Destiny 2 guide: Outbreak Perfected Catalyst, Heroic Zero Hour mission

After Destiny 2’s Fallen Transponder quest and your trek through the old tower, Mithrax will finally give up Outbreak Perfected, the new version of Outbreak Prime. But your Outbreak Perfected isn’t truly perfected yet. You need to earn the Catalyst first.

To get the Catalyst, you need to complete the Heroic version of Zero Hour. After you beat the normal version of the mission, you can access the Heroic version through a node next to the Farm. The Heroic version of Zero Hour doesn’t just change up combat difficulty — it also changes the route through the mission.

Here is a complete walkthrough for Zero Hour’s new Heroic route. We’ve noted where the paths diverge and when they come back together.

Old Tower (both paths)

You have 20 minutes to beat this mission. With a full team of 690+ players, we were able to take it down relatively easily, although we wouldn’t recommend trying it until you’re 680 or higher. When you take down the final boss, you’ll earn Outbreak Perfected.

Unlike The Whisper, Zero Hour starts out with mostly combat. We recommend at least one member of your team take Arbalest with you, as it makes quick work of the shielded Fallen. Your other slots should encompass all elements to deal with other enemy shields. In all of these combat sections, you need to kill every enemy or the door won’t open.

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Make your way through the bazaar and into the small vent. On the other side, you’ll be where the Speaker’s chambers once were. Clear the enemies with your Fireteam, and move through the sweeper bot hallway.

You’ll find yourself in the courtyard, which houses Shanks of varying size and power. Take out the shielded ones and the Tracer Shanks first. When you’re done, move into the Hangar. This time you have a Walker to deal with. Kill the snipers and all the Servitors first, then focus on the tank.

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Continue along the path of the old tower until you reach the flaming scaffolding where you first started Destiny 2. Slide under the big door next to the M and drop down the elevator shaft. Climb in the vent and follow it.

Throwing switches (Heroic path)

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Instead of going left and under the ship, launch yourself out of the vent straight. On the roof, there are three rows of ventilation shafts. Go to the third and turn around. Walk into the open vent and follow the path.

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You’ll find yourself in a sewer. Take a left and jump down onto the walkway, and then again onto the second walkway. You’re in a room with four red pipes in the corner.

First you need to orient yourself. Find the corner pipe with a waterfall behind it that you can mantle over. Now go to the corner diagonally from the waterfall pipe. Flip the switch. (Remember this platform to save yourself some time next run; for us, this was always back left from how we landed.)

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Head back to the waterfall pipe, jump over and up the waterfall. At the top, look to your left. If you flipped the correct switch, a hatch will be open. Jump on the hatch’s lid and look up. Climb the yellow ledge and keep jumping up and mantling. Go through the vent, take a left, and go through another vent.

Alcoves (Heroic path)

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You’re now in a long room. Carefully jump into the yellow alcoves on either side of the area. Keep moving through the room like this. When you reach the other side, throw a switch to help your teammates behind you get through. Take the vent at the end and follow the red pipe. Crawl through the big pipe on your left.

Outside (Heroic path)

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It’s time to jump along the outside of the Tower again. This time, it’s much trickier.

Out of the pipe, turn left. There are a few paths here, but some will collapse behind you. Carefully jump along the electrical pipes and protrusions. When you come to the corner, jump around it to a new platform.

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There are some rotating windows in front of you. Wait until a new cycle starts, and jump across all of them at once. When you reach the dark wall with what looks like a air conditioner attached, grab a ledge and start jumping up. When you reach the top, run forward and enter the open hatch.

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Turn right and go down the long chute. Start by hanging left, and then quickly pull to the right as you’re falling. At the end, jump and use your momentum to fling you to the safe space. Look right and climb up. Now climb the pipes on the left and right of the hallway until you reach the small landing. Crawl through the open vent.

Fans (normal and Heroic)

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Now you’re surrounded by spinning fans. Look for the red lights and jump into them. If you hold against the wall, you’ll save yourself from the fans. When you land, be careful — don’t hit the ground too hard and skid off into another fan. On Heroic, the fans blow you around a bit. Be extra careful when flying through the air.

Repeat this process until you’re at the bottom of the shaft. Climb in another vent.

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You’re now in a long hallway that looks completely blank. Jump off the ledge and onto the silver vents hanging off the wall. These are tricky to stand on, but you can do it. Jump to the next one and finally into the open door on the far side. Once again, there is a switch here to help your slower friends through the puzzle.

The Zero Hour maze (normal path)

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Follow the vents until you get to Ventilation. Walk forward and take a look at the map, which you can see clearly in the image above.

This is the maze section of Zero Hour, and it looks much scarier than it actually is. The white lines represent hallways you can walk through, with the red arrows denoting switches you need to hit. You start the map in the center of the bottom-most rectangle’s southern white line. When you’ve had a good look at the map, turn around and drop down two floors of vents.

You’re in the maze now, just like in the picture. We recommend sending one player right and another left, just to speed the process up. We’ll write for the right side player, but the left side is just a mirror of the right.

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1. Run forward and take a left. Keep running until you find split in the hall.
2. Turn right and into another rectangle.
3. Follow the path and hit the first switch.
4. Keep running until you reach the original hallway.

