Destiny 2’s Season of the Chosen is officially live, so grab your weapon of choice and get ready to face the Cabal horde. Revolving around stopping Emperor Calus’ daughter Caiatl from uniting the Cabal, players will need to take down various champions that are vying for a seat on her War Counsel. With players battling against Caiatl’s generals for week, the war between us and the Cabal is finally coming to a close this season. But none of that matters because we’re here for that sweet, sweet loot.
In an effort to make Grandmaster Nightfalls more appealing, Bungie has introduced three PVE Adept weapons that players can hunt for. If you’re looking to nab an Adept variant of the Shadow Price auto rifle then you’ll want to hop into this week’s Grandmaster Nightfall, The Arms Dealer. While this strike isn’t too difficult, it’s critical you use the correct weapons to deal with the Unstoppable and Barrier Champions. Below, I will breakdown which weapons, mods, and exotics you’ll want to run, along with how to defeat each section.
The Loadout
Weapons
Before we hop into the Nightfall, you’ll want to ensure your team has the best loadout. I highly recommend running two Izanagi’s Burden and one Divinity. This combination allows you to absolutely melt Champions, letting you quickly take them down without too much trouble. Additionally, everyone on your team should be using a rocket launcher in their Heavy slot, with the two bringing Izanagi’s Burden rocking either Palindrome or Bottom Dollar. As for the Divinity player, I suggest either a scout rifle or pulse rifle to give your team some distance.
Armor
When it comes to armor no piece is absolutely crucial, but my biggest suggestion is having at least one person in the fireteam rocking Aeon Soul (Warlock), Aeon Safe (Titan), or Aeon Swift (Hunter). This is because that person can equip the Sect of Insight mod which is so good for generating Heavy and Special ammo for everyone. Other good exotics for this Nightfall are Phoenix Protocol, Contraverse Hold, Omnioculus, Orpheus Rig, Ursa Furiosa, and Helm of Saint-14.
Mods
There are no crazy builds you need to cobble together for this Nightfall, but you will want to run the following mods:
- Unstoppable Hand Cannon
- Anti-Barrier Sniper Rifle
- Special Finisher (One per team)
Arms Dealer Grandmaster Nightfall
Opening – 1 Barrier/1 Unstoppable Champion
When the strike opens, have both players prime their Izanagi’s Burdens with a Honed Edge shot. Lure the Unstoppable Champion towards you, disrupt it, hit it with Divinity + the Honed Edge rounds to almost kill it. You should be able to just clean up its health bar with regular gunfire. Now repeat the same process for the Barrier Champion, but try to time your Izanagi bullets so they hit around the same time. With Divinity, you can kill a Barrier Champion with two Honed Edge rounds before it can heal. Clean up the rest of the room and head out to the loading dock.
Loading Dock – 1 Unstoppable Champion
When you exit the starting area, immediately use two rockets to destroy the flying Thresher. This can be a huge headache if left unchecked, so prioritize blowing it up. Once the Thresher is gone, hangout near the corner shown above and take out the Cabal enemies. Make sure to kill the Psions in the back and try to avoid any grenades thrown by the Cabal as they can instantly kill you. After you wipe out a few enemies a Cabal carrier will arrive and deploy more basic enemies along with an Unstoppable Champion. Goad the Champion to chase you up towards your corner so you can safely deal with it. Don’t forget to use your finishers on the green Cabal and yellow-bar Psion to restore some of your team’s lost ammo.
Core Deposit – 2 Barrier/1 Unstoppable Champion
Now designate someone as the core carrier and make your way to the next section. Instead of progressing forward, just drop the core and deal with the swarm of dogs. Once those are dead, have two people run out and use their rocket launchers to destroy the Thresh. Now turn around and hang out in the back area pictured above. This is a relatively safe location where your fireteam can easily dispatch the two Barrier Champions. The first will be on the bridge by the dogs, with the second hanging around where you need to slam the core. Use the same Divinity+Izanagi combo to rapidly dispatch them. When you feel it’s safe, move up, deposit the core, and then go to the right of where you dunked the solar orb.
