How to Complete the Equal Vessels Crota’s End Raid Challenge | Destiny 2 Deathsinger Challenge

A third Raid Challenge has just come online for the reprised edition of Crota’s End in Destiny 2. Raid Challenges are specific trials or problems which players can voluntarily undertake to make certain Raid encounters more challenging, with the promise of extra loot should you effectively complete the encounter with the restrictions still in place. Previously, players have been able to undertake both the Preservation of Energy and Precarious Balance Raid Challenges for some additional loot and rewards related to the Raid. Said rewards include more Crota’s End Raid gear, exclusive Adept Raid weapons, extra Essence of Oversoul for more efficient Necrochasm progress, progress towards the Swordbearer Title and more. 

This week, the Crota’s End Raid Challenge is called Equal Vessels. The Challenge takes place in the Deathsinger encounter – which is the third encounter in Crota’s End – and can be a pretty hectic experience, even in normal mode. With the Raid Challenge active, all six players on your fireteam must be ready to communicate efficiently while remaining in sync and remembering specific roles to get everything done correctly. This is certainly one of the more demanding Raid Challenges for Crota’s End. 

Here’s how to complete the Equal Vessels Raid Challenge for the Deathsinger Encounter in Destiny 2’s reprised version of Crota’s End.

Want more Destiny 2 content and guides? You can find more here on KeenGamer:

1. Destiny 2 | Threatening Reach Raid Triumph Guide for Crota’s End
2. Destiny 2 Season of the Witch Grandmaster Nightfall Guide | Season 22 Grandmasters
3. How to Get Necrochasm in Destiny 2 | Crota’s End Raid Exotic Guide
4. Crota’s End Red Border Chest Guide (Guaranteed Deepsight Raid Weapon) | Destiny 2
5. Destiny 2 Season of the Witch: How It Works

What Are Raid Challenges?

Before we at the strategy and guide for Equal Vessels, let’s first go over what Raid Challenges actually are and what you’ll earn by completing them. Raid Challenges are special restrictions or requirements added to already existing Raid encounters that Guardians can undertake for additional loot and rewards. The requirements of each challenge change from encounter to encounter.

Crota’s End has 4 distinct encounters, each of which drops unique loot and has a different weekly Raid Challenge attached to it: those encounters are the Abyss, the Bridge, Ir Yut and Crota himself. Raid Challenges rotate weekly, beginning with the challenge for the first encounter (which, in the case of Crota’s End, is the Abyss) and then rotating to the next one at weekly reset.

The main prize of Raid Challenges is that they drop additional Raid loot upon completion. If you complete a Raid Challenge on Normal difficulty, you’ll get an additional chest which drops an additional piece of loot from that encounter’s loot table. If, instead, you complete a Raid Challenge on Master mode, the extra chest will award you one of the Adept versions of the Raid weapons: these variants of the Raid weapons are special, able to slot exclusive Adept mods and have their perks turned into Enhanced variants at the Enclave.

So, now that you know what Raid Challenges are and what you seek to gain by completing them, how do you complete the Equal Vessels challenge for Crota’s End in Destiny 2?

Raid Challenges

Crota’s End Deathsinger Challenge: Equal Vessels

Equal Vessels is the Destiny 2 Raid Challenge attached to the third encounter of Crota’s End, the one involving Ir Yut, the Deathsinger. In an ordinary run of this encounter, you and your fireteam are on a race against the clock as you must scour the arena to find several trapped Wizards who need to be killed, with the main difficulty being that you need an Enlightened buff to enter the Wizard’s hideaway. As such, the Deathsinger is all about being quick on your toes in more ways than one: whether you’re scouting the locations of the Wizards or passing the Chalice of Light around so you can actually fight them, it’s an encounter which has the potential to become quite hectic.

So, how does the Equal Vessels Raid Challenge modify the Deathsinger encounter, then? To complete the Equal Vessels Raid Challenge, you must cycle the Chalice of Light through all six players on your team before you can repeat players. 

In essence, once the first player has picked up the Chalice, they cannot pick it up again until all five other players have received it at least once. For the initial phase of the encounter, this limitation won’t hold much sway but it will, very quickly, get more confusing and more chaotic as time passes: Equal Vessels is one of those Raid Challenges where, the longer the encounter drags on, the more difficult things are going to be. This is especially true when it comes to remembering the order of players and what people have already done – have they killed a Wizard yet, did they bank the Chalice in the Preservation point – and can lead to some issues.

If you want to complete the Equal Vessels Challenge, the main thing you’ll need to work on is communication. Just like the previous Raid Challenge Precarious Balance, talking with your team and making sure everyone is on the same page is how you’re going to get through to the other side. Callouts need to be concise and consistent, players will need to be capable of remembering their place in the turn order without being constantly reminded and you’ll have to do all of that while juggling DPS and add clearing. This encounter will be very hectic and has the potential to be the hardest Crota’s End Challenge for less confident teams as no one can slack or be left behind: everyone needs to play their role. 

The Witch Waits

How to Complete the Equal Vessels Raid Challenge in D2

Before you begin the encounter properly, talk to your fireteam and figure out an exact order of who is going to take the Chalice first (and thus, gain Enlightened first) and who is going last. This order needs to account for all players on the team and will help you structure who needs to be taking the Chalice and when. This rotation should be upheld for the entirety of the encounter and you shouldn’t deviate from it once it has begun as doing so will ruin your run. The easiest way of visualising this turn order is to give each player a number between 1 and 6.

