around the Crystal to begin the final encounter

Final Encounter

Divinde into 2 teams, 2x Snipers and 4x DPS players.

Recommended Weapons (Snipers): VoC, Scout Rifles. Ice Breakers or Black Hammers are a MUST, who has IB should define who plays as a sniper. Corrective Measure (or other LMGs with “find more heavy ammo”)

Recommended Weapons (DPS): VoC, Scout Rifles, High Impact Hand Cannons (for Swordbearers), 1 Atheons Epilogue. Pocket Infinity, Plan C, Murmur (all for Swordbearers). Gjallahorn, Dragons Breath, Hezen Vengeance, Any decent LMG.

Guide: If a 2 or more players have Ice Breakers, have your Sunsingers be your Snipers as they can self revive and will be without the sensual touch of a chalice for the battle. Have your 2 snipers “hide” after you active the Crystal, they can jump up on doorways or hide in between doorways and walls. They will need to get used to never having the chalice so need all the health they can get. They will only need to cover themselves from damage from 1 direction and should prioitise the acolytes. If you do take lots of damage, see if you have a Titan with Blessing of Light charged to pop a health bubble before moving on. Nobody not proceeds until all mobs are dead, stay in the room with the Crystal so as not to begin the Crota timer (which defines when he moves) All 4 DPS players need to go down to the hallway you arrived in before the Deathsinger encounter and stand under the crystal you were just dry-riding. We do Crota without generating Orbs, lots of teams and groups use Orbs to give the Swordbearer a Super, we don’t as we were running 4 defenders in the DPS team for 3 weeks. The 2 snipers need to go to a doorway each (the doorways you kited the wizards out earlier) and position themselves slightly in front of the crystals/rocks so they can see the Boomers in the Window AND where the sword nights jumping from the windows land (near to Crota).

DPS Team: Have your resident “Swordbearer” (ideally a Bladedancer so they can go invisible just before jumping up to attack Crota since they can see his health this way) grab the chalice. The Swordbearer Guardian needs to try and kite the Swordbearer Knight towards the doorway at the bottom. Do this by shooting him, but not with Critical hits until he’s in view of the 3 other DPS players. Have all 4 of you kill the 1st Swordbearer ASAP from the doorway of the room below the Deathsingers spawn room. Once the Swordbearer has the sword wait for the call to DPS Crota (we use 1 player with Athens Epilogue as it keeps his shield down, 1 Gjallahorn Rocket and the rest is LMGs and Scout Rifles) You will need the Swordbearer to get his timing right as to when you should begin to DPS Crota so that he doesn’t either go up too early and get melee killed or go up too late and miss precious hits on Crota with the sword. We normally begin DPSing him once the Swordbearer reaches the “Tomb” in the centre of the room. The Swordbearer will need to jump up (using either the tomb or the rock on the left hand side under the platform Crotas standing on), and use Bumper (R2 on PS, RT on X-box) to hit Crota when he’s kneeling. Someone NEEDs to let the Swordbearer know when Crota is down to 50% and 20% health so he can get his jump timing right (provided he’s not cheekily standing before Crota as an invisible bladedancer)

Snipers: Don’t Attack Crota during the 1st sword attack run, during this run you need to ensure 2 Boomers are dead on each side and you kill the sword knight who jumps from the window to the platform. As soon as Crota gets back up from the 1st attack and stops Glowing yellow DPS him with LMGs if you have them, primaries or secondaries if not.

DPS Team: Have the Swordbearer jump away as soon as Crota begins his “getting up” animation and all of you DPS him again (we don’t use a 2nd Gjallahorn rocket in our group this time as 5 players are DPS’ing him instead of 3, but it’s all about flow, so do what works for you) Have the Swordbearer get in a 2nd round of Sword hits and ideally hit him with a super (if the Swordbearer dies in this run, don’t worry, just kill the Oversoul and have the left sniper revive him) Crota should now move to the right, have the right hand side sniper call out when he’s on his way back Get the 2nd Swordbearer down to about 20% health in the meantime and keep him at that until Crota is back in the centre.

Rinse and Repeat this entire process when Crota is back in the centre (or on his way) You really need to get into a flow where nobody dies, Crotas Oversoul can really screw you over as it’ll prevent him kneeling etc so play it steady until you get into a rhythm.

Orges + Thralls

DPS Team: Kill Everything

Snipers: Move into the room with the crystal you used to begin the encounter and face the doorway you were sniping from. Keep your back to the crystal and watch out for Thralls that spawn on top of you. I don’t recommend jumping up onto the doorways previously used as this makes the Thralls run around too much and it can take too long to kill them. You need to clear the room and get back to your sniper spots ASAP to ensure you kill all Boomers and Sword Knights that appear so the DPS team and your Swordbearer have a clear run without being attacked.

Now, do this entire thing again. It should take about 4-8 sword runs depending on your level and how many hits and supers the Swordbearer can get in on him each run. It’s all about practice. You can even kill him after it says “Enrage is near” but before it actually activates

Conclusion I REALLY hope this doesn’t turn into a Pro-Cheesing/Anti-Cheesing post. It’s merely how my group like to do the Raid and hopefully this advice will help others. I’ve always found the main thing in this Raid is “the flow”, it’s all about Practice, Calmness, hitting your marks at the right time and teamwork (solo the whole thing in 10 minutes for all I care, and good on you for doing it, we like to play as a group as we can joke and help each other) I welcome all feedback (and I will fix the spelling, grammar etc later)

EDIT 1: I tried to keep as much of this guide “Class neutral” as possible, hence why it’s not riddled with “Use weapons of light” etc. I’ve made the odd reference to preferred classes taking roles but the theory above will work with any mix of player types, it’s more about the guns than the classes. :P

A lot of people prefer the “Left” approach, this is just how my team like to do it and it’s apparently a safer, more steady approach for players of a lower level or players with less experience or skill.

EDIT 2: chrissulli13 had some really good advice for the Sword Bearers below:

When carrying the sword the easiest and quickest way to animation cancel with the 4x R2 attacks is to constant press your guardian forward because if your guardian moves forward it will cancel the animation for recovering from your R2. there are times it seems like if your guardian has nowhere to move it will not cancel the animation though. so in order to reduce this problem I quickly shift the camera side to side so the guardian always has somewhere to move. make sure not to move the camera too much though as this will make you R2 away from crota.

If your timing is spot on you will be able to get 4x R2s on crota per attack. assuming I trust my dps team I start running in before he is down and R2 him before he even fully crouches. He will take damage before he is fully crouched. I do not suggest going for more than 4 R2s on him because it is not worth the death. sometimes you will have to do even less than that depending on timing. if he starts glowing orange get out ASAP because that means he is about to stand up very shortly. Best way to get away is to do a quick double jump(does not matter which class) and melee away with the sword. On the second attack with the sword on the each sword carry if you have a decent amount of Intel (not sure exact number, but all my chars typically spec to intel, so I always have enough) you will get your super available just before the sword disappears. if you use your super DIRECTLY after an R2 it does an animation cancel. this means it is almost the same speed as just doing the R2 normally. with this method you can get 8X R2 hits and a super per sword carry. The super is more important than the 4th R2, so if you have to choose, choose the super.

GOOD LUCK OUT THERE GUARDIANS :)