"My will to get things done is always stronger than the temptation to give up": Saltagreppo on Destiny 2 challenges, and World's First 

The release of a raid in Destiny 2 is a momentous occasion for the community, as things can't get any more competitive on Day 1. Bungie tends to put a "power cap" on everyone participating in what many call "The Raid Race." The first 24 hours of a newly-released raid consist of specific modifiers to make the race equal for everyone who participates.

In the Vow of the Disciple race on March 10, six members from Clan Elysium achieved the World's First title by completing the raid in a record time of 7 hours and 14 minutes. This marks their second back-to-back World First, after last year's Vault of Glass completion in 1 hour, 43 minutes, and 55 seconds.

In an exclusive conversation with Sportskeeda Esports' Soumyadeep Banerjee, Clan Elysium's Saltagreppo talks about his approach to the game and how he prepares himself before tackling any high-tier Destiny 2 content.

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Saltagreppo on earning the World's First Vow of the Disciple title, completing Destiny 2 challenges, and his plans for the future

Q. Hi, David, let’s start by having you tell us a bit about yourself. How is life outside the Vanguard?

Saltagreppo: Hi! My name is David and I’m a 20-year-old Italian. Outside of gaming, I like watching anime (a big One Piece fan), solving math/logic games (I played Chess for many years as a kid), and trying out different restaurants/types of food. I currently live with my parents, my sister, and my dog Monny in a tiny Italian city.

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Q. When did you decide to focus on content creation and livestreaming? Tell us about some of the hurdles you faced and what life was like before YouTube and Twitch.

Saltagreppo: I knew content creation was a path I wanted to try since my final years of school. I never liked studying despite being good at it, so I wanted to try something that didn’t involve going to the university.

As soon as I finished high school, during the summer of 2020, I started streaming right away. It was hard and demotivating at times (averaging three viewers, one being my mother), but I kept at it since I wanted to at least be streaming during the middle of a major Destiny release to try to get my name out there.

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Q. Your YouTube took off ever since you started putting out crazy Deep Stone Crypt challenges that some of us can’t even think about. How do you prepare yourself for something that requires so much patience?

Saltagreppo: I never really felt like the challenges I was doing were oppressive. I rarely get bored of trying to do something over and over as long as it is somewhat short (15 mins max).

The only instances where it requires some mental fortitude to not give up is when I’m doing hours-long challenges like flawless Lowman raids or solo GMs. But even then, my will to get things done is always stronger than the temptation to give up.

Note: "Lowman" refers to a raid done with three or fewer players.

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Q. You currently have almost 22k subscribers on YouTube and 34k followers on Twitch. Do you perhaps prefer prioritizing either one of the two?

Saltagreppo: I definitely prioritize Twitch. I stream a lot and I don’t have enough time to properly manage Youtube, reason why most of my uploads are just highlights from Twitch. I definitely plan on hiring an editor in the future to start releasing compilations or more edited videos in general.

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Q. You have achieved so much in Destiny 2 at such a young age with your YouTube already gaining over 2 million views. Are you looking for any other career options besides being a Destiny content creator and a Twitch streamer?

Saltagreppo: Not really, I like what I do and it’s going well so far, so I don’t feel the need to explore other areas at the moment. But I haven’t closed any doors!

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Q. Congratulations on earning back-to-back World’s First on raids. Must have been an unreal feeling. What was going through your head in the final stand of Rhulk? And how did you celebrate this feat?

Saltagreppo: During the final stand, I was just trying to be as concentrated as possible. Execute and don’t make mistakes, there is no time to think about anything else.

I didn’t do anything in particular to celebrate, apart from going to a good sushi restaurant with my family a couple of days later.

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Q. Talk us through the thought process that goes in between the members of your fireteam when you get put in front of brand new raid mechanics. Things you might prioritize, assigning tasks, and other stuff.

Saltagreppo: When we get into a new encounter, we always try to gather as much info as possible before a wipe (and after a wipe, always read the wipe screen), and we all try to say out loud anything we notice that may help.

On top of that, we also usually have some players focus mostly on add clear and others being more vocal about mechanics, which helps us not get overwhelmed by adds on top of making comms more clear.

That said, though, our team definitely shines on execution and boss encounters more than on the “figuring out mechanics” aspect.

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Q. You have probably mastered every high-tier PvE content the game has to offer right now. Do you have a specific build for a class every time you go solo? Is there anything in particular that you feel most comfortable with?

Saltagreppo: I basically only play Titan and nowadays I rarely take off Heart of Inmost Light. The amount of ability regen + damage you get right now is just crazy and only a few things like a Cuirass of the Falling Star for Thundercrash can justify taking it off.

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Q. The Void rework has opened so many doors for different builds for different classes. From Atraks solo in Deep Stone Crypt to Templar in Vault of Glass, how did Void 3.0 affect the way you approach challenges?

Saltagreppo: I have yet to test it out in speedruns, but regarding Lowmans, I don’t feel like the void has shaken the meta too much. It definitely gave Titan a subclass with stronger survivability and add clear than before, and the same for Warlock, but the most noticeable part at least for duo/trio raids is the new Moebius Quiver on Hunter.

It does a very respectable DPS on top of applying a debuff, and it definitely feels like almost a must-have for any challenge where damage is an important factor. Obviously, this doesn’t really apply to activities with six people, since at that point having someone run Divinity is almost always worth it.

That said, I’m definitely excited for the next two seasons to see what the Solar and Arc reworks will bring to the table.

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Q. Before we wrap up, let us know about your top 3 raids of all time from both Destiny games and why?

Saltagreppo: It’s always hard to judge raids since different ones are good/bad for different reasons.

Despite that, Wrath of the Machine is easily my favorite one ever. I loved the mechanics of pretty much every encounter. They were all pretty fast-paced, there was plenty of room to master them, and even the Lowmans were awesome.

The fact that Aksis Bake managed to solo flawless the whole raid still blows my mind. I always had plenty of fun playing that raid and it never felt boring to run it back (the 390 version helped with that too).

Second place probably has to go to Crown of Sorrow. The first encounter was pretty boring but the final two were just masterpieces, and this is an instance where I feel like we have to reward quality over quantity.

Duo Gahlran was one of my favorite Destiny activities ever and I’m still extremely sad it got vaulted. It was awesome to see a raid where six players were needed more for add clear and having to do certain actions quickly than for “sit on x number of plates” mechanics, and it really allowed me to master the raid to an incredible extent.

The third place has to go to the Spire of Stars. Some people critique it for being too hard, others do for it being “buggy” (most people that do probably failed to understand some mechanics), but I just loved it.

The only thing that never felt too good was the fact that the raid couldn’t be completed with less than 5 people, limiting the challenge potential. But it would be unfair to hold this fact against it when the “needing five people” made the raid require a lot of coordination and be an awesome experience for a full fireteam.

No encounter ever felt boring in that raid, they were all just as fast and engaging with a good team (and the music was top tier on Val Ca’uor). Unfortunately, the raid kinda lost its the charm when Forsaken launched due to power creep, but I’ll never forget how good the Year One experience was for it. Who remembers the debuff stacking meta? Melting Point + Tractor Cannon.

Sorry Last Wish fans for not including it here. I know the raid is awesome, I just don’t feel like it’s as fun as others to replay or Lowman, which is what I value the most.