Ultimate Guide to Destiny 2: Tomb of Elders

With the introduction of Act II in Episode Revenant, Destiny 2 reimagines the nostalgic Prison of Elders from the original Destiny game into an exciting new experience known as Tomb of Elders. This three-player roguelike arena activity presents a series of randomized challenges and modifiers, reminiscent of the engaging mechanics found in The Coil, Riven’s Lair, and Savathun’s Spire.

Tomb of Elders offers an intense gameplay experience where the challenges scale in difficulty based on how long you stay alive, providing opportunities for better rewards. Impress the Warden, and you could walk away with impressive loot; underperform, and you risk earning nothing.

This guide is tailored for casual players or newcomers who have attained at least a 2000 power level soft cap. Let’s explore how to unlock this thrilling new activity and maximize your rewards in the Tomb of Elders.

Unlocking Tomb of Elders

You can access the Tomb of Elders by progressing to Act 2 of the Revenant questline. After finishing the first act, make your way back to the Last City and converse with Mithrax to initiate the quest.

Tomb vs. Contest: Understanding the Differences

When navigating the Destinations tab in the Last City, you will encounter two similar nodes: Tomb of Elders and Contest of Elders. The primary difference lies in the difficulty settings: Tomb of Elders maintains a static challenge level, making it easier and faster to complete with fewer rewards. In contrast, Contest of Elders features an increasing challenge that generally takes around 30 minutes to finish, with loot based on the accumulated Favor from the Warden.

Understanding Warden’s Favor and Punishment

The crucial mechanic dictating loot rewards is Warden’s Favor and Warden’s Punishment, which can each stack up to three times, as displayed at the top center of your HUD. Favor is gained by completing random timed challenges alongside your main objectives, while failure to satisfy the Warden diminishes your Favor.

A higher Favor level equates to better loot but tougher enemies, whereas a decreased Favor reduces the challenge at the cost of loot quality. Once an encounter concludes, the Warden will evaluate your performance; failing to impress might result in a run-in with the Warden to rectify Punishment stacks.

Limited Revives

Contest of Elders limits players to 20 revives, meaning that if you completely exhaust your lives, a wipe results in a failed activity and requires a restart due to the “Full Extinguish”modifier. Players familiar with endgame activities will understand that limited revives necessitate strategic gameplay. Thankfully, a healthy number of starting revives allows for wiggle room, ensuring that excessive wipes remain manageable.

Defeating “Model Prisoners”grants a revive token, similar to how defeating Champions works in Grandmaster Nightfalls. When low on revives, seek out minibosses, indicated by yellow health bars, and dispatch them for additional tokens.

Modifiers in Encounters

Upon entering a primary encounter, a random modifier will activate, often designed to create disadvantages for players. While some have minimal impact, others can pose significant threats.

Here are modifiers you might encounter:

Modifier	Description
Blasts	Combatants have increased splash damage.
Brawn	Your health is significantly boosted but does not regenerate. Defeating challenging opponents restores health for you and your allies.
Chill Touch	Melee attacks slow down the player upon hit.
Counterfeit	Enemies may drop explosives disguised as known items upon being defeated.
Famine	Ammunition drops are markedly less frequent.
Grounded	Players take increased damage while airborne.
Haste	Rapid movement replenishes health, while standing still delivers gradual damage.
Scrapper	Melee attacks from enemies are notably stronger.

These modifiers are exclusive to arena encounters and reset accordingly. It’s important to note that modifiers like Galvanized, Elemental Surges, Elemental Threats, and Banes are permanently active throughout.

Types of Encounters

Encounters within the Contest of Elders can be categorized into three main types: normal encounters, traversal encounters, and boss encounters. Expect to face various enemy factions including Lucent Hive, Taken/Dread, Scorn, and Cabal, each with unique objectives to complete.

Lucent Hive:
- Normal encounter: Defeat the bell-ringer Wizards, spawning a Lightblade that drops a Hive magic circle to help destroy nearby crystals.
- Boss encounter: Eliminate Hive Guardians.
Taken/Dread:
- Normal encounter: Collect 12 Resonances and dunk them in the central Rift, then take down the spawning Subjugator.
- Boss encounter: Fight Sylok, the Defiled—gather 6 Resonances to initiate the damage phase, repeating until defeated.
Scorn:
- Normal encounter: Collect six explosives and arm them within the designated area before making the Scorn Walker vulnerable.
- Boss encounter: Similar objectives against the Machinist as a boss.
Cabal:
- Normal encounter: Defeat two minibosses, shielded, while neutralizing yellow-bar Demolitionist enemies and bombarding generators.
- Boss encounter: Attack the Thresher with bombs to spawn a Psion boss and subsequently deal damage to it for additional phases.

