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Astral Alignment is a new seasonal activity added to Destiny 2 in Season of the Lost. This activity pits a matchmade team of six Guardians against an onslaught of Taken and Scorn that have taken control of the Dreaming City's various Beacons. Your fireteam will need to juggle batteries, destroy Ether bubbles, and use Last Wish's Taken Essence buff mechanic to beat this mission.
Completing this mission is needed to complete certain steps in Season 15's narrative questline, and this mission has a small chance of granting the Ager's Scepter Exotic Catalyst. If you want to farm seasonal gear or get this Catalyst, Astral Alignment is where you'll want to be. Without further ado, here is a complete guide to Season of the Lost's Astral Alignment activity.
Updated October 19th, 2021, by Charles Burgar: Legend Astral Alignment is finally here, giving hardcore players a chance to test out their builds in a more difficult version of this six-player activity. If you can deal with the lack of matchmaking and additional modifiers, you'll be able to farm more seasonal gear and have a higher chance of obtaining the Ager's Scepter Exotic Catalyst. We've updated this guide to include the Legend difficulty differences to Astral Alignment, and we've added information on the Scorn boss that appears every other week.
Legend Difficulty Differences
Bungie added a second difficulty variant to Astral Alignment partway through Season of the Lost. Known as Legend difficulty, this variant features additional modifiers and a higher Power requirement. Clearing the Legend version of Astral Alignment has a higher chance of dropping the Ager's Scepter Catalyst. Additional seasonal gear also drops from the final chests, although they don't seem to drop with high stats or additional perks to select between.
Here are the modifiers present for Legend Astral Alignment:
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Modifier |
Description |
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Recommended Power Level |
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Champions: Overload |
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Champions: Unstoppable |
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Equipment Locked |
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Match Game |
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Scorched Earth |
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Empath |
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It's also worth mentioning that Legend Astral Alignment has no matchmaking whatsoever. You'll need to get a fireteam of six Guardians together before you can run this. You could hypothetically solo the Legend variant, but you'll need an exceptional build to pull that off.
Recommend Loadout
Unless you plan to solo this mission, you can run virtually whatever you want. Bring at least two different element types to assist with breaking shields, use at least one anti-Champion mod, and use some hard-hitting weapons like Fusion Rifles. If you have Particle Deconstruction, Champions and the final boss should be a breeze to kill.
For masochists and skilled solo players, you'll want to bring Arbalest or some way to counter every shield type. Alternatively, you can also bring One Thousand Voices with Particle Deconstruction to brute force through various shield types.
Defensive subclasses are highly recommended and mandatory for solo play. Hunters might consider Nightstalker or Revenant with Assassin's Cowl. Warlocks should take advantage from Devour on bottom tree Voidwalker. And Titans can use top tree Sentinel or bottom tree Sunbreaker to stay alive.
Crush The Intruders
Astral Alignment begins with your fireteam of six defending an Oracle Engine—the same location you defend in the opening encounter of Blind Well. Defeat the Scorn protecting the Oracle Engine. Multiple waves will soon spawn in.
AoE weapons and Warmind Cells work great for clearing out the waves. Be careful during this part, as some of the Scorn deal Stasis damage. When you've cleared out the Scorn, interact with the Wayfinder's Compass in front of the Oracle Engine to start a new encounter. You'll need to complete two encounters before you face the final boss. The next two encounters are pulled from a pool of three encounters. Let's go over each of them.
Potential Encounter: Collapse The Taken Rifts
Ley Line, Pallas is where this encounter takes place. For this encounter, you'll need to purge Taken Rifts. These rifts spawn above Awoken plates that can be found all around the arena. You'll need to purge every plate to finish this encounter.
Taken forces will spawn on all sides. After you clear out the initial fodder enemies, a Taken Captain named Eye of Xivu Arath will spawn. Defeating the Captain will spawn a Taken Essence on its corpse. Grab the buff.
If you've played the Last Wish raid, this essence behaves exactly the same as the Penumbra and Antumbra essences. Your weapon will be replaced with a Taken projectile. With the Essence, walk towards a Taken Rift. Your character will automatically purge it once you get close enough. Your fireteam will need to repeat this process for the rest of the plates to finish the encounter. Multiple Captains spawn throughout this section, so a coordinated fireteam should be able to finish this part fairly quickly.
