Destiny 2: Season of Opulence – The Menagerie guide

So you’ve gotten past the initial quest steps in The Invitation given by Werner 99-40. Now, you’re about to get to the fun stuff in Destiny 2: Penumbra. It’s time to enter the Menagerie and make use of your Chalice of Opulence. Take note that your Chalice of Opulence is account-bound which means your other alts automatically have it already. There’s no need to redo the previous quest steps.

This 6-player activity takes place deep in the bowels of the Leviathan, and you’ll discover new areas and the same dangerous foes. The Menagerie does have matchmaking for normal mode. Heroic mode, which releases on June 25, will require you to find a premade fireteam. In any case, here’s a quick guide on what you can find inside Calus’ playground, as well as the bounties you can do for Werner 99-40.

Dunkin’ Orb-nuts

First, make sure you’ve unlocked the top node of your Chalice of Opulence and that you’ve slotted a rune. Check out Nessus’ destinations and you’ll see an icon for the Menagerie right next to the Leviathan at the bottom left corner. Go ahead and start it.

The first part (the Lamplighting) will have quite a number of enemies spawning from doorways. This is not the actual Menagerie activity yet, this is just a free taste. At regular intervals, ogres will spawn. Once you kill them, they’ll also drop a couple of orbs. Pick these up and dunk them on on the pedestals surrounding the center ring. This will light up the braziers/pedestals. When you’ve lit up all the braziers, the Menagerie itself opens up.

To complete the triumph for this part (and earn 500 Imperials), you’ll want every fireteam member to light up only one brazier/pedestal each. That means each player should pick up and dunk only one orb.

What The Heck Is The Menagerie?

Think of the Menagerie like Destiny 2’s stroll down memory lane. Sure, the aesthetics will remind you of the Leviathan, except that certain areas are drab and have fallen in disrepair. Likewise, thematically, you’ll notice how it symbolizes the lost grandeur and splendor of Calus’ empire. It is the Season of Opulence, after all.

The most telling parts, however, are the mechanics for each encounter. There will be a progress bar on the left side of your screen and you’ll need to fill this to the max to face a boss. To do this, you’ll have to complete various encounters all around the Menagerie. There’s no set order and there’s no set limit to how many encounters you can have, although you have three minutes to complete each of them. You might fail a particular encounter, but increments will still count towards your overall progress. Oh, and beware because mobs are 720 power level (PL).

The Menagerie Areas And Encounters

The locations may not be of import at the beginning, but the clue on the progress bar is. Each encounter will have a particular name and that’d give you a clue about the mechanics, many of which are akin to Destiny 2’s “greatest hits.” There’s a mishmash of “orb dunking” or “plate forming,” mixed in with various enemy types and quirks. Again, you have three minutes to complete the encounters.

Here are the mechanics for each activity that I’ve found so far:

• The Riposte – Several sword knights will spawn. Kill them and you’ll obtain their sword relics. Pick up the sword and keep attacking the shielded knights to pick up more swords. Shielded ogres will also appear so use the swords from the knights to break their shields and kill them.
• The Crystals – There are roughly a dozen purple crystals in the room and they are all immune. Harpies, minotaurs, and knights will periodically spawn. Killing them will drop the “elemental skulls” (from Eater of Worlds). Use them to destroy the crystals.
• The Hunted – Stand on the plates until they’re fully activated. There will be several melee thrall and exploding thrall running after you. Oh, and there’s also a giant Darkblade knight wannabe. Activate all the plates to successfully complete the encounter.

• The Mockery – There are bubbles with a translucent field and going outside of them will drain your health (like the Blind Well). The bubbles will slowly shrink and get destroyed. Kill the wizards so they drop orb relics. Pick them up and dunk them in the receptacle inside the bubbles to keep them active. There are three bubbles in the area so you need to keep all three active throughout the encounter.
• The Arkborn – Bubbles will once again be in the room but your health won’t be drained outside of their areas. Instead, you’ll need to run into the glowing pillars of light, charging yourself, and then dunking on the bubble receptacles.
• The Gauntlet – This is similar to the Gauntlet encounter from the Leviathan raid. After killing enemies, including any big fellas in the middle of the arena, you’re automatically teleported to the side chamber which is when you’ll start running. Make it through the hoops to get to the end to gain extra points. When you get teleported for the second and third time, there will be flame traps as well which will instantly kill you so try to avoid them while running. You can cheese the Gauntlet encounter by making it to the finish line. Instead of running past it, fire off your projectile weapons (One Thousand Voices, Telesto, grenade launchers) through the finish line first. These shots would count as players completing the run.

