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Nov 12, 2024

Destiny 2 Salvation’s Edge raid guide

Destiny 2 The Final Shape's raid, Salvation's Edge, is one of the most complex to date. Our full walkthrough guide will help you through. Cheri Faulkner Published: Jun 11, 2024 How do you complete

Destiny 2 The Final Shape's raid, Salvation's Edge, is one of the most complex to date. Our full walkthrough guide will help you through.

Cheri Faulkner

Published: Jun 11, 2024

How do you complete Destiny 2 Salvation’s Edge raid? This tricky raid is stumping even the most experienced raiders. There’s no shame in seeking a little helping hand, as the fastest cleared time in the World’s First race was just shy of 19 hours due to the complexity of the mechanics.

Destiny 2 has long been famed for its raid races, which sees fireteams of six gather together to try to complete the raid on “day one” which recently became two days to encourage Guardians to stay healthy, get rest, and not stick to their desks for 24 hours straight. With the raid race taking so long, you may also struggle outside of contest mode, even if you’ve got the best Prismatic build around.

This section will detail the first encounter, which you can reach after a short traversal section from the landing zone. We’ll update our guide with that information, including the secret and red-border chests, after contest mode ends.

The first proper encounter in Salvation’s Edge has several mechanics. You’ll end up in a large arena with several rooms and one larger central room in which you begin the encounter. There are doors leading between these rooms, but they won’t all be open straight away. There are also orange wires which connect eight plates that are scattered around the rooms, alongside a Resonance Conduit pillar.

To begin the encounter ensure everyone is in the main room, pick up the Pyramidal Triangle, and deposit it into the nearby box which reads “Deposit Resonance,” which will then despawn.

After depositing the Resonance, two doors will open. Stay clear to begin with as Supplicants will spawn, track towards you, and explode. You’ll also notice that a timer will begin counting down at the top of your HUD which says “Final Shape Looming.” When this counter reaches zero, the entire team will wipe.

Split into two teams of three and take a door each. The Witness’s hand in the center of the room will occasionally cast triangle zones that, if you’re in them when they expire, will likely kill you. Standing near them will hurt, but not kill. In each side room kill a Quantum Minotaur which will spawn a Keeper of the Monolith on the opposite side. Kill that Hydra enemy to open more doors on the opposite side. Kill the Overload to spawn a Threshold Sentinel Tormentor in the large center room.

You’ll know it’s time to kill that enemy because a message will appear in the bottom-left that reads, “You are being beckoned back to the center.” The closest doors to the center will open at that point to make it quicker to get there.

In short you’ll want to follow this pattern twice:

While you can technically stand on a glowing plate after the first cycle, in the interests of being efficient with an ever-ticking countdown, it’s not practical to do it this way. Make sure you’ve killed two Tormentors before attempting the next stage. When you’ve killed a Tormentor successfully, you’ll see a message that reads, “Energy flows into the architecture,” which makes the plate in the same room that the Overload was killed become charged and start to glow.

After completing the above cycle twice, you should have a glowing plate on each side. Two people on each team should run to each plate with one in the center, so you become three teams of two temporarily. One player on each side should locate near the glowing plate without standing on it yet. The other needs to find the room where the Resonance Conductor pillar is glowing. This will be the second plate in the sequence.

Step on to the first glowing plate which will bounce the current along the wire to the second plate, which will then glow briefly before a circle appears. Step on the plate while the circle is there to spawn Pyramidal Resonance – a small, glowing triangle at a random point around the room. Keep bouncing the current back and forth between the two plates until you’ve spawned triangles three times. The message “All resonance has been pulled forth,” will appear when you have spawned all of them.

If you break the chain by jumping on the plate too early or too late, or both players step on the plates at the same time, the plates will stop glowing and an Omen of the Witness Subjugator will appear on the first plate. Any Pyramidal Resonance that hasn’t been collected will also despawn. Kill the Subjugator to have another attempt if you have the time left on the Final Shape countdown. At the same time as passing the current back and forth, enemies will spawn in the rooms. Take them out efficiently or they’ll end your run.

When each player has collected three Pyramidal Resonance, or when the timer is around 40 seconds remaining, you will need to close the Resonant Conductor near the plate. The only way to do this is to have Pyramidal Resonance and shoot the triangle before stepping on the plate. Step on the plate at the right time as normal and the Resonant Conductor will close and stop glowing. This will also despawn Pyramidal Resonance if you haven’t picked it up.

