King's Fall

"Long live the King."

- Mission description

King's Fall is the raid of The Taken King expansion. It was unlocked on September 18, 2015, three days after the expansion's release. King's Fall will take players into the furthest depths of the Dreadnaught and serve as the conclusion to the Taken War storyline.

Unique among raids, King's Fall features not only a normal and Heroic mode, but also challenge modes like those in the Prison of Elders.

Note that if one wants to obtain the drops needed to obtain Touch of Malice, they should have the quest The Old Hunger active before starting the raid.

Unique Enemies

 * Adept (Major Acolyte)
 * Light-Eater Ogre (Ultra Ogre)
 * Vessel of Oryx (Major Knight)
 * Light-Eater Knight (Ultra Knight) (Only appears in Hard Mode)
 * Shade of Oryx (Echo of Oryx variant)

Bosses

 * Warpriest
 * Golgoroth
 * Ir Anûk, Deathsinger
 * Ir Halak, Deathsinger
 * Oryx, the Taken King

Hall of Souls
This step is easily complete with a full fireteam of six.


 * 1) Separate the team into three groups of two.
 * 2) Two people pick up the two Relics (which appear as Tomb Husks) and wait as the rest of the fireteam destroys the center gate. Take out all enemies and locate the statue with another Relic. Both people must hold Square (on PS3/4) or X (for Xbox 1 or 360) and slam their Relics into the statue at roughly the same time.
 * 3) This is where the three groups of two split comes in handy. Two people go left, two people go right and two people stay and take out all enemies in the center. As you travel either left or right you will encounter a Relic. For both sides one person must be a gunner and the other one a Relic holder. The gunner's duty is to guide the Relic holder back to the statues, distracting enemies and destroying shield gates on the way.
 * 4) After both relic holders locate the statue and activate the second Relics more Relics will appear, this time further away than last time. The whole team must repeat Step 3 until both Relics are placed into all six statues, thus being six rounds.
 * 5) After the team successfully activated all statues, a portal will open in the Court of Oryx and enemies will come out. Kill them all and proceed into the gate. Once passed, a chest containing mostly moldering shards will appear (varies between different Raids). The chest cannot be opened until the whole fireteam has passed through the portal.
 * 6) You will now leave Hall of Souls and enter the next location, The Crux.

The Crux and Portico
For this part of the Raid, everyone is on their own. You must jump from swinging platforms to the other without falling; if you are a Warlock or a Titan, you can jump to each platform when it is all the way done swinging; for Hunters to do this, they require Bones of Eao and their double jump modifier set to Higher Jump. Once everyone is across, you reach the Portico.

This is a part where you will have to jump to ships in a particular order or else you have to start this over. Once you are past the first part, you come across a singular ship and two plates, one person must stand on each plate and at least one person must be on the ship to get through the door that disappears when the two plates are being stood upon.

Basilica
After leaving the Portico, you will enter a room with several Acolytes and Adept Acolytes. Assign roles to your team if you have not already. (Example: Ad control) When everyone is ready, have the two in the middle kill the Acolytes and Adepts, while two on the left and right pick up the brands—Brand of the Weaving and Brand of the Unweaving respectively.

The people who were not dealing with Acolytes and Adepts must get on their respective Annihilator Totems. Once every Acolyte and Adept is dead in the middle, have the two central Guardians go to left or right, one to each. The player who first picked up the brand should then head to the middle while the remaining two deal with Boomer Knights that appear just above a small statue of Oryx. The Knight on the right is stronger than the one on the left. This repeats itself (except the Acolyte and Adept part) ten times on each side until the Warpriest deems you worthy.

Warpriest
The Warpriest will not spawn until you step on all three plates at the same time. Use this as an opportunity to decide who goes on which plate (right, middle, and left). After everyone goes to their assigned plate, have one person step on each plate, and then the Warpriest will spawn. He is initially immune to all attacks and thus will start firing at all Guardians in sight with his Boomer in an attempt to suppress them. Don't be flattered. As the adds spawn, clear them out. When you hear a Knight yell (which is when all the Adepts are dead), a Hallowed melee Knight will spawn for each plate. Kill them fast. Once all three are dead, the Glyph sequence starts. Have one person call out the sequence. (Most often, the first sequence is either left, middle, right; or left, right, middle.) If you take too long to start the Glyph sequence or you fail it too many times, the Warpriest will summon a Wormstone Idol to reject the Initiate, therefore wiping the team. But if pulled off correctly, the person who stepped on the last plate will get the "Brand of The Initiate." This brand is the only way to inflict damage on the Warpriest; when their timer is at three seconds (stacks for 5 times), kill an add or the one with the brand will die, while the remaining five unload all their weapons' fire on the Warpriest. If the one holding the Brand dies, then the brand will be transferred to someone else. It is recommended that in order to start the damage phase, there should be a Nightstalker to tether the Warpriest so that the team will have an easier time firing at the Warpriest. This is a fight where Black Spindle would come in real handy.

After the last brand expires, all players must hide behind one of three Monolith because the Warpriest will call upon his Oculus, an Oversoul similar to Crota's Oversoul. If you do not stand behind a Monolith, you will die to Searing Torrent from the Oculus. In Hard Mode, the Warpriest will draw power from a Monolith and will gain a Taken ability based on the Monolith (left is Axion Dart, middle is Hobgoblin retaliation swarm, and right is Darkness Blast). This repeats until the Warpriest is dead, just with different Sequences. After two Pillars (or half the fight) have been destroyed, Taken start spawning along with Knights with yellow health bars spawning right on the plates.