If you want to see how the rotation order should look for each phase, here you go: 

• First Phase: 1>2>3>4, with 5 or 6 Scouting
• Second Phase: 5>6>1>2>3, with 3 or 4 Scouting
• Third Phase: 4>5>6>1>2>3, with 3 Scouting

Dressed to Kill

Once you’re ready to begin, head on out and play the encounter as normal until you reach the Chalice of Light. From here, the first player responsible for the Chalice should pick it up while one of the members at the back of the turn order (preferably number 6) takes the reigns in scouting the arena for Wizards. For this first phase, you’ll only need 3 people with Enlightened, so player 4 should be the one left with the Chalice.

Player 4 should then immediately Preserve it and remember that they are responsible for the Preservation as it becomes vital to ensuring the chain later on. With all the Enlightened buffs you need to acquire, play this part of the encounter as usual and kill the Wizards in sync to start the Dark Liturgy timer. Then, simply DPS the boss as much as you can until phase 2 hits. Upon entering phase 2, the player after the person who Preserved it is responsible for picking it up. The same will be true for any subsequent cycles in future phases.

Aside from remembering the order and ensuring that you don’t pick up the Chalice and gain Enlightened early, the Deathsinger encounter is the same old, same old. You’ll be dealing with a constant onslaught of adds from every side of the arena, Boomer Knights who won’t quit and will continually focus you down for the entire fight and a super agile boss that you’ll likely need to use Divinity for just to land consistent hits. The most important thing is remembering, and sticking to, that turn order. Do that and everything should turn out fine. 

One tip that can make the opening stages of this encounter easier is that before the encounter begins, you can grab the Chalice early by jumping directly below it and holding interact: High Jump on Titans or Heat Rising on Warlocks makes short work of grabbing the Chalice through this method. No matter how you get it, doing this ensures that you can safely pass it around the first 5 players in the rotation, giving them Enlightened for the first encounter. This will make the first phase a lot easier to deal with and let you focus primarily on damage, with subsequent phases requiring you to go back to that initial rotation and turn order.

Into the Dark

Equal Vessels Step-by-Step Guide

If you want a simple step-by-step guide for Equal Vessels in Destiny 2: 

1. Before the encounter starts, assign each player in your team a number from 1 to 6. This is your turn order for taking the Chalice of Light, with player 6 giving it back to player 1 when the rotation needs to repeat. 
2. Play the encounter as normal until the first Chalice pick-up.
3. While the players required to enter the doors and kill the Wizards start passing around the Chalice to gain Enlightened, one of the players at the back of the rotation needs to scout the arena for the Wizards and call out which rooms are needed.
4. Once all required players have the Chalice (which, for the first phase, will be up to player 4), the player holding the Chalice should Preserve it below.
5. Kill the Wizards, damage the boss, wait out the Dark Liturgy timer and you’ll enter phase 2.
6. At that point, the next player in the rotation should pick it up and resume the turn order. Just like before, a player at the back of the current rotation should take up scouting duty.
7. Rinse and repeat these points until Ir Yut the Deathsinger falls.

Empty Vessels Raid Challenge

Additional Raid Challenge Loot

Now that it’s clear how to beat the Destiny 2 Equal Vessels Raid Challenge, what will it get you in terms of loot and tangible rewards? On Normal Mode, a Raid Challenge completion will net you an additional chest which spawns upon encounter clear. This extra chest contains an additional loot drop from that specific encounter, essentially serving as double loot for that encounter’s loot pool. These additional drops will also be Pinnacle, giving any low Light Level players a bit of a boost.

For the Deathsinger encounter, you have the chance to obtain an extra drop of the following items: 

• Oversoul Edict Arc Pulse Rifle
• Song of Ir Yut Arc Machine Gun
• Legendary Chest (Willbreaker’s Resolve, Relentless Harness, Deathsinger’s Mantle)
• Legendary Legs (Willbreaker’s Greaves, Tireless Striders, Deathsinger’s Herald)
• Legendary Class Item (Mark of the Pit, Shroud of Flies, Bone Circlet)

A different award awaits those who attempt the Challenge on Master Mode Crota’s End. Instead of an additional loot drop, the second encounter chest always drops one of the Crota’s End weapons as an Adept variant. Adept Raid weapons are part of the small set of weapons which can slot the exclusive, and very powerful, Adept-class mods which are capable of everything from drastically increasing damage against bosses (Adept Big Ones) to massively improving certain stats on your guns (Adept Range or Adept Handling). Additionally, Adept weapons will have all of their weapon stats bumped up by a small amount whenever they’re Masterworked, improving performance across the board compared to traditional weapons.

Unlocking new Adept weapons is a bit strange in Crota’s End. Whenever you complete a Master Raid Challenge, the Adept weapon you receive is completely random: you have the same chance of obtaining any of the 6 Crota’s End weapons from any Master Challenge, even if they don’t drop from that specific encounter. Once you’ve received an Adept weapon, you won’t get it again until you have unlocked all other Adepts. For example, if Adept Oversoul Edict is my first drop, I won’t get it again until I have all 5 other weapons. I can still buy an additional Adept roll from Crota’s Sword at the end of a Master Crota’s End run, though.

Adept Crota’s End Weapons

That was how to complete the Equal Vessels Raid Challenge for the reprised edition of Crota’s End in Destiny 2. Next week is the final Crota’s End Raid Challenge, All for One, where your fireteam will need to face down the son of Oryx himself in the last encounter of the Raid.