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Here, you’ll likely have to wait for a wall of electricity to pass. If the electricity is just starting to arc, you can run through. Otherwise, you’ll have to sit and brood — Darth Maul style.

Bungie via Polygon

When the electricity drops, take a right turn. You should start hearing an unsettling sound about now. An electric shredder is also running the maze with you. There are some alcoves to hide in so it can pass, but just to your left you should see a giant cavern with pipes in it.

Jump on the pipes and wait for the machine to pass. You can tell if the shredder is chasing you by its sound or giant red light.

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With the machine gone, jump back over to your hallway and take a left. Follow the path until a hallway opens on the right. Go hit the switch like last time and return to your normal hallway.

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Take a right and follow the path until you can take another right. This is the exit. If you’ve hit all four switches, the doors will be open.

Run into the new room and hop on one of the elevator to your right or left. Hit the button and wait for them to slowly lift you into the rafters.

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Jump onto the platform and shoot out the vent. Head down the chute and stay in the center of the slide. Jump to slow your momentum, or risk death by splattering against a wall. When you come out the chute, turn left and then immediately right. Crawl through the vent on the floor.

Cryptarch Vault (Heroic path)

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You’re in the old Cryptarch Vault now, and the mission is almost done.

On the opposite side of the Vault’s door, you’ll see some pipes on the wall. Next to the pipe, you’ll see the Cryptarch symbol. Go stand by it — sometimes punching worked for us, too — and the secret door will open.

On the normal mode, there was nothing dangerous about this next section, but the Heroic mode will burn you alive if you mess up. You need to walk on the white path very carefully and in a specific order. Be very careful where you step. Even cutting a corner will kill you.

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To make this easier to read, we’re going to label each space like a grid. The room is six spaces long, and five spaces across. The pattern on this will change depending on the elemental singe.

Void path

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The first number is the row (one through six) and the second is the space you need to walk on (left to right). You’ll start on the second white tile from the left, on the first row (1-2).

1. 1-2 (up)
2. 2-2 (up)
3. 2-1 (left)
4. 3-1 (up)
5. 4-1 (up)
6. 4-2 (right)
7. 4-3 (right)
8. 3-3 (down)
9. 3-4 (right)
10. 3-5 (right)
11. 4-5 (up)
12. 5-5 (up)
13. 5-4 (left)
14. 6-4 (up)

Arc path

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The first number is the row (one through six) and the second is the space you need to walk on (left to right). You’ll start on the fifth white tile from the left, on the first row (1-5).

1. 1-5 (up)
2. 2-5 (up)
3. 3-5 (up)
4. 4-5 (up)
5. 5-5 (up)
6. 5-4 (left)
7. 5-3 (left)
8. 4-3 (down)
9. 3-3 (down)
10. 2-3 (down)
11. 2-2 (left)
12. 2-1 (left)
13. 3-1 (up)
14. 4-1 (up)
15. 5-1 (up)
16. 6-1 (up)

Bungie

If you have friends behind you, take a left after the you survive the burning room. There’s a switch on the wall. This will shut off the panels in the room you just got through, making it easier to get allies through.

Run forward. At the melted case, take a right and you’ll see a burned hole in the ground. Drop through it. Run forward and hop into another vent. It’s time to fight.

Siriks, Loyal to Eramis boss fight (normal path)

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When you drop down, you’ll find a Fallen Captain wielding a Scorch Cannon — Siriks, Loyal to Eramis. He’s surrounded by an army of Fallen.

First, take out the turrets on his right and left, then clean up the rest of the Fallen. The shielded Shanks that Siriks summons deal very high damage. Have a player with Arbalest take them out as quickly as possible. When everything else is dead, start hitting the boss.

Siriks will spawn a Servitor, surrounded by shielded Shanks. If you have a Void weapon like Hammerhead, you can quickly focus on one shank, and the shield explosion will kill them all. You can also use a Hunter Tether for the same effect. Focus down the Servitor and its Shanks. Turn your attention back to Siriks, and hit him until he spawns another Servitor grouping. This one is Solar. Use the same method to kill it.

When Siriks is down to two-thirds health, he’ll teleport back to the main area and summon two Walkers on the old turret platforms. This time, focus everything on Siriks and burn him down. One Thousand Voices is excellent for this fight, if you have it.

When Siriks falls, turn your attention to the rest of the enemies in the room. Clear them out and then focus on the Walkers.

If you manage to kill every enemy in the arena before time runs out, Mithrax will pop back up on the center platform. He’ll teleport over to his ship, and a moment later you’ll earn Outbreak Perfected.

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Now you’ve got the Outbreak Perfected Catalyst. You’ll need to come back and complete the Heroic mode again every week until you get 500 SIVA Particulates. You’ll also need headshots with Outbreak Perfected.

The Catalyst grants Outbreak Perfected another perk, which we don’t have a name for yet. The perk increases SIVA nanite damage, and enemies that die with SIVA nanites attached to them will spawn additional SIVA nanites.

It’ll take five weeks to get enough SIVA particulates. But you can speed up the process through an optional quest, which also grants a neat new ship.