Close two Resonance Conductors to spawn a Harbinger of the Witness Subjugator enemy in the main centre room. Head there all together, and take it out as quickly as possible. This will close all of the side doors and spawn another Resonant Alter where you should quickly deposit your Pyramidal Resonance. Each one you successfully deposit will extend the Final Shape Looms timer by 20 seconds. You’ll need to repeat this three times to complete the encounter. After collecting your rewards you will want to run up the stairs until you find a large red pillar. This is a lift mechanic that takes you up and out. Follow the jumping puzzle to reach the next encounter.

Encounter challenge: Changing Tactics – In Dissipation, complete the encounter while only using Resonance from alternate wings to charge conductors.

The Herald of Finality is the first boss encounter that you will face during the raid. You’ll enter a wide open arena with a rectangular field in the middle and three Resonance Conduit pillars with plates on the left, right, and middle side (L, R, M). You’ll want to assign two players to each pillar. You will now notice there is Pyramidal Resonance as in the first encounter, but also Spherical Resonance.

Shoot the Taken blight to start the encounter. The boss will spawn alongside Taken and Dread enemies. Yellow bar Taken Knights and other enemies will spawn on each side. If any of these Knights step on the plates your fireteam will wipe. The Final Shape Looming counter is also back.

Killing three yellow bar enemies will spawn three Taken blights near your plate. One person from each pair will get the Beckoned to Fight buff when the gong sounds. Destroy the Blights – it doesn’t matter who – and collect the Call for Reckoning buff. When enough Blights have been destroyed, a new smaller Blight will appear above the boss. If you have the Call for Reckoning buff, you should run into the center of the arena and shoot this to convert it into a different buff called Stolen Favor. You can then use this to run back to the pillar and read which type of resonance needs to be deposited into each. You cannot read the resonance type without this buff. If you have the Call for Reckoning buff you must stay in the main area until it has converted to Stolen Favor otherwise the encounter will reset.

When the person with the Stolen Favor buff looks at the symbol on their Resonance Conduit it will either be a sphere or pyramid shape, depending on the type of Resonance that is needed to close the pillar. You will close the Conduit in the same way as in the first encounter, but there will now be Spherical and Pyramidal Resonance available and you must collect the right Resonance for your Conduit. Your entire stack of Resonance will convert to the type you pick up last, meaning you can’t collect both types and try to close two pillars with one player. If you break the charge chain this time, another orange bar enemy will appear and you can kill it to retry if you have the time left. When all three pillars have been closed, run the the center.

After locking the pillars, the box will spawn in the center for the resonance to be deposited. Dunk everything to add time to the Final Shape Looming timer. When the box vanishes, the boss’s shield will be lowered and you should do as much damage as possible before he goes immune again. Repeat this until the final stand, where more ogres will spawn to make the final damage phase more difficult. You’ll also wipe if you don’t take the boss down within the time given.

After defeating the Herald of Finality, you’ve completed the second encounter. Collect your rewards and climb the white cubes to an area filled with relics and fossils. Another lift will appear, enter it and traverse upwards, killing the enemies near the Dissenters along the way. A Tormentor will spawn, you need to kill it to bring down a barrier that is preventing your way forward. Ascend the monolith as much as you can, and be wary of a Resonant Cylinder which will instantly kill you.

The third encounter utilizes the same plates mechanic you’ve been using in the previous areas, only it introduces an additional two types of Resonance – Cubed and Hexahedral. The arena is laid out over three different levels, and you move up a level each time you deposit into a Resonant Chest – similarly to the Caretaker encounter during Vow of the Disciple, if you’ve completed that raid. There are three rooms which all follow the same rotation.

When you start the encounter a Threshold Sentinel Tormentor will spawn alongside other enemies surrounding each Resonant Conduit. Killing the Tormentor will unlock that Conduit’s plates and also spawns turrets. There are three Tormentors that need to be killed. The person with the final killing blow on the Tormentor will get a Stolen Valor buff, and can see the types of Resonance that each pillar requires.

Use the plates exactly as you have in the previous encounters – bounce the current back and forth to generate Resonance. Collect stacks of Resonance and close the Conduits with the correct type. This will again cause the Resonant Altar to appear in the center of the room. If you don’t close a pillar, a Harbinger of the Witness Subjugator will spawn which needs to be killed to try again. Killing it will also cause turrets to spawn again.

Once your entire fireteam has deposited their Resonance, more enemies will spawn alongside an Unstoppable Incendior, who will be near the back of the room, probably at the door. Kill them all to unlock the door and proceed to the next level. Killing the Unstoppable Incendior on the highest level will complete this encounter.

