That final boss sure did have the health of a raid boss…

The lore collectibles detailing Xivu's mental breakdown is probably some of the best character exposition we've ever had.

This dungeon didnt feel like a glorified strike i felt like a raid designed for 3 people and felt intese the entire way through big props to bungo on this one

This entire dungeon is what season of the plunder wished it could be

The only complaints i have are boss hp being too high and lack of cover in the final boss room. The gear, locations, and actual mechanics are slam dunks though.

You can almost feel the vendetta in the enemy density in the solo experience

The underwater mechanics implemented into the dungeon are some of my favorite mechanics in any raid/dungeon. Also, this is 100% one of the best looking environments in the entire game

The final boss has a more harder and complex mechanic than anything in RoN

One problem with long encounters is the risks of bugs preventing progress and an increase in error codes due to Bungie code. My solo flawless run ended when I got the boss down to ~30% health and got weaseled out last night. I don't think I am going to try again until the health gets reduced.

I hope whoever designed this Dungeon gets a crack at designing the next raid

I could see them adding the multiplicity modifier to dungeons from now on because that final boss health pool on solo is a big OOF. Love the difficulty of this dungeon, and I hope they add more mechanics like this to future dungeons and raids. I was really disappointed RON basically had the same “connect the dots” mechanic like Spire.

The second encounter is my favorite out of any dungeon encounter imo, even solo. Super hectic pace, lots of enemies, short mechanic phases to get to damage, and the underwater section is what makes a perfect encounter for me. It can be optimized by knowing rune locations and using the knight to boost you, but it’ll never be easy down there you’ll always be on your toes. Only thing is I wish was different is that the shield came down quicker.

Listening to Xivu come to terms with the death of her family and realizing that for the first time billions of years she’s truly alone was heartbreaking.

Final boss solo is actually crazy, that needs to be reigned in Edit: Especially when getting to the boss solo is like a 30 to 40 minutes investment, then a hour long of focused combat is actually crazy.

The bosses health pools is really my only major gripe. There is zero reason why a dungeon boss should have more HP (and shield) than Nez.

I’ve also found that weapons with turnabout are godly against hive with over shields

This was my first day one anything in D2, and I loved it. Boss health was a bit much though, felt too long. But everything felt fair as well.

The final boss completion run took us an hour and a half. Some of the most tense and grueling fighting I have done in a while. Thankfully the water is kind of a life saver, no threat in it, avoids damage, loses agro. Legit a perfect strat.

Loving the content. Great stuff, Datto!!! Keep up the great work. I'm super happy u found something worth something this season to get excited about.

If they adjust the health pool for the final boss, then I hope that they just adjust the scaling for solo and duo runs. It felt manageable as a full fireteam and I enjoyed the challenge.

I love pretty much everything about this dungeon. Really glad they took the time to give us some interesting and unique mechanics. The combat experience is also fantastic.

After doing the dungeon a few times the water sections weren't as bad I thought they'd be. There's quite a few ways to go fast once you know the routes and the repeat run throughs didn't bother me much tbh.

The only problems I have are the water parts being far too long and the bosses having raid boss health

This dungeon is the perfect example of adjusting boss health based on fire team size. I'm not asking for a massive swing, just enough where it's still a challenge but I'm not entering mind numbing auto pilot territory by having to do five to six damage phases with an optimal build and execution.

Its wild that a fresh solo duality or spire takes less time than just the final boss. I love the dungeon in a duo or trio though

Everything about this dungeon was insane, the visuals the encounters and the lore seem like they have so much thought and effort put into them. Also this is probably the coolest environment we have ever traversed.

I had a lot of fun doing the final boss fight, me and my team tried a ton of stuff and I loved feeling it all click together in my mind and explaining it excitedly to my friends lol. Especially since I haven’t really had the chance to attempt a day one raid yet due to personal stuff.

I feel like they did solo runs dirty on this one. Breaking the boss shield each dmg phase adds alot of effective HP unless you rune Arby. Players have been asking for scaled boss hp on dungeons alot lately i feel and this will only fuel that. I dont really mind personaly as i belive tgat solo dungeon should be the "normal" experience just alone to show you got what it takes. But i also see where people are comming from.

