Destiny's Newest Raid Boss Somehow Beaten by One Person

If you thought the final boss fight in Destiny: Rise of Iron's raid, Wrath of the Machine, required a full team, you'd be wrong: Aksis has been defeated by a single player. And if you're anything like me--having spent hours to do it with a full group of six--you'll likely also be stunned, flummoxed, and downright amazed.

The accomplishment was managed by a 399 Light level player named ScaRdrow, who said on Reddit, "This challenge was by far the hardest thing I have ever attempted in Destiny." It's also noted the strategy for doing it is "nowhere near the same complexity" as the one used to solo Oryx, The Taken King's final raid boss, "but the execution was in another world."

If you've attempted the raid and understand the mechanics, you'll probably wonder how this is even possible; you have very small windows of time to get things done, and one error can wreck the entire effort. A section of it requires certain enemies to be killed using a special cannon, causing them to drop a bomb. However, a player using the cannon can't pick up a bomb for 30 seconds after dropping a cannon, and the bombs only stick around for a limited time.

Setting aside the difficulty of killing those enemies as one person, ScaRdrow--playing as a Warlock--gets around the bomb lockout by dying and then immediately resurrecting. This removes the lockout and makes it possible to then rush around, throwing the bombs at Aksis.

Another seriously challenging aspect of the fight comes just after this. Aksis teleports around the area and has to be made vulnerable by a nearby player jumping on his back and activating an invisible prompt. This normally requires the efforts of three people, yet ScaRdrow is able to cover enough ground to do it without any help. And by having left the aforementioned cannons in the center area, they're able to do enough damage to Aksis to compensate for being down five players. It's incredible.

You can get the full rundown on ScaRdrow's strategy, including specific gear choices, in this Reddit post. Note that this was done on the standard version of the raid--the recently launched Heroic version was quickly beaten but will likely remain un-soloable.

In Destiny news that's less likely to make you feel bad about yourself, this year's Halloween event, Festival of the Lost, returns tomorrow, October 25.