Comprehensive Guide to the Sundered Doctrine in Destiny 2

With the conclusion of the much-anticipated dungeon race in Destiny 2, Biggz and his team emerged victorious, claiming the world first trophy.Sundered Doctrine is now open to players who want to explore the dungeon without the constraints of Contest Mode.

The latest dungeon introduced in Episode Heresy brings players back to Rhulk’s Sunken Pyramid, revisiting the iconic setting from the Vow of the Disciple raid featured in the Witch Queen expansion. Sundered Doctrine not only builds upon its predecessor but also introduces new mechanisms and a fresh narrative spin.

Sundered Doctrine: An Overview

Sundered Doctrine consists of three loot encounters, which include two challenging boss fights. This dungeon promises intricate puzzles and elaborate mechanisms set within the pyramid’s maze-like interiors, challenging players to think strategically.

Accessing Sundered Doctrine

To gain entry to the dungeon, head over to the Tower and speak with Ikora. She will provide you with the necessary quest to unlock Sundered Doctrine.

Following this, you can select the dungeon node from the Savathun’s Throne World destination, marking the start of your adventure.

Preparation: Recommended Loadouts

This guide adopts a more streamlined approach from previous ones. Instead of an exhaustive table, below are tailored loadouts from my own encounters.

Feel free to modify these loadouts as per your unique style, but make sure to prioritize survivability during your runs.

Encounter 1: Riddle

This initial encounter emphasizes clearing adds, featuring miniboss Subjugators that will challenge your prowess. Equip weapons and abilities that maximize area-of-effect damage to dispatch multiple foes swiftly.

Utilizing rapid-fire precision weapons, such as auto rifles or SMGs, will allow you to exploit the weak points of the Husks effectively and neutralize their Geists.

Encounter 2: Zoetic Lockset

This stage includes extended DPS phases, requiring players to utilize precision weapons with excellent ammo economy, such as snipers and linear fusion rifles.

Establish your vantage point to reliably inflict damage. Ensure to equip appropriate ammo and damage mods on your gear to boost your output.

Encounter 3: Kerrev, The Erased

During this boss fight, Kerrev exhibits high mobility within the arena and has a small critical hitbox. To maximize your critical damage output, assign one teammate to use Divinity while others focus on heavy precision damage.

The Twilight Arsenal can also weaken Kerrev, providing additional opportunities to inflict damage.

Core Mechanics

The Sundered Doctrine dungeon incorporates essential mechanics from the Vow of the Disciple raid, namely knowledge (Heightened, Brimming, and Overflowing) and various symbols. Players familiar with the Vow of the Disciple or the Dual Destiny Exotic Mission will have an advantage in understanding these mechanics.

If you haven’t engaged with Vow of the Disciple, it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with the 27 symbols and their corresponding callouts. Alternatively, you may create your own callout system with your fireteam.

While certain symbols may not appear in this dungeon, understanding them could be advantageous if you decide to tackle Vow of the Disciple or if they resurface during future runs.

Opening Section

Upon entering, players will be greeted with the breathtaking interior view of Rhulk’s pyramid. Hidden agents are stationed nearby, providing puzzles to unravel throughout the quest. Proceed straight across the bridge.

Once you reach a formidable wall where the entrance appears, turn left towards the cascading waterfalls. The true entrance to the dungeon lies behind the first waterfall. Enter to engage with Dread and various enemies including Grims, Weavers/Attendants, and two Subjugator minibosses (Stasis and Strand).

Continue deeper—you’ll encounter a sliding block that can be lowered to reveal a narrow passage.Carefully navigate through and drop down a tunnel. This area will lead you to a swamp filled with additional adds and a Stasis Subjugator.

If you feel disoriented, know that the exit is located behind a small waterfall on the room’s right side. Once past this barrier, you’ll quickly find yourself at the initial encounter of the dungeon. You can bypass most enemies to proceed if you wish, though clearing them may prove beneficial.

First Encounter: Riddle

The core mechanic of this dungeon revolves around leveraging symbols to command the pyramid’s functions. At the center, you’ll encounter a wheel with seven slots.

During this encounter, you will only need three glyph slots to create a coherent sentence arranged in the format of noun, verb, and noun.

In essence, you’re formulating a statement through the symbols that the pyramid will only accept if it is truthful.

Incorrect phrases will cause the pyramid to reject your inputs, summoning a boss-type Tormentor to attack and resetting the symbols you’ve already created.

Your objective is to direct beams of light from the center room to one to three of four surrounding rooms. Feel free to label these rooms for clarity, with common practice suggesting:

• Bottom Left / L1
• Top Left / L2
• Bottom Right / R1
• Top Right / R2

Before diving into the encounter, become familiar with the room layout. The community has shared a helpful map illustrating all possible paths to redirect the darkness:

Utilize effective add-clear strategies and roaming Supers like Song of Flame and Berserker. Since the hardest foes will be Subjugators, employing crowd-control tactics such as Suspend or Blind may prove advantageous.

