Dungeons have been a staple PvE experience in Destiny 2 for quite some time now. As of the Lightfall DLC and Season of the Deep, seven have been added to the game since the Forsaken DLC, where they were first introduced. Ghosts of the Deep was the latest Dungeon added to the mix, and we won’t receive another until Season 23. With that in mind, there’s no better time to go over where each Dungeon stands on the tier list. So today, we’re going over the top 7 Dungeons in Destiny 2 ranked from worst to best.
7. The Shattered Throne
The first Dungeon introduced to the game, The Shattered Throne from the Forsaken DLC, is kicking off the list. While it may be the worst ranked on this list, that shouldn’t take away from how good of a PvE experience the Dungeon is.
The objective of the Dungeon is to find the source of the Taken invasion of the Dreaming City before they can control it. This leads players to traverse the Ascendant Plane to destroy the source before it’s too late. In terms of sheer aesthetic and design, The Shattered Throne is nearly unmatched. You can even see the end point where you face the final boss right from the beginning.
However, a lack of “unique” loot, on top of some mediocre boss fights, holds this Dungeon down so low. Since this was the first Dungeon released, it’s understandable, but there is no “Dungeon-exclusive” loot in The Shattered Throne, as it only offers normal Dreaming City loot.
The boss fights against Vorgeth, the Boundless Hunger, and Dul Incaru, the Eternal Return, are very straightforward. For Vorgeth, players must go around and defeat Taken Wizards to collect and deposit a buff in order to damage him. The same applies for Dul Incaru, but the Wizards are replaced by three yellow-bar Knights.
Overall, the Dungeon is a fantastic first addition, but thankfully, Bungie has more than improved upon them since The Shattered Throne was first released.
6. Pit of Heresy
One year later, the arrival of the Shadowkeep DLC brought the second Dungeon into the game, the Pit of Heresy. While Pit of Heresy didn’t make major improvements over The Shattered Throne, it does have a few qualities that let it take the next spot.
The objective of the Dungeon is to find the source of the seismic activity located underneath the Scarlet Keep. What we find waiting for us in the sub-fortress is a mass ritual headed by Zulmak, the Instrument of Torment.
The Pit of Heresy is arguably the worst of the bunch in aesthetics and design, as most of your time is spent in caves. That said, it does have some nice shots at the beginning of the Dungeon, where you can see the overhead of the final boss arena. Also, the final boss arena itself is much grander than that of the Dul Incaru arena.
However, it suffers the same fate of a lack of “unique loot” as The Shattered Throne, as the only loot that drops is the standard Moon armor and weapons. That said, a significant step up is the guaranteed high-stat roll armor that drops by defeating the final boss, Zulmak. To this day, this boss fight is one of the best places in the game to get high-stat roll armor, and it can be farmed if the Dungeon is featured in a given week.
The Pit of Heresy gets a little more creative in mechanics than The Shattered Throne, as it implements Hive Relics and Symbols. For example, to defeat Zulmak, players must first defeat three yellow-bar enemies in a specific way. For the Wizard, you need to use the Hive Sword projectile; the Knight can be damaged by swiping the Sword at it, and the Shrieker can only be damaged by using the Sword to reflect its incoming projectiles.
Overall, the Pit of Heresy wasn’t a massive step up, but it did show signs of the coming changes that would follow in future Dungeons.
5. Spire of the Watcher
Recently introduced during Season of the Seraph, The Spire of the Watcher was not met with great reception by the playerbase.
The objective of the Dungeon is to stop the Vex from securing Golden Age technology and information and, along the way, prevent them from destroying the Seraph facility in the process. The overall design and aesthetic of the Dungeon isn’t a major upgrade over Pit’s, as we start outside the facility in a desert area, work our way up the Tower, and back down the facility itself.
However, the loot is an entirely different story, as it gave us awesome Cowboy armor and weapons. On top of that, it also had an Exotic Solar Bow, the Hierarchy of Needs.
While the loot was a major win, the rest of the Dungeon wasn’t met with happy reception, starting with the mechanics. The general theme is “connect the dots,” where players must connect electrical nodes to one another to activate certain things to progress each encounter. This theme stayed true throughout the entire Dungeon, as every encounter had Guardians connecting nodes to either damage a boss or other tasks. Players weren’t thrilled with it staying the same the whole way through, but it was a nice twist compared to other Dungeons where some encounters had no creativity to them.
