How to Complete the Precarious Balance Crota’s End Raid Challenge | Destiny 2

A new batch of Raid Challenges has started rolling out in Destiny 2 for the newly reprised Crota’s End Raid. Last week, players got to test themselves against the Preservation of Energy Raid Challenge in the Abyss encounter, and now, a new challenge awaits Guardians. Raid Challenges are curated trials attached to a Raid’s major encounters which modify the mechanics of said encounter in some way. Should you and your team manage to complete these augmented encounters with the Challenge intact, you’ll receive a bountiful amount of rewards which can include additional loot, an Adept Crota’s End weapon, an extra Essence of Oversoul and some progress towards the coveted Swordbearer Title. 

The second Raid Challenge for Crota’s End is the Precarious Balance Challenge which takes place in the Raid’s second encounter, the Oversoul Throne Bridge. In normal playthroughs, this is the encounter where all players must interact, in some way shape or form, with the Chalice of Light mechanic to safely build and cross the Bridge into Crota’s personal domain. With the challenge, not much changes mechanically but it becomes a lot more about timing and communication. 

Here’s how to complete the Precarious Balance Raid Challenge for Oversoul Bridge Encounter in the Crota’s End Raid in Destiny 2. 

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

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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 in Destiny 2?

Before we dive into the Raid Challenge strategy and guide, 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 Precarious Balance challenge for Crota’s End in Destiny 2? 

Raid Challenges

Crota’s End Raid Challenge: Precarious Balance

The Precarious Balance Raid Challenge takes place in the second encounter of Crota’s End, the Oversoul Bridge Encounter. This is the encounter where all players need to learn the ins and outs of the Chalice of Light mechanic to succeed, as any player unwilling won’t be able to interact with the main mechanic, which is using the Swordbearer’s Swords to safely cross the Bridge. All the while, you’ll also be standing on plates to build the Bridge and ensure that you don’t wipe. 

While not the most mechanically complex or combat-intensive challenge, the Bridge Encounter Challenge requires some rock-solid communication and teamwork to get done. To complete the Precarious Balance Raid Challenge, the Bridge cannot be fully formed when you step onto it to cross to the opposite side of the Chasm. 

Once you’ve fully built the Bridge, it won’t disappear immediately when the player holding the middle plate steps off: instead, it will gradually begin to disappear over a few seconds. During that time, players holding the Chalice or the Sword can still make it to the other side as long as there is some part of the Bridge there when they step onto it. The Challenge necessitates that the players crossing to the other side must only do so when the Bridge is beginning to disintegrate: step onto it while the Bridge is complete and the challenge will fail. 

To complete this Crota’s End Raid Challenge, the difficulty comes from timing everything correctly with your team rather than any sort of mechanic or combat challenge. Communication is key, especially between the Sword/Chalice-holder and whoever is controlling the middle plate as it’s their responsibility to work together to ensure that they make it across without messing anything up. As such, you’ll need to practice clear comms and make sure you know who is going to be commanding that middle plate on both sides of the Chasm. 

The Other Side

How to Complete the Precarious Balance Raid Challenge in D2

Begin the encounter as you normally would by claiming the Chalice of Light. Once that first player has passed off the Chalice to another, start building the Bridge to ensure that it’s fully formed by the time all players get their respective buffs and ready to cross: preferably, the first Chalice-holder would also be the player who sacrifices their Enlightened buff to start building the Bridge, but that isn’t a necessity. 

Eventually, five players will have Enlightened and one player will have the Chalice. At this point, the Bridge should also be 100% complete and one of your Enlightened players should have taken hold of the Hive Sword. When both the Chalice-holder and Swordbearer are ready to cross, they should stand at the edge of the Bridge and wait for the player standing on the middle plate to step off: this will be met by a loud sound cue, as well as a flashy of light from the middle plate,  as the Bridge begins to deform. Only then, once the Bridge starts to collapse, should the two players crossing to the other side start moving. 

If all goes well, both the Chalice-holder and the Swordbearer should make it to the opposite side with no issues and the Challenge should stand strong. At this point, you need to Preserve the Chalice, kill the Gatekeeper and then repeat that same process with the next Hive Sword to get a third player across the Chasm.

