When Aksis, the final boss of Bungie's Destiny: Rise of Iron Wrath of the Machine expansion, was beaten without firing a single gunshot, the world was dutifully impressed. Now, however, that feat seems to have been eclipsed after Aksis died at the hands of a single player.
Tech Times has previously reported that while Aksis was soundly defeated without the use of guns, that takedown was executed by a team of six Sunsinger Warlocks. There was a coordinated effort that involved grenade spamming and melee attacks before Aksis ended in a massive heap. Since then, at least two other gameplay videos have emerged demonstrating cool ways to defeat Aksis. But the latest takedown, which involved a gamer who calls himself ScaRdrow, certainly beats those successful attempts, by single-handedly grinding and delivering the death blow.
The one-man show also involved a Sunsinger Warlock. Considering the fact that he was alone, he is at least allowed to bear arms and use them to make up for his disadvantage.
The feat relied on a systematic and swift strategy.ScaRdrow methodically wiped out Shanks before killing the Captains one by one. After this was done, he then employed several interesting strategies that proved pivotal to his success. The first involves the need to kill himself and self-resurrect. This was imperative in dealing with the Charge Lockout, which attacks with a pretty powerful debuff, which can prevent the player from picking up and throwing bombs. The dynamics of this method is critical as it is necessary to spawn near drop bombs to achieve some semblance of economy of movement. ScaRdrow was able to throw three bombs.
The other critical strategy involves stunning Aksis. ScaRdrow needed to execute three consistent stuns while firing his cannons. This required clever maneuvers that involve several attacks at the same time because the boss has high damage tolerance. He can also teleport so the window for landing damage is a bit limited. ScaRdrow tracked him using the red blur, which can indicate where he will go.
"Every frame had to be used to get as much damage as was possible each round," ScaRdrow explained in a Reddit post. "His damage threshold is insanely tight, so you need to put in all the damage you can at every possible chance."
To be fair, ScaRdrow's Sunsinger is already level 399. This means he is also capable of pretty high damage in addition to his strength. Nonetheless, this particular factor does not diminish his incredible achievement, which many thought was not possible. After the successful solo campaign, some players have taken some insights from ScaRdrow's playbook and successfully killed Aksis on their own as well.
To those interested in embarking on a similarly grueling and demanding feat, this is ScaRdrow's Sunsinger's build: T3 Intellect (193) / T3 Discipline (180) / T5 Strength (305). His post also showed how he was armed to the teeth with the following gear and weapon load:
• 400 Light Image Loop with Life Support, Explosive Rounds, Surrounded and Sureshot
• 399 Eirene RR2 with Life support, Casket Mag, Yepaki SS2 and Triple Tap
• 399 Raze-Lighter with Scabbard and Warrior of light
• Helmet with Inverse Shadow and Invigoration
• Claws of Ahamkara with Snap Discharge and Hand Cannon Loader
• Raid Chest with +Sniper Ammo, Mortal Medicine and Bomb Disposal Shield (Raid Chest Perk)
• Raid Boots with +Sniper Ammo, Solar Double-down and In your Element (Raid Boots Perk)
• Radegast Artifact for the increased Sword Ammo