As soon as you’re prepared, initiate the encounter by rotating the center lens. This will activate a darkness node above each initial lens. Shooting a node will trigger a beam towards the corresponding lens. Each lens is capable of pointing in at least two different directions.

Upon engagement, Husks will begin to spawn intermittently, adding an extra layer of complexity.

Close

You will need to scour the surrounding rooms to locate an orange bar Grim called the Truthspeaker. Defeating it will drop a floating symbol indicating the correct beam direction.

Simultaneously, Dread Psions and “Lens Bearer”Subjugators will be present in each room. Defeating the Lens Bearer will drop a lens required for the encounter.

Remember that the three glyphs in the center wheel must form a coherent statement. For instance, if the left and middle symbols are “Traveler”and “Give, ”the right symbol logically should be “Light.”

If the Truthspeaker drops the “Traveler”symbol in L2, your team must find a room with a glyph wheel displaying the “Traveler”symbol—likely found in R2.

By activating the darkness node and rotating the lenses correctly, you will successfully redirect the beam from the center room to R2’s wheel. Achieving this will prompt the message: “The Pyramid accepts a truth.”

For players in Contest Mode, a time constraint is imposed. However, Normal Mode allows for a more leisurely pace, encouraging players to take their time and avoid mistakes that spawn Tormentors.

Upon completing the first round, you will need to replicate this two additional times, each increasing the required glyphs. Subsequent rounds will demand two completed beams, with the final round necessitating three.

Since only one Truthspeaker spawns at a time, approach each round methodically, utilize the map for guidance, and ensure efficient navigation.

Upon successfully completing the third round, all three main lenses will align with the central wheel, signaling the encounter’s conclusion. Collect your rewards and push onward into the depths of the pyramid.

Summary of Operations:

1. Rotate the center lens to commence the encounter.
2. Explore the surrounding rooms to locate the Truthspeaker Grim, or deduce the necessary missing symbol from the riddle.
3. Eliminate Subjugators and acquire the dropped lens.
4. Identify the appropriate plate with the required symbol and determine a viable route back to the center room.
5. Before placing the lens, rotate the lens holders; failure to do so more than 3 times will break them, requiring you to find replacements.
6. Completing a beam concludes Phase 1 of the encounter.
7. Phase 2 mandates two separate beams from the starting room to two respective rooms. At least one Truthspeaker must be secured for assistance.
8. Phase 3 requires directing three distinct beams from the commencing room.

Navigating the Labyrinth

Once the first encounter chest is accessed, a new path will unveil itself. Descend into the dark labyrinth, where the correct path isn’t predetermined. However, three darkness cruxes within offer the chance to spawn the first secret chest hidden in the maze.

Exiting the labyrinth reveals a spacious cave populated by Grims and Psions. Here, you can choose to fight or evade contact. At the end lies a doorway leading into a shadowy corridor featuring smaller side rooms.

Drop down from the hole in the left-side room and you’ll find yourself within a crawl space defined by a deep chasm between two cliffs. Advance through the end of the tunnel and you’ll discover a discrete hidden ledge below the left-side cliff.

Prepare to encounter large spiked balls rolling down a slope, evoking images of classic cinematic traps. The slope features nooks allowing you to navigate in a zigzag pattern.

Make sure to time your jumps carefully to avoid collision with the balls. There’s a hole waiting in the center of the slope—enter it and proceed.

Continue your descent while avoiding more spiked balls, akin to a brief game of Frogger. Focus on progressing downward and prepare to confront a substantial gap ahead.

Pre-Second Encounter Mechanics

After successfully bypassing the spiked ball traps, you’ll arrive at a chamber featuring a pair of lenses, wheels, and a locked door adorned with two symbols. This serves as your introduction to mechanics for the next encounter.

The active lenses direct toward their respective wheels, which spin either clockwise or counter-clockwise. You can alter the rotation direction by shooting the darkness node positioned above the wheel.

Take note if one of the seven glyphs is illuminated. Your task is to match the glowing glyphs with those next to the locked door.

Accomplishing this requires defeating a Hive Wizard, which will drop a darkness shard stacked as follows: “Heightened Knowledge”(one stack), “Brimming Knowledge”(two stacks), and “Overflowing Knowledge”(three stacks).

Each stack of knowledge moves the glowing glyphs one step in the direction of the spinning wheel. Dunk the shards until the glowing glyphs align with the required symbols, unlocking the door and allowing further progression.

Second Encounter: Zoetic Lockset

Players encounter four wheels akin to the previous room’s design. When the Zoetic Lockset observes a wheel, it identifies the glowing glyphs, activating one of five potential effects based on the symbol:

• Hive: Summons miniboss Ogres to both sides of the area.
• Knowledge: Spawns miniboss Knights along with additional Wizards, recommended for farming ammo.
• Commune: Launches large seeking darkness projectiles (“bees”) that players can shoot.
• Stop: Prevents spawn adds for a limited period.
• Kill: Initiates the DPS phase.

