[Note: This article was first published earlier this month, but in honor of Trials of Osiris officially returning (after a delay), we've decided to share it again.]
The pinnacle of Destiny’s Crucible is on its way back: Trials of Osiris will hit The Taken King on Friday, October 16, and remain open through the following Monday. From year two gear and enticing new shaders and emblems to overhauled reward and matchmaking systems, Osiris is a new beast entirely. Here are some tips on getting the most out of your Trials passages and getting to the fabled Lighthouse.
Gear up
Like Iron Banner before it (three days before it, in this case), Trials of Osiris is level-dependent. Unlike standard Crucible, there is virtually no damage normalization, meaning your attack values and Light level will directly influence your damage output. But what does that mean in practice? Unfortunately for new players, it means 300 is the bar. TTK (time-to-kill, i.e. amount of time/bullets required to kill an enemy) corner cases will occur more frequently in Trials of Osiris due to its competitive nature. Everyone will be sporting the highest Light they can muster, and if you aren’t up to snuff you will feel the difference. An extra bullet can decide a match, and losing due to your gear will sting. You want your fireteam’s mean Light to be 300 or higher.
Once your Light is sorted out, you need to worry about specific weapons. Pick the primary weapon you’re most comfortable with (and expect lots of Hawkmoons) and ensure that every member of your team is using a rocket launcher as their heavy. Machine guns are good for Iron Banner because they can rack up kills, but in Osiris it all comes down to what wins. You’ll only have heavy ammo for one round, and all you need it to do is win that round. And rockets beat (or in the worst case, tie) machine guns every time.
Special weapons require a touch more strategy. Naturally, you also want to use what you’re comfortable with. But it’s just as important to ensure flexibility in your approach. Although fusion rifles are a valid choice after weapon tuning 2.0, I’ll keep things simple with shotguns and sniper rifles, representing short- and long-range tactics, respectively. In essence, you want two of one and one of the other between your three fighters. Equip two shotguns and a sniper if you want to rush the opponent, and the opposite if you want to fight from a distance. Refine your approach, but keep the reverse on backup. Always inspect your opponents before the match starts to counter their loadouts (i.e. use shotguns and take cover against an all-sniper team).
Collecting special ammo is also integral to a fair fight. If you find the eye of the storm during a match, share a box with your teammates. Also be sure to run to the nearest box after you drop the final opponent; you’ll have a few precious seconds to stock up before the next round begins. If you’re really evil (like me and my teammates) you can even let one opponent live, provided you have his teammates’ Ghosts guarded and him cornered, so that at least one member—usually the best sniper—can clean the map of special. The latter is a particularly high-risk, high-reward and admittedly somewhat cocky approach, but it definitely works.
Image via DestinyTracker
If you are that sniper, be sure to use a high-impact model—something that can kill on head through a res-shield. This unlocks the Destiny equivalent of Super Smash Bros. “edge guarding”: res guarding, or killing revived opponents through their shield before they even get to move. It’s a nasty tactic, and one of my personal favorites. The 1000-Yard Stare sold by the Vanguard Quartermaster in the Tower is an excellent choice for res guarding.
Armor selection often comes down to strategies unique to each class and subclass, but there is one constant to consider: quick-revive (QR). The Warlock’s Light Beyond Nemesis helmet, along with the Titan and Hunter’s Crests of Alpha Lupi, provide an invaluable boost to revive times—a roughly 300 percent boost.
No matter how good you are, you are going to die in Trials, and you want to get back up as soon as possible. So ensure that two, and only two, of your fireteam members are wearing QR gear. This ensures that, no matter who’s down, QR will come into play, as the effect augments received and applied revive times. Trust me, that extra second and hastened res-shield can decide games. However, you don’t want to stack QR due to severe diminishing returns, so it’s best to let the third player equip a more offensive Exotic.
Stick together
You know what sucks? Fighting two people by yourself. You want that to happen to your enemies as frequently as possible, so stay close and focus fire. It’s such an obvious, basic rule, yet I can’t tell you how many Trials rounds I’ve won because the opposing team was a bunch of “heroes” that insisted on doing everything alone. Of course, you’re also going to want to prevent being outgunned yourself, so retreat from unfair encounters.
