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Destiny 2 guide: How to score 100,000 points in Nightfall: The Ordeal

Looking to a piece of pinnacle loot from the Nightfall? Here’s some advice

Guardians look at the spooky, scarlet keep in Destiny 2: Shadowkeep Bungie
Ryan Gilliam (he/him) has worked at Polygon for nearly seven years. He primarily spends his time writing guides for massively popular games like Diablo 4 & Destiny 2.

With Destiny 2: Shadowkeep, the weekly Nightfall strike got a hefty upgrade in the form of Nightfall: The Ordeal. Instead of just a difficult strike, The Ordeal adds new modifiers and powerful Champion enemies to make things that much tougher than before. If you can manage to score 100,000 points by the end, you’ll earn a powerful piece of loot from the boss.

Scoring the points in The Ordeal isn’t the hard part, it’s finishing the Nightfall before you lose them all. Once you hit the 20 minute mark, your points start to tick down over time. The longer you go without finishing, the more points you lose. If you finish the Nightfall under 100,000 points — even if you had 100,000 points at one time — you won’t get the loot.

The only way to earn 100,000 points in the Nightfall is to play on the Legend or Master difficulties. This increases the amount of points you earn per enemy, but also increases enemy difficulty. The recommended power for Legend is 950 Power, and we recommend you don’t even try it until you’re at least 925. On the lower difficulties, you’ll likely only end around 85,000 to 90,000 points, even if you kill everything.

Before you even enter the Nightfall, you’ll need to prepare your loadout. Check what the weekly modifiers are and discuss with your Fireteam what you’ll bring. For example, if Match Game is on, make sure you have a good spread of element types among your peers so you can lower enemy shields. Keep an eye out to see what Champions are present as well. Make sure at least one teammate has Unstoppable, Anti-barrier, or Disruption mods, depending on what you need.

After you’re set up, launch the Legend or Master Nightfall: The Ordeal. Keep in mind that you basically need to kill every enemy you see in the Nightfall. If you miss even one, you may find yourself under 100,000 points by the end of it.

If you manage to finish the Nightfall: The Ordeal with 100,000 points, you’ll get a special pinnacle drop for your character (useful as these are the only rewards that will get you above 950 power).