We’ve got all the information you need to work your way through the Splicers’ inner sanctum to take down Aksis and Archon Prime, and earn yourself the game’s best nanomachine-infused weapons and gear. Without further adieu, here’s everything you need to beat the Rise of Iron raid, and find all its hidden goodies along the way.
What to bring
When decking out for ‘Wrath of the Machine’, you’ll want all your highest-level gear. Being mid-360s is recommended at the least, because the battles are tough — namely because of the swarms of minions that infest every fight. You’ll need strong players with good weapons to take them down as quickly as possible.
So if you have a high-level sword or rocket launcher, pack it, as well as a strong sniper rifle or fusion rifle. It’s rare that you’ll be in very close quarters with any enemies, though. Auto rifles will actually feel disadvantaged a lot of the time, as you’ll have the opportunity to take out enemies at range, and rifles that lack long-range accuracy aren’t very helpful (particularly in the final fight).
Hunters with Nightstalker and Warlocks with Stormcaller are particularly useful for their crowd-controlling abilities. For Titans, Ward of Dawn with Weapons of Light is useful for both protection and damage boosts. In general, though, keep weapons that will let you quickly deal a lot of damage — especially those that receive bonuses for Fallen enemies — to hit bosses at key moments, and focus the rest of your equipment on surviving and eliminating smaller enemies. The good news is that none of the battles are particularly heavy on things such as jumping or sprinting, so unlike in past raids, stats such as Agility are much less important. This is much more of a straight fight.
Getting in
The first thing you’ll do when headed into the ‘Wrath of the Machine’ raid is get the door open. Trying to stop you from doing that is Archpriest Vosik, a giant, irritating Fallen boss you can’t actually damage during this battle. Keep an eye on him– and his constant barrage of artillery fire — but don’t bother shooting at him.
Instead, focus on running around the series of glowing, white columns. Scattered around the battlefield are three metal spires, or generators, that you’ll have to power up. To do that, you need to run around the battlefield, passing through the white columns to accumulate charge on your body. Once you start pulling in the charge, though, you’re on a timer. If you spend longer than 15 seconds with the charge on your body without passing through another pillar, you’ll end up dead.
Split into three teams, with two Guardians holding down each generator. One person is the runner, who goes sprinting around the battlefield accumulating charge. You’ll need to hit four pillars and then head to a generator to discharge. Your aim is to charge up the generators four times.
While you’re doing that, you’ll have to fight several big Shanks like the one at the end of the S.A.B.R.E. These guys appear periodically and try to steal charge from the generators, so whoever’s not doing the running needs to focus on clearing enemies, specifically the shanks.
When you’ve charged the generators enough, they’ll start to produce SIVA bombs. Snag them off the ground and heave them at the boss as fast as you can. When enough bombs hit him, you’ll knock out Vosik’s shield, leaving him vulnerable to damage. Keep hammering away with bombs until you don’t have any more — they do serious damage — and then switch to your guns. Pour on the damage until his shield comes back up. Once that happens, repeat the process of charging the generators until you get more bombs, and hit him again. When you’ve done enough damage, Vosik will flee into the giant servitor above you, and you can climb up to follow him in.
Jumping, jumping, jumping
Though it’s not as ridiculous as some of the jumping puzzles in past raids, the next portion has you navigating inside the superstructure of that big wall. It’s all scaffolding, hanging chunks of tanks, and piping. Keep an eye out for side paths to find the monitors necessary to activate the Outbreak Prime quest. There are also some hidden Exotic treasure chests you can pick up along the way.
Your first chest is about halfway through the bottomless area. As you’re climbing chunks of a tank hanging in space, and then platforms just beyond, look for a hole in the wall to the left. Keep your eyes peeled for a bundle of SIVA wires and rectangle-shaped containers that you’ll have to cross to reach chest.
Across from that hole, look for another gap on the right wall. That hallway hides the first monitor you’ll need to activate for the Outbreak Prime mission. More on that in our Destiny guns guide.