For every encounter, you’ll want to pay attention whenever a prompt notifies you that “Calus wants you to challenge stronger foes. It means a tougher enemy (often an ogre or a giant minotaur) will end up spawning. These are, technically, the “mini phases” of each encounter. Killing all of these giant enemies will let you finish the encounters successfully.

The Menagerie Boss: Hasapiko

No matter how many encounters you need to do to complete the progress bar, eventually you’ll find yourself facing off against the final boss. It’s Hasapiko, a giant Vex minotaur. Note: I’m not sure if bosses will change each week.

Hasapiko is shielded and it stays at the back of the room just blasting you with its cannons. It will periodically summon yellow bar harpies and other Vex mobs. Killing the harpy majors will have them drop a Vex well granting you a buff. When you have this buff, shoot Hasapiko until its shield is destroyed, and then keep nuking it with supers and bullets.

When Hasapiko is not shielded (and while you’re DPSing), it will create Vex forcefields or walls that will move towards your area. These will kill you if you so much as touch them. Think of the first Resident Evil movie or that trap from Cube. So, yes, while you’re doing damage to Hasapiko, you’ll have to sidestep these techno-walls. Your bullets, grenades, and supers will still hit Hasapiko through these walls. Oh, and when its health is low, it’ll summon two walls instead of one.

When Hasapiko is downed, you can finally open the treasure chest. If this is your first time doing the Menagerie, then you’ll also get a triumph that can be completed, granting you the next step of the quest.

From here, you’ll need to head back to Werner 99-40 on Nessus. Open any of the chests at the ship’s stern (back) and you’ll complete Destiny 2’s The Invitation quest line for Season of Opulence.

Chalice Of Opulence Customization

In order to power up your Chalice of Opulence, you’ll need to complete a few more Menagerie activities while also gathering runes and Imperials (currency) to activate more nodes or bonuses. But first, we’ll need to understand how the Chalice of Opulence works.

There are three main slots. Only the topmost slot is unlocked during The Invitation quest line. The rest will require more Imperials.

• Top (Gear Type slot) – determines the type of armor/weapon you’ll receive from the Menagerie’s final chest
• Left (Gear Specialization slot) – determines the properties of that item
• Right (Masterworks slot) – determines the type of masterwork for that item

The Chalice of Opulence also has perks that you can unlock and all of these cost Imperials as well.

Rune Compatibility:

• Level 1 – allows slotting of red runes that guarantee an arm or leg armor
• Level 2 – allows slotting of green runes that can guarantee a helmet, hand cannon, or sidearm
• Level 3 – allows slotting of blue runes that can guarantee a chest armor, fusion rifle, or shotgun
• Note: By default (at least from your first rune) you’ll only be able to get class items.

Rune Bonus:

• Level 1 – additional runes from Werner 99-40’s bounties and consumables
• Level 2 – one actively slotted rune in the Chalice is refunded
• Level 3 – receive an additional non-powerful reward from the Menagerie’s final chest

Power and Efficiency:

• Level 1 – an additional powerful reward from the final chest in the Menagerie; unlock treasure chests on Werner 99-40’s barge on Nessus
• Level 2 – an additional powerful reward from the final chest in the Menagerie; Destiny 2 playlist activities (such as strikes, crucible, or gambit) reward imperial currency
• Level 3 – weekly powerful rewards also drop Season of Opulence mods

What you’ll want to do early on is get Power & Efficiency level 1 and 2. Not only will this perk line give you two extra powerful drops, it will net you some Imperials rarely when doing playlist activities. You can also purchase an extra consumable from Werner 99-40 to gain a huge amount of Imperials when doing Destiny 2 playlist activities (up to a maximum of three per week for your account).

Later, once you’ve amassed enough Imperials and runes, unlock the remaining slots and perks. This will allow you to “fine-tune” the Chalice of Opulence, customizing it to get the type of reward that you need. Let’s say you need a PL boost for your leg armor, then you’ll want to slot a rune that’ll guarantee that as a reward.