The Oversoul Throne Bridge

With three people on the opposite side, they can take over plate duty and allow the players on the original side some more freedom of movement. However, this does introduce one large complication as now the player holding the Sword and the one controlling the Bridge are on two separate sides of the Chasm. As such, whenever a player is ready to cross, they need to stand at the edge of the Chasm and call out to the plate holder on the other side. Aside from that, the process remains the exact same until all six players make it to the other side.

But what if someone dies on the original side and loses their Enlightened buff before they cross the Bridge? In this circumstance, you’ll need to send the Chalice of Light back over to the other side while still maintaining the essence of the Challenge. In this circumstance, have the Chalice-holder grab the Chalice and then have the middle plate holder quickly step off as they get near: if you time it right, they should be able to ride the Bridge as it begins disintegrating back to the original side. At that point, you just need to give the player who died possession of the Chalice and then send them back over the Bridge.

If there are no other hiccups or issues, you should complete the encounter in no time flat and earn yourself the Precarious Balance Crota’s End Raid Challenge.

The Bridge Deforms

Precarious Balance Step-by-Step Guide

If you want a more straight-forward explanation of the Precarious Balance Raid Challenge: 

1. Begin the encounter as normal by passing around the Chalice to give each player on the team Enlightened. You should start building the Bridge early into the sequence.
2. At the point where the final person gets the Chalice, the Bridge should have fully formed.
3. Before the Chalice-holder and the Swordbearer set foot on the Bridge, the person standing on the middle plate needs to get off it which will cause the Bridge to begin despawning.
4. As the Bridge despawns, the Chalice-holder and the Swordbearer must rush across it and jump to reach the other side before it fully deforms.
5. Wait until both players are across to the other side before remaking the Bridge again by standing on the middle plate. 
6. Rinse and repeat this process for every player that crosses the Bridge with the Sword (or Chalice if you make a mistake and someone dies). 
7. Once all six players are across to the opposite side of the Chasm will all 5 Swords, you can step off plates and complete the encounter as normal. 

The End of Crota

Additional Raid Challenge Loot

So, what do you get for all this extra trouble? By completing a Raid Challenge on Normal mode, you’ll get an additional chest which spawns when the encounter is completed. This extra chest drops an additional piece of loot from that encounter’s loot pool and will be another Pinnacle drop for any player still seeking max Light Level. For the Bridge encounter, the extra chest can drop the following rewards: 

• Fang of Ir Yut Strand Scout Rifle
• Swordbreaker Strand Shotgun
• Oversoul Edict Arc Pulse Rifle
• Legendary Gloves (Willbreaker’s Fists, Dogged Gage, Deathsinger’s Grip)
• Legendary Chest (Willbreaker’s Resolve, Relentless Harness, Deathsinger’s Mantle)

Meanwhile, a Challenge completion on Master mode Crota’s End rewards something completely different. The extra chest will give you a guaranteed Adept Crota’s End weapon. Adept weapons are special in that they are the only ones capable of slotting Adept Mods, which usually drastically increase a specific stat in the case of Adept Handling or they provide a big damage boost in the case of Adept Big Ones. These weapons also receive a minor bump to all stats, not just the Masterwork stat, upon being Masterworked.

Unlike some previous Raids, the way you obtain Adept weapons in Crota’s End is, technically, completely random. Each Challenge completion has the chance to randomly award one of the six Crota’s End weapons as an Adept variant, with no priority based on which encounter you complete. However, the caveat is that once you’ve acquired an Adept weapon, you won’t get it again until you’ve had all 5 other Adepts drop from other challenges: for example, I got the Adept Oversoul Edict as my first Crota’s Adept weapon, meaning I won’t have it drop again until I get all 5 of the other Adepts. It is worth mentioning that you can buy an additional copy of an Adept weapon from Crota’s Sword at the end of a Master mode Crota’s End run for 25 Spoils of Conquest. 

Adept Raid Loot

That was how to complete the Precarious Balance Raid Challenge for the Crota’s End Raid in Destiny 2. Next week, the Raid Challenge will rotate to the Deathsinger encounter, the third encounter of Crota’s End.