Published , by Sam Chandler
Published , by Sam Chandler
Bungie no doubt spent a lot of time designing The Witness encounter in the Salvation’s Edge raid with goal of pushing teams to their limits. Controlling enemies, interacting with the mechanics, and then dealing enough damage is a big enough ask for even the most seasoned raiders. And yet one player has done the unthinkable: BogOnMyDog has soloed The Witness.
Hailing from Australia (yeah, boy!), BogOnMyDog has soloed The Witness in the Salvation’s Edge raid in an incredible display of skill. In the video, you can see the hoops the player had to jump through in order to not only engage with the mechanics but also pass the DPS checks. As a solo player, he needed to do the same amount of damage as a full six player team within the same time limit.
To begin with, BogOnMyDog had to play on the Hunter subclass. This grants him access to the Golden Gun Super and Celestial Nighthawk, which not only buffs the Super but also the new Exotic Sniper Rifle, Still Hunt. From here, he utilized Apex Predator with Explosive Light for the added damage from Orbs of Power.
Part of this damage strategy relies on an oddity of Golden Gun. Sometimes, the Super will deal a larger amount of damage than intended. While rare, Bog writes, “Expecting 1 chunk in roughly 20 Golden Gun shots over the whole solo is not unrealistic”. One of these erroneous boosts to damage happened right at the final stand mark.
During final stand, Bog utilized an Edge Transit of all things. The roll he used had Bait and Switch (a 30 percent damage increase) which allowed Bog to deal enough damage within the tight time limit before The Witness instigates a wipe.
Before he can even get to damage phase, he’s got to go through the motions of the mechanics. This requires quickly moving around the arena, shooting limbs and collecting buffs in order to break glyphs – all the while killing enemies. But he’s not just killing them, he’s corralling them and moving the ammo they drop into specific positions so he can use Shoot to Loot during the DPS phases in order to fill up his ammo.
It’s a truly incredibly feat that took, according to Bog, about 150 hours of effort. This included theorycrafting on stream with users helping calculate ideal damage rotations, testing out strategies, and no doubt perfecting the loadout swapping needed to make this all work.
Bog notes that this solo attempt will likely become more achievable thanks to the Act 2 Artifact mods releasing this week. But for now, he can rest soundly at night knowing that he’s managed to solo one of the toughest boss fights in all of Destiny 2.