Scourge of the Past remains a beloved raid for longtime Destiny 2 players. Introduced to the game in December 7, 2018, the raid was put on sunset last November 10, 2020. While it is on sunset, it is unavailable from current play. However, Destiny 2’s sunset mechanism does not completely remove the content. It is generally established as a means to introduce new content or modify older content for special occasions or for reworking. Should Scourge of the Past make a comeback in the future, you will find this to be the most complete guide to complete the objectives and reap the high-end rewards!
The Basics
Ever since it was introduced in Black Armory, Scourge of the Past has been a consistent raid favorite. Veterans and newer players of Destiny 2 like it for its fairly straightforward mechanics. The action and combat involved is fast-paced and the RNG rewards are better than the average. While it is not an overly difficult raid to run, it does demand sufficient preparation and attention. The following are recommended basic points in getting prepared for the raid.
Botza District - Holomap
Guardians will be dropped off in the Kell’s Scourge part of The Last City. It is a night mission on a large urban setting in the Botza District. The layout can be slightly daunting for new players. The key is remembering landmarks that identify the position of objectives. There are 4 distinct buildings for this raid:
A glowing red skyscraper (East) aka the Schnell Building with a bunny logo A green hued plaza (visible to the left at the start of the raid) Just past the plaza, a circular building (West) Radio Tower (North)
Remembering these landmarks will help you and your team greatly in navigating and reorienting your location. Your first objective to start the encounter is to kill the Berserker nearest you on the roof, in order to acquire a Radiant battery. This Berserker and later ones require two Guardians to hit the two weak points: one on its front and one other at the back. These weak points are visible once a Guardian is in melee range and the immunity shield is up. This has to be done quickly. Both points must be hit simultaneously, as the immunity shield also indicates the Berserker is charging its attack. This attack can literally one shot any Guardian it hits. The player that picks up a Radiant battery will need to plug it into an energy station. Doing this applies the Ionized debuff (preventing the player from picking up another Radiant battery for 2 minutes). Placing the Radiant battery in the map generator reveals the holomap (which is the effective start of the raid encounter). Note that there is a timer on the Fallen tech that transmits the map. If the timer runs out, the resulting explosion wipes the team. The designated map reader should stay at the holomap and direct hunting for the Berserkers and the energy stations. The map reader should look out for the biggest glowing red dot on the map, which indicates the Berserker with the two necessary Radiant batteries. This Berserker, that has a circular shape over its head, always drops a battery for the map and a battery for one of the generators. There will be an indicator with dots when batteries are picked up that the map reader can see from the holomap. The number of dots designates which energy station it needs to go to. Plugging a Radiant battery to the wrong energy station or the timer running out leads to an explosion. The map reader should coordinate which part of the map the battery carrier should head off to. The generators will have Servitor guards. If any Servitor guards are present, the generator will maintain a shield preventing the battery from being plugged in. This process needs to be repeated at least 4 times to fully charge the energy stations and finish this first encounter of the raid and open the next encounter in the Sewers.
Sewer Scourge – Ablazed Glory
Your entrance to the sewer depends on where you finished the previous encounter in Botza District. You will be using your Sparrows to navigate the maze-like passageways. But you cannot be complacent here as there is an Ablazed Glory chasing after the team. This Servitor is indestructible and relentless. If it catches up to a Guardian, it is an instant kill. In addition, there will be obstacles and Fallen tech to avoid. The goal is to reach the room in the middle of the maze to exit. At least 2 Guardians are needed to open and close the doors at the start and end of the encounter. The maze itself is fairly complicated and the speed you will be going can make it confusing, unless you have the entire area memorized. Fortunately, there is provided by u/MrEezeh, as shown below: This map indicates the fastest route from each starting point towards the exit. Starting the map encounter requires 2 Guardians to melee the buttons, releasing the Ablazed Glory. Once this is done, activate your Sparrows and ride out the door, through the rotating holes. Keep going and taking control of your Sparrows movement. If your Sparrow gets damaged too much, it is better to deactivate it and spawn a new one. Perks that improve this refresh speed would help. Once you get to the end, there will once again be 2 buttons that require meleeing to activate. If this is accomplished, the Ablazed Glory Servitor will be locked behind the door. There will be pipes heading to the pillar room to exit into the next stage of the raid.
