Destiny 2 Vesper’s Host guide – dungeon walkthrough

How do you clear the Vesper’s Host dungeon in Destiny 2? Bungie has introduced contest mode for a dungeon for the first time in the franchise’s history. Contest mode, for the uninitiated, is a 48-hour window where the difficulty is ramped up and extra clearance conditions are implemented. Previously, Destiny only did this with its multi-stage raid encounters, for fireteams of six. This time around, it’s the new dungeon’s turn, so grab two friends and jump in.

Destiny 2‘s newest dungeon takes place in a somewhat familiar location. If you’ve ever cleared the Deep Stone Crypt, you’ll recognize a lot of the mechanics on offer here, only this time they’re mutated in the space game. There are three main encounters, and this Destiny 2 Vesper’s Host guide is a work in progress as we try to clear during contest mode and grab the relevant screenshots and video footage to help you achieve the same.

How to begin the Vesper’s Host dungeon

Before you dive into the new endgame activity, you’ll need to grab a quest. To do this, head to the Lost City on the Director and speak to Spider. He will explain that he has an agent investigating the familiar orbital station, but that he lost contact with her. As it’s a dangerous environment, he’s reluctant to send any more of his people down there – but of course, he doesn’t mind if we jump in. He’ll tempt you with “plenty of riches” waiting for those lucky enough to complete the dungeon.

You’ll be given the Rogue Network quest, which has an objective of beating the Vesper’s Host dungeon on any difficulty. It’s important to note that this is step one of ten on the questline, suggesting we’re going to learn a lot more about Spider and his recent activities.

To launch the dungeon, head to Europa, and in the upper right-hand corner you’ll see the Vesper’s Host dungeon node. There are currently two – one for normal difficulty, and one for contest mode. Choose the one you’re most comfortable with, but we’ll outline the contest mode instructions here. Note that the mechanics won’t change, but enemies will be harder and you’ll be given much less time to complete each objective in contest mode.

Vesper’s Host dungeon start

To begin with, you’ll spawn in space outside the station and there’s a very short traversal section. Thankfully, unlike Deep Stone Crypt, there are no frustrating sparrow sections or freeze mechanics to contend with. The audio is muffled, as is the case in Deep Stone Crypt’s space areas, but that’s nothing to worry about.

You’ll enter a room full of enemies – clear them, and you’ll get a message stating that augment carriers have spawned. These are your operator and scanner augments, which you’ll remember from Deep Stone Crypt. The scanner can see several spots on the map which mark panels that can only be shot by the person carrying the operator augment. However, to figure out which ones to shoot, the scanner needs to pay attention.

With one fireteam member holding the scanner augment, travel to the panels, and you’ll notice they softly beep and turn white on the minimap in the upper left-hand corner. If the node stays white on the map, instruct the person carrying the operator augment to shoot it. If it disappears, do not shoot it – you will die. Successfully shooting the right panels will open the door to the next area. Note that you have 60 seconds to hold the augment before it mutates and kills you. To refresh the timer, place the augment in any of the glowing yellow receivers around the edge of the room and then pick it back up again. There is no cooldown period between depositing it and collecting it again.

Head through the airlock, and pass the enemies. Shoot the yellow-bar vandals and jump down the hole in the floor to the back of the room. This will reset your kill timer if any fireteam members have died, and restore your revive tokens.

There’s another short traversal area – shoot the tripmines before jumping otherwise they’ll kill you. You’ll soon find yourself outside a room with more sniper vandals. Take them out and follow the wall to the right, then head through the door before dropping down a shaft (carefully) which has more tripmines inside it. After this section, you’ll notice a rally banner.

Vesper’s Host – Activation

The first main encounter has a very short countdown timer of six minutes in contest mode. You will have to be exceptionally quick at clearing this area. Your end goal in this encounter is to collect three nuclear cores and deposit them into three boxes at the front of the room.

Head to the large circular object in the front middle of the room and interact with it to “Reboot system”. A large brig will spawn, kill it and other enemies until another scanner augment carrier spawns. Kill it, pick up scanner, and head into any of the three doors that have opened at the side of the room. There’s a yellow brain room, red heart, and blue lungs.

Rush through, killing all the enemies. You’ll need to refresh your augment at the various stations as it has a 59-second countdown timer that kills you when it expires. Carry out the same method as above to shoot the correct panels which will spawn a nuclear core. Grab it quickly, refresh your augments if necessary, and rush back to the main room. A brig will have spawned again, which casts a barrier over the vestibules that you need to dunk the core in. The core also has a timer that creeps up, and you will need to juggle it between fireteam members to avoid being exploded.

Repeat this process for the three rooms, bearing in mind that you have two minutes per room, to clear the Activation encounter. If you’re familiar with the Destiny 2 nuclear core glitch for duplicating bombs from Deep Stone Crypt, we can confirm it works in the same way here: just take the nuclear core from your fireteam member at the same time they interact with the vestibule to dunk it. You’ll duplicate the core and can instantly dunk it in the adjacent receivers.