Killing Vosik
Eventually, you’ll find your way to another fight with Vosik. It’s similar to the last go-round — it’s all about using special SIVA bombs to knock out his shield — but there are a few more caveats at play.
Start by splitting into three teams again, setting up on each side of the room, as well as in the center. These three locations will see enemies spawning, which you’ll have to take out while dodging incoming attacks from Vosik. Periodically, SIVA bombs will drop from the ceiling at each location, marked on your HUD and on your radar. The second person on each team is in charge of snagging the bomb to throw at the boss. Trouble is, you must throw all three bombs at the same time, or they won’t be effective against Vosik.
Behind Vosik are a series of TV screens, and after you hit him with each set of bombs, one screen will turn on and display the SIVA logo. As soon as that happens, focus fire on the screen with everything your fireteam’s got — take too long and you’ll wind up wiped. The SIVA logo appears on a screen either on the left or right side of the room, so be sure to call out its location — quick and effective communication is key.
While you’re going through bomb cycles, do your best to clear the enemies that come flooding at you. Specifically, you’ll have to deal with some powerful Splicer Captains and fast-firing shanks that’ll knock you out if you’re not careful.
It’ll take three rounds of bomb-throws from all three sides to clear Vosik’s shield. When that happens, you’ll have a chance to blast away at the boss for a few moments. When his shield comes back up, though, you’ll have to make a run for it, because Vosik starts spraying SIVA into the air. It’ll kill you, and you need to take shelter as quickly as possible to avoid getting wiped.
On each side of the room are two adjacent, smaller rooms, for a total of four. When Vosik starts his SIVA Density Critical attack, look for which room is lit up — that’s your destination. Your whole team needs to sprint to the designated room, and you need to shoot a panel on the inside wall to seal it off before the SIVA kills everybody. The rooms are single-use only, so once you’ve been to one, you won’t have to worry about it again. Repeat the cycle to finish Vosik off.
Past Vosik, you’ll find your second chest. Halfway through the next jumping puzzle, look for a set of catwalks. Leap onto the catwalk and follow it to a long hallway. You’ll mount some stairs and come into a large room. Leap up to a balcony, cross some pipes, and located the chest to your left.
The third chest is just before you leave this area to find the Siege Engine. You’ll see metal grates as you’re about to exit the wall. At that point, spin around and look up for a catwalk. Cross it to the chest.
The Siege Engine
After Vostik, it’s time to head to the top of the wall. When you arrive, you’ll run out into the open air, only to have a huge snowplow of death activate right behind you. It will sweep toward you, looking to smash you against a far wall. You’ll need to stop that from happening.
First, head to the far end of the area with all due speed, then spin around and start firing away. On the front of the Siege Engine, attached to either side of the bulbous driver’s compartment-looking thing, are two turrets. Shoot those to blow them up, and the bulbous part will open, revealing a firey-looking weak point. Blast it until the engine blows up, to some degree.
While you’re doing that, though, you’re going to need to do some serious crowd control. Be careful of Fallen skiffs and the huge number of enemies they’re going to drop off basically at your doorstep. This is a good place for Hunters rolling Nightstalker subclasses to use their tethers, for instance, because controlling enemies is going to be a serious concern.
Once you’ve blown the Siege Engine’s front open, you’ll see it drop a ramp on the left side as it barrels toward you. Your team will need to jump aboard the Engine to avoid getting crushed as it smashes through the nearby wall. Ride the Engine through the wall — if you ride it at the front, you’ll take a blast of damage as it crashes through — and on the other side, the Engine will break down. To advance, you’ll have to repair it.
Leave one player behind on the Engine to fight Meksis, the guy who’s driving the Engine and needs to be dropped before you can proceed. Send everyone else forward on the wall. A skiff will come down and drop enemies: Blast the baddies and shoot at the skiff’s guns to protect yourself (be careful not to get too close). Once you’re clear, you’ll find several pieces of the Siege Engine that you need to carry back in order to repair it.
