It’s shaping up to be a very interesting World First Race with Destiny 2: The Final Shape‘s Salvation’s Edge raid. We’ve put together some leaderboards and progression stats updates for the World First Race in Destiny 2: The Final Shape‘s first raid, Salvation’s Edge.
What is the Destiny 2: The Final Shape Salvation’s Edge World First Race?
Like most MMO’s, Destiny 2 features pinnacle PvE content in the form of raids. Players are tasked with putting together their best 6-player fireteam and tackling the game’s hardest content inside of these raids which includes having to kill waves of enemies, solve challenging puzzles, superb coordination and communication, and fighting the most powerful bosses.
Each time a new raid releases for Destiny 2 there is a World First Race to see which team can be the first to solve the raid and complete it in its entirety. This is a uniquely challenging scenario because little to no information is known about these raids when they are released, meaning the players are exploring and discovering the raid’s content and puzzles in real time. While most players will have the advantage of being able to look up strategies when they jump into the raid, those competing in the World First Race have to figure things out on their own.
Destiny 2: The Final Shape is the latest Destiny 2 expansion that was released just a few days ago on June 4, 2024. However, the new raid for the expansion, Salvation’s Edge, was not released until today, three days after the expansion launched. This gave players enough time to finish the story campaign, increase their Light Level, and prepare for the Salvation’s Edge raid which officially opened at 1pm EST.
How is the race going so far?
Updated at 1:15 pm EST on July 8 – The Witness has been defeated! Tyrax, who was not streaming the raid, has defeated The Witness and completed the Salvation’s Edge raid. In fact, his fireteam was the only one who completed the raid within 24 hours earning the Day 1 Tag. It’s an incredible feat to them but also to Bungie for developing such a challenging raid, certainly the most challenging one they have created yet. Most teams have opted to get some sleep before coming back and trying to take down The Witness tomorrow.
Updated at 1:00 am EST on July 8 – Most teams have made it to Encounter 4 at this point, but still no one has figured out how the encounter is supposed to be completed. This is one of the craziest encounters I think we’ve seen in a Destiny 2 raid, and it quite literally might be the halfway point.
Keep in mind most of the raid teams are being secretive and quiet about their strategies as they learn each encounter, so most of this information is based on what we could figure out just by watching their movements and actions.
Encounter 1 – Hand of the Witness puzzle
We’re now 3 and a half hours into the World First Race and it has turned out to be quite a challenge. Teams scrambled around for over an hour trying to figure out how to even get past the first room. In the first room, Arcane Machines laid throughout the room, with all of them needing to be connected in order to Operate Inscrutable Machinery to proceed forward into the Salvation’s Edge raid.
Compared to previous raids, this one seems to be a bit more overturned compared to previous raids, which was to be expected with all the hype surrounding Destiny 2: The Finale Shape and its Salvation’s Edge raid. Players seem to be taking a ton of damage, enemy numbers are high, and many enemies appear to be damage sponges as well.
For the first room players have to fight waves of enemies while activating plates on the floor in a specific sequence to get buffs that allow them to damage the Hand of the Witness that is slowly reaching down towards them in the room. It’s essentially a timed encounter, and if players don’t deal enough damage to the Hand of the Witness in the specified time, it will wipe the raid and restart the encounter.
Encounter 2 – Herald of Finality Boss
After completing the Hand of the Witness puzzle, teams are granted access to the first boss of Salvation’s Edge: Herald of Finality. Like the first encounter, there appears to be a hard timer to the fight. Once the timer hits zero, the raid is wiped and the encounter starts over.
It’s hard to tell the exact strategy required here, but the damage output of the Herald of Finality is absolutely insane. Players need to coordinate perfectly while also keeping up with healing to keep the raid alive and equally as much damage to keep up with the hard timer on the encounter.
At approximately 4:35, Elysium became the first team to defeat the Herald of Finality and move onto the third encounter.
Encounter 3 – Hordes of Enemies
Salt and Elysium have quickly cleared Encounter 3 and moved on to Encounter 4. I’ll try to get some more info about both encounters soon.
Encounter 4 – The White Statue Room
Elysium seems to be still trying to figure out the mechanics of this room. Seems very hectic and crazy, with a lot going on. Also, the statues seem to be of the players themselves. Salt has been here for almost two hours and still don’t seem to have any idea on what they need to do exactly. It’s a very obscure raid all things considered.
Also, important to note…we’re four encounters deep yet have only had one actual boss fight. This might be a long one, folks.
Encounter 5 – The Witness
As teams made it to this encounters, we only got to see glimpses of The Witness as he apparently engages in an all-out attack on the fireteam. Most players have put up a black screen while they engage in this encounter, but we do in fact know the fight is against The Witness which means this is actually probably the final encounter.
We will continue to update this section as we learn more about the encounter.
