Destiny 2 Grandmaster Nightfall guide: Week 1 – Insight Terminus

The first Grandmaster Nightfall Ordeal is available in Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy. This week, you’ll be heading to the Insight Terminus to face Kargen. Please make sure that you’ve read our leveling guide because you need to be 1,025 power level (PL) first before you could start the Grandmaster Nightfall. Likewise, check out our guides for the Warmind Khanjali artifact, Seraph Towers, and Seraph Bunkers for the available Warmind Cells mods. Builds that rely heavily on Warmind Cells will help you since the enemies are bullet sponges.

Note: For more information about Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy, you can check out our guides and features hub.

Destiny 2: Grandmaster Nightfall rewards and modifiers

As mentioned in a previous article, you won’t be getting any exciting new rewards in Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy save for the “Conqueror” title. Similarly, although a minimum requirement of 1,025 PL exists, you don’t get any advantages if you’re above that mark. Oh, and enemies are at 1,050 PL to boot. For the most part, this activity simply exists to challenge you and punish you for your mistakes.

Here are the modifiers for the Insight Terminus Grandmaster Nightfall:

• Unstoppable champions
• Barrier champions
• Scorched Earth – Enemies throw grenades more often
• Chaff – Radar is disabled
• Extinguish – A wipe leads to the entire fireteam getting booted back to orbit
• Limited Revives – Your fireteam starts with only four revives. You can earn more by defeating champions
• Kargen’s Strategem – Void and environmental damage from enemies is increased

There’s also another icon for “Grandmaster Modifiers” which are basically modifiers that’ll be active for each and every Grandmaster Nightfall Ordeal moving forward:

• Contest – No power level advantages above a certain threshold (1,025, as mentioned earlier)
• Join in progress disabled
• Match Game
• Extra Shields
• Extra Champions
• Locked Loadout

Look at all of those detrimental effects. Cool, right? I sure do hope they make this activity “watchable.”

Oh, and while it’s not listed, there’s also a 45-minute time limit, but, this won’t lead to a wipe. Instead, all your revive tokens will be removed, so any additional deaths you incur won’t be salvageable.

The Insight Terminus and Kargen

Champions and shielded mobs

Long-time Destiny 2 players should be familiar with the Insight Terminus strike by now, but, because this is Grandmaster Nightfall, you should expect lots of enemies — lots of enemies that’ll take entire magazines before they drop. Here are the shielded ones you’ll find during the strike:

• Harpies – Arc shields
• Minotaurs – Void shields
• Incendiors – Void shields
• Centurions – Solar shields

As for the champions:

• Hobgoblins – Barrier
• Colossi – Barrier
• Incendiors – Unstoppable

Loadouts and subclasses

When it comes to your loadouts, you can expect the 2x Izanagi’s Burden and 1x Divinity combo, as usual. Where it gets tricky, however, is your choice of legendary weapons:

• If you’re running Izanagi’s, your energy weapon could be The Recluse submachine gun with anti-barrier rounds. Or you could pick the Seventh Seraph SMG for Warmind Cell generation.
• If you’re the player with Divinity, then it should obviously be a hand cannon with unstoppable rounds.
• As for the choice of heavy, the Seventh Seraph SAW machine gun is a decent pick because it can generate Warmind Cells. Alternatively, you can use Wendigo, Swarm of the Raven, Love and Death, or Edgewise as your heavy weapon.

For your subclasses:

• Warlocks are probably the most helpful class here due to Well of Radiance keeping everyone alive.
• Next up are Titans for the Ward of Dawn bubble plus the Weapons of Light buff.
• As for Hunters, top-tree Nightstalker with Orpheus Rigs will get you out of a pinch and help with clutch revives.
• Extra Warlocks or Titans can go as middle-tree Stormcallers and top-tree Strikers respectively. Dump points into discipline so you can keep chucking grenades that’ll generate Warmind Cells.

Warmind Cells mods

The reason why we’d like to have a few more Seventh Seraph weapons is because of their ability to create Warmind Cells on kills. These orbs will explode and deal massive damage when shot, or you could pick them up to gain buffs based on the mods you’re using. Here are some examples:

• Tyrant’s Surge (Artifact) – Dealing damage with Arc melee, super, and grenade abilities spawn a Warmind Cell. Combine this with Surge Detonators and Lightning Strikes Twice for ridiculous Warmind Cell-generation via Arc grenades.
• Hammer of the Warmind (Artifact) – Detonations from Warmind Cells cause disruption; stagger unshielded combatants; another good pick.
• Global Reach (default) – Larger explosion radius; a mandatory pick.
• Blessing of Rasputin (Moon Seraph Tower) – Collecting a Warmind Cell increases the chance that your next final blow with a Seventh Seraph weapon generates a Warmind Cell. This one’s really good assuming you’re relying more on weapon kills rather than ability kills.
• Power of Rasputin (Moon Seraph Tower) – Increases weapon damage against enemies near Warmind Cells.
• Rage of the Warmind (EDZ Bunker) – Additional Solar damage to explosions.
• Cellular Suppression (EDZ Tower) – Suppresses enemies caught in a Warmind Cell’s explosion.
• Fireteam Medic (Io Seraph Tower) – Destroying a Warmind Cell creates a burst of healing energy.

Additional tips

While not an actual Warmind Cell mod, a teammate needs to have Special Finisher socketed in their class item to help provide more special ammo for Divinity and Izanagi’s Burden. Likewise, assuming you’ve got a decent stat line that you’re comfortable with, use an Arc Resistance or Solar Resistance mod in your Arc armors. This should slightly help against the full blast of Cabal Legionnaire cannons or Psion sniper shots that can cut down your health instantly.

Always try to play it safe. This is pure attrition and you’ll likely fire from behind cover or stay at a distance. Keep yourself alive, don’t take unnecessary risks, and be prepared to play for 30 to 40-minutes just to finish an old Vanguard strike. Oh, and it’s just the first week. You’ve still got five more Grandmaster Nightfall Ordeals to finish before you can get the “Conqueror” title.

Anyway, here’s a video of a clear from Destiny 2 YouTuber Luckyy 10p so you’ll know what to expect:

Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy is available on Steam. For more information, you could check out our guides and features hub.