Bungie released their first raid in Destiny this week and it is intense! The Vault of Glass is a fun, challenging raid that puts your skills and teamwork to the test. Unlike the Strike and story missions already in the game, Vault of Glass isn’t just about shooting a bullet sponge enemy until they die. It requires coördination, figuring out the mechanics of the bosses, and solving puzzles to get further in the vault.
I’m here to explain every fight and show video of our group as we went through this very fun time in Destiny. Be sure to check out my Quick and Dirty Beginner’s Guide for more tips and guides to prepare you for this raid.
This guide will cover everything in the Vault of Glass raid including:
- Boss Mechanics – What each boss fight is like, and how to beat them.
- Puzzles – Getting through the puzzles in the raid.
- Chest Locations – Where to get each chest in the raid.
- Templar Intro
- Defeat the Templar
- Gorgon’s Labyrinth
- Jump Puzzle
- Awaken the Glass Throne
- Defeat Atheon
Opening the Vault
The first thing you have to do when you enter the raid is open Vault. It’s best to have Void damage weapons on hand in general because you’ll be fighting Vex and some of the enemies have shields that Void does extra damage to.
- There are 3 control points you must hold. When you have all 3, a spire begins forming.
- Split the group up with 2 people at each point. If the Vex get in the point, they start taking it. This causes the pillar to lower.
- Once the pillar gets fully built, it shoots a light at the vault o open the door.
This is pretty straightforward, but can take some coördination with your team. The people at the middle point can hop back and forth between the left and right to help as needed.
As you enter the Vault, you’ll notice your first chest. You can get Ascendant materials from these or even something as rare as an Exotic piece.
The Templar Intro
Defeat the Waves of Enemies
Wave 1
After going through the Vault for a bit, you’ll come to the first real fight. This is technically all one boss, but you get loot at two different times, so I’ll split it into 2 separate encounters.
Once you start the fight, you’ll see the Templar in the back with a shield. you can’t damage him during part one, so don’t worry about it. It still attacks though, so watch for that.
A pillar rises in the back, you must kill any Vex before they reach this pillar. If they do, they will sacrifice themselves to it. You lose if this happens enough.
Eventually you’ll see Fanatics. They die quickly and drop a green pool on the ground that gives you a debuff called Mark of Negation.
If you get this debuff, run to the center, under the boss, to the glowing white light. this takes off your debuff. The boss casts Ritual of Negation throughout the fight, which kill you if you have a Mark.
Originally, we thought we had to get the marks and cleanse them to continue the fight, but you only have to kill the enemies until the next part starts.
Wave 2
This time 2 pillar appear, one on the left and right. Split the team with 3 on each side to defend. Same thing here, just kill until the final wave.
Wave 3
This time, all three pillars are active. Split into teams of 2 and defend each one.
The Oracles
After the waves of enemies, you’ll start the next part. Lights appear around the room, each with a different sound. This is showing you the locations of each as well as which sound they make.
After that, they will spawn randomly and play their sound each time. Kill them quickly or they give the entire group Mark of Negation. You can still cleanse it with the light in the center, but it won’t always be there.
Kill them until the fight is over, then you get loot. One of our members got a piece that allows them to do more damage to Oracles. This helps a lot, especially in the last 2 fights.
Defeat the Templar
Once you’re done with the intro, an item appears where the cleansing light use to be. One person picks this up to start the fight.
- This item is a shield called Aegis.
- It’s similar to the Sword of Crota, one of the Moon story missions.
- You swing with the melee button, shield bash with right trigger, cleanse with grenade button, and Super ability destroys the shield around the boss.
Once the shield is picked up, the fight starts and the boss appears in the center. Vex spawn throughout the fights, as well as Oracles.
Put a couple of people on each side to watch for the Oracle spawns. The shield user can cleanse the Mark of Negation when the ability is ready. There are also Hobgoblins on the outer platforms, sniping.
Once the shield’s Super is ready, hit the boss with it. This destroys the shield and allows the group to damage it.
After a while, the boss will begin to teleport. A white ring appears somewhere in the room and turns red when it is about to teleport there. Stand in this ring to stop him from teleporting. This also keeps his shield down so you can keep damaging him.
At this point, you can just group up on the circle that spawns and attack the boss. You can ignore the oracles now and just cleanse the mark before the ritual. Do this until it dies.
Our team did it the long way, we moved away from each circle and the boss teleported. Each time he did this, he got the shield back and we had to destroy it again once the shield’s super was ready. We also killed each oracle that spawned.
Gorgon’s Labyrinth
This little maze took us hours to figure out. We did get both chests though. Looking back, it shouldn’t have taken us as long as it did, but we still got it.
This is the stealth section of the raid. Floating enemies called Gorgons patrol the labyrinth. If even one of them sees any member of your group, you all die. They are attracted by sound and movement, so crouch when they get close.
Right path to chest
As you enter, take the path to the right. Follow along the wall area, changing when you need to avoid the Gorgons. Eventually, you’ll see a room. Run in there to get the chest. The video below shows it in detail.
Left path to chest
As you enter, head immediately left. Go to the end and you’ll see rocks you can jump to. Keep jumping up until you reach the top. Follow the path until you reach the chest. Details in the video below.
Escaping the Labyrinth
The path to leave is through the middle.
- Sneak past the gorgons until you see a huge rock on the left middle side.
- Head past this rock, then make a right. you’ll see an opening, go through it and follow the path to escape.
- My header video, which shows everything up to the last boss, shows this as well.
Jump Puzzle
This isn’t really hard, but it has a slight, fun, mechanic. You have to jump to the other side of the chasm, but the platforms disappear and reappear constantly.