The trouble with the parts is that anyone who picks them up will be unable to fight while carrying them, and unable to move at full speed. In fact, you can only carry the parts for 9 seconds before you’ll automatically drop them, and wait another 9 before you can pick them back up.
The trick is basically to kill all the enemies as you move slowly, as a team, across the area back toward the Siege Engine. When you get aboard, you’ll need to take each part to its designated location to repair the Engine. When that happens, it’ll barrel forward again, crushing any enemies in its way. But then it’ll go over the edge into the abyss beyond, and while you’ll be jumping off the wall soon enough, you don’t want to ride it down.
Your fourth chest is past the bridge as you’re climbing the cliffs beyond the Siege Engine. As you come to a cave through which you’ll pass to continue forward, look to the left for ledges you can climb. Use them to reach a huge, rusty, broken pipe that you can leap inside, which hides the chest.
Taking down Aksis
Now that you’ve bested the Siege Engine, head through the Server Farm (this part’s key to unlocking the Outbreak Prime Exotic weapon quest, and there’s also a hidden chest here if you complete the puzzle) until you get to Aksis’ room. This big area is the final boss fight, but it comes in two parts. The mechanics are similar in both, but grow more complex the longer it goes on.
In the first phase of the Aksis fight, you’ll need to again split into three teams, covering the left, right, and central sections of the room. Your primary goal here is to avoid getting blasted by the boss while you fight a bunch of minions running around. Much like when you fought Vosik, this battle is all about getting hold of SIVA bombs and using them accordingly.
First, the room will flood with bad guys. Blast them until you see a Fallen Captain appear in each of the three locations, each carrying an elemental cannon. Kill the Captains and have one member of your team grab the cannon while the other keeps firing away at enemies.
After each Fallen Captain is dead and you have the cannon, three Servitors will appear, one in each location, corresponding to each cannon. They’re scrambled from where the cannons are dropped, though, so team members carrying the cannons will have to go find the appropriate Servitor and blast it with the corresponding cannon. You’ll need to hold the trigger down to get the full explosive charge from the cannon to destroy each Servitor. Be sure to kill them before the Servitors reach their destinations, a set of glowing squares near where they emerge, or you’ll get wiped out by Critical SIVA Density.
When the Servitors die, they’ll drop SIVA bombs, so the other person in each section of the map needs to snag the bomb in their area and huck it toward the boss. No coordination is necessary this time, but you’re not hitting Aksis with the bombs — you’re hitting pyramid-shaped SIVA nodes that are protruding from the area around the boss.
You’ll repeat this process three times. The first time, there will be two SIVA nodes to destroy; the second time, there will be three (so no one can mess up their throw or everyone dies); and the third time, there will be seven. On that last round, additional Servitors will spawn, so keep your cannons handy.
Destroying all of the SIVA nodes will win you the first phase of the battle. The second one is tougher, but still similar — the bomb portion is the same, but with additional complications.
Super-scary spider-Aksis
In the last phase of the battle, Aksis sprouts spider legs, teleports around the room, and generally becomes far deadlier.
First, be wary of where Aksis is in the room (be sure to notify your teammates when he moves), and of his artillery-like SIVA gun. It fires explosive rounds that leave a sphere-shaped SIVA swarm where they land, which can wreck you over time if you’re trapped in it. The best way to deal with this is to keep a column or other cover between you and Aksis during the fight, breaking line-of-sight between you and him to avoid his fire. Meanwhile, concentrate on taking down shanks as they enter the room and you wait for the cannon-carrying Captains to arrive. You want the shanks dead before you go after the Captains, and you need to be careful about Aksis’ SIVA bombs. A player or two dying during the fight isn’t an instant wipe, but it will require some serious adaptation by the rest of your team, so it pays to be careful.
