by in
What are Grandmaster Nightfalls?
Grandmaster Nightfalls or as many in the community refer to them “GMs”. These are the hardest possible difficulty of Nightfalls in the game. Most people consider them an end-game activity having a huge power level entry base on top of being ridiculously difficult.
The barrier to entry is usually 25 power level under the recommended which for this season comes out to 1595. This could be quite hard for new and/or solo players to achieve it. Thankfully, we’ve got plenty of time to complete all the GMs. Reaching that level should not be hard with enough time invested.
What makes Grandmaster Nightfalls so difficult?
The thing that makes Grandmaster Nightfalls so difficult has to be the power lockout. Regardless of how high you go, whether you’re 1595 or 1650 makes no difference. The GM will lock you at 1595. On top of that, everything is scaled normally, implying that, if your resilience is low and you decide against using resistance mods – you’re in for a bad time.
Playing slowly and far from the back is usually the preferred playstyle. This is sort of the opposite of the whole point of Arc 3.0. All in all, I still feel that some of the damaging supers in the game will be viable.
Why would you want to do Grandmaster Nightfalls?
There are 2 main reasons people go for Grandmasters and most of the time it’s not because it’s fun. The first reason is the Adept weapons. Adept weapons rule the scene and there’s a handful of ways to obtain said weapons, one of which is GM Nightfalls.
Every season usually has up to 2 new Adept gun versions to aim for. This season we’re seeing the long-awaited return of Mindbenders Ambition. If you’re newer to the game you might not understand the sheer polarity that brings to the table.
Back in the day before sunsetting happened, Mindbender’s ambition would be the bane of everyone’s existence in PvP. It was just too OP, with insane base stats, crazy range and perks to back it up.
The other one on the other hand didn’t see all that much play outside of a few specific situations despite it being in a really good archetype. That of course is Militia’s Birthright. To all of you saying ”oh but I loved using Militia’s, it was sooo goood” – it’s time to wake up. The gun was outclassed and was just meant to fill the Mountaintop-shaped hole left in the hearts of Destiny 2 players.
That being said, the reprised version launched this season looks promising. With new rolls and an Adept mod to be slapped on, it will surely see at least some use. That is if you ever decide to take the Forbearance out of your hands.
The second reason for doing Grandmaster Nightfalls is the seal and title. The Conqueror title, is pristine, elegant, powerful, and masterful. All this is guaranteed to be a huge flex to your friends, screaming: “I’ve done a couple of GMs in my lifetime”.
On top of being able to obtain the Conqueror title, you can also Gild it, to add even more flex on top of that. This is now the 6th season in a row where you can Gild it and after gilding the Title, depending on how many times you’ve done just that, the game will display a number next to the title.
Showing up with a hextuple Gilded Conqueror title is sure to draw in quite a few eyes. If that’s what you like then make sure you snag the title during this season of Grandmaster Nightfalls.
Which Nightfalls are Grandmaster this Season?
There are a total of 6 Grandmaster Nightfalls per season, and this season is no exception. All in all not the scariest assortment of GMs to choose from with there even being farming options this season.
The GMs are in order of rotation:
- The Glassway
- The Lightblade
- Fallen S.A.B.E.R.
- The Disgraced
- Exodus Crash
- The Devil’s Lair
It’s not great, but it’s not Birthplace, Proving Grounds, or any of the other trauma-inducing ones.
As a seasoned veteran and a quintuple Gilded Conqueror owner. I’ll be giving out some tips to help you get through these in the blink of an eye. This is going to be a very simple and short guide detailing some of the strategies used to make these GMs a breeze.
Fair warning before I start getting into it, I will be detailing some of the strategies used to make these encounters next to irrelevant, if that’s not what you want to go for, that’s perfectly fair. Anyone looking for a challenge and wanting to figure it out themselves should take the chance to do just that. That being said – let’s get into it.
The Glassway
The season in which the Glassway was released had this strike as its GM. It was a royal pain – so many ads, so many things to watch out for. On top of all that, it is a Vex strike and following Beyond Light that can only mean one thing, Wyverns.
No crit spots, a one-shotting projectile regardless of how much health or resistance you have, and a dash that does the same and makes it impossible for you to run away. The anti-fun mob everyone hates amped up to 100. This only makes it more satisfying once you beat them.
In terms of champion modifiers, there are Barriers and Overloads, for elemental shields we have Arc and Solar shields, and for the elemental burn we have Void. Not too bad, this already tells me a few things.
With the start of this season, there have been some new, intrinsic perks added to the game to make the whole experience far easier. One of these is intrinsic Overload on Thunderlord, which I feel will see a lot of play in this Nightfall with its insane clear potential. It also covers the Arc shields and makes for a really good option. An honorable mention would be Divinity which has been used for this Nightfall Strike since its release and covers both of the aforementioned points, leaving your heavy slot open.
We have some really great options for Anti Barrier as well, things like Scouts and Auto Rifles will always be good in this setting. They provide you with a lot of range so that you never have to approach the ads on your own.
You can go with an energy Scout to cover the shields along with the Anti Barriers. Something like Vision of Confluence, Staccato, or Trustee will fill this role perfectly. Alternatively, you can run a Kinetic Scout and pair it with a powerful special energy weapon. Things like Servant Leader, Hung Jury, or Night Watch will fill this role very well too.
In terms of subclasses for each class, it’s good to utilize the burn, but that’s not everything. Logically things like stealth, devour and overshields will do wonders for keeping you alive, but like I mentioned previously, that’s not going to stop the Wyverns.
Stuff like Stasis turrets on Warlocks, Gathering Storm for Hunters, and Thundercrash for Titans are all incredibly viable for these means as well. These will take care of the Wyverns quickly and are great to be paired with the protection from the Void. Outside of that, there’s always Well of Radiance.
For Glassway everything up to the boss room is a cakewalk for the most part. Sit far in the back, stun champs, clear enemies from afar, rinse, and repeat until you’re in the boss room.
Once in the boss room, you will need to take a couple of steps to ensure that you don’t get instantly killed by Wyverns. Start off by clearing the ads and champion in the boss room causing the encounter to start. As soon as you’ve done that you can run straight to the left alcove and use the entryways to funnel everything into a closed space where you can kill them.
It’s good to be careful with this, making sure that the Wyverns don’t walk in from other entrances as well. Once you’ve cleared the ads for each wave, the boss will spawn even more once you take out a certain amount of health, so make sure you’re not just blindly shooting the boss. You can manipulate the boss’s position by shooting him from one of the sides and quickly retreating back into the alcove.
There are two bosses, the smaller boss will spawn champions when low and the bigger boss will spawn Wyverns. The smaller one will walk into the alcove with you, thankfully he doesn’t do too much damage, regardless of which you should focus on making him go away as soon as possible.
Once you’ve done all of this, just keep doing exactly that and eventually, you’ll be in the clear and that should be all of Glassway.
That’s one down 5 more to go. I’m going to have to split these up into multiple parts, as there’s still a lot more to talk about. If you enjoyed the article and any of this fun to you I’d highly recommend experiencing it for yourself.
Think you’re up to the task, but you don’t have a team? We’ve got you covered, check out our Grandmaster Nightfall Sherpas and learn from the best. Read more about Destiny 2 on our blog!
Happy hunting Guardian!