This encounter stumped the most prestigious Destiny 2 streamers for eight hours or more, so we’ll try to explain it as thoroughly as possible. You’ll enter an arena with a large, white room with six red statues. If you look closely, you’ll see these resemble your own Guardian! One statue will have a yellow base and a message reading “Free Guardian.” Interact with that statue to start the encounter. The remaining statues, when you get close enough, will say “Dissect” when you interact with them. When the encounter starts, an “Imminent End” countdown will appear.

There are two types of rooms which we will refer to as inside and outside rooms. The outside room has the six statues, while the inside rooms have three statues each, which correspond to the three players that have been separated from the fireteam and will largely be solo in those rooms. You must have shadows on in your settings to see a large shape on the mirrored back wall when you are inside. The whole encounter revolves around matching 2D and 3D shapes via a series of callouts. The 2D shapes are triangle, circle, and square. The 3D shapes are built from the 2D shape combinations. The possible combinations are:

Players on the inside need to find the statue of themself and check which shape it has. It will be either circle, triangle, or square. Then, observe the shadow on the wall which will either swap between two shapes, or loop the same shape with a small transformation animation in between.

One player should also call out the order of shapes on the inside from left to right for the outside players, so they can start dissecting statues. Your aim is to get two of the shape that your statue is holding to appear on the wall. You can trade with other players on the inside rooms. Kill the Splintered Curator Knight that spawns near the wall, and it will drop a 2D shape. You can then pick up the shape and deposit it in the right statue. For example, if your fireteam member Bob’s statue is holding a triangle and the Knight drops a triangle, deposit it with Bob’s statue. You must not collect the shape your own Guardian’s statue is holding, and you must not collect more than one shape, or they will transform into a 3D shape.

Killing both of the Splintered Curators will spawn an Ogre. Killing the Ogre will spawn more Knights. After trading, each inside player should see two of the same shape on the wall that their Guardian’s statue is holding. If your statue is holding a circle, the wall should show two circles. That’s when you’re ready to progress to the next stage.

For this stage, you now need to remove the shape on your statue so you have a different shape. For example, if your statue was holding a circle, you want to end up with triangle and square on your wall.

Kill the Knight and deposit your shape on a different statue. Kill the second Knight and deposit your shape on the other statue. This will make your shape disappear from your statue in the other inside rooms, so that the only statue left with a shape in each room is the one that matches that player’s statue. The Witness will eventually notice this, and kill all three Inside players. This is intentional. To revive you, one of the outside players should run to the back of the room, collect your ghost, and deposit it in the correct statue. We recommend one person doing this – you have to be able to recognize your fireteam’s Ghost shell so put a distinctive one on – while the other two clear ads.

If a Ghost is deposited with the wrong Guardian statue, or in the wrong order – it must be done left to right – you will be immediately revived in the inside room to try again. At the end of this process you should have two different shapes on your wall. You then need to escape the room. You can do this once the outside players have confirmed that your statue has been successfully dissected and you have the correct shapes on your wall. Kill both Knights, pick up both shapes at the same time, and you will get a 3D shape aura. While holding this aura, you can run through the glass wall at the back of the inside room to rejoin your fireteam on the outside.

If you’re a player that remains on the outside, your role is different. You need to change the symbols on the statues outside that correspond to the Guardians that have been separated and are stuck inside. You want the 3D shape on the outside statue to be made out of the shapes that are not held by the inside statue. For example, if Bob’s inside statue is holding a triangle, his outside statue should be holding a cylinder (circle + square).

You will achieve this by dissecting the status to swap the 2D shape from one with a 2D shape from another. If you have a statue with a cone and another has a cube, you can dissect the triangle from the first statue and the square from the second statue to swap them, creating a cylinder and a pyramid.

To dissect the shape, pick up the corresponding shape by killing a Knight and then interact with the statue to remove it. Dissecting two statues in a row swaps the shapes between the two statues, so communicate clearly about which order you need to dissect in. When all three Knights have been killed, an Unstoppable Ogre will spawn. Killing that will spawn three new Knights.

The Witness will notice you activity periodically and kill players. You will need to resurrect them. It chooses an outside player first every time that we have seen so far. To revive them, go to the back of the room and pick up their Ghost, then deposit it on their statue in order of the statue’s position from left to right. The third time it kills people, it will be all of the inside players. Resurrect them in the same way, from left to right. If you deposit the Ghost on the wrong statue or in the wrong order you will die.

Once three statues that correspond to the players inside have been dissected, and all three inside players have been revived, it’s time for them to come outside and face the next phase as a full fireteam. For example, if the inside statues hold triangle, circle, and square then the outside statues should hold cylinder, pyramid, and cone.

