Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge Raid first encounter guide: Substratum

Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge is live with the daily reset of June 7, 2024. Players worldwide are facing hordes of The Witness' forces and cracking some of the toughest mechanics the looter shooter title has ever seen. The Salvation's Raid is also going to be the active Pinnacle Raid for the next few months, as all encounters are scheduled to drop gears with +3/+5 level, depending on your cap.

This article lists the mechanics of the first encounter in Salvation's Edge Raid, named Substratum, alongside the basics of cracking each mechanic to complete the encounter.

All the mechanics of the first encounter in Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge Raid

After launching the new Destiny 2 Raid, your team will be faced with jumping puzzles, acting as a prelude to the upcoming encounters. The path is pretty linear and easy, so follow the platforms and the white light. The location name "Substratum" will then show up in the bottom-left corner of your screen.

If you come across an arena with multiple orange wires and a glowing box in the middle, you are in the encounter location. Remember to put down a banner because you are going to need all the ammunition you can get. Overload Champions, Tormentors, and Subjugators will have frequent spawns here.

To complete the first encounter, Substratum, in Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge, here is a list of all encounter mechanics that you can do in order:

Enter the arena, and wait for the doors to the side rooms to close. Look for a Resonant Shard spawning right beside the orange box. Pick that up and deposit it in the box to start the encounter. The player picking up the shard will get a "Pyramidal Resonance" buff.
Doors leading to two side rooms will start opening up. Two players need to enter each room and start clearing the place out.
A hand structure in the middle will spawn a orange-colored Triangle beam in intervals. It is recommended for players to avoid getting in direct contact with that.
In the meantime, the players entering the side room have some killing to do in this order. Kill Minotaur to spawn Hydras. Defeating the Hydras will open more doors and spawn Overload Champions, followed by a Tormentor at the center. Once you get the message "You are being beckoned to the center," all players should make their way to the middle.
After defeating the Tormentor, look out for Vex self-destructing supplicants coming in from a newly opened door behind the hand structure in the middle. These same doors will close occasionally, so defeat the Hydras to open them again.
Head inside the side rooms and look for plates with wires connected to them. There are eight plates in total located across different rooms in the arena.
Repeat the entire process until you defeat two Tormentors, and look for two glowing plates in two of the side rooms that were unlocked from the beginning.
The rest of the team will clear out other rooms to spawn Tormentors and get the plates within the other rooms to glow
One player can step on a glowing plate, sending the glow through the wire to another plate. The player on the other plate can return the glow to the first plate. Repeating this will spawn Resonant Shard in the plate rooms. The number of Shards spawned can be determined with the number of glow bounced between plates. Pick up three Shards in total to get the Pyramidal Resonance x3 buff. Picking up four Shards will kill the player.
Use the Pyramidal Resonance x3 buff to shoot the pillar in the plate rooms. Shooting two pillars will spawn a boss in the middle. Note that shooting the pillars will NOT exhaust one stack of buff from x3. Instead, stepping on a glowing plate will give one of your resonances to the other plate, making it x2.
Kill the boss that spawns in the middle after shooting the pillars in the plate room, and wait for the orange box to spawn to deposit your Pyramidal Resonance x3 buff.
Repeat the entire process until your entire team has deposited 45 buffs.
Each cycle should get x18 Pyramidal Resonance buffs, with x3 for each player. Hence, completing the encounter shouldn't take more than three full cycles.

Start of the encounter in Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge (Image via Bungie/@Esoterickk, YouTube)

There are a few pointers to keep in mind while running the mechanics with your fireteam. Firstly, you will have only four minutes and 15 seconds to complete everything from start to finish. Running out of time means a full wipe/reset of the encounter, and everyone starts again from the first cycle. Deposit Pyramidal Resonance to increase the wipe timer.

Resonance pillar marked with an arrow in Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge (Image via Bungie/@Esoterickk, YouTube)

Shards spawning in the plate room of Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge Raid (Image via Bungie/@Esoterickk, YouTube)

Secondly, the plates get disabled after shooting each pillar in the two plate rooms. Hence, it is ideal to get x3 buffs first, shoot the pillar, exhaust one stack to have x2, and then pick the fourth Pyramidal buff.

Lastly, if you mess up the plate exchange, a Subjugator boss will spawn in the plate room. However, you can kill it to try again. There are two ways you can mess up the exchange, either by stepping on very early on the plate after the glow has been passed to you or stepping on very late.

Glowing circle on the plate of Destiny 2 Salvation's Edge Raid (Image via Bungie/@Esoterickk, YouTube)

Look for the glowing orange circle and step only when it is visible on the plate to execute a proper exchange.

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Edited by Rachel Syiemlieh