After completing the main objectives, players will often be instructed to eliminate any remaining enemies before transitioning to the next encounter.

Following every faction encounter, you’ll engage in a traversal challenge that comes with a short time limit. Common objectives during these segments include:

Light Pillars: Collect five pillars while navigating through tunnels.
Speedrun: Sprint to the end while ignoring enemies.
Kill Enemies: Engage in add clearing.
Defeat Miniboss: Find and eliminate a yellow health bar miniboss.

Bonus Objectives for Extra Rewards

In addition to the primary tasks, the Warden will require completion of side objectives. It is highly advisable to tackle these before concluding the main task to maximize your chances of success.

Bonus objectives may include:

Splinter Mines: Disarm three mines while avoiding booby traps that can instantly eliminate you.
Rifleman: Eliminate snipers lurking on ledges; the initial kills will be easier clones, whereas the real one requires more attention.
Vent Poison: Activate vents while exposed to toxic gas, necessitating damage resistance and healing tactics.
Scorch Cannon Kills: Utilize the Scorch Cannon on enemies; you have 100 shots to work with.
Weapon or Ability Kills: Focus on special and heavy weapon eliminations.
Precision Kills: Engage in accuracy-focused eliminations with any weapon.

Walkthrough and Tips for Contest of Elders

Here’s a step-by-step outline of a typical run in the Contest of Elders:

Spawn and combat enemies in the central airlock while completing objectives.
Proceed through a random door leading to the first arena.
The encounter initiates, focusing on the main objective; at its midpoint, side objectives will appear.
Though optional, prioritize side objectives for greater loot potential.
Complete both objectives before eliminating all remaining enemies to satisfy the Warden.
Transition to a different airlock for the next arena, with a traversal challenge offering favorable opportunities.
After a second arena and traversal, prepare for the boss encounter.
Post-boss, you will be teleported to the Warden’s chamber to collect the loot earned.
Upon preparation, you will be dispatched to a new random arena for the next round.
Repeat steps 3 through 9 for a total of four rounds.

Successfully completing all four rounds while maintaining favorable performance leads the Warden to grant access to additional loot chests in the central airlock.

Optimizing Your Build for Success

While no strict build protocols are required, practitioners should focus on add clear capabilities and versatile supers, regardless of class. Higher ammo drops and crate availability make utilizing double special weapons beneficial.

The Contest of Elders serves as an ideal environment to test experimental builds; although not as punishing as Grandmasters or Raids/Dungeons, it provides enough challenge to evaluate your strategies against formidable adversaries.

Here are builds that have proven effective in the Contest of Elders:

Titan:
- Void Titan with Unbreakable and Ursa Furiosa: A dynamic combination suitable for various scenarios.
- Prismatic Titan featuring Consecration and Knockout: A consistently powerful setup.
- Stasis Titan with Icefall Mantle and Ager’s Scepter: Offers substantial survivability and crowd-clearing performance.
Warlock:
- Utilizing two Prismatic builds with Feed the Void:
  - Escape Artist and Bleakwatcher: A reliable option that continues to deliver results.
  - Solipsism with Necrotic Grips and Claws of Ahamkara: Combines Song of Flame and Incinerator Snap for maximized Ignition potential and ability spamming.
- A combat medic build using Speaker’s Sight can be exceptionally useful in activities with limited revives, especially paired with No Hesitation gun (Physic and Circle of Life perks).
Hunter:
- Although not my primary class, these reliable builds are noteworthy:
  - Void Hunter equipped with Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk.
  - Stasis Hunter utilizing the new Mask of Fealty.
  - Prismatic Hunter well-equipped with Caliban and Liar’s Handshake.

These suggestions represent a starting point; however, my ultimate recommendation remains to choose a build that suits your play style. Numerous Destiny content creators on platforms like YouTube have assisted in discovering my preferred configurations.

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