Once all of the inside players have joined the outside players the Witness will kill five of you. The remaining player will need to revive the others in order of their statues from left to right. Once you have been respawned, you can help out with depositing by collecting the Ghosts. When all six players are alive again, the wipe timer will vanish briefly before three players are sent back inside and the cycle begins again. As is becoming customary with this raid, you must do three full cycles to finish this encounter and head to face The Witness.

We’ve dissected this into the following steps. If you’re trapped in a room solo:

If you’re on the outside in the group of three:

Thanks to Gladd for the above bullet points.

After traversing up the double helix lift in the middle of the previous encounter, you will need to run along the root until you reach some platforms. Traverse these until you reach a second root. Follow that to the left slightly until you reach more platforms. Jump on to another root and then jump up to the angled platforms. Climb these upwards in a counter-clockwise direction. Turn around and follow the horizontal root clockwise. Alternate between root and platform while ascending until you reach a broken staircase and a closed door. You can use the pillars nearby to jump up and over the door to reach Zenith.

Zenith is a large, V-shaped platform with the Witness at the far end. On the far left is a Light stone and on the right is a Dark stone. There is also a small island with a well of Light right in front of the Witness.

Three arms of the Witness will spawn on each side when the encounter begins. One will shoot bees, one will float in and shoot lasers, and one floats from above making pulsing triangles, similar to the other encounters. You will get The Final Shape countdown. Similarly to Vow of the Disciple, stepping into any of those attacks will give you Resonance. The hand from above gives Pyramidal Resonance, the bees give Spherical Resonance, and the beams give Hexahedron Resonance. Standing in these attack telegraphs before they hit is the only safe way to do so. Don’t linger.

Once you have a Resonance buff you can shoot the wrist of the arm casting it to read a symbol and a coloured band which represents a type of Resonance. Yellow is Spherical, Red is Hexahedron, Green is Pyramidal.

The person with the corresponding buff to the callout can go in the arm’s telegraph and shoot the coloured band to get the Glyphbreaker buff. Having this, you can enter the island’s well of light and shoot one of the glyphs on the Witness’s chest to break it. This will remove your Glyphbreaker and Resonance buffs.

Breaking a Glyph spawns a Subjugator on each side – usually Strand left and Stasis right. If you break more than one Glyph at a time you can minimise the amount of Subjugators you need to fight, as more won’t spawn while one is up. When all six Glyphs have been broken, the Witness will raise the central platform and the damage phase begins.

If you get a message at any point during stage one in the lower left that reads, “The Witness tests you,” you will also notice some resonance pillars have spawned in the center. They need to be shot in a specific pattern. That pattern depends on the last arm that was shot to get the Glyphbreaker buff and it will also match the shape of the Resonance that you got from that arm’s attack. Up arm = circle, Side arm = Square, Down arm = Triangle. We’ve made this helpful image that clearly shows the patterns, which you can click to make bigger.

These patterns are the pillars you need to leave behind, so you should shoot everything that’s not within the shape. This will cancel the incoming wipe mechanics and the Witness will cast an attack over the entire arena. You need to jump to avoid it. The Witness’s eyes will flash and you’ll hear a swishing audio cue to help you time the jump correctly.

After the last Glyph has been broken, two Subjugators will spawn and need to be immediately killed. The DPS phase will start whether they are dead or not, but they will kill you during that phase if they’re left up. The damage phase is exactly the same as in the Excision activity, so you can practice there if you’re having trouble predicting The Witness’s attacks.

A critical spot on the Witness’s chet will open and glow, and the timer countdown is removed. The Witness will send out attacks at the front left diagonally, followed by back right, back left, and then the entire platform which you will need to jump to avoid. Avoid its other attacks by staying on the side of the platform that isn’t being attacked. When it is going to attack the entire platform its eyes will glow and you will hear the same audio cue as when you need to jump in the other phases of the fight.

After a while it will straighten up and begin to lower the platform – jump back to the main arena immediately otherwise you’ll die. The countdown will start again and you’ll go back to the first phase. Repeat this until you reach final stand.

When in final stand it will become impenetrable for a few moments and then it will attack again, faster than before, and almost continuously so keep aware of the attack telegraphs. If you do not kill when in the final stand phase, the entire encounter will wipe and you’ll need to start again.

After defeating The Witness we strongly suggest jumping straight into the new twelve-man activity, Excision, to finish off The Witness once and for all, and watch some of the most incredible cinematics I’ve ever seen in a game.

The loot for Salvation’s Edge is as follows:

The raid mods you can get from Salvation’s Edge are:

If you’re trying to crack the puzzle in the Salvations Edge raid to get the red border chest, here’ what you need to do:

This guide is a work in progress and will continue to be updated as we clear more encounters. While we’re in contest mode, we’re heads down trying to get everything completed, so bear with us.