Week three of Rite of the Nine is here, which means (after a few changes to the calendar), a new dungeon. This week’s dungeon is Ghosts of the Deep, which is set upon the long-lost moon of Saturn, Titan. In Ghosts of the Deep, you descend into the depths of Titan’s seas to find the remains of The Dreadnaught… And whatever else lurks beneath the surface.
Ghosts of the Deep is the most difficult dungeon of the three in Rite of the Nine, and is definitely going to cause some head scratching at some points. Long encounters, long traversals, and difficult damage phases are the norm in Ghosts — and so we’re here to help you from start to finish.
This guide will go over the dungeon from front to back, including all of the changes, the new Rite of the Nine collectibles, and all of the new weapon rolls that you should look out for when taking on the Hive in this notorious Dungeon.
Overview
Ghosts of the Deep, introduced in Lightfall’s Season of the Deep, is set on the now-lost world of Titan. In this, you must delve into the oceans of Titan to stop the Lucent Brood and the ritual that they’ve planned.
This dungeon centres around the Hive symbols, and all three encounters use these symbols throughout, so make sure that you’re familiar with these symbols and have callouts decided with your team for clarity.
Throughout the dungeon will also be water traversal sections, in which you’ll have a ‘Pressure Resistance’ meter. Once that runs out, your screen will begin to crack, and if you remain in the water, you’ll eventually die. Throughout the water sections, there are bubbles that will reset your Pressure Resistance once you step into them. Importantly, though, you’ll need to make sure you share these with your teammates, as they’re few and far between.
Also, importantly, throughout this dungeon are moths. Be aware of them, as they will kill you very easily. Arc resist is also vital throughout this dungeon, as there’s Arc damage everywhere (including surviving moths).
Guide
Importantly, with Rite of the Nine, there is an Explorer mode for each dungeon that you can use to learn the dungeons by playing. If you’d prefer to do so, go and hop in to play as you follow along with this guide!
Break the Ritual
Ghosts of the Deep starts you off in the first encounter. Run straight towards the ‘fountain-esque’ part of the map, where you’ll find a rally flag. Rally up and kill the ads in front of you to start the encounter.
You’ll spawn in a bunch of ads, the most important of which is an Ogre that’ll be called ‘Soulfire Binder’. Kill this major, and you’ll see a green trail.
Eventually, the trail will fade away. Keep looking around, though, and you’ll eventually find a hive symbol floating in the air. Walk over to that symbol, and you’ll see a bunch of ads.
Kill those ads, and you’ll spawn another green trail. Do the same thing and find the same symbol again, and more ads. Kill these ads, and follow one more trail.
Under the last symbol, there’ll be a Lightbearer. Kill it, and finish its ghost. But, before you do this, make sure you keep note of the symbol in the air.
You’ll get a buff called ‘Vestige of Light’, which is the key to finishing this mechanic’s encounter. Run back to where you started, and you’ll see more ads, including a ‘Veilweaver Wizard’.
Killing that Wizard will let you activate Deepsight, which will spawn symbols around the structure.
Go up to the symbol, and interact to complete this round of mechanics. Then, do this three more times, and you’ll have finished the first encounter.
Rite of the Nine Changes: In Rite of the Nine, you’ll only need to do this encounter three total times, and the Ogres spawn more quickly. In Ultimatum mode, you’ll also have a 6min 50sec Enrage timer to complete the encounter.
Once you’ve done this, continue forward and down into the depths of Titan. You’ll traverse down, killing ads and dropping deeper until you reach the first water section.
Once you jump in, your first port of call will be finding bubbles to extend your time in the water. Keep an eye out for bubbles, and continue down (the theme is to go further and further down the facility).
Throughout the traversal, you’ll have sections to jump back up into using fans. These will give you respite and will act as the gateway to the next part of the traversal, so keep an eye out for upward fans as a way forward.
COLLECTIBLE 1
As you make your way through the traversal, you’ll find an open area with a cliff. Look to the right and you’ll see the collectible on one of the rocks on the side.
Keep moving forward and make your way into the Dreadnaught to continue with the dungeon.
Eventually, you’ll get into the Dreadnaught. Traverse through, until you get to another water section.
In this section, you’ll see Ecthar, the Shield of Savathûn. Make sure to run past him as fast as possible, and towards the fan upwards.
The fan will take you to the next encounter.
Ecthar, the Shield of Savathûn
Ecthar, the Shield of Savathûn is a boss encounter in which you’ll take on a tanky Lightbearer Titan. For this, the best option is to run Lord of Wolves to take him out at close range, as well as making sure you have a Well of Radiance on your team so he doesn’t burst you.
In this encounter, you’ll need to split into two teams. Two of you will be taking care of the upstairs, and one will go down into the depths to do the other mechanic. Start off by going around the room to kill the three Blistered Knights.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll spawn a ‘Keeper of the Deep’. Kill that, and the person going downstairs should head to the centre of the room while the other two focus on ad clear.
There will be a Deepsight ‘reveal’ in the middle of the room. Interact with it, and look to either side of you.
You’ll see three symbols on the hanging panels on the two walls. Make note of those two symbols and head down into the water.
When underwater, the first thing to do is to make sure to stay away from Ecthar, as he will break your Pressure Resistance and kill you. Make use of the bubbles and traverse around the area, staying away.
You’ll be looking for the symbols around the room. Go up to the correct ones and let your teammates know, then interact with them. Do this for all three, and head back up.
For those in the other team, ad clear until you hear your teammate call out that they’re interacting with a symbol, and then get ready to find a Lightbearer Wizard. Find it, and kill it.
Once you finish the ghost, you’ll receive the ‘Vestige of Light’ buff. Take it to one of the three podiums around the room — pictured above — and dunk it in that podium. Rinse and repeat with another podium for each symbol, until all of the podiums are lit.