Secret Ablaze Glory Chest
One thing to note is that this stage has an optional reward. To acquire it, your fire team will need to find all 8 checkpoints in the sewer. Each checkpoint has a switch to activate. You will know this when it flashes and lights up green. Note that only one Guardian needs to survive to the end if going for the secret chest. The locations of each checkpoint switch are as follows:
At the starting area, there will be one switch on the lower floor. Do not go up the first ramp. The next two switches are in close proximity to each other. On the 2nd ramp, there is one switch on the top level and one on the bottom level. The next two are also in the same room. The right switch is at the cliffs where you might fall off, so be careful. The other switch is the left side of a small wall. Another 2 switches will be in the next room with two cliffs on both sides. There will be Fallen shooting from these sides. The last switch is the 3rd room on a cliff. It will be after the Fallen where the switch is located on the right side
After all checkpoints are activated, “a door is open somewhere” message will activate. Head to the room where you close the door on the Servitor on a regular run. But you will do things slightly differently. Instead of hitting the switch, continue driving to the left side, head to the ramp and there will be a room that will consist of platforms. Surviving Guardians can jump up these platforms. Jump to the top-most level and wait for the Servitor to speed past you. When the Servitor is gone, there will be an opening at the top level. The secret chest will spawn! You can find a unique Sparrow in this chest, so it can certainly be worth the effort.
Insurrection Prime – Part 1
This is the first phase of fighting the raid boss Insurrection Prime. This first part details how to release the Insurrection Prime raid boss. The fire team will need to be divided into two groups. The ground level team will deal with clearing Servitors while the underground team works on getting the mechanism to run. Ground Team – The Guardians assigned to the ground level will be clearing out enemies, which comprise large armadas of Shanks. These Shanks are equipped with elemental shields. The first wave will have Void elemental shields, the second will have Arc, and the final wave will have Solar. Be prepared with varying elemental weapons to quickly destroy these shields. Borealis and Hard Light are good choices, as these weapons can switch their elemental properties. The ground team must make sure that none of the Shanks make it to the underground team. Otherwise, these buggers will cause a lot of headaches. Be on the lookout for Vandals sniping from the rooftops as well, so at least one sniper should be on the ground team. Besides these Shanks, there will be a Major Servitor each wave. These have high resistance to all elements and must be destroyed in order to generate the buffs for the underground team. Stay alert for callouts from the underground team as to the status of their buffs. Underground Team – The underground team will be looking for specific buffs underground. These buffs will be represented by a triangle, square, or circle at their designated generators. There should be at least 3 members of the underground team. Be careful not to get the red colored corruption buff as this will kill the Guardian. Callout when you melee attack the generator to acquire the buff. Note that all three of the underground team must have the first buff. This will signal the ground team to work on generating the next buff for the underground team by killing the Major Servitor. Keep doing this until all three members of the underground team have 2x the same buff. Take note not to touch another Guardian carrying a buff. If you get too close, they will be tethered to each other, dealing continuous damage. When all the members of the underground team have the 2x buff, callout to the ground team to destroy the second Servitor. They must then converge to the area where the tanks will spawn. This is at the very top of the map. Once the buffs from the underground team are injected into the consoles, 3 tanks will spawn. This starts the damage dealing phase vs. Insurrection Prime.
Damage Phase I
These tanks can be piloted by the underground team. The ground team will have to dodge the missile attack and the tanks need to shoot at the mass in the center of the arena. Use the missiles as well, as these do more damage. During this time, the raid boss will unleash missile airstrikes that target the area. To keep the tanks relatively safe, set up at the end of the roads and not being close together. This allows the players to see the red circle where the missiles drop. Although damage cannot be completely avoided, the tanks can survive longer if you do a back and forth motion, keeping the Guardian from direct hits. Keep attacking with missiles and shells. A good salvo from all 3 tanks should significantly bring the Insurrection Prime’s health to 2/3 to 3/4 of the maximum. Note that if the team fails to deal enough damage to reach the first health threshold of Insurrection Prime, it will wipe out the team and start the raid from the beginning. Once the tanks are destroyed, repeat the process for the underground and ground teams. Winning requires destroying all 4 arms that keep Insurrection Prime in place. Accomplish this and there will be a chest waiting at the back of the arena. However, there is a second phase to fighting Insurrection Prime!