This leads us nicely into another key part of Trials: flanking. In rare situations, it’s best to have one member—and only one—split off and hit the enemy team from behind. This maneuver requires three things: 1) a firm grasp of the location of all three enemy members, 2) the ability to bait the enemy team using radar locations, and 3) a high level of skill from the flanking member, the ace. You don’t want anyone to take unnecessary risks unless you’re sure they can get results.
It’s important to keep your flanks flexible. If things go awry, as they often do, you want to be able to regroup quickly. This is why there should never be more than one person by themselves. If all three split up and one goes down, the other two will likely get picked off by the time they regroup, let alone revive their fallen member. But if the loner goes down, the remaining pair can more easily regroup on his Ghost. The reverse is true as well: if you pick off a lone enemy, or any enemy for that matter, get to their Ghost and guard it. You want them to stay down.
Iron Banner is all about having a plan. Trials of Osiris is all about knowing how to recover when your plan inevitably goes horribly wrong. Communication is key here, which is why I only advise playing Trials of Osiris with trusted friends. You need to call out enemy locations, current health levels, when you kill an enemy, and plenty more. Shout out every and any detail. Your team, and your score card, will benefit from it.
Know the timing
There are three pivotal moments in every round of Trials. The first is the most obvious: the first fight. This is where you learn how your opponent plays—how they attack, what areas of the map they like and so on. Now, appearances aren’t everything, but they are everything at first. Use what you learn in the first round to modify your strategy in the second, but don’t get stuck in your ways. Stay on your feet and match your enemy’s movements.
The next shift comes when one team wins three rounds. On the fourth round, heavy ammo will spawn. There are two few ways to approach this round. If you’re confident in your offense, you can rush the heavy near the enemy’s spawn and rout them before the ammo even comes into play. If you prefer a rocket fight (because you’d better be using rockets, remember), don’t just huddle around your heavy. The enemy could rush you too, you know. Spread out around your heavy to create a web of radar blips, and only regroup when it’s time to grab ammo. Immediately after, break the rules, pull a Scooby-Doo! and split up. They’re using rockets too, and you don’t want them getting any double kills. And never, under any circumstances, use your Super during a heavy round. You’re just going to die.
The third and most important moment is the late-game Super exchange, the moment where everyone cashes in their most powerful abilities in the hopes of running away with a round or the entire game. This is where team composition comes into play: Sun Breaker Titans and Gunslinger Hunters can solo a round using their Hammer of Sol and Golden Gun, respectively. This is a potent, often necessary finisher when you have four wins. Sunsinger Warlocks can resurrect themselves and immediately revive nearby teammates, effectively turning a match on its head. And Striker Titans can Fist of Havoc nearly any Super out of existence.
Supers are the best abilities in the Crucible, and the small-group tactics of Trials of Osiris’ Elimination play only compounds their importance. You need to know when to use your Super, and let your team know when you plan to. You also need to monitor your opponent’s Super levels. The easiest way to gauge enemy Supers is to use your own, naturally generating Super bar as a baseline and then factor in each player’s total kills. Kills grant Super energy, so if one player is landing headshot after headshot, be wary. But when round four comes around, assume everyone has their Super, and fight cautiously.
Know the rules
As I said, Trials of Osiris has changed quite a lot. For starters, it now matches teams based on record. In other words, if you have six wins, you’re probably going to play against other teams with six wins. So don’t expect any easy notches on your hilt. In fact, expect the uphill climb to get exponentially steeper. You’re also going to have to buy all your buffs (X of Osiris) before you play your first round; no more stalling on that loss forgiveness. And of course, we’ll have dedicated Trials bounties to complete as a side-route to new gear. Speaking of which, aside from the coveted Lighthouse chest, gear will now frequently drop in matches themselves, provided you win. As you rack up more wins, you’ll get better (and potentially more) gear.
Ultimately, Trials of Osiris has doubled down on the importance of skill, which is the best direction it can take. It is truly the height of Crucible, and not for the faint-hearted. Only the mighty reach the Lighthouse, so they say. Thankfully, the everyman can now participate, and reliably obtain Trials gear of their own. Those new bounties help a lot there. And as long as I can smile at my hard-earned Adepts, I’m just fine with that. So best of luck in the Trials. Oh, and if you’re more of an Iron Banner kind of Guardian, check out our guide to Lord Saladin’s latest gambit.
