Golgoroth DPS Strategies

I was talking to a friend of mine about the various Kings Fall mechanics and I think that the Golgoroth fight has the most varieties of strategy for how to maximize damage on the boss. Even within DBO events, I'm not sure we've settled on particular strategy we use every time. Since this is the Golgoroth Challenge week, I figure I'd collect the ones I'm familiar with. Is there a clear favorite, is there another strategy that should be tried?

1-Gaze, One Orb (no bubble):
This is the most common strategy used in XBox One DBO events. One gaze holder positions at the front left. The DPS team positions on the right side bridge, shooting Golgoroth to draw his attention and shooting the orb. When the orb falls, the Gaze holder grabs the gaze and the DPS team runs into the pool to begin doing damage to the boss.
Pros: With no gaze switch, there are no cursed thralls spawning behind the DPS team that risk a wipe
Cons: The time required to move from the back right to the front left pool takes away potential damage; this strat usually requires 4 DPS cycles.

1-Gaze, One Orb (with bubble):
This isn't an approach I've used personally, but I'd like to give it a shot sometime. Similar to the 1-Gaze, One Orb (no bubble) strat, one gaze holder positions at the front left behind the boxes. The DPS team positions inside a weapons of light bubble inside the front left tunnel. This draws Golgoroth's attention and he will ignore the gaze holder, allowing him to drop the orb then grab the gaze (shooting the top of the boss crit spot from the elevation of the boxes). The DPS team then moves the short distance to the pool with the weapons of light buff to begin the damage cycle.
Pros: With no gaze switch, there are no cursed thrall spawning behind the DPS team that risk a wipe, plus the DPS team will start with the Weapons of Light buff and can enter the pool very quickly
Cons: Requires a Titan and invokes some risk while the DPS team gets in position (perhaps a hunter vanish could help).

2-Gaze, One Orb:
This is the strategy my original raid group uses to maximize damage on Golgoroth. One gaze holder positions on the right side bridge, while a second gaze holder positions at the front left. The DPS team readies close to the second gaze holder at the front. To start, the gaze is grabbed from the right bridge, giving the DPS team time to drop the orb and get in the pool. When everyone is in position, the primary gaze holder pulls the gaze to the front left, allowing the DPS team the full duration of the second gaze to do damage. The initial gaze holder moves to the pool to do extra damage.
Pros: Maximum time to do damage to Golgoroth
Cons: Two cursed thrall spawn behind the DPS team when the gaze switches and one of the DPS team must deal with them.

2-Gaze, 6 Orb:
This was popular for a time, but I don't see it very often on heroic difficulty (perhaps due to the increased risk to the fireteam). One gaze holder positions on the right side of the room, while a second gaze holder positions at the left. The DPS team drops one of the front orbs, and the corresponding gaze holder takes the gaze while the DPS team enters the pool and begins damaging the boss. With 5 seconds left on the countdown, the DPS team drops the opposite side orb and moves into its pool, as the second gaze holder grabs the gaze before the timer runs out. Cursed thrall begin to spawn, requiring one team member to focus on enemy control for the remainder of the cycle. The gaze is passed left and right as the DPS team drops each orb in succession until all orbs have been used.
Pros: This offers the most time to do damage to Golgoroth - enough that the DPS team will likely run out of sniper ammo by the end of the 3rd pool.
Cons: This requires more coordination and communication across the fireteam than other methods. There is more risk, as cursed thrall spawn nearby at every gaze switch.

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I was talking to a friend of mine about the various Kings Fall mechanics and I think that the Golgoroth fight has the most varieties of strategy for how to maximize damage on the boss. Even within DBO events, I'm not sure we've settled on particular strategy we use every time. Since this is the Golgoroth Challenge week, I figure I'd collect the ones I'm familiar with. Is there a clear favorite, is there another strategy that should be tried?

1-Gaze, One Orb (no bubble):
This is the most common strategy used in XBox One DBO events. One gaze holder positions at the front left. The DPS team positions on the right side bridge, shooting Golgoroth to draw his attention and shooting the orb. When the orb falls, the Gaze holder grabs the gaze and the DPS team runs into the pool to begin doing damage to the boss.
Pros: With no gaze switch, there are no cursed thralls spawning behind the DPS team that risk a wipe
Cons: The time required to move from the back right to the front left pool takes away potential damage; this strat usually requires 4 DPS cycles.