Insurrection Prime – Part 2
Similar to the first part of the raid in Botza District, you will need to use a holomap and direct locating and placement of Radiant batteries in energy stations. The first Berserker carries the battery for the holomap. This Berserker is not hard to find, as it would be right in front of your team as you spawn. This phase requires at least one map reader that can deal with Servitors and hit Whisper shots. An alternative would be for one map reader and one guard, but this may affect the required DPS for fighting Insurrection Prime. A designated sniper would be ideal. The rest of the fire team will be running. Remember that the Berserker requires being hit in 2 weak points at the front and at the back. Once destroyed, place the battery into the map console. This will awaken Insurrection Prime, which will emerge from the center silo.
Map Reader
Again, the map reader will be calling out the location of the Berserkers with the 2 Radiant batteries on the map. This time, the batteries will have 1 to 3 dots to indicate which charging station they must be placed in. The locations are not complicated, there being only three. So the Map Reader just needs to call out whether the battery goes to the top, left, or right charging stations. After 4 batteries are loaded, the tank will spawn. This sounds easy enough, but there is a second task. The map reader and/or sniper will need to attack the shield generators on Insurrection Prime. The designated sniper can perch at the second floor of the far right building. This gives the best vantage point. There are 6 shield generators (one on each shoulder, one on each shoulder blade, and two on the knees) and this must be done before the tank spawns, so bring high damage and long distance weapons like Whisper of the Worm. And, finally, the map room will spawn Servitors as soon as a Berserker is destroyed. One of these Servitors can scramble the holomap, so deal with it as fast as possible!
Sniper
On the other hand, the sniper will also be dealing with Vandals that spawn at all the rooftops (including their nest). There is a blind spot at the corner of the sniper’s room. Use this to hide from the other Vandal’s sniping you and focus on the Vandal in the same room. Aim for the heads to destroy them as fast as possible, as these Vandals can easily dispatch the runner team with a few well-placed shots. The map reader and/or the guard should bring a good shotgun to help clear the room quickly; the sniper should have a fairly good medium range and backup sniper rifle (if the primary runs out of ammo too quickly).
Runners
Runners will need to be alert to getting the callouts from the map reader. They should also be alert in calling out to the map reader and sniper when the Berserker is near destruction. This is so the map reader and sniper can prepare for the waves of Servitors and Vandals coming their way. Runners will also be dealing with Marauders. Thus, two members of the fire team should focus on the Berserker while the rest deal with the Marauders. It would help if the runner team splits into 2 units, one for Battery 1 and the other for Battery 2. Once one Berserker is brought down, the Battery 1 team heads off to charge the station. Battery 2 team stays to deal with the next Berserker. The Runners must keep doing this until the charging station receives 4 batteries. This spawns the Drake tank. Designate a specific driver for the Drake Tank. The Drake tank driver should then head to the top of the map and use the tank. The rest should regroup to the holomap. The Drake tank should call out after firing at Insurrection Prime. This stuns the raid boss and exposes its cockpit (which looks like an eyeball or a large Servitor). The tank driver should head back down to the holomap room, but not before parking the tank a bit of a distance away. The damage dealing team should hit Insurrection Prime from long range with their best distance weapons. Whisper of the Worm is ideal for this to proc White Nail. The reload effect will allow your team to deal massive damage in a short amount of time. After this initial barrage, Insurrection Prime will apply a debuff to all members of the fire team. 1 out of 3 different debuffs will be applied to 2 members: Angular, Continuous, and Parallel. The good news is Guardians with the same debuff and close together will deal increased damage. The bad news is those with different debuffs that are in close proximity will slowly kill each other. The strategy here is everyone keeping a good distance away from each other and once the debuff is applied, to go to their matching team member. They should then position themselves in the best spots in the holomap area to snipe Insurrection Prime. The best locations for each buff are:
Angular – Front left window Continuous – Raised Platform behind the holomap Parallel – Right window
As soon as you are in position, start shooting. The raid boss will shortly unleash another debuff pulse. Keep your eye out so you can react accordingly to readjust your position and partnering. Insurrection Prime will do this a third time. In both the second and third debuff instances, the damage will increase immensely. However, it’s likely that it will survive these 3 stages. At the end of the 3rd debuffs duration, your team will have to do this phase from the top all over again. Keep doing this pattern until the raid boss’s health drops to zero. Insurrection Prime will leave a Raid chest at the area where it was docked. Congratulations!
The Future?
Destiny 2’s Scourge of the Past is currently on sunset status, but it will likely return during special events. There might be some reworks to the raid mechanics at that point too, to line up with the current Power Levels of Guardians in the game, although we think that most of the established patterns will remain intact. Keep your eye out for updates here until then!
