Grandmaster Nightfalls are some of the toughest content in Destiny 2. They require fireteams to work together with near-perfect coordination to overcome their challenges, and under their punishing conditions, even the easiest Strikes can become difficult. Some GM Nightfalls, of course, are harder than others. Here are our picks for the top five hardest Grandmaster Nightfalls in Destiny 2.
5. The Scarlet Keep — Destiny 2 Hardest Grandmaster Nightfalls
What makes The Scarlet Keep such a tough Nightfall? It’s long, for one thing. Guardians have to travel into the keep itself and ascend it, fighting across several wide-open areas before finally doing battle with Hashladun. That boss fight is no joke, either — dozens of adds spawn in and the room doesn’t have much in the way of cover besides a few pillars. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to hide from Hashladun when there are no adds present, which gives you time to build up your Super energy. Still, this one can be a pain.
4. The Glassway
Again, The Glassway is long — so, so long. The part where you have to stand on a plate to drain the radiolarian lake can be brutal on Grandmaster difficulty, since there’s very little cover and snipers spawning on all sides. And the boss — well, bosses — can take you out in a second with their cannons. Unlike The Scarlet, Keep, you can’t even really hide from the bosses in The Glassway, because the smaller one will follow you into the tunnels surrounding the arena. Plus, there are Wyverns everywhere. Need we say more?
3. The Lightblade — Destiny 2 Hardest Grandmaster Nightfalls
The Lightblade is tough for a few reasons. You’ve got the floating platform segment, where there’s not much room to maneuver or hide from snipers. There’s the slog through the swamp, and of course there’s the hard-as-nails boss fight. But this Grandmaster Nightfall wouldn’t be nearly as difficult if it weren’t for the presence of the Lucent Hive. How many times have we been murked by a Hive Titan throwing its shield at you from around a corner or splattered by a grenade? Too many. Far too many.
2. Proving Grounds
The Proving Grounds is on this list for one main reason: the tank room. Having to fight two Cabal tanks is bad enough. Throw on Champions and adds in a room with barely any usable cover besides the small underpass in the middle that’s exposed on both sides, and you get a deathtrap. If you can get through the tank room, the rest of the Proving Grounds isn’t too bad. But that one encounter is brutal.
1. The Corrupted — Destiny 2 Hardest Grandmaster Nightfalls
All of the things that make The Corrupted an annoying Strike are compounded tenfold in the Nightfall version. It’s a slog of a mission, with several potential run killers along the way: the elevator segment, the Ogre room, dying from the long drop before the Ascendant Plane section. Plus, there are teleporting captains and splitting psions. Lovely!
And once you’ve gotten past all of that, you get to one of the worst GM Nightfall bosses in Destiny 2. If you aren’t killed by the legions of Taken that spawn in, there’s good odds you’ll be launched off the level. And it’s a two-phase boss fight! If The Corrupted got vaulted, we don’t think many players would complain.