The groups I do it with have only a single person on the right side bridge; everyone else is hiding behind pillars near the front left. With a Titan for WoL and one or two Hunters for tethers, this is pretty easy to finish in 3 rounds. (As long as you're not in Golgy's line of sight, being front-left is not a problem for grabbing gaze, by either the teaser or the gaze-holder.)

1-Gaze, One Orb (with bubble):
This isn't an approach I've used personally, but I'd like to give it a shot sometime. Similar to the 1-Gaze, One Orb (no bubble) strat, one gaze holder positions at the front left behind the boxes. The DPS team positions inside a weapons of light bubble inside the front left tunnel. This draws Golgoroth's attention and he will ignore the gaze holder, allowing him to drop the orb then grab the gaze (shooting the top of the boss crit spot from the elevation of the boxes). The DPS team then moves the short distance to the pool with the weapons of light buff to begin the damage cycle.
Pros: With no gaze switch, there are no cursed thrall spawning behind the DPS team that risk a wipe, plus the DPS team will start with the Weapons of Light buff and can enter the pool very quickly
Cons: Requires a Titan and invokes some risk while the DPS team gets in position (perhaps a hunter vanish could help).

I did this for the first time with an LFG group this week, and was pretty amazed by how well it worked. We got 19 seconds of damage time (with EVERYONE getting WoL boosts, not just the 2 or 3 that bothered to step back into the bubble as usually happens when doing 1-gaze, one orb), and the risk was minimal (anyone can take a second or two of golgy's blast without dying). I'm surprised this hasn't caught on more. (We finished in 2 rounds.)

2-Gaze, One Orb:
This is the strategy my original raid group uses to maximize damage on Golgoroth. One gaze holder positions on the right side bridge, while a second gaze holder positions at the front left. The DPS team readies close to the second gaze holder at the front. To start, the gaze is grabbed from the right bridge, giving the DPS team time to drop the orb and get in the pool. When everyone is in position, the primary gaze holder pulls the gaze to the front left, allowing the DPS team the full duration of the second gaze to do damage. The initial gaze holder moves to the pool to do extra damage.
Pros: Maximum time to do damage to Golgoroth
Cons: Two cursed thrall spawn behind the DPS team when the gaze switches and one of the DPS team must deal with them.

This actually seems really dangerous - I've never done it. It doesn't really seem to hold any pros over the first method... I'm surprised it works as well as it does. (I'd say that for most runs, deaths happen because of 1) the Tainted Light person not remembering to get out of the pool, and 2) add damage - so anything that reduces the number of adds automatically reduces the chances for player death.)

2-Gaze, 6 Orb:
This was popular for a time, but I don't see it very often on heroic difficulty (perhaps due to the increased risk to the fireteam). One gaze holder positions on the right side of the room, while a second gaze holder positions at the left. The DPS team drops one of the front orbs, and the corresponding gaze holder takes the gaze while the DPS team enters the pool and begins damaging the boss. With 5 seconds left on the countdown, the DPS team drops the opposite side orb and moves into its pool, as the second gaze holder grabs the gaze before the timer runs out. Cursed thrall begin to spawn, requiring one team member to focus on enemy control for the remainder of the cycle. The gaze is passed left and right as the DPS team drops each orb in succession until all orbs have been used.
Pros: This offers the most time to do damage to Golgoroth - enough that the DPS team will likely run out of sniper ammo by the end of the 3rd pool.
Cons: This requires more coordination and communication across the fireteam than other methods. There is more risk, as cursed thrall spawn nearby at every gaze switch.

During the last Challenge Mode, I was introduced to a 5th method, which actually worked pretty well: it's the same as the first (well, with the small variation I mentioned), except that after the first 5 players have grabbed the gaze, the front right bubble is brought down, and the sixth (and last) gaze-holder lines up on the front right, with four in the pool doing damage and one on add duty. It has the same risks as your 2-Gaze, One-Orb method, but gives you an extra 10 seconds or so of damage per round.

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I was talking to a friend of mine about the various Kings Fall mechanics and I think that the Golgoroth fight has the most varieties of strategy for how to maximize damage on the boss. Even within DBO events, I'm not sure we've settled on particular strategy we use every time. Since this is the Golgoroth Challenge week, I figure I'd collect the ones I'm familiar with. Is there a clear favorite, is there another strategy that should be tried?

