Crota’s End is the new raid which released with Destiny’s DLC “The Dark Below” (December 9th, 2014). This walkthrough will be a combination of a run from a group here at Checkpoint Gaming without reading any walkthroughs and figure out the puzzles for ourselves, and research after we finish the raid to make sure we didn’t miss any chests, and to ensure we are being efficient.

Part 1 – Starting Crota’s End : Following the Light (“aka Dark Run”)

When you start the raid, you and your fireteam will spawn on a circle surrounded by light, with a dim light coming from a pillar in the distance. When you and your team are ready, start to travel to the first pillar. You will notice almost immediately you are slowing down as you are running, then soon you can not jump. This is the darkness affecting you (“The weight of the Darkness” debuff), and to reverse it, you stand near the light pillars. However this is easier said than done since waves upon waves of enemies will spawn and instantly aggro toward your group, and after about 10 to 15 seconds, the pillars will explode and launch you. You will finally end up near a bridge and must survive a few waves of enemies, cross,  then reach a blinding white light.

So, in a rinse and repeat fashion, this is how you beat the first part of the raid :

• Travel as a group to the next light pillar. It helps quite a bit to revive fallen teammates, but leave the ones who get launched by exploding pillars.
• As soon as you reach the pillar, turn around and face the enemies trailing you to help all your teammates get there, and any new spawns. Call out when each other are using supers to get a 6 person chain going on each pillar.
• Wait for your “The weight of the Darkness” debuff to go down to 1 or 0. Move to the next pillar. Watch out for holes, and call them out when you see them. ie “Hole left”, “Hole on top of the hill”, etc…
• Rinse, repeat.

When you get to the end, there will be a bridge that starts forming. Fend off about 2 to 3 waves of orges and such until the bridge is built and cross. You don’t need your whole entire team here, just one person needs to make it across, dodge the weapon fire, and to make it to the white light. Note you can also jump on top of the rocks out of melee range if you have  no weight of the Darkness debuff.

To find the chest – The chest randomly spawns at various locations in the first part of the raid. If you want to for sure get the chest and not slow down the raid progress, head to the raid yourself and take the first road to the left. If there is a light on above the door that you will come to, the chest is inside. If not, wipe and try again.

 Part 2 – Crossing the Sword Bridge

The next part of the raid will be similar to dealing with the sync plates from the first raid (Vault of Glass). Basically, to start, you have to sit on each Annihilator Totems, and have someone in the middle plate, located right in front of the bridge, to spawn the bridge across to the other side. If anybody leaves their totem for too long while you are in the middle plate, your screen will start to glow a soft red, and your team will wipe. During this whole process you and your fire team will be fighting off waves of enemies, and a sword bearer. After your team kills the sword bearer, have someone pick it up and cross the bridge. If you try crossing without the sword, you will be killed by something called “Bane of the Swordless” and instantly die. When your teammate with the sword crosses the bridge, he or she needs to take out the gate keeper, then attempt to keep the “Far Side” clear, while the teammates on the “near side”, where you start at, continue the same process until you have 3 on either side.

This is where you switch gears from building the bridge from the near side to the far side. Very similar to the near side, one person needs to be on each Annihilator Totem and one person needs to stand in the center. For the center, we stuck a titan with flash bang capabilities there, and had him literally run in circles to distract the Gate Keepers which your fire team could not kill. Pretty soon the near side will clear up of mobs and it will get easier for the remaining Guardians.

Once all your fire team is across, focus fire on the wizards and ogre that spawns after the wizards are down. Note, it’s best to keep at least one person on each totem, there is a random “oracle” that spawns that will wipe your team that will appear on one of the totems when fighting the ogre.

After killing the ogre, you have finished Part 2! As quickly as you can make your way through the next tunnel. Take down the shriekers and ignore the adds on the ground. If you are quick enough, you will see a door closing roughly as you make it past the 2nd shrieker. Run inside and collect the loot. Note there is a switch on the left side when you enter the chest room to open it up for teammates who got left behind.

Part 3 – Summoning Crystal

Next is to take on the wizards around the summoning crystal. You will start in a chamber with a path leading out to where eventually the last boss fight will be. All 6 head through the path and take out the first two knights. This will help everybody get to their positions a lot easier. Split into two groups and have each group go to each tower in the left and right corners when you come out of your starting area.

Have one of each of the group climb the stairs and into the room above your starting area. This will spawn a wizard (1 for each side). Have the one guardian run back to your respective groups in the tower and kill the wizard and two knights that spawn. Afterwards all three guardians on each group head back into the large room to kill shriekers that spawn. As soon as the two shriekers are down, the glass that separates you and the final wizard is down. Note that this part is timed, and everybody must nuke the last wizard as quick as possible. There are ledges around the inside door frames in this room you can poke her from to keep you out of melee range of the enemy.

Part 4 – Killing Crota

After you kill Ir’ Yut, the wizard, you will be left with a large crystal. Circle it with your fire team to summon big ol’ Crota himself. Two things to note here before you start the fight :

• You will NOT respawn health unless you have the “Chalice of Light” (Spawns in the middle of the two staircases after you summon Crota
• If anyone dies, there will be a very large orb above the map which you have

First, have someone head out and grab the chalice of light. Then comes time to focus fire a sword bearer that spawns, then quickly switch to firing at Crota. Have the guardian who is holding the chalice of light pick up the sword. You won’t do much, or if any damage to Crota, but this is needed to bring Crota to his knees. As soon as Crota is on his knees, have the guardian with the sword attack dealing damage. After about 40 or 45 seconds, the sword disappears and another sword bearer which you need to kill spawns. Pretty much rinse and repeat at this point. Be sure to clear out the adds once in a while to prevent your sword bearer from getting over ran.

That’s it! You’ve finished Crota’s End for “The Dark Below” DLC!