The Insurrection Prime boss fight in Destiny 2: Black Armory will test everything you’ve learned in the Scourge of the Past raid so far. You’ll be dealing with maps, Berserkers, tanks and shape-based buffs all at once. The great news is that you’ll be fighting a giant Metal Gear while you do it.

In this guide, we’re going to teach you everything you need to know about battling Insurrection Prime, the final boss of Scourge of the Past.

Starting the fight

Much like the rooftop brawl, the first thing you need to do here is kill a Berserker and load their battery into the map console where the raid banner is placed. You’ll find the Berserker right in front of your nose when you spawn, hanging out between the two buildings on the right and left.

Before you kill the Berserker — which, remember, requires you to shoot its back and front at the same time after activating its slowing array — break your team into four separate roles:

• Reader — This should probably be the same map reader you were using in the rooftop encounter. Make sure they have a good shotgun for dealing with Servitors and can hit Whisper shots reliably.
• Sniper — Pick a player with decent aim and a high enough light level to survive in a dangerous environment. They should have Whisper of the Worm and another sniper equipped in either their Kinetic or Energy slot.
• Runners — The other four players will go here, and at least two of them should be equipped with a powerful shotgun.

Once you’ve assigned the roles, kill the Berserker and have the Reader (this is important) carry the battery back to the map room and plug it in. Once the map is activated, Insurrection Prime will become active and lift out of the center silo.

We’re going to break the next section into roles to make this easier.

Lowering the shield

Bungie/Activision via Polygon

The Reader

The Reader is inarguably the most important job in the fight, and also one of the hardest. For your loadout, you’ll want to have:

• Short-mid range primary (pulse rifle or hand cannon)
• Shotgun (preferably Threat Level with Trench Barrel or Ikelos)
• Whisper of the Worm

You’ll be doing a lot of sniping in this role, so if you aren’t a great shot you may want to defer to an ally.

Reading the map to find the Berserker and help the Runners

Much like the first encounter in this raid, you’ll be reading off map details to your allies regarding enemy positions and battery charges. You’ll also be destroying shield generators and dealing with a bunch of extra enemies — but one thing at a time.

When the map first pops up, look for the big red dot — not the smaller ones. Like in the first encounter, the large dot indicates the Berserker that will drop two batteries instead of just one. Tell your allies where they can find the correct Berserker.

Calling out batteries

When the Berserker is dead, keep an eye on the map. Have the Runners grab the batteries one at a time, and be sure to remember the order the charges appear. Each battery will have a specific charge to it — anywhere from one to three dots. Tell each player which charging station they need to take their battery to: left, right or top.

Once the batteries have been deposited, repeat this process another time, until all four batteries have gone in and the tank has spawned.

Breaking the shield generators

In between all of this, you have another key job. The boss has six shield generators on its body: two on the knees, one on each shoulder blade, one on the right shoulder and one on the left side. With the help from your Sniper, you’ll need to break these shield generators before the tank spawns, otherwise you won’t be able to damage the boss. Use Whisper of the Worm and try to proc (activate the perk) White Nail as much as possible to conserve ammo.

Clearing with your shotgun

Finally, enemies will flood the map room whenever a Berserker is killed, including a Servitor who will attempt to scramble the map. Use your shotgun to take them out quickly, and be sure to watch for the Dregs on the second floor.

Once the tank spawns and shoots the boss, it’s time for the damage phase.

Grid View

• Bungie/Activision via Polygon
• Bungie/Activision via Polygon
• Bungie/Activision via Polygon
• Bungie/Activision via Polygon

The Sniper

Like the Reader, the Sniper is another difficult job that requires a lot of sniping — it’s all in the name. Don’t volunteer if long range combat isn’t your specialty. For your loadout, you’ll want to take:

• Medium range primary (pulse rifle)
• Secondary sniper (we use Tatara Gaze)
• Whisper of the Worm

The role of the Sniper is deceptively simple, but you’ll be isolated from your fireteam, making resurrections more costly in terms of time and difficulty.

When your fireteam starts to take on the Berserker in front of the map room, start moving over to the far right building. This building has two floors: a first floor with a patio, and a second floor with a column in it. Make your nest in the second floor. Get comfortable in this room since you’ll be spending a lot of time here.

Popping generators

First, you’ll be working with the Reader to shoot the boss’ six shield generators: two on the knees, one on each shoulder blade, one on the right shoulder and one on the left side. Use Whisper of the Worm to pop these and try to activate White Nail (three precision hits in a short period of time) as often as possible to conserve ammo.

Since you’re in the back of the arena, you should be able to take out the harder to reach spots — the shoulder blades and left side — pretty easily early on in the fight. Communicate with the Reader and your Runners so they know where the boss is and what it’s doing.

Kill the Vandal snipers

Aside from popping the generators, you have one other key role. When the Berserkers holding the batteries go down, a Vandal sniper will spawn on each rooftop — including the room you’re standing in. Have your Runners call out when they lower the Berserkers shield, which should give you a heads up on when you need to shift your focus to the Vandals.

These snipers are no joke and will take you down quickly if you aren’t paying attention. The good news is that you can see all of them from your nest; the bad news is that most of them can also see you. When your Vandal — as in the one you share a room with — is about to spawn, wedge yourself in the corner of the room, closest to the arena’s center. Here, you’re safe from the other Vandals in the arena and can focus on the one that spawns in your room. Kill your Vandal first with a few primary shots to the head.