Potential Encounter: Install The Batteries
If you are teleported to Vesta, you'll need to install batteries to the Beacon. The end of the arena will have a spherical device guarded by Taken. Shoot at the sphere to break it, revealing three batteries. Your fireteam must escort these three batteries to plates beside the Beacon. Be careful, as invulnerable Knights with Stasis cannons roam the arena.
Escorting Batteries
While you have a battery in hand, your character will be Encumbered for 15 seconds. This is your window for carrying the battery. After 15 seconds pass, your character will drop the battery and become Exhausted for 10 seconds, preventing them from picking up a battery. Most players won't be able to dunk a battery in one go, so you'll want three players near the beacon to grab the batteries once the battery team's timers are up. There's no penalty for letting the batteries lay around, making this much less stressful than a typical dungeon or raid encounter.
To make this part easier, have a fourth person stand beside the battery group. This aura grants the "Suppressor" buff. While you have this buff, you can shoot at Lost Knights to disable their ability to attack. Doing so will allow the battery team to walk past the Knights safely, allowing your fireteam to beat this encounter much faster.
Damaging Lost Knights
Once three batteries have been installed, the two Lost Knight bosses in the arena will become vulnerable. Use your Heavy and Super to take them out. Defeating both Knights will make the second spherical structure vulnerable, allowing your team to escort the last three batteries to the Beacon. Escort the batteries, kill the Knights, then wait for the Beacon to teleport your team to the Oracle Engine.
Potential Encounter: Prevent The Ether Harvest
Should your team arrive at Ceres, you'll need to prevent Ether orbs from entering scrapped Servitors around the arena. This encounter is much easier than the battery escort section. Defeat any Scorn adds that spawn, and keep your eyes peeled for blue Ether orbs. They'll spawn in a large swarm, so they're tough to miss. When you've destroyed enough Ether, you'll be teleported to the Oracle Engine to finish the mission.
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Ether Encounter Bug: Ether orbs can sometimes despawn or get stuck in terrain, bricking the encounter. Break Ether orbs as soon as they spawn to reduce the chance of this happening. |
Defeat The Final Boss
Similar to the Blind Well, the final boss of Astral Alignment rotates each week. There are two bosses tied to this activity: a Taken Ogre and a Scorn Baron. Both bosses have three phases, each broken up with an immunity shield. Break the shield, then repeat until the boss dies.
Kill the boss to finish the mission, spawning two chests that grant seasonal loot. The second chest, the one that costs Parallax Trajectories to open, has a chance of dropping the Ager's Scepter Exotic Catalyst. On Legend difficulty, the Catalyst is more likely to drop.
Week 1: Defeat Kholks, Taken Of Xivu Arath
A Taken Ogre named Kholks, Taken of Xivu Arath will spawn once your team is back to the Oracle Engine. This boss fight has some parallels to the Morgeth fight in the Last Wish raid, pitting players against an invulnerable Ogre that spews out dozens of Axiom Bolts from its back. Unlike Morgeth, you won't need to juggle buffs to kill Kholks.
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Note: The Axion Bolt barrage will aggressively track one player, dealing a ton of damage if the entire barrage lands. Try to break these bolts whenever possible to prevent someone from dying. |
Damage the Ogre until the first 33% of its HP is removed. It'll then go immune. Taken Blights will begin to spawn. Break a Blight to spawn a Taken Captain that, when slain, will drop a Taken Essence. Use this Taken weapon to break the Ogre's shield. Repeat this process until the Ogre is slain.
Week 2: Defeat Kruutiks, Reefbane
Mechanically, this boss is very similar to the Rifleman from the Forsaken campaign. Periodically, Kruutiks, Reefbane will create duplicates of itself that will attempt to snipe you from a distance. These holograms die in a single hit, although they deal full damage if they hit you.
When you remove 33% of Kruutiks' HP, it'll become immune and turn into a trail of Ether—repositioning to another part of the map. Duplicates of Kruutiks will spawn alongside a torrent of Ether energy. You must prevent the Ether orbs from touching Kruutiks; each orb will heal a small chunk of Kruutiks' HP. Destroy all of the hologram duplicates until you find the real Kruutiks. Destroy the Ether orbs, then you should be able to damage the boss once more. Repeat this process until the boss dies.