Good post on Reddit on the Calus boss fight. Credit to u/redka243,
www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/711ya0/spoiler_calus_fight_guide_and_collection_of_tips/There have been a few SGA posts and guides with some really useful information that may have gone un-noticed by some so I'm collecting a lot of it here to help people out who either haven't finished the fight yet or have, but want an easier time.
Subclasses :
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Warlocks should run arc with healing rift and arc soul (at least 2 - one inside and one outside). Additional warlocks can run empowering rifts.
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Titans should run striker for double pulse grenades, rally barricade for DPS phase and skulls or throne room team titans can run big wall if needed to help with survivability. Striker super can be used to clear adds between phases. Striker titans can also save themselves from the psions in the shadow realm if something goes wrong (not my video). Actium war rig is amazing in shadow realm. Skullfort is great in throne.
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Hunters can run nighthawk golden gun with the tree that adds precision damage to golden gun for extra boss damage, or arcstrider with raideb flux for add control if that's more of an issue (very very good in throne).
Equipment:
- Scout rifles are very ammo efficient. There is a vanguard scout with explosive rounds that is quite good - nameless midnight.
- Merciless exotic fusion, or a combination of coldheart + cluster bomb rockets or linear fusion rifles is going to be ideal for DPS phases. Sniper rifles are also good options if you can hit all of your crits. The raid launcher does great damage with a rally wall for instant reloads.
- For the shadow realm team team, autorifles are good for skulls. Origin story auto rifle combines extended magazine and rampage (bonus damage on kills stacking up to 3X) and is pretty good for shadow realm.
- Lunafaction boots exotic is really nice for the warlocks. When someone has this, entering and exiting the rift automatically reloads teamate weapons. An alternate would be the warlock gauntlets that stack melee damage or heal on melee hits if you are having survivability issues.
First phase (clearing adds):
- Save as much ammunition as possible. Ideally the shadow realm team should use supers during this phase if they are not needed for boss damage to clear adds.
- Do not kill any of the floating psion councillors before being teleported. If you do kill them before teleporting, much more adds will spawn for the throne room team when they come back. You want the lowest number of adds possible to deal with.
- If someone dies during this phase they should be rezzed by a member of the shadow realm team and not the throne team which needs to conserve their revives as much as possible.
Second phase - Inside the shadow realm :
- Pick 3 good communicators to go in. They will call the symbols on calus's forhead in order from left to right. Having a set order is much better than everyone calling their symbol at once.
- Pick at least one arc soul warlock to be on the shadow realm team.
- Keep communication clear during this phase, ONLY the people calling symbols should be talking and only to say their symbols in order.
- Focus the psions on the ground first. Left and right guardians should shoot the psions across from them to facilitate killing psions behind cover.
- Try crouching to make sure you don't get blown off the map. This may make you stick to the geometry better.
- Pay attention to the holes in the ground and be sure to slide over areas which have the least bumps as possible on the ground.
- Once you reach the skulls, the arc soul warlock should pop his rift as the skulls begin spawning. Everyone should stand in the rift to get an arc soul which will help shoot additional skulls.
- The skull team can communicate to the throne team when the skulls are slowing down so that the boss's shield can be taken down.
- Its possible to have 4 people inside and 2 people outside if your outside team is very good at staying alive. This will allow you to get more skulls for the DPS phase. The more skulls you get, the higher your DPS will be during the damage phase.
- Striker titans can save themselves from getting launched by psions with a smash and shoulder charge super (see video linked above). Warlocks can do a similar thing with a dawnblade ground slam and in air evades (twilight garrison move).
Second phase - Throne room team :
- The people returning to the throne room should each pick in advance which portal they will use to go back.
- Throne room team should stick to the sides and kill adds (avoid running over the middle) which has less cover. You can have one guy dedicated to slapping the psions and the other 2 focused only on adds or have 2 on one side cover the 2 psions on that side and one guy alone on the opposite side covering the psions on that side.
- If you are taking a lot of damage its possible to take cover in a psion bubble from adds. Do not ignore them though, this is a temporary measure only.
- The psion that needs to be slapped is whichever one is NOT called by the team in the shadow realm.
- A LOT of adds will spawn after the final psion has been killed. All 3 throne guys should use roaming supers here. Arcstrider shocklock or slam/hammers if survival is a problem.
- At the end, group up and take down calus's shield to about 1/4 from next to the top right platform or other location of your choice.. You do not need to be on a platform to take down the shield and should not be.
- A warlock should pop a healing rift on this platform near the end of the phase to help survive the damage the boss will be doing to you.
- The healing rift lets the throne room team delay longer taking down the shield which lets the shadow team take a lot longer to kill skulls and get a lot more leading to a higher overall damage multiplier for the entire dps phase.
- When the throne team starts taking damage, or the shadow realm team says the skulls are stopping, take down the shield and immediately get off the platform so its not wasted for the other players.
- Designate one player as the throne room team leader to call when to start taking down the shield, take down the shield, get off the plate and get back on the plate. This guy can also call when to swap from one plate to the next in the following phase.
3rd Phase - Boss damage:
- At this point everyone will exit the shadow realm and you will be ready to do DPS. Wait until everyone is back and ready to jump on. Dont go immediately! When ready, Everyone should jump on the first platform first to begin DPS after a countdown. Do not jump on any other platforms on your way there. We started with top right but doing bottom right first is a good otion as its close to the shadow spawn too.
- You can actually wait before everyone is ready before jumping on the platform. The DPS phase starts when someone gets on. Don't wait too long but you can wait until the skull team is all back, near the plate and ready to maximize damage.
- Do damage to the boss with your best damaging weapons. As soon as he points his finger, get off the platform and move to the next one moving clockwise around until you use all 4.
- At about 2/3 health the boss's crit spot will change from his head to his stomach. Adjust accordingly.
- Once all plates are used the damage phase is over.
Repeating phase 1-3:
- At this point the First phase and shadow realm / throne room phase and DPS phase will repeat. Be careful, on additional phases the terrain becomes more difficult inside the shadow realm, watch out for holes!
Final Stand:
- When you deplete the boss's health, he will first end the damage phase like normal with his raised arm kill everyone on the platform trick before going to his final stand.
- After the boss's health is depleted, he will regain his shield and prepare an attack that will wipe the raid if he is not killed. Focus all your damage on the boss and kill him at this point, or you will wipe.
- You do not actually need to be standing on a plate to do damage the boss during the final stand phase.
Gerneral tips:
- Keep communication clear as much as possible. Only say things that are useful to the team. Do not say "SHIT" or anything else that does not provide useful information. If its not helpful information your team needs to know, just don't say it during the attempt.
- Try to master a given position at first. Once you have a good handle on that position, perhaps learn another position in the following raid. Understanding all the positions will make you better able to help others.
- If someone is struggling in a particular location, offer to change places with them (ex: if someone is just really bad at skulls, you can put them on the throne team)
- If you get stressed during the fight or have trouble hearing your teamates, turn off the ingame music in the options and keep only the sound effects
- People doing callouts should make their callouts loud, but only do one callout and not repeat themself unless there is a problem.
