The Royal Pools on Prestige is easily the hardest fight in the entire raid, Calus included. The normal version of the fight forces you to rotate around the arena, refreshing your buff and clearing out enemies. The Prestige version doesn’t change much in terms of mechanics, but each enemy is much more lethal on their own. If you’re unsure how the normal version of this fight works, we’ve got you covered in our guide to the non-Prestige Royal Pools.

Here’s how to deal with the increased difficulty of the Royal Pools.

Oiled Ceremonial Bathers

Bungie/Activision

The first thing you may notice when starting this encounter is the new adjective attached to the Bathers. These enemies will now be known as the Oiled Ceremonial Bathers. In addition to having far more health and dealing more damage, Oiled Ceremonial Bathers will drop a puddle of oil when they die. If you stand in this puddle, you will lose stacks of Psionic Protection rapidly.

Since you should be striving to kill the Bathers before they get anywhere close to your plate, this mechanic will rarely come into play.

Painful rotation

Bungie/Activision

This fight isn’t hard because of a new mechanic. It’s hard because the enemies can kill you so much faster. The adds in the normal version of this fight were essentially useless, only existing to annoy you or distract from the Bather. On Prestige mode, the Legionaries and Psions that rush your plate are the most dangerous enemies in the entire fight.

To deal with these adds, you should put your strongest members on the bottom right and bottom left plates. Because of the increased Oiled Ceremonial Bather and add difficulty, rotations will be much slower. These bottom plate players will have to deal with their Bather and the adds alone.

Learning where the adds emerge from on each plate is key to surviving this fight. Bottom left and top right should be looking for enemies to spawn on their right while bottom right and top left look for adds on their left. These adds must die before they hide from you behind cover, otherwise they will become problems the moment your Bather spawns. To stop that from happening, kill them as they enter your area.

You should be using a Kinetic weapon that can stagger the Bather and a damage over time grenade. Our group found success with either Sweet Business or Better Devils. Your Energy weapon should be a medium range energy auto rifle like the Uriel’s Gift or the Number. You should be using this Energy weapon on kill the adds as they get close to you. Fusion Rifles are your best bet when it comes to Power weapons, as they deal high damage to both the Bathers and the Censors. Our group used Merciless or the Main Ingredient.

When your ally comes to relieve you, you must take some extra time to help clear adds. Leave your ally to deal with the next wave of adds, or help them clear it out if there are still adds leftover from the last wave. When you reach the middle area, clear out as many Cabal as possible before grabbing more Psionic Protection. Once you have renewed your buff, rotate to your next plate and help that ally clear their room.

After a lot of practice, the chains will lock into place and the damage phase will start.

Killing Censors

Bungie/Activision

Not much has changed during this phase. Once your entire party reaches the middle, do not jump on the plate. Work as a team to clear all of the enemies and kill the first Bather that emerges. Once that Bather is down and the room is relatively clear, have five members hop on the plate while the sixth pops their Super to clear adds. If you have a Hunter with Raiden Flux, have them run Arcstrider to help clear adds very quickly. Keep shooting the Censors and using Supers for adds.

Scramble

Once the Psion spawns in the middle of the Sun plate, damage time is over. Four players will be marked with “Burden of Worthiness.” For those four players, a symbol will appear above the Psion. Each player will need to look above the Psion, call out the symbol they see and run to the corresponding plate. If you have “Burden of Worthiness,” you will only be able to get Psionic Protection from that specific plate.

If you die with Burden of Worthiness, it will not return upon your resurrection. This means that one player will never be able to get Psionic Protection, essentially wiping the team. Do not die after the damage phase is over. Once all four players have jumped on their commanded plate, the two unburdened players will be able to pick up Psionic Protection from the middle room.

From here, the rest of the fight remains the same. However, because the plates are randomly assigned, the teams will be completely different than the first phase. This simply requires more communication and flexibility. The mid player will still relieve top, who will then run mid and then relive bottom. Nothing changes aside from the players relieving you and where you start from.

Once the chains have been locked for a second time, return to the center room and eliminate the remaining Censors.