Last night, the World First of the Kingsfall raid started in Destiny 2. The best Guardians of the loot shooter gathered at 7:00 PM under the watchful eyes of Bungie. They all wanted to take down Oryx as the first team once again. We will tell you who was ahead and how close the race was.
What raid race is this about? Yesterday, the legendary “Kingsfall” raid returned to Destiny 2. Bungie revealed it in the big showcase as the next legacy raid that is allowed to leave the content vault.
Although the start date was not optimal with a Friday at 7:00 PM, many well-known Destiny players gathered nonetheless. They wanted to take on the King again in the more challenging competition mode of the World First race.
What is the competition mode again?
In the competition mode, all players are matched to a level so that the only way to win is through good team coordination.
Even a higher power level brings no advantage, as each player is capped at a maximum of 1560 power due to Bungie’s guidelines. The special challenge of the raid lies in mastering the raid with 20 power levels too little. And this is something that even experienced players feel significantly. Shots from enemies hit harder and you can withstand less damage.
However, those who manage to master both the raid and all challenge triumphs under these conditions win the prestigious race for the Day One competition. In this case, it’s like the 2nd Worlds First, as Kingsfall was first completed in 2014.
Traditionally, Bungie holds a Day One race for the launch of every new raid in Destiny 2. This applies to both new paid and free legacy raids.
How long did the raid last? Although the Kingsfall raid has several encounters, the raid race, including all challenges, was already decided after 5 hours.
For comparison:
- In the “Garden of Salvation” in 2019, the final boss fell after 6 hours and 13 minutes.
- The Day One raid in 2021 for the “Vault of Glass” succeeded in 1 hour and 43 minutes.
- And in the last Witch Queen raid “The Oryx’s Promise”, which took place in March 2022, it took 7 hours and 14 minutes.
Two of these records were set by the well-known and elite Destiny 2 clan “Elysium” – and that consecutively.
Only a few minutes after midnight, the leading team “Elysium” returned to orbit after successfully completing the final challenge. Shortly thereafter, Bungie announced on Twitter: “We have reports of the first World First completion of Destiny 2 King’s Fall.”
After examining whether everything was above board, the result was confirmed.
- The team from clan “Elysium” wins the World First title for the Kingsfall raid for the third time in a row. Their fireteam of Cruz, Kyros, VileFate, Moople, Quazz, and Saltagreppo completed the raid in exactly 5 hours.
How close was the race? The fight for the PvE victory was a hard neck-and-neck race between the clans “Math Class” with Datto, “Elysium” with Saltagreppo, “UnparalleIed” with All-The-Players, as well as Panora from “Silimar”.
Elysium brought a lot of confidence from their previous victories. However, they could only catch up to the other teams around 10:35 PM.
All_The_Players from “Unparalleled” initially led them with a completion after just 20 minutes in the Totem challenge. And Datto was also keeping pace and was determined to finally break his personal curse in 2022.
However, he and his team experienced a setback in the fight against Oryx’s daughters. While they were able to do good damage with Divinity and several linear fusion rifles, they messed up the “Rage is Near” phase of the final boss.
The Golgoroth encounter was one of the most challenging encounters in the Kingsfall raid for many teams.
At the end of the raid race, it was clear that the fast sprints at the beginning of the Kingsfall raid had cost the initially leading teams a lot of concentration. Elysium, on the other hand, demonstrated its solid raid marathon skills. This ensured that they still had enough stamina left, especially towards the end.
Another tactic used by several teams was to mute the microphones in the livestream repeatedly. Especially when mechanics or strategies were being discussed. The “competition” should not receive any advantage if fans jumped from chat to chat to give their favorite team the latest information.
This heightened the tension: Even before the raid race, there were a few messages about restricted equipment.
- Bungie had to rein in several exotics and items before the raid started. Above all, a large number of heavy grenade launchers and several exotics.
- Including the new auto rifle “Quicksilver Storm”, which could only be obtained through the pre-order of the €99.99 annual pass edition of Lightfall.
- In addition, there were issues with durability when switching to the new Arc abilities that also needed investigation.
It felt like half of the gear and options in Destiny 2 were somehow restricted, causing players like KackisHD to get slightly sweaty palms just days before the start of the new raid.
Kingsfall raid starts with only minor issues: Shortly after the start gun, the next difficulties arose. Some teams had access issues or could not join their deployment team.
This immediately brought to mind the disaster of the “Oryx’s Promise” raid, which also started rather bumpy and caused massive problems throughout the evening. However, Bungie reacted with a quick background maintenance that apparently resolved the issues promptly.
What has changed in the raid? Many players knew the original Kingsfall raid from Destiny 1, including its Dreadnought location and the mechanics. Thus, Bungie slightly altered the Totem encounter, and visually, a lot has changed in the raid as well.
When the first teams arrived at Oryx, the final boss of the raid, his immense size was once again impressive. Bungie also gave him a fresh facelift, removing his yellow tint and making him look better than ever before.
The difference was well illustrated by two comparison images from DestinyTracker.
On Twitch, the Kingsfall raid race was a hit
Those who did not participate could also follow the exciting raid race on Twitch. The event brought Destiny 2 third place with 246,000 concurrent viewers behind the streams of Just Chatting and League of Legends.
Alone at Datto’s, over 96,000 viewers tuned in last night for the race for World First. This was just slightly more than Sweatcicle and Gladd (via twitchtracker.com).
And how did the German content creators fare? Of course, our German Destiny 2 content creators were also part of the race. This included the lore expert AndyEdition with his clan Eclipse, as well as Nexxoss Gaming and Hey_iPhil.
They delivered solid performance with their teams and provided great entertainment for the German audience during the Kingsfall raid. In the end, however, they could not beat the top time of the elite clan Elysium.
For example, AndyEdition reached 51st place in the regular, first raid run and 202nd place in the challenge mode.
When does the competition mode end? Tonight at 7:00 PM, the competition mode for the Kingsfall raid ends. The raid will still be free to play for everyone, but the enemies will not be as strong.
How did you experience the evening? Did you pay the King a visit yourself or did the mechanics kill you beforehand? What do you think about Elysium winning another World Championship belt with this third victory? Please leave us your comment here at MeinMMO.
If you are less involved in the PvE endgame, you might be interested in the new pirate puzzle of the fresh Season 18 in Destiny 2 with “Cryptic Quatrains”.