Vesper’s Host Raneiks Unified

The first boss encounter comes next, and it can be a little tricky to figure out how to begin doing damage. Your end goal for this encounter is to dunk five nuclear cores into five boxes without Raneiks killing you.

You’ll notice on the left side of the UI there’s a new mechanic called Power Reserves. Closing a door gives one power reserve, and opening a door costs one. To keep the most power reserves possible, close doors behind you as you travel.

Start off by killing enemies and running left around the area, avoiding the boss until you defeat a Fallen enemy that drops a nuclear core. Pick that up and take it to the correctly numbered box – one to five in order. If you’ve done this correctly, a new wave of enemies will appear. Rinse and repeat until you’ve completed all five bombs.

Raneiks has a lovely wipe mechanic called Integration. You’ll have purple light shining from you and a countdown timer at the top of your screen if you’re being integrated. To stop the integration countdown, break the boss’ line of sight on you – so head through a nearby door, around a corner, whatever you need to do to avoid his glare.

After the fifth nuclear core has been deposited, you can run away from the boss until you find the area in the floor that has opened up to drop down into the next area. This will lead you to the boss encounter with Raneiks.

You’ll now need to take down Raneiks’ shield. You’ll notice you’re in a large arena with numbered panels on the wall. Kill enemies until the Machine Priest appears. Kill him and you’ll be teleported somewhere new. Kill the Fallen Shanks and mind the boss’ attack. The integration mechanic is present again here, so make sure you know where your nearest cover is.

Kill enemies until you spot one with the blue suppressor buff. This familiar augment from Deep Stone Crypt comes into play here and in the final boss encounter, so make sure you know how it works. Head to the boss and use your grenade button to cause a blue clone to spawn on the ground, which can be shot. It will detonate and cause damage. When the clone has been detonated near the boss, a UI message reads, “Raneiks loses strength in unity.” When this happens, he will split into several smaller servitors. The person holding the scanner augment should look for two servitors that are glowing. Take a note of the numbers of the servitors that are glowing.

Head back through the door and repeat what you did before and take note of the new numbers. There should be four numbers in total. Go back into the main room and have one fireteam member collect the operator augment and shoot the numbered panels that match those you’ve noted down from the servitors. When all four panels have been shot the boss will come down. Have one fireteam member grab the suppressor augment and repeat the dunking mechanic near the boss, which will cause him to split down into multiple servitors again. Damage him as much as possible, and then repeat the process until he’s defeated.

Corrupted Puppeteer

The final boss of the Vesper’s Host dungeon is a familiar girly – Atraks. Only this time, she’s a little more convoluted than usual. She’s also undergone quite the makeover… yikes. The objective of this fight is to defeat the puppets and clones that Atraks calls forth before opening up a damage phase on the big girl herself. You’re going to use the same suppressor, scanner, and operator augments from the other encounters to identify and shoot the correct numbered panels which will allow you to access the lower area of the arena.

You’ll find yourself in a room with the “real” Atraks and some clones, shoot four more panels and ask the fireteam member with the scanner augment to identify the correct Atraks clone to damage – similar to the encounter in the Deep Stone Crypt raid. The person holding the suppressor augment will be able to “dunk” it within a radius of the clones to split and/or damage them – the time to do this is indicated by the tooltip message which reads, “The Corrupted Puppeteer forms new puppets”.

After correctly shooting four panels in the room with the “real” Atraks a message will appear in capital letters warning of impending shutdown. At this time your entire fireteam needs to shelter within a bunker, opened and closed by the person holding the operator augment, until the wipe mechanic is complete.

You’ll then return to grab a nuclear core and dunk it in the correct receptacle as called out by the person holding the scanner augment, which will lower the “real” Atraks’ shield and allow you to damage him after repeating this a total of three times. This will take you to a large arena outside, where you should lay as much damage into Atraks as possible. We found it more successful to sit in a Warlock’s Well with healing grenades and throwing grenade launchers in. There will be a lot of incoming damage, so be aware of your health bar, but the most important thing during this section is damaging Atraks as much as you can to shorten the next phases.

Head up for a damage phase and lay as much ammo into him as possible. You’ll then return to the phase where you need to damage a clone and dunk the nuclear cores again. Each time you do this will extend the damage phase but also prevent a full fireteam wipe.

After defeating Atraks in contest mode you’re guaranteed the Ice Breaker exotic, as well as the contest mode emblem, but be quick – you can only achieve this until October 13 at reset. For those that don’t want to participate in contest mode, the normal mode is now activated since all three of the podium spots have been taken by successful fireteams. Congratulations to all who clear it, and fear not – this guide will be updated with maps, diagrams, and video explanations as soon as possible.

Destiny 2 Vesper’s Host loot table

Here are all of the items you can get from each Vesper’s Host encounter:

That’s all you need to know on the Destiny 2 Vesper’s Host dungeon and how to clear it. Bear in mind that contest mode is only active until October 13 at reset, so we’ll update this guide with thorough video walkthroughs of each encounter then. In the meantime, if you’re struggling to get through you might want to check out some of the best Destiny 2 Prismatic builds, or all of the new Destiny 2 Exotics to see if you’re missing a trick. Eyes up, Guardian.