Chalice Of Opulence: List Of Runes

Credits go to Reddit users JPDeathblade and Windzer408 who’ve provided lists of the Chalice of Opulence runes and the results of combinations. Remember, you can only receive additional rune types/colors once you’ve unlocked their corresponding perks. Rune I corresponds to the top slot of your Chalice of Opulence, whereas Rune II corresponds to the slot on the left side.

Chalice of Opulence/The Menagerie armor drops:

Chalice of Opulence/The Menagerie weapon drops:

Werner Bounties And Imperials

So where exactly do we find more of these runes and Imperials to unlock all those slots and perks? Well, there’s Werner 99-40. He will have the following weekly bounties:

• gain experience points via activities or bounties
• complete 10 vanguard bounties
• get 200 sidearm, shotgun, submachine gun, or sword kills at close range
• loot five legendary engrams that drop on the ground; finest matterwave (masterwork cores) apparently count

All of Werner’s bounties will give powerful rewards, as well as a rune and some Imperials. But, Werner won’t give them to you directly. For each bounty you complete, you also get a treasure map. The locations are marked on your map so you won’t get lost.

You’ll find your reward once you open the chest in those locations. Also, once you’ve completed all four of Werner’s bounties, you can visit Benedict in the Tower and he will have another powerful gear reward for you.

Every Destiny 2 playlist activity will grant you runes and Werner also has consumables that will let you gain extras. The more Guardians that have this effect active, the more runes you can get at the end of each activity. Think of it as an extra fireteam medallion for Penumbra and Season of Opulence, except these are for runes and not for experience points.

Finally, check your triumphs page. Completing certain triumphs will also net you a large amount of Imperials so you can upgrade your Chalice of Opulence.

Week 2 Update

Werner 99-40’s new bounties this week are:

• get 150 precision kills
• collect 100 orbs of light
• complete 10 Crucible daily bounties
• decrypt three prime engrams

All of these can be done as you do your Destiny 2 milestones for the week. For the prime engrams bounty, exotics that drop in the wild do not count. They need to be legendary prime engrams instead that are decrypted via the Cryptarch. Since prime engrams are tied to the quantity (and quality) of enemies you kill, then activities that net you the most kills will be helpful (ie. Blind Well, Escalation Protocol, Menagerie, and every raid).

During the first week, Werner required 10 Vanguard daily bounties and now he requires 10 Crucible daily bounties. There’s a good chance he’ll require Gambit bounties next week so be sure to stock up on completed ones prior to the reset.

The Menagerie: The Best Classes And The Chest Glitch Farm

Once you’ve obtained more runes and unlocked more slots for your Chalice of Opulence, you can continue farming the Menagerie to your heart’s content. There also seems to be a trick as noted by Reddit user Pill_Dickle_RS. After receiving your reward from the chest, you can go through the doorway behind it. Follow the corridor as it loops around until you see “The Menagerie” pop up on the lower left side of your screen — this means you’ve changed zones.

Open up your pursuits tab quickly and then your Chalice of Opulence. Slot a new rune and make your way back to the chest. Voila! You’ll get a new reward. Keep going back and forth, slotting a new rune each time, to get the drops that you want. If you’re fast, you can get four or five extra drops in one Menagerie run. These can include the following:

• guns or armor pieces with curated rolls/fully-masterworked
• guns or armor pieces with mods or masterwork upgrades (can be dismantled for those mods or masterwork cores)
• 500 Imperials – these seem to have a 25 to 30 percent drop chance whenever you open the Menagerie chest

As for the classes, given that a majority of players running Menagerie in the first week will still be below 720 PL, you’re going to need the following:

• Warlocks (lots of Warlocks) – having a Warlock with Well of Radiance and several with Nova Bomb (while wearing Skull of Dire Ahamkara) would be amazing for several Menagerie encounters
• Hunters – those using Blade Barrage (with Shards of Galanor) or tether (Orpheus Rigs) would also be invaluable
• Titans – you can use your alts

We’ll keep this guide updated in the coming days as we discover more runes and neat Chalice of Opulence combinations. Who knows? Maybe Werner might have something extra every weekly reset? Don’t forget to check our Destiny 2: Penumbra and Season of Opulence guide and features hub as well.