1-Gaze, One Orb (no bubble):
This is the most common strategy used in XBox One DBO events. One gaze holder positions at the front left. The DPS team positions on the right side bridge, shooting Golgoroth to draw his attention and shooting the orb. When the orb falls, the Gaze holder grabs the gaze and the DPS team runs into the pool to begin doing damage to the boss.
Pros: With no gaze switch, there are no cursed thralls spawning behind the DPS team that risk a wipe
Cons: The time required to move from the back right to the front left pool takes away potential damage; this strat usually requires 4 DPS cycles.

The groups I do it with have only a single person on the right side bridge; everyone else is hiding behind pillars near the front left. With a Titan for WoL and one or two Hunters for tethers, this is pretty easy to finish in 3 rounds. (As long as you're not in Golgy's line of sight, being front-left is not a problem for grabbing gaze, by either the teaser or the gaze-holder.)

As the guy who often runs distraction, this method is much less reliable for getting him to turn. People claim it's just as fast, but it's really rough for consistency.

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1 orb strat w/ weapons of light bubble up front top level worked extremely well when we did it. Everyone hides except for distraction person and then jumps down running through the bubble for maximum 1 orb damage.

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Thanks guys; it's great to hear how others have attacked this.

I think for tonight's XBox challenge run we'll give a couple of these variations a try - I definitely want to see how a bubble in the front left tunnel plays.

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Nevermind, I got the decimal point in the wrong place.

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In all fairness, people dying before the first orb phase, getting lagged out or dying right after the first orb wasn't helping anything last night. We were having a lot of issues with sloppy gameplay no matter where we placed the bubble or stood. Our timing on things sucked.

One of the major issues with DPS on the Golg challenge is simply people moving.

- People moving before dropping the first orb. This causes Golg to focus on them which causes timing issues for everyone. You waste tons of time getting his distraction because he has ADHD and looks at people when he catches a glance of someone else.

- If everyone stands on the bridge then you lose 4-5 seconds of potential damage just running across Golg to the puddle and getting set. Not to mention trying to run through a bubble to get the damage buff.

- If you place the bubble in the left tunnel and dip back and forth for WoL this causes you to lose potential shots on Golg. People ducking back in there also can cause other people to miss just by bumping them or walking in front of their shots. Having to reload due to other people making you miss your shots just kills the DPS Flow.

The beauty of dropping the bubble up top with 4 people hiding behind the pillar is that you have 4 people being able to do max damage pretty much the entire time. they are able to drop right in the pit w/ WoL and a tether and can sit there shooting constantly. When WoL and Tether runs out simply shoot another tether if available or just concentrate on hitting your crits every time as quickly as you can. The more you move in this fight the more time you waste and the more likely you are to screw someone else up.

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I've never tried this, but is there any reason you can't just pop the bubble on top of Gorgoroth and then have everyone just sit in the bubble and hit him? I know that's not ideal for snipers at point blank range, but it would mean you have constant WoL active.

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I've never tried this, but is there any reason you can't just pop the bubble on top of Gorgoroth and then have everyone just sit in the bubble and hit him? I know that's not ideal for snipers at point blank range, but it would mean you have constant WoL active.

Pool of light buff.

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I've never tried this, but is there any reason you can't just pop the bubble on top of Gorgoroth and then have everyone just sit in the bubble and hit him? I know that's not ideal for snipers at point blank range, but it would mean you have constant WoL active.

Pool of light buff.

Oh, duh. Yeah, just ignore I just said that. I thought I had made an amazing discovery. Turns out people weren't cheering for me, they were laughing :-)

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- If everyone stands on the bridge then you lose 4-5 seconds of potential damage just running across Golg to the puddle and getting set. Not to mention trying to run through a bubble to get the damage buff.

The only way you'd lose 5 seconds there is if you walked backwards to get there. Something I don't get is that I'm consistently the guy on the bridge, and I lead in damage numbers virtually every time, if people look. I've got the same damn gun as everybody, and I have never walked into a weapons of light bubble on him. On the bridge, you can start going towards the puddle in good faith that the gaze getter will snipe the guy, and it's reliable.

The vast majority of the time I've had people in the front, it takes a lot of work to get the gaze, often requiring several magazines, a grenade, and many lost seconds trying to get the guy to turn around. If you can trust your team enough to hide successfully, you can trust your team enough to time it well from the bridge.

Furthermore, DPS isn't normally a huge problem. The first team we got him to the taken part in two damage phases, and had plenty of leisure time on the third, so we could play it safe with the taken, then we killed him on the fourth. This is plenty of time. We were tight. Kermit's annoyingly good at getting the gaze, we all did our jobs, the tethers were solid, and so on.