The boss fights didn’t sit well with the player base either, as they had to square off against a giant Harpy and, for the first time, a huge Wyvern boss. The Harpy boss is incredibly tanky and mobile, making it difficult to damage, and the Wyvern doesn’t have a proper “crit spot,” meaning the only way to deal decent damage is to use Rocket Launchers.
Overall, for a more recent Dungeon as of year six into the game’s life, it definitely could have had some better execution, but there’s no denying it’s a significant upgrade compared to the first two on the list.
4. Grasp of Avarice
As a special surprise during the 30th Anniversary event, Bungie released a new Dungeon, the Grasp of Avarice. This Dungeon gives us a pirate-themed adventure where players uncover the story of a group of Guardians who fell to their own greed. They also go beat up a bunch of Hive and Fallen enemies along the way.
The design and aesthetic of the Dungeon weren’t over the top, but it was a nice call back to have Guardians go underneath the famous loot cave from the Cosmodrome to start out. There are some nice shots here and there, especially the giant “skull-face” of the cave players enter after they complete the Sparrow portion.
The loot, meanwhile, was very satisfactory, bringing back some powerful Destiny 1 PvP weapons, such as The Matador Shotgun, Eyasluna Hand Cannon, and the 1000-Yard Stare Sniper Rifle. On top of that, it also had a fantastic Thorn-themed armor set, which the community immensely enjoyed.
Regarding mechanics, Guardians had to defeat certain enemies that would drop “treasure,” which looked like Exotic Engrams but would explode after a while. They then needed to deposit the treasure into a nearby crystal to progress the encounter. Like Spire of the Watcher, this is how the entire Dungeon operated.
The boss fights was no different, and each one was the same. Guardians were to collect a certain amount of “treasure” to deposit into the crystal to damage the boss. The first boss, Phyr’zhia the Insatiable, is a giant Hive Ogre who could pretty easily be taken down in one phase with some Rocket Launchers. The second boss, Captain Avarokk, the Covetous, is a large Fallen Captain who deals decent damage but who could also be dealt with pretty swiftly.
While the boss fights weren’t very memorable compared to some other Dungeons, the overall theme and loot make it a great addition to the list and a much-needed experience at the time of release.
3. Duality
Coming in at the number three spot is the Season of the Haunted Dungeon, Duality. While Season of the Haunted wasn’t well received for a number of reasons, the shining glimmer of hope was the appearance of the Duality Dungeon.
The objective of the Dungeon is to explore Calus’s mind to obtain any knowledge he might have in the hopes of fending off the Nightmares on the Leviathan — all the while battling his own Nightmares along the way.
The design and aesthetic of the Dungeon is pretty solid. Traversing through Calus’s mind is almost as if we’re back on the original Leviathan ship from the Raid. Although, it doesn’t have a massive sense of scale compared to other Dungeons. That said, the icing on the cake revolves around the mechanics of the Dungeon itself.
The main gimmick of the Duality Dungeon is the ability to easily swap from the “normal” realm to the Nightmare realm. Whether traversing certain areas of Calus’s mind or defeating enemies to trigger something in the normal realm, Guardians are constantly swapping between the two. This was very well received by the player base, as the mechanics were straightforward and weren’t dull to do throughout the entire Dungeon consistently.
In terms of loot, the weapons were very powerful and worth grinding for. In particular, the Linear Fusion Rifle was immensely broken at the time, deleting virtually every boss in the game easily, to the point where it had to be nerfed the following Season. That said, the armor wasn’t well received, as it was not a Cabal-themed set like players were hoping for, but rather, a Haake-themed set that really had no place in the Dungeon.
As far as the boss fights go, we saw the return of an infamous boss from one of the Raid lairs, Gahlran, now transformed into a Nightmare. Gahlran serves as the first major wall for players to overcome, as he’s incredibly tanky and mobile, making him difficult to fight against. On the other hand, Caital, the final boss of the Dungeon, is less mobile but packs far more of a punch. Overall, both fights were well received and still serve as a great place to farm Artifice armor.
