Destiny 2: Season of the Witch Activities, Loot Pool, and Deck of Cards

Bungie via HGG

Human Made

Penned by Brett Moss

I've been playing video games pretty much nonstop ever since I got my first 360. I love arena shooters, MMOs, and MOBAs, but I'll pretty much try any kind of game.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Season of the Witch brings with it another round of Hive-inspired challenges and stories, all leading up to the Final Shape expansion and its long-term implications. Will we play with fire again and get tricked by yet more Hive gods? Or will we somehow manage to work together with Savathun (again)? We’ll just have to wait and find out for now, but what we can be more certain about are the seasonal activities. In this article, we’ll take a look at the loot pool for both seasonal activities, how to play those activities, and the new Deck of Cards mechanic that impacts them both!

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Seasonal Activities Loot Pool

Here’s a quick rundown of the various forms of loot you’ll be able to find in the two seasonal activities during Season of the Witch!

• All seasonal weapons from Season of the Witch.
• Veiled Tithe armor set.
• Hive Offerings (used in Altars of Summoning)
• Opaque Cards (used at the Lectern of Divination for Major and Minor Arcana Cards)

What are the Season of the Witch Activities?

Season of the Witch (Season 22) has two unique seasonal activities. However, instead of the usual 6-player and 3-player activities, this season we have two 3-player ones. The first, Savathun’s Spire, is more chaotic and simple to play. It’s also more linear, with the exception of its randomly-generated level objectives, based around the Light subclasses. 

The other activity, Altars of Summoning, allows you more agency in determining how you want to approach it. You can make an offering of one of three tiers, with the third being the most difficult. So you can go for the hardest and quickest route, or you can go the simple way and take your time.

How to Play Savathun’s Spire

Savathun’s Spire consists of a series of rooms/stages with randomized enemy types and objectives. The order of events in the activity are somewhat random, but they consist of the same types of puzzles/objectives. There are two key parts to each section of Savathun’s Spire: Crystals and Relic Platforms.

Types of Crystals in Savathun’s Spire

• Solar Crystals: Interact with them to pick them up and carry them to a deposit location, which will be indicated on your HUD. Be careful, though, as Solar Crystals burn you as you hold them. You might need to drop them, heal a bit, then continue on if you take too long.
• Void Crystals: Void Crystals need to be broken, but they’re protected by a bubble shield. Since you can’t shoot through these shields, you’ll have to walk into them and melee the crystals to break them.
• Arc Crystals: Instead of breaking or depositing Arc Crystals, you just need to use them to essentially chain energy around the room. Just melee any charged Arc Crystal (they’ll be glowing a lightning blue), then go melee other uncharged Crystals. Once they’re all charged, you’ll be able to progress!

Relic Platforms

In addition to the Crystals, you’ll also need to be aware of the various Relic Platforms you’ll need to charge up. To charge these platforms, just stand on them like with any large glowing circle in Destiny. Once they’re charged, they’ll spawn a relic which you can use to fight enemies. These relics make fighting waves of strong and weak enemies a breeze, so it’s definitely a good incentive.

Savathun’s Spire Walkthrough and Secret Chests

There is a somewhat random nature to the stages in Savathun’s Spire, but there are some patterns to them. Keep in mind that this might change in future weeks, as we never know how these missions will change throughout the season.

The first part of Savathun’s Spire will have you running around killing waves of powerful enemies. You’ll also need to complete objectives like interacting with all of the Crystals or charging up Relic Platforms. Once you complete a few cycles, you’ll finish the first area and be able to take a gravity lift up to the next part.

Next is the “Ascend the Spire” portion. This is essentially a simple jumping puzzle, but there is a secret chest along the way. 

Savathun’s Spire Secret Chest #1

• The secret chest puzzles in Savathun’s Spire require you to shoot glowing runes with a weapon type matching the color they show. 
• The first secret chest is located in the short running/jumping section after you get off the gravity lift here. Use a Void weapon to shoot the first two runes, and a Solar weapon on the last. 
• The first rune is located on a statue right after you get off the gravity lift. The second can be found just up the path ahead, right after the alternating platforms you can take upwards. Look for the sealed doorway and shoot the rune above it. Then, turn around and look beneath the platform to find the last rune. Use a Solar weapon to shoot it, then go through the now-unsealed doorway by the second rune to find the secret chest.

Continue on into the “Disrupt the Ritual” section.  Once you “invoke Hive magic” again, you’ll drop down into another area filled with enemies. This part is fairly straightforward, as all you have to do is defeat mini-bosses and Hive Guardians until you get an objective (Crystals or Relic Plates). Once you complete your objective, fight off more enemies until it’s time to do it all over again. After about three cycles of this, you’ll be finished!

Savathun’s Spire Hive Door Puzzle

The “Traverse the Labyrinth” section has you take note of a sequence of Hive symbols before going into the matching doorway. As you progress through the jumping puzzle, don’t forget the Hive symbols. Whenever you see those doors with symbols above them, go through the one that matches your symbols. It’s a really, really simple puzzle, as long as you don’t forget the correct sequence. Once you get to the top, stop before the entrance into the final boss fight (you’ll be able to see the raid banner circle). Here’s where you can find the second secret chest.

