How to complete the Defenses Down challenge in Destiny 2

The Exhibition encounter in the new Vow of the Disciple raid is one of the most hectic no breaks encounters in Destiny 2. The entire time you are working through the encounter, every raid member must be aware of several different things, such as the three different relics, the displayed symbols, and the multitude of enemies trying to kill them. If the encounter wasn’t already difficult enough, the Defenses Down challenge requires players to keep track of even more while chaos ensues around them.

How to complete the Exhibition challenge

The Defenses Down challenge is pretty simple once you tie it into the already required encounter mechanics. The only thing you need to do to complete the challenge is to only allow every member of your fireteam to kill one Taken Knight with the Darkness Relic. Sounds simple enough, right? The caveat here is that there are seven separate Taken Knights that will spawn, so you will need to do some quick thinking to overcome the challenge and complete the encounter.

To begin, assign each member of your fireteam a number one through six. These numbers will coincide with the order in which your fireteam members will eliminate their Taken Knights. The basic idea here is that once you kill your Taken Knight, you will drop the Darkness Relic to the person after you, allowing them to kill the next Taken Knight and further extend the encounter timer.

Because there are seven different Taken Knights that will spawn, you will need to skip a Taken Knight altogether and be extra quick in one of the encounter’s rooms. While you can skip a Taken Knight in any encounters rooms, we found that it is the least stressful to only kill one Taken Knight in the second room as you should have plenty of time to make it to the next room. While fireteams may develop their own strategies, here is a useful list that describes the order in which you should trade the Darkness Relic.

• Guardian 1: Will eliminate the Taken Knight with the Darkness Relic in the first room and deposit before entering the second room.
• Guardian 2: Will eliminate the first Taken Knight with the Darkness Relic in the second room, leave the second Taken Knight that spawns, and deposit before the third room.
• Guardian 3: Will eliminate the first Taken Knight in the third room and drop the Darkness Relic to Guardian 4.
• Guardian 4: Will eliminate the second Taken Knight in the third room and deposit the relic before the final room.
• Guardian 5: Will eliminate the first Taken Knight in the final room and drop the Darkness Relic to Guardian 6.
• Guardian 6: Will eliminate the second Taken Knight in the final room and deposit the Darkness Relic to finish the encounter.

While you are trading out the Darkness Relic, it is also important to remember the other two relics and their roles within the encounter. The other two can be picked up by anyone without ruining the challenge, so be sure to keep a keen eye on your terminal resonance timer to coordinate which relic you should be picking up. A mix of good communication and teamwork will make this challenge a breeze, allowing you and your fireteam to get access to that sweet extra loot.