Once that is done, everyone should be upstairs. Head to the bottom of the room, and you’ll see a Wellkeeper night. Once you kill that knight, damage will start, so make sure you’re ready, and make sure Ecthar is close to you.
Kill the Knight, drop the well, and start damaging the boss. You should be able to do quite a bit of damage with three Lord of Wolves, just make sure Well of Radiance is down so he cannot one-shot you (and put a Melee Damage Resistance mod on your armor if it still remains an issue.
Rite of the Nine Changes: It used to be a pain to kill Ecthar as his shield was previously far tougher, but now it’s less so. Also, you have three phases to kill the boss on Ultimatum, before you wipe to Enrage.
Once you’re done with killing Ecthar, head back down into the water and find the way out. It’ll take you through the Dreadnaught, and will lead you to a long corridor full of ads.
COLLECTIBLE 2
As you head into the corridor, turn to the right. The collectible will be right at the start of the room.
Fight your way through the ads and make your way to the final encounter, Šimmumah ur-Nokru, Lucent Necromancer.
Šimmumah ur-Nokru, Lucent Necromancer
The final boss of this dungeon is Šimmumah ur-Nokru, Lucent Necromancer. Standing on top of the dead carcass of Oryx, she is trying to resurrect The Taken King, and it’s your job to stop her.
Rite of the Nine Changes: For this encounter, you’ll again want a Well of Radiance, as well as three Queenbreakers. It used to be that you’d need an Arbalest to break the wizard’s shield, but her shield is far less tanky in this encounter. You also only have three phases to kill her, or wipe to Enrage.
Start off by finishing the Ghost in the middle of the room to start the encounter, and brace yourself as all hell breaks loose.
The first thing to do is kill ads before you even think about mechanics. This encounter is ad-dense, and they will murder you if you’re not careful. When things are calmer, find the Deepsight to interact and see where the triangle of the ritual is made up. It’ll be on three points on the map.
Importantly, while doing all of this, make sure to kill moths on sight — the boss will be spawning them constantly, and will have them around her before she launches them, so make sure to kill them before she can.
You’ll need to stand around those three points and kill a ‘Vorlog, Risen in Heresy’ knight in each of the points of the triangle to unlock that space for the ritual, so go to a point and wait for a knight to spawn. Once it’s spawned in, kill it while standing in the green circle, and a symbol will spawn in the air.
You’ll need to find a green circle and look at the symbol through the green circle to unlock it. This will make both disappear, so you’ll know you’ve completed it, but it can be awkward sometimes.
Once you’ve done all three, make your way to the sides of the map and through the water to find a Lightbearer. You’ll see a symbol in the room; make sure to remember which symbol was in the room before killing the Lightbearer.
Once the Lightbearer is killed, the symbol will disappear, and you’ll have the Vestige buff once again. Go back through the water, turn on Deepsight and find the symbol that matches the buff that was in your room. Dunk it, and once the last one is done, DPS starts. So, make sure you’re all in the same place when the last is placed.
Throw down well, and deal damage to the boss. She will move around a little, and will have a shield, but DPSing her with The Queenbreaker should make for an easy damage phase even with these difficulties.
Rinse and repeat until she’s dead (and make sure to kill her ghost), and you’ve completed the Ghosts of the Deep Dungeon!
Weapons
There are four returning weapons in Rite of the Nine’s Ghosts of the Deep, all of which have new rolls for you to enjoy!
Cold Comfort
Ammo Type: Heavy
Weapon Type: Rocket Launcher
Element: Stasis
Standout Roll: Envious Arsenal + Bait and Switch
A great rocket launcher, Cold Comfort is an Aggressive frame with Envious Arsenal + Bait and Switch. It’s almost as good as Hezen Vengeance, so if you haven’t got yourself one of those yet, this is a great stand-in.
Greasy Luck
Ammo Type: Special
Weapon Type: Glaive
Element: Solar
Standout Roll: Reconstruction + Redirection
Greasy Luck is an interesting weapon, as it’s quite mediocre usually. But, the Reconstruction + Redirection roll makes for a very interesting glaive, and there’s also the standard Incandescent and Close to Melee options if you’d like them.
New Pacific Epitaph
Ammo Type: Special
Weapon Type: Breech-Loaded Grenade Launcher
Element: Stasis
Standout Roll: Demolitionist + Redirection/Chain Reaction
Wave Frame GLs have become incredibly underwhelming since Area Denial GLs have become popular, but the roll of Demolitionist + Redirection is interesting enough and has potential, especially if Area Denial GLs get nerfed.
Chain Reaction is also a good option, making it akin to a Forbearance in the kinetic slot.
No Survivors
Ammo Type: Primary
Weapon Type: Submachine Gun
Element: Solar
Standout Roll: Heal Clip/Attrition Orbs + Incandescent
No Survivors now has the phenomenal Heal Clip + Incandescent roll, as well as Attrition Orbs if you’d prefer some extra ability generation over instant healing. It’s worse than on Multimach CCX, as it has a lower fire rate, but still works decently well.
Closing Time
Ghosts of the Deep is a difficult dungeon, but the new changes have ultimately made it far more enjoyable and a bit less gruelling than it used to be. For a lot of people, what was once considered one of the most annoying dungeons has now become a favourite in its Rite of the Nine version, and for good reason.
We’re almost at the final dungeon of the three, Prophecy, so come back in a couple of weeks to see how that dungeon fares in comparison to its prior version. And, keep an eye out for discussions about The Edge of Fate as we head closer towards its release. Also, while you’re here, why don’t you join our Discord server to come and play Destiny with yours truly?
In any case, thank you for your time, and I’ll see you in the stars.
