Related Articles
Destiny 2 has two new seasonal activities in the Season of the Wish, both of which take you to Riven’s Lair, a sort of paracausal pocket dimension created by the near-magical power of Riven, the last ahamkara. But while both events take place in the same location, the two activities you can play this season are pretty different. The activity called The Coil adds a lot of roguelite elements to the activity, like others we’ve seen in recent seasons, and is highly focused on the score you earn along the way.
Though you can unlock it by completing the first week’s story missions, Destiny 2 doesn’t really explain what’s going on in The Coil unless you seek out the details by hovering over its node in the Director map. Even if you do read about the mode, though, you’ll probably be a little confused. Here’s everything you need to know about The Coil, what you can earn from it, and why you’ll want to put some time into it during the Season of the Wish.
Before you start: Get Lair Keys
Like in past seasons, The Coil lets you earn extra rewards when you complete the activity, but only if you have special keys that unlock special chests at the end of each run. It’s a lot less lucrative to run The Coil without having Lair Keys, so you’ll want to stock up between sessions.
As with past seasons, you’ll gather Lair Keys from just about every other activity in Destiny 2, including rituals like Strikes, Gambit matches, and Crucible matches. You can also get them from completing Riven’s Lair events, for increasing your seasonal reputation with Riven, and in reward chests for other activities like Lost Sectors or public events. Basically, anything you do that’s not The Coil can give you keys, so gather them up in between runs while you’re completing other goals.
How The Coil works
The Coil event is pretty similar to the Riven’s Lair activity, in which you play through several interconnecting rooms, including a big enemy encounter and a boss fight. While Riven’s Lair is finished once you kill the boss, in The Coil, you return to Riven at the end of each of these completed “pathways” and can start a new one. So The Coil is basically a bigger, more involved version of Riven’s Lair.
With The Coil, the focus isn’t just on finishing, but on driving up a high score. You can play it for a long time, but it’s not endless like the Altars of Summoning in the Season of the Witch. While you can quit The Coil whenever you want, the overall goal is to try to complete four total pathways for the best rewards you can earn in the activity.
Each time you start a new pathway, however, it becomes more difficult. Enemies in The Coil become increasingly tougher with each pathway you complete. In the first pathway, enemies start at your level, but gain five levels above you with each new pathway. So in Pathway 2, they’re five levels over you; in Pathway 3, they’re 10 levels above you; and in Pathway 4, they’re 15 levels above you, about the equivalent of a Legend difficulty event.
Surviving all the way through all four pathways yields the best rewards, but you can also claim high-quality rewards along the way and cut out from the higher-difficulty pathways if you prefer.
Note also that The Coil is a full-extinguish activity, which means that if your whole team dies and you have no revive tokens, you’ll be kicked out of the activity and back to orbit. Revive tokens are spent every time you revive a teammate or respawn yourself after your timer expires, so keeping unnecessary deaths to a minimum is key–which can be tough, given all the traps hidden throughout the platforming areas of The Coil pathways.
Roguelite elements
The Coil differs from Riven’s Lair with the addition of extra mechanics. When you click on the event on the Director map, you can see a rundown of what you can expect from the event’s modifiers, which will include surges for different weapons and element types, as well as enemy buffs. You can also see a list of exactly what encounters you’ll face when playing The Coil. These seem likely to change weekly, so you don’t have to worry about keeping up with new modifiers every day.
When you start The Coil, you’ll first visit Riven, who you can interact with just like you would when accessing the seasonal vendor screen. Riven will provide you with a buff you can choose, and each time you return to her between pathways, you’ll have the opportunity to buy additional buffs that can give you an edge in the run. Riven’s set of available buffs are randomly picked at the start of each run.
In order to buy additional buffs, however, you’ll need a currency called Wishing Glass. Look for pyramid-shaped motes to drop as you kill enemies and make your way through Coil encounters. Picking up these motes earns you Glass, with more currency depending on which kind of mote you find. White motes (called Clear) award 100 Glass, while red motes give 500 Glass, and other colored motes dish out higher totals.
Smash pots to earn more Wishing Glass as you explore The Coil.
You can also get Glass by shooting glowing pots scattered throughout the pathways. These are particularly prevalent during the trap-filled platforming sections of the pathway, of which there are always two: one before the first enemy encounter and one after it, before the boss. Pots are scattered around the area but are often placed by traps, so be careful when trying to gather the Glass they drop.
The more Glass you find, the more buffs you can buy, which are also arranged by tier, with better buffs becoming available later in a run. Glass also influences your score for your run, so you’ll want to pick up as much of it as you can.
You can also sometimes use Glass to purchase a revive token from Riven, and you’ll see information flash on your screen as you play stating that you or your teammates have found additional revive tokens. These extra tokens seem to come from killing certain enemies or picking up a certain amount of Wishing Glass, but it means while tokens are a finite resource as you go through The Coil, you can earn more to offset your losses for later pathways.
Scoring for rewards
You earn rewards in The Coil both for completing pathways and for running up the score, so you want to kill as many enemies as you can as fast as you can with minimal deaths. You also want to gather Wishing Glass to push your score up.
Earning enough points unlocks secret chests that seem to be hidden during the platforming sections of The Coil, where your team is tasked with finding and activating three plates in order to open up a portal that allows them to escape to the next area. Look for hidden pathways along the side walls of these areas, which will lead you to doors.
With a high-enough score, you can open these doors and access secret chests. Look for a text message to appear on your screen when your team’s score is high enough to access one.
The more pathways you complete, the better rewards you’ll earn between each one, which include high-stat armor and better weapon rolls. If you can earn a Platinum-level score by the end of four pathways, you’ll also get access to the Chamber of Wishes, a room that provides even more rewards for your run.
We’ll continue to update this guide with more information as we make our way through different pathways in The Coil and unlock all its secrets.
