While trying to recover Riven’s lost eggs as part of the ongoing seasonal questline for Destiny 2’s Season of the Wish, you’re encouraged to defend Riven’s Lair against all trespassers. The massive amount of power channeled by Queen Mara Sov’s Techeun witches to manifest the Spirit of Riven, and Riven herself, are seemingly attracting Taken invaders and the Sol Divisive. Hence the reason for Riven’s Lair as Season of the Wish’s main seasonal activity, but there’s also The Coil, a more intense endgame variation of the same activity that is not for the faint of heart.
Here’s everything you need to know about The Coil.
How Does The Coil Work?
The Coil is essentially Destiny 2’s equivalent of a roguelike dungeon-crawler. It strings together four runs of Riven’s Lair back-to-back with increasing difficulty. In this matchmade activity, Power levels are fixed to your current level with 1810 as the recommendation, but each subsequent run increases the Power level of enemies by 5. If you make it to the end, enemies will be 15 above your Power level. You also have a limited number of revives for the team, so it’s a full wipe if you run out. Similar to other high-end activities like Nightfall, The Coil also has rotating modifiers like global surges for weapon elements or buffs for specific weapon types, so you have to consider those. Even the specific possible pathways refresh regularly, but you can preview them alongside other modifiers.
Each run begins at the Spirit of Riven. After activating the three plates in Spirit’s Anchor, one of three portals will open, and you’ll leap through a portal into an echo of the Dreaming City referred to as a pathway. Each pathway consists of a platforming section, a combat room, another platforming section, another combat room, and then a boss fight with a chest at the end. In Riven’s Lair, doing all of the above completes the activity. In The Coil, instead of a chest after you defeat the boss, you'll find a teleporter taking you back to Riven, so you repeat that process until you complete four pathways.
Along the way, you’ll collect Wishing Glass Shards by defeating enemies and breaking pots that are scattered about. If you get a high enough score, you can find secret chests in the platforming sections.
At the end of each pathway, players are rewarded with Fused Wishing Glass based on the number of Shards collected by the whole fireteam. Those Fused Wishing Glass pieces can then be spent with Riven to purchase special boons called Dragon’s Gifts, which rotate daily. You also begin the activity by breaking a large pot and claiming 100 Fused Wishing Glass pieces, so you can purchase on Dragon’s Gift at the very beginning.
Riven’s Lair and The Coil Pathways
Just like in Riven’s Lair, whichever portal opens up in Spirit’s Anchor will determine the first leg of the pathway.
- Some pathways have spike traps that instantly kill you if triggered and sliding walls and platforms. Watch out for clusters of holes on the ground and walls all over. You can advance once you trigger all three plates needed to generate the exit portal.
- In some pathways, Pervading Darkness will corrupt your vision and eventually kill you, so you must sporadically step into the pools of light to cleanse it as you look for the three plates needed to create the exit portal. Some areas of the walls also have Taken corruption that regularly emits a burst of energy, potentially booping you to your death.
- In others, poisonous gas cloud traps will trigger. As always, you have to step on three plates to create the exit portal.
The third leg of each pathway will also have one of these mechanics. The second and fourth, however, will be combat encounters.
- Lure out Mephitic Hosts: Keep eliminating enemies until special Mephitic Host enemies spawn. Once you pick up the buff they drop, you’ll gain the Ephemeral Virus that allows you to damage invulnerable enemies. But once the timer on it runs out, you die. To avoid that, hop on the Font of Light in the center of the combat arena to cleanse it.
- Light the Torches: In this encounter, Taken Wizards will spawn with orb-like relics. You have to take the items they drop and dunk them in three large fire pits. Then, once you take out the remaining enemies, that’s it.
- Clear the Lair’s intruders: The easiest possible combat encounter involves slaying a bunch of enemies before moving on.
- Defeat the Ogre and Its Wardens: The Vex have a Taken Ogre imprisoned, so you have to defeat Arc-Powered Minotaurs and use their Arc Cranium to destroy the Vex Nodes powering its cell, and then eliminate the Ogre.
The Coil Bosses
There are five possible bosses for any given pathway, but they use mechanics similar to other encounters in Riven’s Lair. Here’s a quick breakdown of each:
Aspirational Construct
The Aspirational Construct is the same Vex boss that’s at the end of the Polysemy mission you have to do as part of the first week of the seasonal quest, Wishing All the Best. You have to defeat the Arc-Powered Minotaurs that spawn and pick up the Arc Cranium lasers that they drop. The large Hydra is impervious to all other forms of damage, but once you take the overshield down, the fight is fairly straightforward.
Centroidal Mind
The fight against the Centroidal Mind is functionally identical to the Aspirational Construct, except it’s a large Vex Wyvern with the same overshield. The only way to bring it down is with the Arc Cranium lasers dropped by the Arc-Powered Minotaurs that spawn.
