All Destiny 2 Raids Ranked From Worst to Best (2026)

13. Eater of Worlds

Location: Nessus

The idea of miniature raids was honestly refreshing. While Bungie could never quite nail the experience with iterations of the Leviathan 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 gun-play 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.

12. Desert Perpetual

• Location: Kepler
• Required Expansion: The Edge of Fate

As the final raid of Destiny 2, Desert Perpetual will always be in a weird spot. While it’s fun enough to be worth playing, the player-base had shrunk so much by the time it came out that many people didn’t get to play it upon release. And nowadays it’s just as hard to find a group, as most people are either playing Pantheon or something else. That’s unfortunate, though, as Desert Perpetual is one of the more fun raids in the game.

Desert Perpetual is a unique raid in that it’s not linear. For the first three encounters of the raid, you get to choose the order in which you face them. This is new to Destiny, and while we unfortunately won’t get to see any more raids (at least not until a new game, maybe) it’s cool that Bungie tried it. I don’t think it’s the optimal way to do a raid, as the structure is important for the overall experience, but having it once was cool.

The real problem with Desert Perpetual is that nobody plays it really. It’s a cool raid, but there are far easier, less time consuming ways to get good loot.

10. Leviathan

Location: Nessus

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.

9. Root of Nightmares

• Required Expansion: Lightfall
• Location: Neomuna

Root of Nightmares is by far the easiest of the more recent raids. It’s so easy, in fact, that I’m pretty sure it’s the reason that each subsequent raid is so hard. Bungie didn’t want to hear anymore complaining about easy raids, and they made sure of that. Root of Nightmares is a raid that’s more about consistency than anything. You don’t need people with the highest DPS or that know every single detail of the raid, you just need someone who knows how to clear ads. If your goal is to play a raid while getting carried through and doing nothing, this is the best one for you.

But it’s not bad because of this low difficulty. I actually think it’s good that Bungie went back to an easier design philosophy here. It’s not “easy” in that you do actually still have to try. You can’t just breeze past everything, as the final boss especially requires some serious though.

The aesthetic of this raid, as well as its more casual nature, makes it stand out to me. I had fun playing this raid, even on day 1. Was it as hard as most people want a raid to be? No. Not at all. But it’s still fun, and that’s equally as important in my opinion.

8. Scourge of the Past

Location: The Last City, Earth 

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.

7. Crota’s End

• Required Expansion: None
• Location: Hellmouth (in Destiny 1)

Crota’s End was the last raid from Destiny 1 to be brought to Destiny 2, and for good reason. It’s not a bad raid, but it just feels more like a dungeon in many ways than a raid. It feels like when Bungie made Crota’s End they weren’t sure if all raids were supposed to feel like VOG, so they tried something new. I think it worked overall in hindsight, as Crota’s End stands out as one of the more unique experiences–somewhere between dungeon and raid.

The actual experience of fighting Crota in Destiny 2 is just as memorable as it was in Destiny 1. There were several changes made to Crota’s End to make it feel more complete, and because of that I’d say the D2 version is better. The journey throughout the raid to fight Crota is great, and the dark aesthetic is just as eerie as I remember it too.

I think Crota’s End gets a bit too much disrespect sometimes, as it’s a lot more fun than it gets credit for. Plus it has a really fun Exotic weapon, which is important for all raids.

6. Vow of the Disciple

• Required Expansion: The Witch Queen
• Location: Savathun’s Throne World

Vow is easily one of Destiny 2’s more interesting raids. It doesn’t have any unique features that other raids don’t have, but it is one of the most intense raids you can experience. From its first encounter which splits everyone up into small groups to the final encounter that I’m still not sure if I 100% understand if I’m being honest, VOW is intense and rewarding all the way through.

No specific encounter stands out in my memory as the best, nor any the worst. It’s just a really consistently tough and fun raid all the way through. The lore behind this raid really stands out to me though, as it came at one of Destiny 2’s best points (The Witch Queen era) when the writing was truly firing on all cylinders.

VOW is a must-play raid for longtime Destiny 2 fans, as it brings everything together in a nice way. It’s extremely consistent, has lots of good rewards, and the final boss is an experience that every Destiny player should have.

5. Vault of Glass

• Required Expansion: None
• Location: Venus (in Destiny 1)

Vault of Glass will always have a special place in my heart. It was the first raid ever introduced to the first Destiny, and it was the first raid from Destiny 1 to be brought over into Destiny 2. If you haven’t played a raid before, there is no better place to start than where everyone started–the Vault of Glass.

In 2026, VOG is an easy raid. In fact, it’s almost too easy. But I’m not holding that against it, because it was the first. VOG is perfect for teaching someone how to do a raid, as it has every raid feature from hidden passages, platforming sections, boss fights, and more. There’s nothing about raids you won’t experience in VOG.

What makes VOG so special other than being the first raid is that it remains fun. I’ve never done a VOG run and had a bad time (except for when it was the fireteam’s fault). The Atheon boss fight and all of its time-bending mechanics are still just as fun as they were over a decade ago, and the same can be said for everything else VOG has to offer.

4. Deep Stone Crypt

• Location: Europa 
• Required Expansion: Beyond Light

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.

1. Garden of Salvation

• Location: The Black Garden (Nessus)
• Required Expansion: None (Originally Shadowkeep)

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 puzzle-solving mechanic 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 gun-play 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.