There’s a major advantage to Bungie’s Destiny franchise: Varying levels of content difficulty. If you want to jump in casually, you’re bound to have as much fun as the hardcore crew smashing out Grandmaster Nightfalls or solo’ing dungeons. But, participating or not, all eyes turn to the launch day of a raid—World’s First.
World’s First is a race in which Destiny 2 players across the globe team up in fireteams of six and attempt to clear the raid before all others. With no knowledge of each encounter’s mechanics or the many, many ways a fireteam can be wiped, becoming World’s First requires an intimate level of Destiny knowledge, a touch of puzzle-solving, and clear team communication.
And while the winners receive a shiny cool WWE-like belt for their triumph, among other tangible rewards, it’s the prestige of being first that keeps the elite—like newly crowned Team Parabellum’s Tyraxe—coming back for more. “To me, winning a World’s First is the highest level of prestige in Destiny,” Tyraxe said to Dot Esports. “It has never been about money or an emblem for me: I simply wanted to be the best player in the world.”
Tyraxe and Parabellum did just that last week. Salvation’s Edge, the newest raid to land in Destiny 2, saw players take on The Witness in an (almost) final battle for the ages; a stunning conclusion to the Light and Darkness story that Tyraxe had partaken in since his first days playing the franchise in The Dark Below. Back then, at just 10 years old, the seed of becoming World’s First became firmly rooted in his mind.
Tyraxe is also no stranger to competition. The 20-year-old Australian has dabbled in competitive esports before like Fortnite and Apex Legends at varying levels. But nothing has before matched the exhilaration of waking up at 3am (local) and attempting a Destiny 2 World’s First run, with Tyraxe describing the experience as “one of my favorite gaming experiences I’ve ever had.”
“[Becoming World’s First] has always been my ultimate goal since I started playing,” Tyraxe said, inspired by the day-one raid greats like Clan Redeem and Elysium. After an incredible 18 hours and 57 minutes—a Destiny World’s First record—Tyraxe’s dream had finally been realized. This wasn’t his and Team Parabellum’s first attempt at World’s First, with the squad running in a close third for the reprised Crota’s End raid last year. But after chopping and changing a few players since Deep Stone Crypt, everything fell into place for The Final Shape.
There’s more to attempting Destiny 2 World’s First than just showing up, sitting down for an ungodly amount of time, and mindlessly throwing yourself and your Ghost at a raid. As Tyraxe explains, Parabellum spent the better part of four months practicing for the big event. “We tried to cover every possible outcome or version that the raid could be to give us the best chance for success,” he said, adding how Into The Light’s Pantheon helped immensely with the team finishing first in three of the four weeks of the activity.
A spanner was thrown in the works for Salvation’s Edge, though. Between game adjustments and nerfs to popular abilities like Well of Radiance, Parabellum’s strategies became outdated overnight. “It was hard to see the practicality of the new vital entries to the game, like Still Hunt, working with our key strategies since they were nerfed,” Tyraxe said to Dot. “Parabellum had to devise something new that was a powerful option and realistic to execute on in less than a week. We decided to give up on grenade launchers (and some university work) because while their DPS is great, they lacked safety and we could only use them if certain conditions were met.”
This tied back in with Tyraxe’s and Parabellum’s key philosophy to clearing a raid on launch: “Go slow to go fast.” Tyraxe said the ability to “lock in as a team” and keep composure is vital to any raid, much less in a day one clear. “Going slower and making sure that everyone is on the same page will 100 percent of the time net you better results than rushing.”
An important adjustment the winning team made was to incorporate Prismatic, Destiny 2‘s new subclass combining elements from multiple other subclasses together. “It allowed us to utilize Void Tether supers while also having the Strand melee for the Sever damage resistance effect,” Tyraxe said, stating Prismatic is an “amazing” addition. “I look forward to seeing what they do with it next.”
Their final battle against The Witness certainly didn’t sound clear, but given the squad’s trust in one another, there was never any fears among the Parabellum crew that World’s First was out of reach. That crew extends to outside the six fireteam members, too. “When it comes to the highest level of Destiny play, having a chair or seventh man is extremely crucial for day one raiding,” Tyraxe explained. Parabellum found themselves behind early as other teams sprinted ahead to later encounters, and were it not for coach Chillackz’s input in Dissipation, Parabellum may not have claimed the win.
“We had decided to try to utilize swords for our damage strategy which meant our seasonal artifact had to have some perks on it changed. Chillackz reminded us of our pre-planned approach for swords and without him we would have forgotten to change our artifact in the moment, which would have been a major throw,” Tyraxe said, highlighting the input Chillackz had outside purely gathering info from teams ahead of Parabellum.
Parabellum lifted the proverbial trophy and rose to join the esteemed elite of Destiny 2, and above all, Tyraxe thanked Bungie for putting on the show to begin with. “There is just something that always seems to draw players back into the world of Destiny, and for me, that is the gunplay and atmosphere,” he said. “Bungie continually blows it out of the park when it comes to the visuals and gameplay of Destiny, and it is something that players cannot ignore.”
Day one raiding may not be for everyone, but when people come from far and wide to witness history, you can’t deny it: Destiny has held its place in the gaming zeitgeist with its raids, and it will continue to do so for years to come.