Switch to your secondary sniper rifle and move into your room, using the center column for cover — make sure to put it in between you and the Vandal you aren’t focusing on at the moment. Take aim at either the Vandal on the front right building or the back left building — oriented from the map room — first. One shot to the head should do the trick here. Move on to the other Vandal when that one is dead.

The third Vandal can’t see you from its location on the front left rooftop. It can be hard to get a headshot angle on this one, so you may just want to hit it twice in the back. If you get shot at any point during this process, let yourself heal back up before venturing back out. But keep in mind that these snipers will shred your Runners if you don’t take them out quickly.

You’ll get two waves of Vandals per phase. Once both waves and all the shield generators are down, head back to the map room and get ready to damage the boss.

Bungie/Activision via Polygon

The Runners

This role may just seem like the leftovers, but every member here has a key role to play in preparing the boss for damage. Your loadouts can be varied here, but you want to make sure you have:

• short-medium range primary suggestions?
• shotgun or sniper rifle — a mix of both is preferable to deal with short and long range combat (we prefer Ikelos shotgun or Tatara Gaze)
• Whisper of the Worm

Listen for directions, fight the Berserker and Marauders

After the battery has powered up the map, listen for your Reader’s callout on where to go. Once you have the location of the Berserker, hop on your Sparrow and head there as a squad — just be sure to stay far away from the boss.

When you reach the Berserker, take out the Marauders and then focus on breaking the Berserker’s shield. As soon as the shield goes down, call out to your Reader and Sniper that the Berserker is not long for this world — enemies spawn for them when it’s finally dead.

Take your shotguns or supers to the Berserker and kill it as quickly as possible. Once it’s dead and the two batteries drop, you’ll have a role to perform.

Split up

Break your squad up into two — Battery 1 and Battery 2. In each squad, players should have an order. Do you pick up the battery first or second? It doesn’t matter as long as you assign it to someone so it can be the same every time.

Have Battery 1 pick up the first set of batteries in their specific order, with each player calling out their name immediately after picking it up. If you’re part of Battery 1, carry your battery to your generator. Note that you can move much faster with the battery if you jump and melee over and over again.

If you aren’t part of Battery 1, now is a great time to help clear some enemies on the map or assist your Reader and Sniper with shield generators in hard to reach places. As soon as the Reader calls where the second big Berserker is, Battery 2 players should drop what they’re doing and head there. Battery 1 players should join them after dunking their battery.

Repeat this process until you’ve dunked all four batteries in their generators.

The Drake tank

The last player to dunk will need to get into the big Drake tank that spawns. Drive the tank around the map and position it in front of the map room. When the boss moves into a favorable position, shoot it to start the damage phase — your allies should tell you how the boss is moving, but keep in mind that the tank will explode after too long, so don’t be picky.

Before exiting the tank, move it away from the map room a bit and then join your allies. All non-tank drivers should have moved to the map room at this point in preparation for damage.

Grid View

• Bungie/Activision via Polygon
• Bungie/Activision via Polygon
• Bungie/Activision via Polygon
• Bungie/Activision via Polygon

Phase 2: Dealing damage

Dealing damage to the boss is a little complex but a ton of fun. After you shoot the boss with the tank, the boss’ eyeball will pop out of its face — it looks like a big Servitor. Make sure all six players are standing in the middle and pump three to nine rounds of Whisper of the Worm into the critical spot — be sure to do this in threes to proc White Nail (three rapid hits reloads your weapon). Having to reload here will seriously hurt your damage phase.

Note: If you have access to Whispered Breathing, Whisper of the Worm’s catalyst, you always want to take advantage of it in this fight. Take a second and wait for the buff to proc before you start shooting. This will increase your damage astronomically.

Dealing with the buff

After a few seconds of damage, Insurrection Prime will shoot out a blinding light, which’ll apply a debuff to all allies in the raid. This is where things get complicated. All six players will now have a buff — two will have Angular, two will have Continuous and two will have Parallel. I imagine we should capitalize these buff names. Standing in proximity to a player with your same buff will amplify your damage, while standing in proximity to a player with a different buff will start to kill you both.

The strategy here is to quickly spread out around the room, with the two players who have the same buff going to the same location, and the other players doing the same in two other spots around the room. In the map room, we divided it like so: the front left window is where players with the Angular buff stand, the raised platform behind the map is for Continuous players, the right window is for those with Parallel. These locations are all fast to run to, give good sight lines to Insurrection Prime and are far enough from the others to not kill each other.

When the burst of light goes out, take a look at your buff and quickly run to your new position and start shooting. After a few more seconds, the boss will do another pulse and change your buff — although it’s possible you could get the same one and not have to move. Look to see what buff you have and move accordingly.

On this second go, the damage buff is even bigger, and the Insurrection Prime’s health will start going down in chunks. For Warlocks, we advise that you drop a Well of Radiance once you’re in position for your first buff, as it should last through both and benefit your allies even if you have to move away from it. The Well is a big damage increase, and it will benefit your allies even if you have to move on the second pulse.

Assuming you do this correctly and all allies are hitting their shots, the boss’ health should be around half — give or take an inch or so. Repeat the entire fight over again and execute the second damage phase exactly same way. Once the boss’ health hits zero, it’ll die without any other shenanigans.

Congratulations on killing Insurrection Prime! Now drop into the Black Armory vault and claim your rewards.