As the Captains start to appear, something new happens. Three random people on the team will start to glow and feel other positive effects — this is called being “Empowered” by SIVA, and it’s crucial to taking down Aksis. You must be sure to have an Empowered character in each of the three locations — left, right, and center — because if they’re not in position at the crucial moment, it can cause a wipe. With that in mind, it’s best to designate each team of two with a “switcher.” If both people covering the right side of the map should become Empowered, for instance, the “switcher” finds out where an Empowered person is lacking and trades places with the switcher in that location. That way, there’s always two players in each area, and one Empowered person in each location, and by planning ahead you will be able to save time and avoid unnecessary confusion. You’re going to need to be very vocal about identifying who is Empowered and whether you’ve got too many Empowered players in one spot, though, because timing is essential. The good news is, you don’t need to switch until after you’ve dealt with the cannon Captains.
So once you’ve got your Empowered players in place and you kill the Captains in each location, repeat the process from the first phase of the Aksis fight with players grabbing each cannon and tracking down the corresponding Servitor. As before, the Servitors drop SIVA bombs, but this time you can just pick them up whenever and whip them at the boss, no coordination (or special aiming) required.
When Aksis takes three bomb hits, he’ll start to teleport around the room to one of four locations: one on each the left and the right, and one of two in the middle, either in the back or the front of the room. When he moves, as quickly as possible, identify which location he went to. The Empowered player on that location then has to jump up above Aksis and do a power slam move on his back when prompted. That’ll stun Aksis and make him vulnerable to attack.
When Aksis is stunned, you can hit him with a Nightstalker tether to amplify damage if you have the Hunters for it, and hit him with everything you’ve got, including remaining charges from the Captains’ cannons. While doing that, note which players are Empowered (it will have switched randomly for everyone) and send everyone into position. Since Aksis only has three options available instead of four on this next teleport, have whoever’s in the location he’s currently occupying rotate to cover the second middle teleportation location.
After 10 or so seconds, Aksis will teleport again, and the nearest Empowered player will need to stun him again in the same way. If you take too long, Aksis will recover, hit you with SIVA, and kill everyone (although you can avoid it). Once he’s stunned, hit him again with all your weapons, get your Empowered players into position, and wait for another teleport. When he moves, stun him a third time and blast away at him.
After three stuns, Aksis will teleport back to the central platform he occupied at the start of the fight, giving you a much longer chance to damage him. Upon snapping out of it, he’ll start spewing SIVA. When that happens, head to the four glowing pillars at the back of the arena. Pick one ahead of time and have everyone converge — these act like the clean rooms in the fight with Vosik, protecting you from SIVA. As the fight goes on, you’ll lose the pillars, so be careful to pay attention to which one is active in providing protection. Note also that if you screw up an Empowered stun, it’s possible to sprint for the pillars and avoid getting wiped out, but that’ll slow up your timetable considerably. If the fight goes on too long, Aksis becomes “Enraged,” growing stronger and deadlier and spending substantially less time stunned.
Repeat the process of getting Empowered, taking down Captains and shanks, throwing bombs, stunning Aksis, and hitting him with everything you’ve got. You need to deal as much damage as possible, as fast as possible, while keeping on the ball as to who should be where in the arena.
After you’ve done considerable damage, Aksis teleports back to the center platform of the room, where he charges up a big SIVA attack. His shield will be down, so this last portion is a race against time to deal as much damage as you can before he wipes you all out. There’s no defense against this; just like Oryx, it’s him or you in those final moments. Hit him with everything you’ve got.
Before you leave, remember to check over the edge of the room near the pillars of light in the back. You’ll find a panel has opened up, where you can drop down and enter a hallway that hides the final monitor for the Outbreak Prime mission, and a hidden chest that gets you what you need to start it.
And that’s it! Congratulations on taking down Aksis and completing Wrath of the Machine. This is one of the key ways to advance your Light level up to the soft cap of 385 and beyond, so spend some time getting good at it before Bungie launches the even-tougher Hard Mode version.
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