Another, smaller wave of enemies will spawn an attack. Play the corner until the ones hanging around the ramp are defeated and then turn your attention on the Unstoppable Champion. For whatever reason a Cabal Phalanx enemy will bug out and spawn by the core deposit area, so be ready for a random enemy to pop up. After everything is dead, make your way to the outside of Bracus Zahn’s ship.
Outside – 1 Barrier Champion
While this portion may seem daunting, you can actually skip the majority of the outside fight. When you exit the base, hang a left and climb up the scaffolding to the darkened cliff face on the left. There’s just enough room for your Guardian to sneak by. Since you only need to kill the one Barrier Champion on the ramp, all of the additional Fallen and Cabal are irrelevant.
There will be a slightly lowered area on these cliffs (shown above) that gives you a perfect line of sight to the Barrier Champion. Once the Champion is dead, keep heading left towards the loading ramp, climb onto it, summon your Sparrow, and make your way to the toughest part of this Nightfall, the hanger.
Hanger – 2 Barrier/4 Unstoppable Champions
Okay, for this section you are going to chill by the massive door you use to normally enter this room. Your first priority should be the large tank in the back, so quickly run out, fire a rocket at one of the tank’s four stabilizers and hustle back into cover. You’ll want to go one at a time since the tank will fire at you and can instantly kill any Guardian caught in the blast. Alternatively, you can use Izanagi’s Burden for the tank, but I prefer to save this weapon for the Champions. Remember to take your time, there are a lot of Cabal so always try to thin out their numbers whenever possible.
When the tank is destroyed, focus on clearing out the group of Cabal and one Unstoppable Champion on the main floor. Sometimes they retreat up the ramps on the left. If this happens, just use the column and unoccupied tanks for cover. You will also need to deal with two Barrier Champions who are hanging out on the top platform by one of the levers. Use our tried and true exotic weapon combo to rapidly dispatch them. You may want to only kill one and use the other to create Heavy bricks via the Sect of Insight mod. This room is an absolute bastard, so don’t try to just rush through it. Most of your time will be spent here and you should only attack CHampions when you are confident that you can kill them. It’s very easy to run out of ammo in this room so make liberal use of the Special Finisher mod.
After the room is clear, throw the levers to summon the elevator. Make your way back down the ramps you just ran up while simultaneously firing rockets or sniper rounds at the tank to destroy it. Do not bother with the other enemies until the tank is demolished. When the tank is gone, you will have three (yes, seriously) Unstoppable Champions left. This part takes communication, as you will want to ensure everyone knows which of these enemies you will attack first. Remember, they don’t regenerate health so you can go it slow with these Cabal. Personally, I like using a finisher on one to generate additional ammo for the next room.
The Chase – 2 Barrier/1 Unstoppable
Boss Cheese 1
Boss Cheese 2
The slower method of the two cheeses, when you reach the boss arena damage Zahn enough so he retreats to the first Tower. Do not do enough to make him leave that tower the moment he arrives, you need him to stay and deploy his protective bubble. Now kill all of the Cabal enemies he summons, but do not dunk the solar core to lower his shield. Instead, have a Warlock rocking top tree Nova Bomb and Vortex Grenades go underneath Zahn. Charge the grenade in your hand and toss it up at the underside of where Zahn is standing in his bubble. You will damage him through the floor while remaining completely safe from his attacks.
Zahn also won’t spawn any Cabal or move during this, letting you slowly drain his health away. Additionally, the Warlocks Solar grenade also works here but does far less damage. I recommend using Vortex Grenades + Contraverse Hold to speed this process up. But since Zahn will never move, you can just kill him in completely safety. Just remember, when Zahn dies the tower will explode and fall down, so do not be under it right as he dies or you will be killed too!