After four shooting rounds have passed and you have not yet killed the Warpriest, your whole fireteam will die due to there being no Monoliths to hide behind from the Searing Torrent, which kills everyone. After Enraging, Searing Torrent's effect of killing you is persistent even after the Oculus goes away.

Golgoroth's Cellar
After defeating The Warpriest you will go through the portal and end up in Golgoroth's Cellar and will have to traverse a maze to get to boss. Once your fireteam reaches the exit a door will open and you will be able to fight Golgoroth. Start the fight by shooting the orb hanging from the ceiling and Golgoroth will spawn with lots of Thrall, Cursed Thrall, Acolytes and Adept Acolytes.

After killing all the enemies, except Golgoroth, have one player shoot Golgoroth in the back while the rest shoot one of the orbs hanging from the ceiling and when you stand in it, you will get a massive damage buff against Golgoroth by entering the Pool of Reclaimed Light, and you will do the most damage by shooting him in the chest. To do that, have the player who has captured his Gaze stand behind the players on the upper platform shooting the projectiles Golgoroth is firing at you. When the Gaze timer reaches zero, that player must tell their fireteam to get out before Golgoroth wipes them.

Repeat the process until Golgoroth dies and you will receive loot then when you're ready proceed into the cave behind the Tablet of Ruin (Soulsiphon Plinth) into the Transept. If a player dies it will charge the Tablet of Ruin and if all six players die, or Golgoroth Enrages, the Tablet will complete and it is a wipe because you will be Drained of Light by the Soulsiphon Plinth.

Threshold
After leaving the Transept, you will encounter a small jumping puzzle. complete it to advance to the next part, the Daughters' of Oryx fight. One random player will be torn between dimensions. All players except two, who will be helping with the adds, must be on a plate. There is one in each corner of the threshold. They must step on each plate in a counterclockwise order.

When someone steps on a plate, a one minute timer starts. At 0:40 seconds, a Taken Vandal will spawn. The player who was torn must step on a jumping puzzle made by the plates. They then must jump to the sleeping Daughter, who on all odd runs, will be Ir Anûk, and on all even runs will be Ir Halak. Then, for the rest of the timer, all players must damage the Daughter whose brand was stolen. This repeats itself until both daughters are dead. On hard, the timer starts after a blinding white light is gone.

Confronting Oryx
Before spawning Oryx there will be a black orb at the end of the room. Approaching it begins the fight so take this time to talk strategy and gear up accordingly. When you approach the orb, Oryx appears much larger than before. A Relic similar to the daughters' one appears, and the same counter-clockwise pattern of platforms begins. The difference is two people jump on the first platform with the first one touching it becoming torn. Choose the most parkour savvy party member to do the platforming. While you stand on the platforms, Light-Eating Ogres spawn (Light-Eater Knights on hard) in the order of platforms you should stand on. The two people on Add control will need to kill the Ogres. They are problematic, and you need to kill them to spawn orbs of corrupted Light to damage Oryx.

When the person grabs the Relic, they have to steal "The Aura of Immortality" from the Vessel, a special melee Knight wandering the area. After stealing the Aura, kill him. He will eat the orbs, which are crucial for dealing max damage on Oryx. After dealing with him, find Oryx and shoot his chest when it glows white or he will wipe everyone if not enough damage is done. After you stun him, the players that are assigned to their platform need to stand in the aura of the corrupted Light. Pay attention to the Updates in the lower left corner for the "X has detonated a corrupted Light." Get back to the person with Aura of Immortality. This player should not move from rough center during the detonation sequences since the detonation will wipe the area outside of the Aura and stun Oryx. Failure to detonate results in wipe. Unload into Oryx who will fall and reappear at the starting position.

When he restarts, start running around your platform if you have one, and stay away from your friends since Oryx will start mortaring the area with dark-matter bombs. This cycle repeats until he's at 50% health. The first half of platforms and Ogres are the same, but instead of a mortar, he will summon a massive Blight. One by one, Oryx will suck guardians into the Blight. Once inside, hammer the Shade of Oryx and be careful: health will not replenish in the Blight. The players still outside should kill the Taken Knights and Thralls that spawn since they will get into the Blight (Thralls) or mortar into the Blight (Knights). Eventually all six players will get sucked in if the Shade is still up. If you don't kill him fast enough, you will wipe. Shouldn't really be a problem at that point overall.

After one more cycle of corrupted Light detonations on his last bit of health, Oryx will appear at the front in a last ditch attempt to kill you. Unload all firepower into his chest. Supers are ineffective against him at all times. Once he dies and starts floating towards Saturn, congratulate and thank your team and enjoy watching his dead corpse float into the void of space after looting the chest.

Rewards

 * Kingsbane - Emblem
 * Kingslayer - Ghost Shell
 * Moldering Shards
 * Silence of A'arn - Shotgun
 * Doom of Chelchis - Scout Rifle
 * The Ascendant - Emblem (Only from Hard)
 * Smite of Merain - Pulse Rifle
 * Zaouli's Bane - Hand Cannon
 * Defiance of Yasmin - Sniper Rifle
 * Quillim's Terminus - Machine Gun
 * Elulim's Frenzy - Rocket Launcher
 * Bond of the Wormlore - Warlock Bond
 * Worm Gods' Boon - Warlock Bond (Only from Hard)
 * Cloak of Seven Bones - Hunter Cloak (Hard Mode Exclusive)
 * Mark of the Old Challenge - Titan Mark (Hard Mode Exclusive)
 * Agonarch Karve - Jumpship (Hard Mode Oryx challenge exclusive)