Come up against Brutiks Lightbane in Destiny 2’s latest The Witch Queen expansion? This tough Legendary boss is a pain to beat, but completing the campaign on this difficulty nets you plenty of worthy rewards such as double chest rewards per mission and a powerful gear set.
Brutiks is extremely aggressive and closes the space on you quickly. His censer-slam attack spits out a trail of fire which carries a surprisingly long way and his melee attack has what feels like an unreasonably long range – in our experience it was somehow able to connect with us even if we flew over his head, and if you do survive the initial hit, it can throw you into a wall and kill you with the collision damage.
On top of all this there are a ton of adds, which combined with Brutiks’s aggression means that staying still for too long is a death sentence. The problem with this is that the three outer chieftains each have a different elemental energy shield, and with the Match Game modifier that Legend difficulty imposes, this makes them extremely difficult to take down quickly.
The mechanics of this encounter will be familiar from the previous room. Brutiks is shielded, and to drop his shields you need to destroy the crystal floating above his head in the centre of the room. However, the crystal is also shielded. To drop that shield, you need to kill the Shimmering Chieftain that spawns in the centre of the room.
Once you remove the first third of Brutiks’s health, he’ll regain his shield. As you might expect, you need to repeat the trick of killing a Chieftain in order to kill a crystal – but now you need to do it three times. The boss room is a circle, with three smaller circular rooms at nine, twelve, and three o’clock positions. Inside each of these, you’ll find a Chieftain and a crystal to destroy. Complete all three and you can take off another third of Brutiks’s health. Repeat all three for a second time to remove his shield again and kill him for good.
How to beat Brutiks Lightbane
We relied heavily on Gjallarhorn to prevail. A single direct hit does enough damage to overwhelm the Shimmering Chieftains’ shields regardless of their element, so you can kill them quick and it’s brilliant at boss damage and add clear if you get overwhelmed. The problem is ammo, so equip rocket ammo finder, scavenger and reserve mods if you can.
If you don’t have Gjallarhorn, you could try running Arbalest to break those elemental shields. Otherwise, it’s pretty much mandatory to be able to deal damage in all three elements. If you can’t or don’t want to use Gjallarhorn or Arbalest, Witherhoard is a good Exotic choice – it can help a lot in thinning out the adds as there isn’t much space for them to run.
Burst damage is going to be your best bet for damaging the boss since you can’t stand still and DPS (unless maybe you’re a Warlock running Well of Radiance). Think grenade launchers and rocket launchers – chain reaction is a good perk to generate add-clearing secondary explosions, and auto-loading holster for more mobility and weapon uptime.
You’ll notice that the outer rooms begin with a Hive rune over their entrances. As long as this rune is in place, the boss can’t enter the room. The rune disappears once you destroy the crystal inside. It’s almost certain death to be trapped in these rooms with the boss, so don’t linger.
The centre of the arena is a circle and there’s a ring around that circle, with pillars providing scant cover between the centre and the outer rooms at nine, twelve, and one o’clock. Don’t forget about the six o’clock position; there’s a solid wall, providing much better cover and adds seldom seem to come down here. This is where you’ll find the closest thing to respite in the whole arena.
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If in doubt, move and stay alive. For more on The Witch Queen, here’s when to expect the Vow of the Disciple raid.