Savathun’s Spire Secret Chest #2

• Starting from the doorway to the final section, face the platforms and look at the runes beneath them. They need to be shot in the following order, with the first plate by the doorway being number 1 and the furthest being number 4. First, third, second, fourth. The first and third are Void runes, and the second and fourth are Solar runes. 
• Once you do this, you’ll be able to grab your loot from the chest, which spawns right in front of the doorway.

Final Boss Fight

With your secret loot in-hand, grab the Rally Banner and get ready for the last part of Savathun’s Spire. There are a couple versions of this encounter you can get, but they’re fairly similar. Whether your boss is a single enemy or several wizards, just damage them and keep clearing out the weaker enemies as they spawn.

Around the halfway point, the boss(es) will become immune. You’ll need to complete a random objective to continue, but they’ll be the same as earlier ones were. The trickiest part of this encounter is staying alive while running around completing objectives, so bring a good add-clear or survivability build.

Once the boss is vulnerable again, go all out with DPS and finish off the activity. Then you’ll be able to get some solid loot and probably do it all over again for more weapon patterns.

How to Play Altars of Summoning

Altars of Summoning is also fairly simple, but your objectives are different. Pay attention to the progress bar on the left side of your screen. Each time you complete an offering, you make progress towards completing the bar. Once you do that, you’ll be able to “tithe an offering” and claim your loot. Be aware of the Crystals mechanic from Savathun’s Spire, and make sure you understand how the different tiers work.

Offering Tiers

In Altars of Summoning, you can make offerings at various altars. These offerings determine what enemies spawn, how much progress you make, and how your overall experience will be. The lowest tier of offering will grant minimal progress, but it’ll be much easier. The hardest difficulty grants a lot of progress, but can be incredibly hard to complete in time. Here are all three difficulties:

• Feeble Offering: The weakest offering, which grants the least progress. While it offers very little challenge, it will be quick and easy to complete.
• Robust Offering: The middle-tier offering. The enemies it spawns are difficult, but they’re manageable. If you don’t have full confidence in your fireteam, it’s better to go with this one than to fail a tier 3 attempt.
• Powerful Offering: The highest-tiered offering. It’s far more difficult to complete a Powerful Offering than any of the other ones, as even if you can survive the onslaught of enemies, you’ll barely have time to finish the objectives. Only go for this with good teams, especially if they’re non-matchmade. It’s very difficult, but you do get a ton of progress in return.

If you try to take on a higher difficulty than your team can handle, it’ll be very possible to fail the objective. If that happens, you’ll make very little progress and you’ll have to restart with a new offering. That’s why you don’t want to force Powerful Offerings every time, as it’s easier to make a little progress than none at all.

Traveling Between Altars

When the game prompts you to “travel between altars”, you’ll need to move towards your next objective. These areas are all largely the same, but they do require you to travel some distance to get there. Luckily, you can use your Sparrow to traverse these sections in Altars of Summoning. Just make sure not to fall off the map and it should be easy not to get lost on the way.

How to Complete Altars of Summoning

Completing a run of Altars of Summoning only requires you to fill up the progress bar on the left side of the screen. Once you’ve finished enough offerings to complete that bar, you’ll be able to claim your loot. You’re also free to leave the activity, but unlike almost every other activity, Altars of Summoning does not stop on its own. Instead, you can simply return to the offering altars and deposit another to start another run.

This ability to infinitely play the activity is unique to Altars of Summoning. You probably won’t find many matchmade teammates that stick around for round two, but it’s a great option for when you’re playing with a group. If you have a bunch of friends or a clan (or just an LFG group) that wants to farm, this is an easy activity to do so in.

Deck of Cards – What We Know So Far

The Deck of Whispers and its Opaque Cards are a new feature this season, tied to the two seasonal activities. Look for new additions to this mechanic for the first several weeks of the season as new content becomes available.

To access your cards and deck, head over to the seasonal addition to the H.E.L.M. in the south part of the destination. Walk through the portal (don’t jump or the game will glitch and won’t let you through) and go over to the Lectern of Divination. At the Lectern, you’ll be able to see all the available cards, including both Major Arcana and Minor Arcana cards. But to get those, you’ll need Opaque Cards.

To get Opaque Cards, just complete Season of the Witch activities (Savathun’s Spire or Altars of Summoning). Once you have some, exchange them at the Lectern of Divination for Major Arcana and Minor Arcana Cards.

Major Arcana Cards are first in the Lectern’s list, and you can notice them by their roman numerals. You need 5 Major Arcana cards to make a deck. These cards will be randomly selected before encounters in the seasonal activities, granting you unique bonuses. Once you have more than 5 Major Arcana cards, you’ll be able to switch out which ones you use. It seems that Major Arcana Cards are time-gated, so we won’t know their full power until further into the season. But it certainly seems like a fun idea that we’re excited to fully try out.

Minor Arcana Cards give more minor bonuses or materials. While not quite as valuable, they’re great sources of loot and can occasionally grant really strong bonuses like guaranteed weapon patterns or keys.

Join the High Ground

Thanks for reading through this article on the Season of the Witch activities! There’s a lot of great loot and new content to access this season, so we’re glad to help you make some sense of it all. Have fun grinding all this new loot, and as always, make sure to keep the high ground!