Last boss kicked me and my friends’ ass, but god was it fun and a really good challenge to get through.

With party of 3 we did the final boss in 5 phases, watching datto do it in 5 solo is both very impressive but also somewhat demoralizing lmao

I got the navigator to drop for me this morning and I’ve been running it with the new warlock trace rifle helmet. The artifact mods for strand really makes the trace rifle pop off. Constantly applying sever and unraveling while also making ammo for the homies thanks to the helmet is fantastic

having a checkpoint that opens up after a certain number of clears is like, a very common mmo thing and much needed in the water sections for sure

It was so much painful fun! And totally felt like a mini Raid !!

I know you were talking about Spire of the watcher but I wish they would bring back some of the Spire of Stars encounter mechanics if the setting fits. I mean it was the only raid that had to be done by at least 5 people and overall the mechanics and boss fight were just awesome.

Glad you mentioned the idea of the HP being bugged possibly because that's what my friends and I felt when running it blind on Friday. On the second go it made more sense, far faster clear, then we each tried solo. That shit is so fucking grueling with the time it took to get through those fights, I hope it at least gets scaled down for that even if it's left untouched for a full fireteam.

2:45 Good point on the add density. Never thought about it like that

This dungeon felt better than duality in most regards too, and way more stable, which surprised the hell out of me. The whole angle going on with this dungeon and it's connection to the Red War, is pretty freaking neato.

Was waiting on my opinion. Thanks Datto

I took 50 minutes on the last boss too on my solo flawless. My previous 2 failed attempts were due to me spacing out near the end (1-2 damage phases left) and not checking the rune on the hive guardian because after a while everything blends together. It's an endurance test for sure

Navigator is an interesting weapon. The word itself helped me recognise the lore back in 2015 when I read it. It was when oryx killed both xivu and savathun in his throne world so he could gain sword logic to overpower akka. And at the very end of the lore “King Auryx was the first navigator with the map of death.” That line I will never forget. gun looks like an orca as well

I actually like that the final boss has 10 Million HP, what grinds my gears is that its a damn wizard that always TPs when I super or rocket.

Did this solo flawless with bonk titan, if you’re thinking about attempting this I HIGHLY recommend a solar titan build. Your life will be much easier. Like you can do it on other classes or subclasses, but it will save you a ton of sanity to use a hammer build. For the final boss I used arby plus bait and switch cataclysm

The Navigator also gives you woven mail when you sever yellow bars

The navigator actually does a good chunk of damage as well as applying sever for a debuff

ngl i just wish theyd scale health based on team size. like they already did in the legend campaign.. itd make a lot more sense imo. seeing as dungeons are supposed to be soloable, the health should be more solo friendly.

My only gripes are the first encounter being a bit long and the final boss having WAY too much health for a boss that teleports to random spots in the arena

The final boss from my experimenting actually teleports to the first pool that is stood in, and about 2/3 of the way through damage the boss teleports to the center way up high before going immune. Could just be a fluke but that’s what it seemed to be during my runs

When i ran the dungeon on day 1 i was actually surprised with how it was handled and how the mechanics were introduced. When i ran SotW on day 1 it didn't feel like we were introduced to a new mechanic with the red wires, it felt more like we were being put on a timer rather than complicating and expanding on the mechanics that were already introduced. When me and my team got to the second encounter it felt GREAT because of the enemy density and having to learn something new to get to damage and at the final boss it was tense due to the danger the actual boss posed upon us. When we figured out that we needed to kill the knight in a certain spot it actually felt that we were figuring things out rather than repeating the same mechanic over and over again like we did in SotW. TLDR; dungeon was really high quality and brought an actual challenge and is a HUGE step up from the JOKE that was RoN.

We live in a world where a DUNGEON is more difficult and engaging with harder DPS checks than a RAID. I bet the solo flawless emblem for GoTD will be more rare than the RoN day-emblem.

Maybe they can do something similar to the campaign where they adjust the boss health to the fireteam size. Keep the health the same for a fireteam of 3 but for solo reduce it by half or something like that. Probably not happening with this dungeon but maybe something for future dungeons.

