This is it, Destiny 2‘s Light and Darkness saga grand finale. The Excision mission will be your final battle against the big bad, The Witness. Your time completing The Final Shape campaign has given you a clue on how to beat it—now you must follow through.
Here’s how to complete the 12-player Excision mission in Destiny 2 The Final Shape.
In case it wasn’t obvious, this mission contains major spoilers for The Final Shape and the Salvation’s Edge raid. You cannot begin this mission until you complete the campaign and the Wild Card Exotic quest. You’ve been warned!
How to complete the Excision mission in Destiny 2
After Team Parabellum brought down The Witness in the Salvation’s Edge raid, our biggest adversary was left exposed and had nowhere else to run. Now is the time to strike and finish The Witness once and for all. After a truly epic Avengers: Endgame-like cutscene featuring the entirety of the forces of Light, you’ll be thrown into a 12-player matchmade activity called Excision.
Once you spawn in, you’ll breach the Monolith ahead of you, defeating an array of enemies of The Witness while capturing four plates. Once you’ve defeated the Cornerstone bosses and stood on the plates, proceed to The Witness.
The final fight begins with two more Cornerstone bosses which must be killed before Light begins to bleed out of crevasses in the ground. Head to these crevasses and collect the Light they dispel, then return the Light to the statue back by the entrance.
During this time, The Witness will throw everything at you, from blasts of Dark energy to hundreds of enemies. Strike them all down while grabbing the Light.
Once you’ve gathered 16 Light as a group, you’ll be teleported within Darkness to the same statue room as you saw in the main campaign mission. Alongside your 11 guardians, grab a sword and begin smashing away at the statues. Once you hit 100 percent, you’ll be teleported back to the main room: You’re now strong enough to damage The Witness directly.
Grab the Weapons of Light buff by walking through Saint-14’s bubble, then jump onto the platform and attack the circular plates on The Witness’ chest. Once the plates are destroyed, her chest opens, revealing her “heart”—take aim and fire everything you’ve got.
Be careful here: The Witness will bring her arm down and blast a portion of the platform occasionally with Darkness. If you get hit by this, you will die and need to wait a moment to respawn. Continue to deal damage until The Witness slams the platform with her fist, ending the DPS stage. If you fail to reach the final stand, you’ll have to repeat the Cornerstone and Light gathering process, then destroy more statues with the sword.
Once you reach the final stand, your Ghost will fly down in front of you and demand you channel the Light through it and fire it at The Witness. Press your Super key when prompted, and you’ll charge up a devastating beam of Light. Direct this at The Witness and keep the beam pointed at the boss. With all 12 players firing the beam, The Witness will be destroyed in a matter of seconds, completing the mission.
Be sure to stick around after the mission for a narrative cutscene you won’t want to miss! If you want to repeat the showdown, head to the Pale Heart in the Destinations screen and scroll across to the far right. The icon for Excision will be next to the Salvation’s Raid icon.
Grandmaster Excision – What’s changed?
A Grandmaster difficulty mode for Excision was released on June 18. Grandmaster Excision is not a matchmade activity, meaning you’ll need to find a bunch of friends or clanmates or use Fireteam Finder to complete this activity.
Grandmaster ups the difficulty of Excision considerably. You’ll begin with limited revive tokens, meaning you must defeat champions, Tormentors, and Subjugators to earn the ability to respawn. You’ll encounter plenty of these on your way into the Monolith, so work as a team and bring weapons to deal with Barrier, Overload, and Unstoppable champions.
I also brought Microcosm, as it’s incredibly effective against Dread enemies and The Witness. Otherwise, there is little difference in this mission compared to the standard Excision experience. Once The Witness is defeated, you’ll be rewarded with a random Deepsight Pale Heart weapon, a random-rolled Ergo Sum, the Ergo Sum catalyst, and two Ascendant Shards.