The second time, we were shit because we were sloppy, not because either strategy was bad. DPS was, again, not a problem. The problem was dying.

- If you place the bubble in the left tunnel and dip back and forth for WoL this causes you to lose potential shots on Golg. People ducking back in there also can cause other people to miss just by bumping them or walking in front of their shots. Having to reload due to other people making you miss your shots just kills the DPS Flow.

I'm not sure anyone actually does this. People place the bubble and afaik nobody uses it. I certainly never have.

I have an aversion to strategies that are any tiny bit more complicated than necessary with not obviously tangible benefits in practice, because I know who I play with, and I know who I am. The more steps we add, the worse we get. The more one guy can fuck it up, the less likely it is to work.

If 5 guys are at spawn side, if one of them makes a wrong move, the strategy's benefits erode, and it becomes a detriment. If 5 guys are on the bridge, if 3 people fuck up, it's largely identical to if nobody did, and we don't necessarily need that extra damage. Furthermore, it's consistent. The benefits of consistency in a less-than-perfect team cannot be overstated. The less precise our play, the more we depend on consistency.

I've done Golgoroth with most of these at one point or another, and on good days, the strategy you suggested works exceptionally well, but most days aren't good days. Note that we did two sister runs first try. The sisters can be done with high skill and sloppy play, which is what we had in our group. As long as we can jump and not die, we're golden.

Golgoroth, in my opinion, has only one reliable method for sloppy play, and it's guys on the right bridge. The best part about it is that unlike other strategies that are employed for sloppy play, like the oracles cheese or the right side Templar, or jumping the bridge, or skipping lights, this one is also usable by perfect teams, with benefits, and usable by wildly incompetent teams as well.

This is the whole reason we do one gaze. For most teams, the simpler the strategy, the better the end.

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Kermit's annoyingly good ...

Wow. Words never spoken together before now. :)

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At this point we all have high level spindles and we are high light level. So yeah, DPS isn't as much of a factor anymore. We are not having to do 5 rounds and risk enraging by doing the one orb strat.

It really comes down to how well the current team works together. Is your team sloppy or a well oiled machine?

As far as the timing on orb drop stage goes. If you are the primary distraction person on the bridge then you'll typically have a much better idea of when the gaze is going to be grabbed. the rest of the people hiding on the bridge are clueless until either they see the text on the screen or the gaze holder calls it out. Most of the time, they won't be in the ideal spots to quickly make it to the puddle. I could be wrong, but that has been my experience most of the time. When I'm on the bridge and then it's time to go down to the puddle I'm running around multiple obstacles in order to make it to the puddle to then turn around, make sure I have a clear shot, aim, then pull the trigger all while hoping to either tether or get a WoL buff. Whereas if I'm hiding up front, I can drop down, tether and get WoL and be ready to shoot within 2 seconds since it's a single motion to do all of that on the way to the puddle.

I'll still argue that moving around in this fight causes way more trouble then it helps. Whether on the bridge or up front. You move and golgoroth sees then he'll look at you instead of where he should look. Also, if you move down in the puddle you are screwing up someone's shot. heck, even up when you are divided into two teams to shoot the hive that are funneling down the firing range if you move, you are typically getting in the way of a teammates shot.

The mechanics of this fight are beyond simple. Shoot orb, stand still and shoot down a firing range. hide by standing still, Jump down in a pit, stand still and shoot in a puddle. then rinse and repeat. I'm so used to strafing from my Halo days that I actually have to conscientiously focus on not moving while doing this fight.

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Normally this argument doesn't even come up until one way or another starts to suck butts and we feel like we need to change it up.

Anyway, try to do it how Durandal suggested tonight? It's possible that may invalidate the argument completely and it will emerge as the far superior method. Will require two titans, I imagine.

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Will require two titans, I imagine.

One of the most obvious and easily-fixable mistakes that people make is running their Mains by default, and then their Alts.

If the team organizes it, it should be easy to always have two of each class every run.

Assuming everyone has one of each class, of course...

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I'm always up for trying another method. I know I've used the bubble on the bridge as a distraction before. But for some reason I was thinking Golgoroth destroyed it pretty quickly. Maybe that was only during the venom ball stage when holding his gaze?

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I'm always up for trying another method. I know I've used the bubble on the bridge as a distraction before. But for some reason I was thinking Golgoroth destroyed it pretty quickly. Maybe that was only during the venom ball stage when holding his gaze?

Those venom balls tear a bubble apart. Not sure about his eye blast though.