2. Prophecy
Coming in as a last-minute surprise during the Season of Arrivals, the Season before the Beyond Light DLC released was the introduction of the Prophecy Dungeon.
The objective of the Dungeon is to traverse through the Unknown Space of the Nine and defeat the Taken dwelling within so the Guardians may be granted an audience with the Nine to ask about the intent and nature of the Darkness.
In terms of design and aesthetics, the Prophecy Dungeon is by far one of the best-designed activities in the game. Until this point, we’ve never had an opportunity to seek out the Nine in such a manner, and the Unknown Space location is breathtaking, especially in the Sparrow section shown in the image above.
The main gimmick of the Dungeon is to collect Light and Darkness motes and deposit them into their respective pillars to transition the encounter. Initially, players weren’t thrilled seeing Gambit motes again, but quickly mellowed out since they weren’t used in the same fashion. The mechanics were the same throughout the Dungeon, but it fit the general theme of “Light and Dark”, which is still a reoccurring subject even now.
The loot for completing the Dungeon is solid, but not the best rewards we’ve seen. The Dungeon would be the first to introduce an exclusive armor set found only in the Dungeon. However, the weapons it gave were the re-vamped Trials of the Nine guns, some of which didn’t see much play.
Meanwhile, the boss fights were terrific. Kicking off the Dungeon is a giant Taken Phalanx, which initially gave a lot of Guardians trouble due to its immense health pool but served as a solid stepping stone for what was to come with the Kell Echo. The Kell Echo fight operates the same as the Phalanx, where players must deposit Light and Dark motes in order to damage the boss. That said, the fight is much more chaotic, finishing off the Dungeon with a great conclusion.
Overall, the Prophecy Dungeon was way ahead of its time when it was released back in June 2020. That said, the newest Dungeon added recently stole the crown of the best.
1. Ghosts of the Deep
Wrapping up the list at the number one spot is the newly added Ghosts of the Deep Dungeon, introduced during Season of the Deep. This Dungeon had a lot of mixed reviews at first due to the sheer difficulty, but players quickly mellowed out when proper damage strategies were implemented.
The objective of the Dungeon is to traverse the sunken Dreadnought ship at the bottom of the Titan sea and stop the Lucent Hive from resurrecting Oryx, the Taken King.
In terms of design and aesthetics, this Dungeon is easily on par with Prophecy, as the scenery goes from a lush forest to a giant ocean to the sunken Dreadnought. Newly introduced this Season is the ability to walk underwater on the sea floor. This has seen mixed reviews, as while the scenery and feel of it truly captures what it’s like to traverse the sea floor, it doesn’t fit with the “go fast” fantasy most players are accustomed to. Either way, the underwater sections are a unique addition to the game and make for some breathtaking shots, especially after you fight the first boss, Echtar, and witness a Leviathan swimming out in the water before you.
In terms of loot, the Dungeon easily has the best rewards the game has ever seen for an activity like this. A top-tier Lucent Hive-themed armor set and three of the four weapons featured are fantastic, especially the Rocket Launcher, which has been used to shred bosses throughout the Season. This also includes the first-ever Exotic Strand Trace Rifle, The Navigator, which turned out to be a fantastic utility Exotic, and has seen a lot more usage, unlike the Hierarchy of Needs Exotic Bow from the Spire of the Watcher Dungeon.
As mentioned above, the boss fights were initially met with mixed reviews. Both bosses, Echtar the Shield of Savathun, and Simmumah the Lucent Necromancer, have the highest health pools amongst any Dungeon boss in the game. In particular, Simmumah even has more health than the Root of Nightmares Raid’s final boss, Nezarec, the Final God of Pain. It shouldn’t be an understatement to say that both boss fights are easily the most difficult among all Dungeon bosses. This is also due to how their mechanics work.
Both bosses operate using Hive Symbols, which players must find and match to deal damage to them. However, Simmumah requires far more effort than Echtar and has more health, making her fight all the more stressful. That said, the fights are very enjoyable and can be done swiftly when you have enough practice learning the symbols.
Overall, the Ghosts of the Deep Dungeon was a massive success for how Dungeons should operate moving forward: good rewards, great design/theme, and solid mechanics. The only issue would be to lower the boss’s health pools to avoid initial backlash.
Published: Aug 15, 2023 09:30 am