How to complete Excision in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Excision is the first 12-player activity in Destiny 2 history, tasking players with taking down the biggest villain in the franchise, The Witness. All those extra players don’t make the activity easier, though. It’s packed with interesting mechanics you’ve got to learn if you want to win this fight.

You won’t be able to play Excision until you’ve completed every other campaign mission in The Final Shape. This includes the Wild Card Exotic Quest, which is what I discovered was holding me back until I completed it. Once you’ve done this, you can find the mission on the top right-hand corner of The Pale Heart‘s map. For your first playthrough, you’ll need to run it in narrative mode. But trust me, the cutscene you get afterward is well worth having to return to play it again on Grandmaster later for your Ergo Sum Catalyst.

How to complete Excision in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Below, I’ve outlined how you complete Excision in Destiny 2: The Final Shape in easy-to-follow steps. This battle has several stages, many of which are challenging. Take your time and work with your fellow players, and you should get through it without too many deaths.

Step 1: Claim the territories

The very first goal you must complete in Excision in Destiny 2: The Final Shape is claiming the territories around the opening area. Kill every enemy you can see and make your way towards the glowing orange circles. You and your fellow Guardians must stand on these until they’re cleared to claim them.

After you’ve cleared the first two, you’ll need to kill two incredibly powerful yellow health bar enemies to get the other two to spawn so you can claim them. After you’ve done that, it’s time to head through the previously blocked pathway and take on The Witness.

Step 2: Kill The Witness’s Cornerstones

Now you’re in The Witness’s arena, you’ve got to deal damage to it. This is a pretty long process, but you’ll get through it quickly if you know what you’re doing. First, you must kill two Cornerstones of The Witness. These powerful Taken enemies will spawn on either side of the arena.

The toughest part about this step is reaching the Cornerstones. They’re heavily guarded by more Taken than you can shake a stick at. I ended up using my Super and The Call a lot in this step just to clear smaller enemies. With everyone focused on the same targets, you’ll eventually get to deal damage to them.

Step 3: Gather and deposit Light

With the Cornerstones dead, Light will begin to pour into the arena through cracks in the ground. These are where you need to gather Light from before returning to the Darkness well at the back of the arena to deposit it. Your Guardian will automatically dunk the Light into the well, so don’t worry about a button prompt.

Once you’ve all deposited enough Light, you’ll be transported to a familiar location. You should know what to do next.

Step 4: Destroy the statues

As you should remember from the Iconoclasm mission, the next task Excision throws at you is to pick up a sword and destroy the statues. You can’t destroy all of them, so just destroy as many as you can. After you’ve taken out enough of them, you’ll be transported back to the arena.

Step 5: Destroy the Glyphs and strike against The Witness

After being transported back to the arena, a platform in front of The Witness will rise. You need to jump onto that platform to gain the Traveler’s Aid buff. This is the buff required to shoot the six Glyphs on The Witness and then fire at its heart to deal damage to it.

My team and I managed to deal with about half of The Witness’s health during the first phase of damage. You won’t kill it outright, but if you manage to deal with this much damage, then you’re on a good run.

Step 6: Repeat the process to damage The Witness

The process of damaging The Witness is the same from Steps 3 to 6, so repeat the process until you hit the point on its health bar where there’s a line. You can’t deal damage past this point, and the boss will become furious when you reach it. This is when it decides it’s had enough and wants to destroy you once and for all.

Step 7: Unmake The Witness

The Witness will be angry and protected, but your Ghost is now too powerful, charged by The Traveler. Call your Ghost to create a wave of Light that will unmake the enemy and split them into pieces that are going to be scattered across the system. This is what sparks the first Episode for Destiny 2.

Once the mission is over, you’ll be treated to a slew of cutscenes. Each one is well worth watching, so don’t skip them. This section of the game has massive implications for the story moving forward, and part of them is heartbreaking for long-time Destiny fans.

When you finally decide to head back into the game proper, you’ll be able to access Excision Grandmaster and a few other things that will help you push through the evolving story that Destiny 2 has to offer after this final campaign is done.