The fun part is the running for about 20mins :D best and hardest encounter there!

Realizing what was going on when my fireteam got to the final boss arena was pretty awesome

bungie going to charge $20 for stand alone raids now

Only have one complaint about the dungeon, and that's that there's softlock bugs in the boss room. Hoping those get fixed soon, because it seems totally random what triggers them. But yeah, that's literally my only complaint. I loved everything else about it from the theming to the underwater mechanic and, perhaps the most underrated aspect, the cool ass moth attack the final boss does.

for the pricing part, i return to the game around mid of season 20 after being afk since year 1, i bought all the on sale items of the lightfall expansion, legacy collection, 30th year anni pack and forsaken pack, didnt buy the annual season pass cuz that wasnt on sale, now since then i bought 2x $18.99 silver packs CAD, one for the season 21 season pass and one for the dungeon key, i would not lie, this dungeon key feels very worth it so far and i dont regret at all (maybe i got navigator on first clear was kinda helping this impression)

for the salvage you can shatter dive into the water and fly past the beginning section

I'll say it once more, Hive remains the best race for dungeons/raids. Absolutely wonderful!

I dont think the health is bugged at all. Personally i feel like this IS how the solo experience is supposed to be. Dungeons are made for fireteams, if a guardian chooses to go it alone, thats the challenge they have accepted.

The trace gives woven mail when you sever enemies as well. Hopefully that is intentional, I love that gun so much

The ad density in the second and third encounter despite tough felt fun especially running with as a duo. Felt somewhat challenging even on normal difficulty.

I think this may be an unpopular opinion but I've really enjoyed having a mechanically easy raid, and a difficult dungeon. It's helped me with some friends who are new to the game to be able to take them straight into a raid and them to be able to do well and try out the mechanics, it's been a rapid way of getting people to have the confidence to try out the "endgame pve". And I've also really enjoyed having to buildcraft and "tryhard" with my clan in a smaller 3 person activity.

Ron: 2 mechanics. GOTD: 2-3 mechanics iirc Nez has less health than the wizard, plus the ad density per person is much greater in GOTD. Only problems I have with GOTD are its 1st encounter and rather underwhelming loot. That stasis waveframe could be so much better than just demo aj

I absolutely love this dungeon, both aesthetically and mechanically. Did my first clear day one, took 3 hours but I had a blast. Was able to 3 phase the boss with div and linears. Was also pretty easy to learn when I tried it solo, but that’s just me personally…

8:39 the main advantage of it right now is you can get unlimited unraveling rounds on it without strand on due to the artifact mod that gives unraveling rounds when you get woven mail. With this you not only get a pretty decent primary with the other unraveling damage buff artifact mod, but you can also get effectively focusing lens for void and arc abilities making it seasonally a pretty good option.

I'm here for Root of Nightmares slander, but I like to think we can all agree that Planets is the high point of that raid

I really hope they need the dungeon bosses for solo only. The health pools feel good for 3 players, but terrible for only one. Maybe they can add a scaler like the one they used for lightfall and witchqueen campaigns.

the two boss encounters are some of the best in the history of the franchise. actually having to try and be on top of add clear while juggling mechanics is fun. i had to two man the dungeon on my first run and it was a very good challenge, especially the last boss

I’ve consistently 2 phases the final boss with linears and div with surge mods. I think this dungeon is an example of them trying to build encounters around our current power level. Which is probably what makes it so fun.

Its a dungeon but the final boss makes it feel otherwise

This was probably a warlock skill issue but I went solo to the first boss and on god I was throwing entire kits at the guy and not cracking his overshield, it took me to see Aztecross uncover that Nova Bomb (you know, one of the best survivability kits in the game) can barely deal 200k damage. Though I don't like depending on hiding and just disengaging like b- from fights in PVE and just standing in a corner wincing and whining until my health is back, I guess that's just the best warlock strats given the laughably bad state of nova.

about the navigator: the woven mail is super useful on titan for sections in between combat where i can fire it at a teammate to proc woven mail in order to get melee regen while running. grapple point is also awesome for spamming syntho grapple punches, which is offense, and it's also just a great primary with unraveling rounds and free sever on larger targets. not amazing, but definitely fun and cool

Another fun fact about the Dungeon Exotic, it’s designed to look like an Orca Whale, look at the fin on the top and the white and black design!

