Aksis Challenge Mode made easy

Spent a little over 2 hours working on the Aksis Heroic Mode Challenge last night. We eventually stumbled across a foolproof strategy for success:

Have a member of your fireteam die before the last round and 5-man the rest of it ;p

Definitely tested our patience, but felt great to get it done :)

locked

2201 views

...does the sixth person need to be of any particular class or subclass to pull this off? ;)

(Nice work, by the way.)

locked

1976 views

...does the sixth person need to be of any particular class or subclass to pull this off? ;)

(Nice work, by the way.)

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

For challenge mode, that is... for regular Heroic mode it needs to be me, if our group's history is anything to go by :)

locked

2014 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

[image]

locked

1964 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

Yeah, but it was totally Cody's fault - he left all the damn shanks alive.

locked

1973 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

Yeah, but it was totally Cody's fault - he left all the damn shanks alive.

Exactly.

locked

1949 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

Yeah, but it was totally Cody's fault - he left all the damn shanks alive.

Exactly.

blamecody.gif ;)

locked

1953 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

Yeah, but it was totally Cody's fault - he left all the damn shanks alive.

He needed to save his Golden Gun shots for the captain, duh...

locked

1994 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

Yeah, but it was totally Cody's fault - he left all the damn shanks alive.

He needed to save his Golden Gun shots for the captain, duh...

If you know how to use Golden Gun as a Nightstalker, you're a much better player than I am ;p

locked

1932 views

I think the only crucial factor is that Cody needs to be the one to die ;p

Yeah, but it was totally Cody's fault - he left all the damn shanks alive.

He needed to save his Golden Gun shots for the captain, duh...

If you know how to use Golden Gun as a Nightstalker, you're a much better player than I am ;p

Yeah. Those orbs are being generated by the tether suppressing the captain. Believe me, I wouldn't have left those shanks alive if I knew they were there! Oopsie. Such is the responsibility of the switching player.

locked

1931 views

...does the sixth person need to be of any particular class or subclass to pull this off? ;)

Nine times out of ten, it'll be a Hunter regardless. :P

locked

1972 views

It's interesting to see how other groups do things!

You guys use the platforms in reverse order from how we do it (we start on the left, looking at them, and move clockwise, while you start on the right and move counterclockwise).

You switch bomb-thrower/cannoneer, based on... empowerment? (I couldn't tell what caused the shift). We pick jobs at the start, and stay with 'em.

We also stay away from cannons during that last round of damage, because if he teleports with a cannon round charging in him it can be bad. (I don't even remember the reasoning - maybe Chappy will jump in here - I just remember it can lead to unexpected consequences.)

Variants all work as well as other variants - I just find it interesting that we all settle on different ones!

locked

2014 views

We also stay away from cannons during that last round of damage, because if he teleports with a cannon round charging in him it can be bad. (I don't even remember the reasoning - maybe Chappy will jump in here - I just remember it can lead to unexpected consequences.)

If he's near the "final stand" threshold on his health bar, one of the cannon rounds could go off after he teleports but before he's stunned and push him over the edge before we get a chance to empower and stun and will fail the challenge.

-Disciple

locked

1986 views

We also stay away from cannons during that last round of damage, because if he teleports with a cannon round charging in him it can be bad. (I don't even remember the reasoning - maybe Chappy will jump in here - I just remember it can lead to unexpected consequences.)

If he's near the "final stand" threshold on his health bar, one of the cannon rounds could go off after he teleports but before he's stunned and push him over the edge before we get a chance to empower and stun and will fail the challenge.

-Disciple

Yeah, this happened to us last night, but we caught it and intentionally didn't kill Aksis to restart, rather than losing the checkpoint.

locked

1971 views

It's interesting to see how other groups do things!

You guys use the platforms in reverse order from how we do it (we start on the left, looking at them, and move clockwise, while you start on the right and move counterclockwise).

There's really no set way of us doing this. We've done both ways plenty of times. Somebody called it out at the start of the night, and we stuck with it.

You switch bomb-thrower/cannoneer, based on... empowerment? (I couldn't tell what caused the shift). We pick jobs at the start, and stay with 'em.

Right, empowered players throw bombs, non-empowered are cannoneers. That way you keep empowered players where they need to be for when the teleport sequence starts.

We also stay away from cannons during that last round of damage, because if he teleports with a cannon round charging in him it can be bad. (I don't even remember the reasoning - maybe Chappy will jump in here - I just remember it can lead to unexpected consequences.)

We know, but Aksis' health was high enough here that there wasn't much danger of that happening. Chappy's doom scenario did happen earlier in the night, though.

locked

1987 views

... "Chappy's doom scenario"...

I think I have the name of my next band :) Congrats on the challenge; I think it's the toughest in the game so far.

I had a question about always having your empowered people throw - doesn't that pull the center empowered person out of position? On the xbox side anyway, we tend to put the center guardian in front of the right side stairs so they can cover the right plate if Aksis teleports to front center (and cover the back plate for all other scenarios). When the center guardian is in that location, they don't have line of sight to throw at Aksis.

Of course sometimes that's just the way it happens and the center needs to throw and get into position quickly. Generally we try to have left or right throw the last bomb, since they can do that from their starting positions.

In any case - well done!

locked

1979 views

Center Empowered player covers Aksis Teleport Middle, Aksis Teleport Back, or Super-Charge Back. Optimal position is directly in front of the corner-shaped ledge in front of the back teleport location.

locked

1945 views

Hmm. in the few times I have played we found having the side folks cover the pit was more effective than the center guy.

locked

1918 views

Hmm. in the few times I have played we found having the side folks cover the pit was more effective than the center guy.