Locus of Subjugation
A powerful Scorn Chieftain with too many defenses, the Locus of Subjugation presents perhaps the biggest challenge in The Coil. In order to take down its shield, you have to first eliminate Mephitic Hosts to gain the Ephemeral Virus from the orbs they drop. That will allow you to damage the Locus of Subjugation and Well Protector Abomination that stands on the platform at the center of the arena. Kill the Abomination first, because when the Ephemeral Virus timer ends, whoever has it will die. The only way to cleanse it is by stepping on the well. So it’s a tricky maneuver of using the virus to defeat both enemies and getting rid of it before it kills you.
If you take too much time to defeat the Locus of Subjugation, then the shields will recharge, and the Well Protector will respawn.
Roln'gur, Blade-bound to the Terrace
This large Taken Knight boss deals Stasis damage with its Boomer cannon and hits you with the Pervading Darkness debuff, constantly blurring your vision until you die. The only way to get rid of it is by stepping into the pools of light within the area. To take down Roln’gur’s shield, you have to eliminate the three Taken Wizards, called Wardweavers.
Ungoloth, Wayward Beast
This Taken Ogre is the same that you fight during the Tautology mission as part of the seasonal quest’s second week, and the core mechanic is just like the Roln’gur fight. Like all of these bosses, Ungoloth spends most of its time impervious to damage while Pervading Darkness slowly takes away your sight and kills you if it stacks too much. But there is a well of light on either side of the arena that can cleanse it. The only way to bring down Ungoloth’s shields is to eliminate the three Wardweaver Taken Wizards in the area.
Dragon’s Gifts Cost and List
The Dragon’s Gifts come in three different tiers, each of which has a different price. Currently, there are eight Tier 1, ten Tier 2, and eight Tier 3 Dragon’s Gifts. The potential Gifts rotate daily but then are randomly chosen each run. Here’s a breakdown of the cost at each tier:
- Tier 1 - 100 Fused Wishing Glass
- Tier 2 - 250 Fused Wishing Glass
- Tier 3 - 400 Fused Wishing Glass
At the start of the activity, there will be three Gifts available at Tier 1, three at Tier 2, and two at Tier 3. And after each pathway, more will be added. Here’s a closer look at every Dragon’s Gift based on Light.gg’s data harvested from the Destiny 2 API:
Tier 1 (100 Fused Wishing Glass)
- Airborne Enhancement - Damage increases by 25% from all weapons and abilities while airborne.
- Boss Protection - Incoming damage from bosses decreases by 20%.
- Class Ability Accelerant - Class abilities recharge 300% faster.
- Grenade Enhancement - Grenade ability damage increases by 10%.
- Kinetic Enhancement - Weapons in the Kinetic slot have their damage and reload speed increased by 10%.
- Melee Ability Enhancement - Powered melee abilities recharge 300% faster.
- Rank-and-File Protection - Incoming damage from rank-and-file combatants decreases by 20%.
- Revive Token - Add one Revive Token to your fireteam's pool.
Tier 2 (250 Fused Wishing Glass)
- Arc Enhancement - Arc damage increases by 10% from all weapons and abilities.
- Energy Enhancement - Weapons in the Energy slot have their damage increased by 10% and gain passive ammo regeneration.
- Lethal Class Recharge - Any final blow has a chance to immediately recharge a large amount of class ability energy.
- Lethal Grenade Recharge - Any final blow has a chance to immediately recharge a small amount of grenade energy.
- Lethal Melee Recharge - Any final blow has a chance to immediately recharge a moderate amount of melee energy.
- Miniboss Enhancement - Damage to minibosses increases by 10%.
- Solar Enhancement - Solar damage increases by 10% from all weapons and abilities.
- Stasis Enhancement - Stasis damage increases by 10% from all weapons and abilities.
- Strand Enhancement - Stasis damage increases by 10% from all weapons and abilities.
- Void Enhancement - Stasis damage increases by 10% from all weapons and abilities.
Tier 3 (400 Fused Wishing Glass)
- Grenade Accelerant - Grenade abilities recharge 500% faster.
- Jolted Arc Damage - Dealing Arc damage has a moderate chance to apply the Jolted debuff to targets.
- Power Weapon Enhancement - Weapons in the Power slot have their damage increased by 20%.
- Precision Enhancement - Precision weapon damage increases by 25%.
- Scorched Solar Damage - Dealing Solar damage has a moderate chance to apply 50 Scorched debuff stacks to targets.
- Shield Accelerant - Shields recharge 50% faster and have 10% increased capacity.
- Super Accelerant - Super abilities recharge 200% faster.
- Suppressed Void Damage - Dealing Void damage has a moderate chance to apply the Suppressed debuff to targets.
There’s a lot of strategy involved with buildcrafting based on the Dragon’s Gifts you choose, mainly because it’s totally random which boons appear on each run, not to mention how they might interact with the active modifiers. It also depends on your preferred loadouts and even class. Airborne Enhancement, for example, is less useful to a Hunter than to Warlocks and Titans.
The defensive Gifts like Rank-and-File Protection and Boss Protection are always worth it, but the best move is to aim for overlapping perks like Jolted Arc Damage and Arc Enhancement. By the time you reach the third or fourth pathway, it’s a good idea to purchase more Revive Tokens. Depending on what modifiers are active and what Dragon’s Gifts are available to purchase, consider taking the time to rework your build in between pathways.