I feel like the boss health is a little high, but i also feel like power creep will change that pretty fast lol. So good job looking to the future bungie

I dont understand Bungie, why does a raid boss in a 6 player activity in the same health range as a boss in a 3 player activity (that is supposed to be done solo) I thought Persys was bad in Spire, but with dungeon bosses if you have a high health pool it should be supplemented with quick mechanics to get dps phases, so final boss feels like a massive slog to go through solo, hopefully it'll be supplemented better once our light level is higher with season cap, but it feels weird how bungie can scale bosses without regarding how many people are doing that encounter through player deficit. Still a pretty good dungeon though.

Severing a target with the trace also grants you woven mail * (not stated but it works)

The water part should have a secret shortcut like the big room in the whisper mission

All the "I'll add clear" people are real silent right now because this dungeon actually requires everyone to participate in mechanics and that's absolutely amazing.

I fricking LOVE the final boss of this dungeon. The setting is amazing, and I’ve been wanting to get into raiding recently, but I can’t get a party together. The final encounter I was able to get one more person with me and my brother so we were able to do it. I LOVE the mechanics of the final encounter because it has so many call-outs, but there so simple at the same time and it’s just (what I would say) an amazing introduction to when I eventually start raiding with a team. P.S. echthar was so hard for my team cuz we were under leveled

I thought of a strand titan build with “the navigator” exotic. You can a use abeyant leap build with the new fragment. That way you still get woven mail from the exotic

You get woven mail from shooting enemies as well. Gives warlocks a way of getting woven mail from range.

was doing solo practice to learn the mecanics earlier, I agree the health pool is absolutely ridiculous

My group did it on master for our first run for the exotic drop chance, and it was still somewhat enjoyable at 25+ light under, and it is easily the best dungeon when at proper light

At Ecthar, I used Phoenix protocol with bad juju and was much placing wells everywhere lol

This enemy density was great, by the end I had more than double both my teammates kills combined. Really makes the buildcrafting feel like it pays off

The 2nd encounter I believe is defined by the enemy density, to the point that actually leaning into 'ad clear' was viable and debatably needed depending on the team that you run with

Regarding the exotic, it has two neat things going on that aren't in its description. 1) you can get and give woven mail without being on strand 2) severing an enemy gives YOU woven mail

Theres something about walking on the ocean floor and seeing Ahsa in the background that sets the scene

I think something that would remove pretty much any complaint about diving in the methane for me would be to just let us hold the crouch button to descend more quickly

Love ya datto!

I find that if you drop the final boss’ shield with Arby as soon as damage starts it won’t teleport anymore

After my first completion on Friday I had the exact same sentiment

Agreed. We learned far more and that alone makes it far better.

The wave frame is great, but we arent using riptide because its stasis. Its because it has chill clip which makes it deal wth 2 champs.

Got my first clear solo over a two day span and damn was this so fun and challenging to figure out!

This dungeon is just awesome! Love it.

Yo Datto, you should do a dungeon tier list video.

Thing is about the exotic weapon is that it's VERY good when not playing a strand subclass. Think about the seasonal artifact and the top one on the fifth row. ANY strand debuff increases the damage of arc and void. Also giving yourself woven mail whilst on another subclass just lets you double dip into DR and what not.

It’s funny that when get the final encounter people will join in start encounter, and leave to steal the Clarke point.

One thing I've noticed about The Navigator is that, if I shoot a single enemy for an extended period of time I get Woven Mail (really only works on majors, red bars die too fast) I don't know if this is a bug or not, I haven't done a ton of testing, I need to do more testing.

The 2nd encounter is fucking fantastic. The boss is eating your ass in the water and you're mowing through an unending army out of water. Its what ive wanted from raids for so long. Its the final encounter of spire cranked to 11. Its the best experience ive had in this franchise since forsaken and its not close.