The Final Shape sort of has three different endings. The first is the end of the campaign, when you take on the Witness for the first time, destroy some of his dissenters and wound him, proving the god can bleed. The second ending comes as part of the Edge of Salvation raid, a rematch with the Witness in the biggest challenge The Final Shape has to offer. Here, you sever it from the Traveler’s light and leave it vulnerable for the final strike. The third, and true, ending of The Final Shape’s story comes in the Excision mission, Destiny’s first 12-player activity that represents the final showdown with the First Knཧife.
While this may be where we finally defeat great evil, Excision is more of a victory lap than a final boss fight. It’s a chaotic, high-octane frag fest that’s impossible to lose. It’s designed to give everyone, regardless of skill level, an opportunity to take part in the Witness’ defeat. It’s a social e🎶xperience, one of those you-had-to-be-there moments that Destiny is famous for, and it’s incredibly effective at doing what it does.
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So no one was expecting a Grandmaster version of Excision this week. Grandmaster is the la🎉bel Destiny uses for the most challenging activities in the game; the pinnacle PvE activities designed to be the ultimate test of skill, buildcrafting, and commitment. Grandmaster Nightfall is so serious that it doesn’t even launch until the end of June just to give people time to prepare for it. A Grandmaster version of 12-player boss fight sounds like pure chaos, and it totally is.
The reward for completing Grandmaster Excision is the catalyst for the new exotic sword Ergo Sum, which everyone is going to want to get as it gives the sword free special ammo when you use a⛎ Transce💖ndent grenade.
Normally, high difficulty content - especially ones labeled ‘Grandmaster’ - re𒉰quires good team communication. In the case of Excision, having 12 people on comms together only adds to the pandemonium. It would be one thing if you had a coordinated clan and a designated shot-caller, but 🦩who can organize 11 other people for this? Unless you’re a Twitch streamer, you’re almost certainly using the LFG and joining a bunch of randos for this, and you’re likely not using your mic either.
Communication isn’t necessary, but some coordination is. There aren’t any callouts of specific mechanics that you need to talk through, but you do need to stick together and focus on your targets. Grandmaster Excision has an endless parade of Champions to kill with health bars tuned to the damage potential of 12 people, which means nothing will die unless at least half of the fireteam focuses on killing it. That’s not exactly true - you’ll definitely die, a lot.
High-performing raid groups have been able to complete this mis🌟sion with only six people, so a random group of 12 can definitely do it. It’s hard, but it’s not GM Nightfall hard.
Grandmaster Excision uses the token system, meaning you only have a limited number of li𓂃ves. You earn more lives for champion kills, but if one or two random people refuse to fight with the group, they can drain your token supply quickly. It only takes a couple of trolls to tank the entire mission and se🦩nd everyone back to orbit, so not only are you hoping your random group of 12 all have good damage rotation and champion mods, you’re also hoping none of them are actively working against you.
On my first run through it, half the team died from sniper shots immediately when the mission started. Things didn’t improve much from there. During the entire intro the group moved as ♒one nervous blob, capturing each point and fending off threats from every direction. We were so tightly packed with so many supers going off non-stop that the entire thing was just a blur of colors and bullet sounds. All I could really do was fire in the general direction of the enemies and hope to see some damage numbers. Anyone in the fireteam who tried to be a star and pop off with some huge damage combo typically left themselves exposed and, shortly thereafter, extremely dead.
The actual boss fight goes even more haywire. The mechanics require the team to split into two halves and for individuals to frequently break off from the group to deposit orbs at the back of the arena. Once people lose their nerve they tend to camp out around Saint’s bubble in the back, hoping to stay alive while the rest of the team picks up the slack. With so many people it's easy to feel like your contributions don’t matter that much, but if too many people adopt a passive playstyle the whole thing can fall apart quickly.
The scariest part of the encounter is the damage phase. Just like the final encounter in the raid, poor positioning can lead to a lot of quick deaths. If your team's damage isn’t optimized it could take five or six damage phases to chip away at the Witness’ health bar, and even though there are plenty of champions around to give you more tokens, the longer the fight goes the more every death matters.
Grandmaster Ex🔯cision is a bizarre activity. It’s high-end content for people with﷽ a lot of skill and competency, but like the normal version of Excision, it’s still total mayhem. It’s like riding the Tilt-a-Whirl at a carnival. You might fly out of your seat or get your spine crushed in its gears, but that’s what makes it so fun.
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Get your hands on a burst-fire Witherhoard, a Solar Rockeꦦt Sidearm, and much more.
