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Activity Walkthrough
How To Get Seraph Keys
Using Resonant Coordinates
Destiny 2's Season of the Seraph has introduced Heist Battlegrounds, a variant of the popular Battlegrounds game type with a Warmind twist. Guardians will need to push through Seraph Bunkers and defeat a final boss as they avoid deadly towers and other internal defenses.
Related: Destiny 2: Every New Weapon In Season Of The Seraph
This activity is slightly harder than most seasonal activities, enforcing a Power level buff to all enemies you face. But with the right build or strategy, you can clear these new Battlegrounds in just a few minutes. This guide will cover how the new Heist Battleground activity works, how to get Seraph Keys, and we'll cover what to use your Resonant Frequencies on.
Activity Walkthrough
Heist Battleground Variants
Before we cover the activity itself, it's important to cover the different Heist Battlegrounds you'll encounter this season, as some of them have encounter and boss differences:
- Moon: Fight against Hive enemies, defend the Seraph Bunker control console, then fight a Scorn Baron boss.
- Europa: Fight against the Fallen as you navigate Clovis Bray's facility. Enter the Seraph Bunker to defeat the Shrieker boss that resides within.
- Mars: Currently unavailable, but this seems to take place in Braytech Futurescape, a destination originally tied to the Warmind DLC.
Starting The Heist
Your fireteam will spawn on the outskirts of a Seraph Bunker, fighting your way through waves of Xivu Arath's (or Eramis') forces. Unlike a traditional combat encounter, you must also deal with Seraph towers. These defensive towers loom over the battlefield and will attempt to spot you while out of cover. If a tower sees you for 15 seconds, you'll instantly die. Whenever a tower begins to mark your Guardian, find cover to block the tower's line of sight.
Beyond that, you'll need to fend off the enemies defending the Seraph Bunker. A miniboss tends to spawn during the final wave of enemies, so have your Super or Heavy weapon ready. The Europa Heist Battleground will require you to fight through the Braytech facility to reach the bunker, so you'll need to do a little more shooting than usual.
Deathtongue Choristers
During the Europa Heist Battleground, you'll enter two arenas with Hive totems looming over the arena. Beside these totems will be a glowing Hive Acolyte called a Deathtongue Chorister. If that Acolyte touches the totem, your abilities will be disabled until the Deathtongue has been slain.
Descend Into The Bunker
If you've played Season of the Worthy, this next part should be quite familiar. Descend into the newly-opened bunker and kill the enemies inside. For the Moon version of this mission, you'll need to defend your Ghost against waves of Scorn as it hacks into a terminal. Feel free to use your Heavy ammo and Supers during this part, as this defense section is somewhat lengthy.
Deeper in the bunker, you'll find a locked vault door chained by Hive runes. You must find PDT Refraction Cores on the edges of the room. Grab the core and bring it back to the Hive runes. Firing the core will release a powerful beam that will damage these runes, typically breaking three runes with a single core. Two cores should be enough to break all five runes, but you can always grab more cores if you run out of power. Beware of enemy waves that spawn beside the door every two and a half minutes. Break the runes, stock up on ammo, and prepare to fight the final boss.
Fighting The Boss
You'll be greeted by a final boss when you reach the final room. The boss fight consists of two phases where you must damage them as much as possible, fending off waves of adds in the process. Don't be afraid to divert from damaging the boss if you need to heal, spawn ammo through finishers or add kills, or build up buffs through other means.
Halfway through the fight, the boss will become immune and start spawning majors, dropping Arc orbs when slain. You must kill the majors and deposit their orbs to a central pylon to remove the immunity shield. Depositing five orbs is enough to drop the shield. Consider dividing your squad in half during this part, covering each side of the arena to get five orbs deposited quickly. Drop the shield and give the final boss everything you've got. Your rewards will spawn upon defeating the final boss.
Related: Destiny 2: Seraph Cipher Artifact Guide
How To Get Seraph Keys
The final Seraph Chest in every Heist Battleground requires 500 Seraph Keys to open. Seraph Keys are a new seasonal currency that drops from all activities, notably Vanguard Ops, Crucible, and Gambit. Ritual activities drop around 200 Seraph Keys per clear, while shorter activities like Lost Sectors drop fewer keys. You can only hold up to 2,000 Seraph Keys at a time, 4,000 if you purchase a certain Exo Frame upgrade.
For a quick Seraph Key farm, we recommend farming Vanguard Ops. You'll earn Vanguard Rank reputation, acquire some good weapons, and get a solid influx of Seraph Keys with each run. Complete your ritual weeklies, then run a few Heist Battlegrounds to use your Seraph Keys.
Using Resonant Coordinates
Clearing a Heist Battleground will grant Resonant Coordinates, a resource type that returns from the Warmind DLC. Interacting with Resonance Amp in your inventory will consume four Resonant Coordinates, revealing hidden caches throughout the solar system. Opening the caches will award a random IKELOS weapon with a high chance of a Resonance (red border) variant.
Slotting in four Resonant Coordinates will give you a short riddle on where the cache is. The riddle is typically listed as the following:
- Destination -> Zone -> Hint #1 -> Hint #2
For example, you might get a code that states, "Europa.Eventide.Cliff.Refuge." This code tells you the cache can be found in the Eventide Ruins on Europa beside a cliff, the cliff itself located near a residential building. Parse the codes in this way to quickly deduce where the caches are. Your screen will be covered in a golden filter as you get closer to the signal. We'll have a more thorough breakdown of all cache locations in a future guide; stay tuned.
Next: Destiny 2 Season Of The Seraph: All Week 1 Seasonal Challenges