Normally yes, but challenge mode changes that. If Aksis is in the center, then the only places the supercharge plate can be are on the left and right. Both sides have to deal with that, so it makes more sense for the center to take him.

locked

1922 views

Hmm. in the few times I have played we found having the side folks cover the pit was more effective than the center guy.

Normally yes, but challenge mode changes that. If Aksis is in the center, then the only places the supercharge plate can be are on the left and right. Both sides have to deal with that, so it makes more sense for the center to take him.

I've done the challenge both ways a few times. In my experience the method where the center and right guardian share responsibilities is better, because everyone is closer to the slam/supercharge and the timing is a bit easier. The downside is that it's a more complicated approach and the entire team needs to understand it and execute it. It took a while for the Wednesday Xbox group to really nail it so it becomes second nature. I think that's why you usually see the "center takes front and back" strategy in pick-up groups- it's far easier for everyone to understand, but it requires center guardians who are quick to react and move (Titans preferred).

locked

1920 views

Hmm. in the few times I have played we found having the side folks cover the pit was more effective than the center guy.

Normally yes, but challenge mode changes that. If Aksis is in the center, then the only places the supercharge plate can be are on the left and right. Both sides have to deal with that, so it makes more sense for the center to take him.

I've done the challenge both ways a few times. In my experience the method where the center and right guardian share responsibilities is better, because everyone is closer to the slam/supercharge and the timing is a bit easier. The downside is that it's a more complicated approach and the entire team needs to understand it and execute it. It took a while for the Wednesday Xbox group to really nail it so it becomes second nature. I think that's why you usually see the "center takes front and back" strategy in pick-up groups- it's far easier for everyone to understand, but it requires center guardians who are quick to react and move (Titans preferred).

Yeah both methods seem to have their own advantages. We discussed it a bit at the start of the night, and we decided to let the middle guardians handle front-mid and back-mid because it reduces the number of places each player needs to look as the teleport phase starts. Keeps things slightly less confusing, and it does mean the players covering the middle need to be super on-point when it comes to hauling ass to the back or front when they need to. Just as you suggested, we make the conscious decision to put 2 Titans in the middle so they could handle the jumps more easily.

All things considered, it worked out fairly well. It took us close to 2.5 hours to complete the challenge, but there were only 1 or 2 instances where we wiped because of players in the middle failing to reach their positions on time (one of those instances was partially due to a forced rotation that led to a Hunter being stuck in the middle and struggling to make one of the jumps). So there definitely are risks involved, but as long as you have 2 Titans with good jumping skills, it shouldn't cause too many problems.

locked

1924 views

I had a question about always having your empowered people throw - doesn't that pull the center empowered person out of position? On the xbox side anyway, we tend to put the center guardian in front of the right side stairs so they can cover the right plate if Aksis teleports to front center (and cover the back plate for all other scenarios). When the center guardian is in that location, they don't have line of sight to throw at Aksis.

What we found is that the people with the cannons are more likely to be rushing all over the place chasing down servitors, so having the empowered players handle the bombs allows them to at least stay in their quadrant of the map. In the video you can hear us counting out the bombs as they are thrown... we get to 6 bombs as quickly as possible. As soon as someone picks up the 7th bomb, they make a big deal of announcing it so that everyone knows the final bomb is in hand and ready to be thrown. At this point, all 3 empowered players make sure they are in their positions. The 3 cannoners might still be chasing down the final servitors at this point (just to get them out of the way and make sure they don't cause confusion), which is fine. Once all 3 empowered players call out that they are ready to go, the one holding the 7th bomb lets it fly.

The key is that there might be very little time between picking up the 7th bomb and being forced to throw it to prevent a team wipe, so it is very important that the 3 empowered players are relatively close to their ideal positions. Hence having them be the throwers, which allows the cannoners to travel more freely.

* is cannoners a word? I don't know, but I like it.
** Look Cyber, I spelt cannon right! :D
-edit-
*** ahhh, I now see that it should be "cannoneers". To late, can't fix it now ;)

locked

1977 views

The key is that there might be very little time between picking up the 7th bomb and being forced to throw it to prevent a team wipe, so it is very important that the 3 empowered players are relatively close to their ideal positions. Hence having them be the throwers, which allows the cannoners to travel more freely.

Thanks for the explanation. On the Xbox side we make a big deal about the 7th bomb too, but that gives the empowered folks time to get into position before the throw (we'll ignore the 8th or 9th servitor if time is tight). I think our instinct is always to have the empowered moving until we get to that last throw - that way they can move to wherever we need them in the moment. When we have two empowered people on a side, it's always the cannoneer that moves to cover the gap.

I wish Sony and Microsoft could bury the hatchet and allow cross-platform games; it'd be fun to run with the other side.

locked

1965 views

I would try not to ignore servitors 8 and 9 when doing challenge mode. Because they are still alive, their platform will still glow. This makes it really hard to tell if your platform is supercharged, or if it's just glowing because the aervitor is still around.

locked

1923 views

- No text -

locked

1936 views

- No text -

locked

1935 views

- No text -

locked

1929 views

- No text -

locked

1928 views

- No text -

locked

1914 views

Well maybe not Marty anymore, but certainly Mike and C Paul.

That fight is so much cooler with music!

locked

1957 views

Well maybe not Marty anymore, but certainly Mike and C Paul.

That fight is so much cooler with music!

I love the music in that fight too, but given how many times we failed because we were having trouble hearing all the call outs, I didn't want to take any chances :)

locked

1937 views

Back to the forum index

RSS Feed of thread

DBO Forums

Aksis Challenge Mode made easy (Destiny)

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...

Strategy seems iffy...