After 2 successful completions of the Oryx Heroic Challenge Mode battle, I thought I'd post some quick tips for any other DBOers hoping to try it before the reset on Tuesday.

The wrinkle to the Oryx Challenge Mode is that Oryx must have his health completely wiped out by a single light-bomb detonation. So instead of detonating 4 bombs at a time to wear him down, you need to set off at least 16 bombs at the same time, draining all of his health in a single attack.

First, some general tips and comments:

Weapons

Touch of Malice is a long-time favorite for the Oryx encounter. Not everyone will agree with me on this, but when it comes to this specific challenge mode, I would argue that ToM is not ideal. It is great for staggering Oryx, but that's about it. Given the option, I think the better choice is to go with a high level Sleeper Simulant or Black Spindle as your exotic weapon. Like Touch of Malice, both the Sleeper and the Spindle are great for putting major DPS on Oryx when he opens his chest. But unlike ToM, these 2 weapons are also very useful for killing Ogres, Shades, and Light Eater Knights.

Whatever specific weapons you decide to use, remember that Special and Heavy ammo are both hugely important for this fight. Any perks/abilities you can combine to maximize the amount of ammo you carry is very useful (in the video below, I equipped Ruin Wings for extra heavy ammo drops, as well as boots that let me carry extra sniper ammo).

Subclasses

Hunters, Warlocks, and Titans all have distinct advantages they can each bring to this fight. I wouldn't say there is any 1 subclass that is crucial for this fight, but some subclasses do make things far more manageable.

Titan: If you're playing as a Titan, I highly suggest you go Defender.

The exact type of bubble you use will depend on the position you play during the encounter. The most helpful use of a bubble is dropping weapons of light for the floater during the Ogre phase. In the video below, I was the team's dedicated floater. I held position up on the sister's platforms, using a weapons of light bubble to boost my damage against the Ogres and provide cover. If you have multiple Titans, it can also be helpful to deploy a Blessing of Light bubble in between the Sister's platforms (off-center, so you don't block your team's firing lines). We had a 3rd Titan who would drop an Armor of Light bubble during the Shade encounters, which was also helpful.

Hunter: If you're going in as a Hunter, I would recommend using Nightstalker, but a Gunslinger with Celestial Nighthawk can also be very useful.

Nightstalkers are great for crowd control and Orb production. Spec your tethers for maximum range and duration (Black Hole perk), as well as the Predator perk which turns your Shadowshot anchors into sticky traps. During our run earlier this week, we had a pair of Nightstalkers in the group. We'd begin the encounter by firing a single trap into the middle of the room (between the L2 and R2 pillars) to snag the initial batch of adds and generate orbs for the rest of the team. Then, immediately after killing all 4 Ogres, 1 Nightstalker would fire an anchor in between the two front pillars, while the other Nightstalker put an anchor between the 2 back pillars. This made it far easier to handle all of the adds that crash the middle of the room at that point. More importantly, it would snare any Light Eater Knights that were still running around, making it easier to take them out from the safety of the Immortality Aura in the middle of the room.

Gunslingers with Celestial Nighthawk can fill a key role by doing massive split-second damage to a single target. This can be very helpful when taking down Ogres, or the Vessel, or even for staggering Oryx. Just make sure you don't miss ;)

Warlock: Warlocks will almost certainly want to use the Sunsinger subclass.

As always, the ability to self-res can be a great "get out of jail free" card. But during this encounter, self-res can have more specific and deliberate uses. One of the most dangerous parts of the battle is the Shade phase. At certain points during your fights against the Shades of Oryx (usually once per fight) the Shade will move towards your group and attack with a sword smash. This smash can be deadly, particularly when a member of your fireteam has the misfortune of being spawned into the arena directly in the path of the Shade's attack. A Sunsinger can be a huge asset here, by drawing aggro from the Shade and leading the attack away from the rest of the fireteam. By sacrificing themselves, the Sunsinger can prevent anyone else from being taken down by the Shade, and safely self-res.

On to the specifics of the encounter. Your exact plan of attack will of course depend on makeup of your fireteam, but there is a solid general strategy that seems to work very well.

You'll want: A dedicated relic runner, a dedicated floater, and 4 dedicated pillar-holders (some groups like to have each pillar-holder claim a specific pillar, others like to assign an order and rotate around the room based on where Oryx starts. Either strategy works fine).

Relic Runner: Your relic holder needs to move fast. Very fast. They should be able to retrieve the relic by the time the Hive Ship has spawned into the room, and steal the Aura from the Vessel moments as soon as he spawns in. Otherwise the ship, adds, and Oryx will obliterate the pillar-holders.

Pillar Holders: The Pillar holders are primarily responsible for killing Ogres as they spawn, as well as the Light-Eater knights that appear after each Ogre dies. Each Pillar Holder should take responsibility for the L.E. Knight that spawns across from them. Prioritize the Ogres, but as soon as both Ogres on your half of the room are down, shift focus to the Knights.

The Ogres need to be killed fast. To complete the challenge mode, you need to keep all the Light Bombs stacked on top of each other in their respective corners. Ogres also have the annoying habit of teleporting away from the pile of Light Bombs piling up in their corners. They only way to reliably prevent this is to kill each Ogre as fast as possible. This means you must kill each Ogre before they have time to move. Crit hits with high-impact snipers are key, but keep plenty of heavy ammo available as well.

By the time the Relic Runner has secured the relic, all platform holders should move off their platforms and head towards the middle of the room. This means that 2 of the platform holders might have to kill their final Ogre while on the move. It also means one or two of the Light Eater Knights may still be on the loose. The platform holders, along with the Floater, should kill any straggler Knights as they cross the middle of the room.

Floater: The floater should be armed to the teeth, and have a weapons of light bubble to boost their damage output. Having the floater take position up on the Sister's platforms works very well, as long as they have a Weapons of Light bubble up their with them for cover. If no bubble is available, they'll probably want to stay down between the sister's pillars. Ideally, you want the floater using a high-impact sniper to do massive damage against the Ogres while also staggering them to keep them from moving forward.

The floater should be able to keep pace with the Ogres as they spawn. In other words, your group should be killing the first Ogre as the 2nd spawns, kill the 2nd as the 3rd spawns, etc. The floater can't afford to fall behind. Sometimes this means leaving one Ogre still standing as you move to the next. This is acceptable, as long as the Ogre is almost dead. The pillar holders can finish the Ogre off.

The floater should be prepared to hit the 4th and final Ogre hardest of all. By the time the 4th Ogre spawns, the Platform Holders will already be on their way to the middle of the room, meaning they won't be able to apply as much focus fire on the final Ogre. Use grenades/heavy weapons/whatever you can to kill the final Ogre, then switch back to your sniper and make sure the final Light Eater Knight is dead before you drop down to the middle and take position with the rest of your fireteam inside the Aura.

From there, the rest is fairly straight forward. Stagger Oryx. Defeat the Shade. Repeat until you have 4 Light Bombs in each corner (or at least 16 total). Detonate. Profit.

Hope this is helpful! Please feel free to respond with any questions or tips!