All Destiny 2 Raids Ranked From Worst to Best

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Penned by Kody Wirth

Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Destiny has produced many fantastic Raid experiences over the years. These massive, endgame pieces of content not only challenge your abilities as a Guardian but your puzzle-solving and collaboration skills. These six-person experiences have never been for the faint of heart, and it’s always a thrill to watch fine-tuned Fireteams race to be the World’s First with the launch of a new Raid.

Now, with the release of Beyond Light bringing in a new Exo-themed raid and Bungie confirming that a reworked version of the Vault of Glass will be arriving very soon — it’s a great time to revisit these incredibly challenging pieces of content. Let’s find out which are the best Destiny 2 raids ranked as of 2022. 

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Destiny 2 Raids List

Before we dive into which Raids are the best, let’s look back at when these Raids were released. We’ll also denote which ones are currently available and which ones have been vaulted (the content equivalent of sunsetting).

• Leviathan: September 2017 with the launch of Destiny 2 (Currently Vaulted)
• Eater of Worlds: December 2017 with the Curse of Osiris Expansion (Currently Vaulted)
• Spire of Stars: May 2018 with the Warmind Expansion (Currently Vaulted)
• Last Wish: October 2018 with the Forsaken Expansion
• Scourge of the Past: January 2019 with the Black Armory Expansion (Currently Vaulted)
• Crown of Sorrow: June 2019 with the Season of Opulence (Currently Vaulted)
• Garden of Salvation: October 2019 with the Shadowkeep Expansion 
• Deep Stone Crypt: November 2020 with the Beyond Light Expansion

All Raids in Destiny 2 Ranked

The original Destiny had some real bangers when it came to Raids. Vault of Glass and Crota’s End were classics when it came to level design and collaboration. And the Wrath of the Machine and King’s Fall expansion Raids were simply perfected iterations of what came before. 

But what about the Raids in Destiny 2? Do they live up to the original’s legacy? Are there any instant classics worth remembering? Well, with eight Raids total and more on the way, there’s bound to be at least one incredible Raid experience out there. Here’s how we ranked the Raids in Destiny 2.

8. Spire of Stars

Location: Nessus orbit on the Leviathan 
Objectives: Stop the Red Legion invasion upon the Leviathan, destroy their fleet and kill Val Ca’uor.

First on our list of Destiny 2 raids ranked is Spire of Stars.

Spire of Stars is an ambitious attempt at upending what a Destiny Raid can be. Its set-pieces are a pure spectacle. The sheer amount of mechanics it attempts to juggle are impressive. But it, unfortunately, doesn’t all come together to make a winning package. It probably doesn’t help that expectations were already worn thin thanks to the lackluster Warmind Expansion that this Raid was attached to, either.

On your third trip to the Leviathan, you’re not just entertaining the emperor Calus, but protecting him. And, like the second Leviathan encounter, this is meant to be a short trip that challenges you to get everything right. From platforming sections with the optional goal of moving a ball to the end to an intense space encounter where you literally chuck energy balls into Cabal ships, this one is a thrilling and frustrating piece of content.

Unfortunately, these fun moments don’t hold up thanks to the repetitive encounters in the Statue Garden and the utterly agonizing mechanics in the Celestial Observatory. It’s unfortunately too difficult, too random, and too lacking in quality loot to make it worth revisiting. 

7. Eater of Worlds

Location: Nessus orbit on the Leviathan 
Objectives: The Leviathan appears to be accessible. It might pay to explore.

The idea of miniature raids is honestly refreshing. While Bungie could never quite nail the experience with iterations of the Leviathon location, it did pave the way for some excellent Dungeons later on. And Eater of Worlds may be the closest thing to what would eventually become those smaller and more unique experiences.

First off, you begin the Raid by platforming and have to rely on your team to be in the right place at the right time. While this is honestly a relatively easy area to get past, it did encourage less solo play and forced you to rely on your team at every moment. Unfortunately, the encounters after this point are a slog, with enemies and mechanics that don’t feel difficult, just boring.

The only reward is that the actual boss encounter against Argos is just a joy to play. Simultaneously running three exploding Vex skulls to the appropriate target while the rest of your team prepares to do damage while avoiding exploding harpies is both frantic and manageable. It may be the best version of the puzzle-solving and gunplay combo since Crota’s End introduced the concept. 

If only the majority of this Raid weren’t so lackluster. It has some great ideas sandwiched around a boring, bullet-spongey center. But at least the dev team learned from this one, and went on to produce better options for this list of Destiny 2 raids ranked.

6. Crown of Sorrow

Location: Nessus orbit on the Leviathan 
Objectives: Enter the Menagerie and assassinate Gahlran, the Sorrow-Bearer, who has gone mad with power from wearing the Crown of Sorrow.

Some of the best encounters in Destiny rely on the devs introducing a concept and sticking with it. The Crown of Sorrow Raid does just that as you and a partner in your team of six must rotate different variations of the Witch’s Blessing buff throughout the entire Raid. This means there’s far less time to coordinate as a full squad. Instead, you must focus on completing your tasks of killing certain enemies, crystals, etc. with your partner and trust that the two other duos are doing the same.

This Raid is all about balancing your team and maximizing the damage you output in a single round by sharing the active buff. It’s simple, forgiving, and overall more interesting than most of the Leviathan missions, even if you’re just after a cursed Hive crown. It also figured out a way to make platforming fun again by balancing collaboration and timing between your Fireteam.

The only drawback is that the weapons and armor in this Raid aren’t worth it. So, while it may be fun, there’s not really a reason to keep coming back to it. Hopefully, that will change when/if the Leviathan returns in a future season.

5. Leviathan

Location: Nessus orbit on the Leviathan 
Objectives: Answer the invitation of Emperor Calus and complete his trials.

