The Deep Stone Crypt's final boss in Destiny 2 is none other than Taniks himself, brought back to life as a mangled hybrid between his normal self and a Heavy Shank. It's an odd sight but, fortunately, the boss encounter is rather straightforward.
Similar to the previous encounter, players must manage three augments while depositing Nuclear Cores to different deposit bins scattered throughout the arena. While simple to understand, there is a lot that can go wrong while trying to kill this boss for the third time in the Destiny franchise. For those that want to down Taniks just a little bit faster, here are eight tips to help get your team through the final encounter of the Deep Stone Crypt raid.
Deposit Bins Are Never Near Taniks
Scanners that have played the Deep Stone Crypt enough might have noticed that the deposit bins in the final encounter are never near Taniks. This is true.
Whichever side Taniks is on will never be a deposit site. This is the reason why four core Taniks strategies forgo using the Scanner augment altogether. Keep this in mind when looking for which bins are highlighted.
Don't Immediately Stun Taniks
Suppressors are responsible for stunning Taniks during the final encounter, allowing those with Nuclear Cores to deposit them at bins the Scanner calls out. Due to the urgency of this role, many players try to stun Taniks as soon as possible to prevent any delays.
The issue with this strategy is that stunning Taniks will cause a random augment to be disabled, those being Operator, Scanner, or Suppressor. Operators getting their augment disabled can lead to two or more Guardian deaths. Wait until two Nuclear Core carriers are disabled before stunning Taniks, three if your team is slow at completing the encounter. You can still shoot Taniks from the first two Suppressor drone positions, just wait for the Operator to destroy two or three containment fields before you land the third hit on Taniks.
Four Thruster Strategy
Taniks has four thrusters that can be damaged to spawn Nuclear Cores. Most teams will destroy two thrusters and deposit two Nuclear Cores, which means Taniks must be damaged twice before the DPS phase can begin.
This isn't necessary if your team is quick; destroying all four of his thrusters will spawn all four Nuclear Cores. Since the deposit bins are never near Taniks, players just need to call out which of the four bins they will be depositing at. Doing this successfully will not only instantly start the DPS phase, but it will also give your team an extra damage phase before Taniks becomes immune again. This makes one-phasing Taniks much easier to pull off.
Designate Nuclear Core Partners
Image from Shacknews.
Every second a player is carrying a Nuclear Core, they will gain one stack of Radiation. Obtaining ten stacks of Radiation will instantly kill you. For teams that have a hard time depositing Nuclear Cores on their own, it is a good idea to assign a partner to each core runner to make sure they don't die of Radiation.
Every time a core runner reaches a threshold of Radiation (typically five or six), the partner will walk up to a core runner and hold the interact key to take their Nuclear Core. The partner will then run the rest of the distance and deposit the core as normal. This helps fireteams manage their Radiation stacks and makes slower raid teams less likely to die during this part. This strategy is unnecessary when doing the four core Taniks strategy.
Stun Taniks Faster With Anarchy Or Witherhoard
For Suppressors that are having a hard time stunning Taniks quickly, consider using either Anarchy or Witherhoard during the encounter. A single Anarchy bolt or a Witherhoard puddle will cause constant damage to Taniks over a long duration.
Once he's taking damage, run between the Suppressor drones as needed and he'll be stunned after the third drone. Just make sure you coordinate with your Operator to remove any risk of the Operator augment getting prematurely disabled.
Do NOT Use The Enhanced Scanner Augment Mod
Despite how strong certain raid Mods sound, most of them are somewhat weak and one of these Mods is actually detrimental to your team.
Do not, under any circumstances, use the Enhanced Scanner Augment Mod. This Mod will mark Taniks when you damage him, causing him to take additional damage from all sources. The issue is that this Mod overrides all debuffs such as Divinity and Shadowshot. Since the debuff is around 4-5% per Mod, it is objectively worse to use five stacks of this Mod than to use Divinity on the boss. Avoid this Mod at all costs until Bungie changes it.
Use Divinity And Lunafaction Boots
Divinity is a fantastic choice against Taniks since the precision bubble spawns under his Shank and not on his chest. Since it spawns so close to the small ring players have to DPS from, this encounter can easily be beaten by using Precision Frame Shotguns and close-range weapons.
In order for this strategy to work, one player must be a Warlock using the Lunafaction Boots Exotic. This will boost the damage falloff of all weapons for you and allies affected by a Rift. Attunement of Grace is best for this since its Super, Well of Radiance, is also affected by Lunafaction Boots. Pairing slug Shotguns with Divinity makes Taniks easy to one-phase.
The Best DPS Weapons For Taniks
There are quite a few viable weapons to use against Taniks due to his small arena. By far the best method of damaging Taniks right now is to have one player use Divinity and have five other Guardians use two Precision Frame Shotguns. Those that lack a good Shotgun can resort to Sniper Rifles with Triple Tap, Izanagi's Burden, or Cloudstrike.
As for teams that lack Divinity, Anarchy and Witherhoard are solid for dealing passive damage to Taniks throughout the fight. Pairing those weapons with a Sniper Rifle is generally the best strategy.