If you’re currently taking part in Destiny 2‘s Season of the Splicer, you may have seen the Week 3 Seasonal Challenge that requires you to complete the Expunge: Labyrinth mission in under 10 minutes. I know this must seem daunting to you, as it also seemed to me. Aren’t these Seasonal Challenges supposed to be things most people can get through? What if you don’t have a fireteam at the ready to speed up the process?
Fortunately, after taking a few runs at it and messing around with some different loadouts, I finally managed to get the task finished in under 10 minutes as required by the Challenge. Not only that, I came in quite a bit under, wrapping up in 8:35.
Just so you know, I ran this using a Warlock, and didn’t partake in any shenanigans. There was no skipping massive parts of the Expunge: Labyrinth map with elaborate jumps. I didn’t Dawnblade over sections, either. I did have access to a few things you may not at this moment, though, so that is something to keep in mind.
To start, unlock the Wirewalker perk
When upgrading your Splicer Gauntlet, make sure you focus on getting that Wirewalker perk unlocked. This will open up some additional shortcuts at the start of Expunge: Labyrinth, and will also give you access to some additional gravity cannons you can use along the way to the final encounter. The cannons in that encounter, which you can unlock and activate on the final platform before you jump over and take on the boss, are huge time savers. They let you skip jumping across the platforms that teleport in and out of existence and instead lets you shoot right across to dunk your data thingy, no problem.
Fight nothing except what you have to
If you’re hoping to get Expunge: Labyrinth done in under 10 minutes, you have to do away with the notion that it is your job to kill everything. It’s not. What you need to do instead is skip past just about every other enemy except the Harpies that give you the data blob you need to unlock the next gravity cannon.
There are other instances you may find the need to do away with a group of enemies, such as those exploding Fanatics who will harm you unless you get them out of your path. Otherwise, jump right over everything, take your knocks, and keep moving forward.
Don’t give the boss everything you have on the first phase
Throw some of your arsenal at the final boss in order to get him to his immunity phase, which you’ll discover comes surprisingly quickly. But do not pound the final encounter boss with everything you’ve got. That means hold your Super back, and try to hold some of your heavy ammo back until you reach the second phase. Just damage the boss enough to get him immune, then proceed.
Keep a Fusion Rifle or a high-impact Grenade Launcher for the boss’ Harpies
These Harpies hold the data orbs you need to unlock the boss and get him open to damage again. Because time is of the essence, that means you need to take them down pretty quickly. Fusion Rifles work well here. Grenade Launchers of the special ammo variety that pack a punch can also work. Murder the harpies, take their data bits to the appropriate platforms, and make the boss vulnerable as fast as you can.
Save your Super for the second boss damage phase, then unload with a very good heavy
The second boss phase won’t go to immunity quite as quickly. This is the moment you need to really lay into him, because you cannot afford a third phase.
After you take the gravity cannon back from depositing the second data blob thing, that is the time you should be hitting the boss with your Super. If you have something quick that can really level him, use that. I actually kicked into Dawnblade mode about three quarters of the way through my ride back and starting hitting him with it.
After that, it was One Thousand Voices time.
I found that One Thousand Voices really did work on the boss, taking his health bar down in huge chunks from each spray. If you don’t have One Thousand Voices, however, you could consider using something else that also hits equally as hard. Wardcliff Coil comes to mind as another heavy that might do the trick here. Remember: you’re not going for sustained DPS over a long span of time. You are solo. You want to blow through all of your heavy in one go. You want something that is going to completely finish the job over the course of, say, 20 seconds.
That’s how I beat Expunge: Labyrinth in under 10 minutes
This method wasn’t the prettiest in the world. It certainly wasn’t me swording and zipping around the space like some crazier Destiny 2 players have done. But it ended up working. If you have some tips of your own for regular people who are not going to pull off insane acrobatics on their way to creating some kind of Expunge record, I’d love to know them!