The original Leviathan Raid should have been a sign to Destiny players that Bungie was approaching things differently. Rather than an obvious path forward riddled with puzzles, there was a giant area full of mysteries and secrets to uncover. You may have been invited to the giant space whale, but your goal was still to break in and find the right path forward.

This was difficult to do at first, thanks to the dense puzzle-solving and revolving encounters. But, the more you play through this Raid, the better you become at mapping out what to do when specific scenarios play out. Instead of completing the central encounter multiple times, you find a hidden tunnel to blaze past it. 

Those same tunnels led to the underbelly, which allowed Guardians to spend keys acquired from other parts of the Raid. The only problem is that while interesting, it was so vast and randomized that it quickly became a time-sucking detour that most players would just avoid. The real meat and potatoes of this Raid are the final encounters leading up to the boss. 

You have a frustrating stealth section, a Wipeout/Ninja Warrior-like obstacle course, and finally, a challenging encounter with Calus himself. There’s a whole lot going on in this Raid, and not all of it works. But it did allow for some great experimentation, and it remains on of the best Destiny 2 raids ranked.

4. Scourge of the Past

Location: The Last City, Earth 
Objectives: Confront the Fallen that has breached the Last City and destroy their war machine.

Scourge had the unenviable task of following up the Last Wish (more on that in a bit), but it did so surprisingly well by taking things in a completely different direction. In this Raid, rather than navigating intricate corridors and navigating chasms, you instead get to drive through the Last City. 

This one is all brute force and action set pieces that lead up to a desperate chase sequence featuring a giant burning Servitor, a tank sequence, and a final showdown against a Fallen Brig. There’s nothing really complicated or difficult about this Raid. It’s just fun. 

In many ways, that totally defeats the purpose of running a Raid, but this is another instance where the breezy nature is capped off with an excellent loot pool. Hopefully, we’ll see this one come back sometime soon to further flesh out the EDZ.

3. Deep Stone Crypt

Location: Europa 
Objectives: Purge the House of Salvation from the Deep Stone Crypt and crash the Morning Star into Europa.

Beyond Light brought the history of the Exos into the light for the first time. Every mission, every secret, and finally even the Raid itself was built to reveal the origins of this mysterious Guardian race. And, like the virtual Braytech mission, the encounter has you fighting with the elements as much as the enemies.

At the start, you don’t even know where the entrance of the Raid is. Once you find it, you have to navigate a blizzard that kills you over time until you can finally make your way deeper into the actual facility. From there, you get an excellent mix of platforming and puzzle-solving that brings back a variation of the buff balancing act from Crown of Sorrow. 

Everything leading up to the final two boss fights is excellent. But the bosses themselves feel easy and don’t include very intricate mechanics to take them down. This does work out for grinding the excellent loot pool, but hopefully, we’ll see a more difficult version of this Raid pop up to make those enemy encounters a bit more challenging.

2. Last Wish

Location: The Dreaming City 
Objectives: Put an end to the Taken Curse within the Dreaming City by killing Riven.

Forsaken did a lot of heavy lifting for Destiny 2. It reinvigorated the story, juiced up the loot, and brought back a more traditional and possibly the most challenging Raid to date. But these aren’t frustrating or obtuse challenges like on the Leviathan — these are carefully planned puzzles that litter themselves through the entire Raid.

Your first encounter with the boss, Kalli, introduces the symbols you’ll need to decipher and remember throughout your time in the Dreaming City. After a familiar stand in this area to start doing damage encounter, the true nature of this Raid emerges. Rather than singular puzzles, or arenas, you’re suddenly racing through the tower doing a combination of fighting, puzzle-solving, platforming, and chipping away at the boss.

Oh, and all of this is timed too, so it truly puts the pressure on before you finally come face to face with Riven, a wish-granting space dragon. This is the culmination of the toughest Raid with literally the toughest final encounter in Destiny history. It’s a masterwork of level design and rising tension that is only let down by so-so rewards and some broken elements that take the steam out of the boss encounter.

1. Garden of Salvation

Location: The Black Garden 
Objectives: Track the source of the Unknown Artifact’s signal into the Black Garden.

It’s only natural that the best of the Destiny 2 raids ranked returns to where it all began. Garden of Salvation is the culmination of Bungie’s experimentation with Raids and garners plenty of exciting encounters that mostly land. Again, we see the return of balancing items between your Fireteam through tethers that allow you to solve puzzles, unlock areas, and basically create your own platforms.

The mixture of classic versions of Vex enemies, encounters, and even locations are a welcome sight. And the new puzzle-solving mechanic, outside of one encounter that acts as a strange form of tower defense, only elevates these familiar elements. It’s fun, challenging, beautiful to look at, and finds ways to perfectly blend the tether mechanic within boss fights.

To put a final point on this, Garden of Salvation is the best of Destiny 2 because it embraces what makes the game so good. It keeps gunplay front and center but challenges you to hold firm to your instincts in the face of mechanics that could hamper your ability to fight. It’s honestly one of the most enjoyable Raids to fail and keep on trying.

What’s Next for Destiny 2 Raids?

The return of classic Raids means the Destiny 2 will stack some of the best experiences from the original Destiny into the current game.

One can only hope that these will be reimaginings of old Raid content that keeps the spirit of the original while bringing in some of the learnings and puzzle techniques that Bungie has refined over the years. And if there’s one thing that the Destiny team has shown, it’s a reverence for classic content but a willingness to innovate to make it work for what Destiny is now.

Gather Your Fireteam

What do you think of this list of all Raids in Destiny 2? Are you excited for refreshed content, or do you want brand new experiences? Let us know in the comments below, and for the latest on Destiny 2, be sure to subscribe to our email list to stay in the know. 

Happy gaming!

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