Destiny 2 Revelry: 7 Tips For Surviving The Verdant Forest
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The Verdant Forest is the centerpiece activity of Destiny 2's latest event, the Revelry. The spring-themed celebration comes with new mechanics and new loot to gather, which you can use to wreck your way through a spring-themed version of the Infinite Forest, and unlock a new Exotic weapon called Arbalest. To get your Exotic and your new rewards, you're going to need to put in a lot of time in the Verdant Forest.
The activity is similar to the Haunted Forest we saw during the Halloween-themed Festival of the Lost. Both activities require you to fight through the forest for as long as you can, extending a timer as you go. But the Verdant Forest has a number of differences that you'll need to understand if you're going to conquer it.
Here's everything you need to know about the Verdant Forest and its ins and outs, including how to keep your timer going, how to unlock its various Triumphs, and how to get the best of the bosses at the end.
Get Your Reveler's Tonic
To access the Verdant Forest, you'll need to visit Eva Levante. She'll give you a particular item, the Reveler's Tonic. Pull it up in your inventory and activate a perk on it to start it up. It'll give you an hour's worth of speedier recharges on either your grenades, your class ability, or your melee attacks. Make sure you remember to make use of the Reveler's Tonic, regardless of what activities you're playing in during The Revelry--the amped-up recharge rates are ridiculously powerful. We recommend the grenade buff, as it gives you grenades basically every couple of seconds. You'll need Reveler's Essence to use the tonic; get it from the Verdant Forest and for completing activities such as Strikes, Gambit matches, and Crucible matches.
Work Through The Branches
Like the Haunted Forest, the Verdant Forest is about getting as far as you can, as quick as you can. Each arena you fight in is called a branch, and each one will have powerful, glowing-red enemies that block your ability to move on. Prioritize killing the tough enemies so you can move on as quickly as you can. The further you get in the Verdant Forest before the end, the better. A timer counts down as you fight through each branch, and once it expires, you'll be sent to another arena to fight bosses: five, back to back. The more branches you've cleared, the more time you'll have or the boss fight.
Watch The Timer
The Verdant Forest runs on a timer from when you start, so speed is of the essence. Your goal is to move through as quick as you can, but you also want to kill all the enemies you can. Every time you drop a baddie, you'll get more time added to your counter, with tougher enemies adding more time. The trick is to balance killing enemies with maximizing your timer, so bring your best crowd control weapons and abilities that can wreck a lot of enemies quickly.
Go Nuts On Supers
The Revelry is all about Orbs of Light. When you use the Reveler's Tonic, you'll have a chance to generate orbs when you make precision kills. Bring Masterwork weapons so you can generate even more orbs (there's an orb-related Triumph to complete, as well) to power up your Super as fast as possible. Keep firing off Supers (there's also a Triumph for kills) to kill enemies as fast as you can--that'll keep our timer up and let you get through even more branches.
Use The Revelry Armor
There are two sets of special armor available during the Revelry event. One set comes from completing Eva's weekly bounties, while the other comes from the Eververse engrams you get throughout the event. Both sets for armor make your Reveler's Tonic more powerful, so make use of them. There's also a Triumph for defeating bosses while wearing the Inaugural Revelry armor set, making it worthwhile to work through those weekly bounties as quickly as you can to help you earn your Arbalest.
Watch For Chests
Clearing out a branch will sometimes open up an additional area with a Vex statue that houses a treasure chest. Keep an eye out for these--they contain Reveler's Essence, which powers up your Reveler's Tonic. More than that, they'll earn you a bunch of extra time: eight seconds per player who opens one. Try to watch for chests and identify them for your team, since the 24-second boost can be substantial.
Blast The Bosses, Work The Timer
When your timer eventually expires, you'll be sent to a final battle against the Verdant Forests' bosses. The more branches you've cleared, the more time you'll have to beat them, but the rules of the rest of the Verdant Forest still apply. That means killing the minion enemies that join the fight can be just as important as focusing your fire on the bosses. Of course, you want to take down the bosses as quick as you can, but powerful crowd-clearing weapons such as Thunderlord can be highly effective in helping you keep your timer up. For each boss you kill, you'll get treasure chest.