The DPS phase can extend considerably, so focus on conserving ammo and maintaining survivability, as the boss will continue to unleash darkness upon you. Consider utilizing Well of Radiance, linear fusion rifles, and sniper rifles for optimal performance.

A “Lockset Progression”bar will be visible at the top of your screen, corresponding to the four large panels located on the far wall of the room.

As the progression bar fills, the Zoetic Lockset focuses on a wheel, locking the highlighted symbol onto its panel. Collect darkness dropped by defeating Hive Wizards to dunk and highlight the desired symbol.

To minimize enemy waves, configure the glyphs from right to left in this sequence: Stop, Stop, Stop, Kill. This approach will ease the transition into the DPS phase.

Summary of Operations:

1. Defeat Hive Wizards to drop Knowledge pickups.
2. Input appropriate stacks of Knowledge into the podium in front of the wheels. Starting from the rightmost wheel, rotate symbols to the Stop symbol.
3. The second rightmost wheel should be set to Stop as well.
4. Continue with the third rightmost wheel, configuring it to Stop.
5. Finally, set the leftmost wheel to Kill, commencing the DPS phase.
6. Deal damage to any exposed Shrieker until the DPS phase concludes.
7. Continue to repeat these steps until the boss is defeated.

Traversal and Light Puzzle

Once the Zoetic Lockset falls, acquire one of the Shrieker’s eyes and place it in the circular slot at the room’s center to unlock the subsequent doorway.

Progress deeper into the pyramid to reach a room featuring a massive worm god skeleton and a darkness lens puzzle that must be solved to open the final encounter’s door.

To unlock the door, accurately illuminate the symbols “Worm”and “Enter.”Begin from the upper floor with “worm, ”and position “enter”at the bottom of the opposite room. Shoot the darkness nodes to activate the beams for redirection.

Additionally, you’ll encounter lenses trapped within Hive gunk that must be shot free for placement in unoccupied lens holders.

Refer to the pathway illustrated in the gallery for navigation guidance:

Close

Success here will grant access to further areas.Ascend until you reach another side room filled with Hive warriors and a Subjugator. Upon their defeat, shoot the door to keep it open.

Third Encounter: Kerrev, The Erased

Prepare for an intense showdown as Kerrev and its minions await you in a vast arena. Familiarize yourself with the layout, divided into three segments: the main room for active damage dealing, and two side rooms for puzzle-solving.

This arena will feature sets of symbols placed on wheels distributed throughout.“Stop”and “Give”are located beneath where Kerrev will be positioned, and staircases lead downwards from there.

The left room has a door that requires shooting to open, gradually shutting if you fail to deal consistent damage, risking crushing damage. You will encounter Husks here—dispatch them quickly.

Access the right room via a sliding block, which will close on your entry. Contend with Hive Acolytes here, and locate a small exit tunnel along the wall for escape.

It’s vital to defeat the Subjugator minibosses in both side rooms before proceeding with other objectives.

Destroying Strand nodes will release hostile Threadlings—but don’t neglect your surroundings. The main room has a large wheel behind Kerrev which features puzzles involving truth and lies.

To deplete Kerrev’s shield, you must choose the path of deception. Activate the symbols that relate the lies while disabling those that tell the truth.

Each statement consists of one true and one false declaration, requiring careful analysis to identify which symbols to engage. For example, if the left states “Witness Drink Light”and the right “Guardian Worship Traveler, ”the latter is true, prompting you to deactivate “Guardian”while activating “Drink”and “Witness.”

You’ll notice the encounter is validated when three symbols on a side become lit while the opposing three remain unlit. This will allow you to initiate the damage phase by engaging the pedestal in front of the wheel, which will begin to burn away Kerrev’s defenses.

Be alert as the burning effect inflicts damage upon you; position yourself securely behind nearby pillars or walls to avoid harm during this phase.

Kerrev exhibits extreme agility in engagement and will frequent the arena while using Strand attacks to ensnare and suspend you. The best approach is to hunker down and use Well of Radiance, Divinity, and high-precision weaponry for optimal DPS.

Once the DPS phase ends, ensure to hide again as the Obelisk continues to burn.Repeat this strategy until you achieve victory over Kerrev.

Subduing Kerrev will advance your quest progress (notably on a time-gate system) and reward you with exclusive loot, including a small chance to acquire the new Finality’s Augur exotic weapon.

Source & Images

Related Articles:

9 Overlooked Open World Games That Need a Remake

15:04April 22, 2025

Unlocking the Time-Lock Safe: A Guide to the Blue Prince

14:54April 22, 2025

Top 10 Games Similar to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

14:34April 22, 2025

Top 10 Immersive Simulations Perfect for New Players

14:03April 22, 2025