- Watch the pattern, then jump on the platform, be ready to jump to the next one as it disappears.
- When you make it to the other side, you’re good. Just follow the wall to the left until you reach some stairs in the center.
- Follow them back to a door that opens to the last area.
Awaken the Glass Throne
This fight took us a long time to do, but it was fun. Here are the basics:
- Vex keep spawning throughout the fight.
- Kill the Gatekeeper at the beginning to move on to the next part
- Two portals can be opened. One to a desert area (Future), one to a forest area (past).
- Portals open when controlling a point, similar to opening the vault door at the beginning of the raid.
- Kill gatekeeper inside, take shield, similar to Templar boss fight. After both shields are taken,defend the middle pillar from Vex trying to sacrifice themselves.
When you start the fight, there are a ton of strong Hobgoblins. Their snipe can kill you in 1-2 hits so be careful. Kill them and the Gatekeeper to move on.
There are a few different ways to handle the portals section and the rest of the fight. I like the method we used.
Portal Jumping
There are points next to the portal that someone must stand in to capture. This opens the portal, but vex can capture it. If they do, the portal closes and must be opened again if anyone is still inside.
When they capture a point, it also spawns a special oracle above the portal. This must be killed quickly or your whole group dies instantly.
Inside each portal is a Gatekeeper and several enemies. Killing it drops a relic, the shield, in the back. It also marks everyone in the portal with a darkness debuff that eventually makes your whole screen black. The shield user can cleanse this.
You can leave the portal and go back in at any time, as long as your group hold the point. While you have the point though, several increasingly difficult enemies spawn near the point.
When one of the Gatekeepers in the portals dies, a middle pillar forms. You have to stop Vex from reaching this, or your group dies. To make things easier, we decided to grab both shields at the same time.
Have 3 people open a portal and 3 people go into the portal. As you enter the room, future portal is to the left, past is to the right.
The people in the portal want to damage the Gatekeeper until he has very low health, but do not kill it yet. Leave the portal and head to the next one. It doesn’t recover health.
The next part is a challenge, but very rewarding when you pull it off. Have everyone head to the other portal. Same thing, 3 in and 3 out. Damage the Gatekeeper, but do not kill it.
The Vex will start to capture the previous point though, that’s okay. When they do this, the people outside have to watch for the Oracle and kill it every time it spawns. It always spawns above the portal that’s being taken.
When the Gatekeeper is almost dead, head out and take out the enemies capturing the other point, while still defending the point you have.
Once you have both portals opened at the same time, send one person into each to finish the Gatekeepers and take the shields. They have to be fast and get out or the points will be overrun and the portals will close.
Tower Defense
When you get both shields out, head to the center pillar. All you have to do is defend it and stop Vex from sacrificing themselves to it. After a while the enemies stop and the shields disappear. You get loot and the last boss starts.
Defeat Atheon
Compared to most of the encounters in this raid, this one is pretty simple, in theory.
After completing the first part, Atheon attacks. He’s a huge glass enemy, but don’t let that fool you, he’s tough.
Don’t worry about damaging him at the beginning, you get a buff later. He will teleport 3 random group members into one of the portals. The other 3 must stay out and kill the Supplicants that spawn.
Outside group
The enemies the boss spawns will shoot you, but they also explode when they get close. This kills you instantly. You can jump on top on pillars to avoid this completely.
One way to deal with them is to let them explode. Wait until they get close, then quickly double jump away from them, using your class jump ability. You need to kill these so the people in the portal don’t come out to them and die.
This group also needs to open the portal for whichever side the portal group is in so they can leave.
Portal group
This group has the hardest job and it is a complete DPS race. Once inside, you’ll spawn on the shield relic from the previous fight. One person picks this up while the other 2 watch for Oracles. Be sure to call out which side you’re on so that outside group can open the portal. There are many enemies you’ll want to take out as well to make killing the Oracles easier.
The forest (green) side has a Praetorian you need to kill and some normal enemies.
The desert (red) side has 3 hobgoblins. The shield user, along with one other person, needs to take out all the enemies while one person focuses on Oracles.
After they are gone everyone can focus on the oracles. The shield user has to use the cleansing shield periodically to cleanse the darkness on everyone. It is best to stay together during this part.
7 Oracles spawn inside at set locations. Kill them all as you make your way to the portal. If you don’t kill them while inside, everyone dies.
Wait until you kill all of them before leaving because it gives your whole raid a buff. This lasts for about 25 seconds and a timer appears on your screen, so leave as soon as you get it. This buff makes your cooldowns extremely short so you can use your abilities very often. You also do more damage to the boss.
Shattering the Glass
You’ll want to go all out for this one, just shoot the boss for a ton of damage.
When everyone is out of the portal, the whole team heads to the middle platform. The relic shield user stands in front of everyone and keeps the cleansing shield up the whole time. This shield protects everyone from outside damage and you can shoot through it, unlike the Titan’s Ward of Dawn.
Speaking of the Ward of Dawn, if you have a Defender Titan in your group, have that person choose Weapons of Light and place the Ward in the back of the platform. Everyone can just back up to get the Weapons of Light buff for extra weapon damage, then move forward to get into the relic shield and keep doing damage.
As soon as the buff goes away, the 3 random people get teleported again. Just repeat this until the boss dies. Good job on finishing the Vault of Glass Raid!
If you have any questions, or suggestions on completing certain parts in the raid, let me know in the comments. Please visit my Quick and Dirty Beginner’s Guide for more tips and link to all the other Destiny guides at GameSkinny.
Published: Sep 17, 2014 11:21 am