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The Xbox One raid on Wednesday gave this a try for the third run (we tried it a different way for each run). It worked great! One Titan in a bubble on the bridge distracts him almost completely, allowing the fireteam to place a weapons bubble and drop the orb easily, and get to the pool almost immediately after the gaze was grabbed. . We knocked over 1/3 health off per cycle (with a tether). Plus the distraction bubble generated orbs for the team.

Goloroth's beam didn't take down the bubble, but it did generate 7-9 orbs.

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Run #1 (1-Gaze, One Orb, Titan bubble and fireteam in the front left tunnel)
This approach enabled great damage to Golgoroth; he can easily be dropped in 3 cycles (likely two). It puts more strain on the gaze holder, however - he has to grab the gaze quickly after dropping the orb. We had difficulty with this aspect; when it took too long to grab the gaze the pool ran out early.

Run #2 (1-Gaze, One Orb, Fireteam distracts from back right)
As usual, this worked well, but required 4 cycles of damage. It's a timing issue; the DPS team looses 4-5 seconds getting from the back right to the pool. This approach does make it easier on the gaze holder, as they don't need to drop the orb, and the target for grabbing the gaze is much larger.

Run #3 (1-Gaze, One Orb, Titan bubble only to distract from back right)
This was almost as good as the first run damage-wise. It took 3 cycles, but it was much easier on the gaze holder. The single Titan and bubble on the back right kept Golgoroth's attention, so we had the benefits for the gaze holder and the fast access to the pool for the team (but lost some DPS as the distraction titan has less time in the pool).

In all 3 runs, we had a Weapons of Light Titan Bubble and a hunter tether during the DPS phase. We had a person dedicated to thrall control for the taken round, and the second gaze holder (for the challenge) had to abandon the pool early to get the gaze in time.

All three strategies are viable; we had some wipes but they were just normal mistakes (a missed unstable light, a couple of accidental deaths, and an early gaze grab). We took some time at the beginning trying variations in the first run, seeing if the fireteam can assist with the timing of the orb drop/gaze grab, but ultimately the best run for that strategy came when the gaze holder dropped the orb and got the gaze quickly solo. In any case, if you've got 2 Titans, give the Distraction bubble a try!

Many thanks to Zero Point Fox, Doooodbruh, DiscipleN2k, unoudid, nico, ParticleDuality and Squidnh3; great raid everyone!

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Golgoroth can't resist a titan in a bubble in plane view on the bridge. if you have plenty of hunters, orbs are not an issue and you can get the bubble back for the next phase easy. When I'm on my titan and we don't need my bubble, I do this all the time and as an added bonus rain orbs on the platform for the stormcaller.

You can easily do the 1 orb strat with one distractor this way.

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Months of hard mode Crota using a Titan distraction bubble, and none of us thought to try it here <emote>Forehead slap</emote>. We can give this a try on Friday.

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2 gaze 2 orb

This is run like a 2 gaze 6 orb except you stop after the 2nd gaze/orb. 1st gaze taker jumps in to dps after the gaze is taken from him.

The ps4 crew tried this once. It went fairly well, but it didn't seem much different than the 1 orb method. I still think this should be faster, maybe if it were practiced more.

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2-Gaze, 6 Orb:
This was popular for a time, but I don't see it very often on heroic difficulty (perhaps due to the increased risk to the fireteam). One gaze holder positions on the right side of the room, while a second gaze holder positions at the left. The DPS team drops one of the front orbs, and the corresponding gaze holder takes the gaze while the DPS team enters the pool and begins damaging the boss. With 5 seconds left on the countdown, the DPS team drops the opposite side orb and moves into its pool, as the second gaze holder grabs the gaze before the timer runs out. Cursed thrall begin to spawn, requiring one team member to focus on enemy control for the remainder of the cycle. The gaze is passed left and right as the DPS team drops each orb in succession until all orbs have been used.
Pros: This offers the most time to do damage to Golgoroth - enough that the DPS team will likely run out of sniper ammo by the end of the 3rd pool.
Cons: This requires more coordination and communication across the fireteam than other methods. There is more risk, as cursed thrall spawn nearby at every gaze switch.

I kinda miss running this strategy. I got really good at being the gaze holder, especially on the right side. Best setup for doing it was to use Red Death for Golgoroth's poison darts, Long Far Gone for dropping the orbs (4 shots, so I'd always have mine down before the switch), and Quillim's for emergencies. I think you are right though, ammo and risk are problems.

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Golgoroth DPS Strategies (Destiny)