The Desert Perpetual raid guide

The Desert Perpetual arrived with The Edge of Fate on July 19, 2025, and it plays with time in a way no Destiny raid has done before. You need a fireteam of six, The Edge of Fate expansion and its finished campaign. Instead of a straight line of encounters, the raid has a central hub: the first three bosses can be done in any order, and Koregos is always the finale. You pick your next boss at the hub by the phrase on its prompt:

• “All are entangled” leads to Epoptes
• “Axion is axiom” leads to Iatros
• “Interference patterns swell” leads to Agraios

Across the raid you will keep hearing about three time buffs, Absolute, Cyclical and Constant, and about Chronons: orbs dropped by Minotaurs that have to be dunked to keep the clock running. Get comfortable with those words and every encounter becomes easier to read.

Epoptes, Lord of Quanta

Epoptes is a giant Hydra, and this fight is all about eyes. Clear the adds and kill the two Cyclopses, then two players take the buff from the nearby plates and head into the side rooms on the left and right. Each side room has a Hydra wrapped in shields full of eyes. The players there shoot the eyes, while teammates in the middle call out which eye is the right one.

Shoot the wrong eye and the sequence resets, so slow and clear callouts beat speed here. Once the eyes are done, shoot the big eye on the boss’s shield to open damage. During damage, two players at a time get pulled up to the shield and must shoot out its eyes. That keeps the damage window going. Precision weapons and precision Supers do well against Epoptes.

Iatros, Inward-Turned

Iatros is a giant Wyvern, and this encounter runs on an hourglass in the centre of the arena. Kill Minotaurs and dunk their Chronons into the hourglass to keep the team alive. Players also build up Diastole stacks as the fight goes on.

One buffed player has to climb up through the arena. The rest of the team helps by shooting the Vex cubes on the pillars, which create the platforms the climber needs. When the climber collects the third orb at the top, damage starts. Keep one player dunking Chronons during damage, because the hourglass doesn’t stop for anyone. Rocket launchers are a popular pick for this boss.

Agraios, Inherent

Agraios is a giant Hobgoblin sniper, and if he has line of sight on you, he will one-shot you. Start by killing a Hydra, which releases five Minotaurs. Their Chronons go into five portal rings around the room, and then a second Hydra follows.

1. Three players take the Absolute, Cyclical and Constant buffs, which match the boss’s three forms.
2. One player lines up under the platform for the remaining form and gets Temporal Alignment.
3. The other buffed players call which portals to charge, and runners carry Chronons through them.
4. The aligned player runs through all five portals and earns a detain grenade.
5. Throw the detain to block the boss’s big sniper shot. Agraios drops to the centre and damage begins.

Damage windows are short, but you can extend them a limited number of times. Linear Fusion Rifles shine here. If the timer runs out, Agraios starts firing shots that kill anyone he can see, so make every window count.

Koregos, the Worldline

The final boss is Koregos, a giant Harpy, and the fight pulls together everything from the earlier encounters. Three plates hand out the Constant, Cyclical and Absolute roles.

• Down below: destroy the boss’s turrets before their lasers wipe you, shoot the mines of the right colour, dunk Chronons to fill the hourglass, and finally shoot the Vex crystal beneath it.
• Up top: platforms rise and the team climbs onto Koregos itself. The Absolute player works through a cube puzzle with help from the other two roles, and when it is solved the boss opens up for damage.
• During damage: one player keeps dunking Chronons. Missing a dunk wipes the team.

Koregos has a large orange laser that kills on contact, so always break line of sight when it charges. Thunderlord and Outbreak Perfected are common picks for this fight.

Feats instead of challenges

The Desert Perpetual uses selectable Feats rather than the usual weekly encounter challenges. You switch them on yourself to make the run harder, and clearing with them active feeds into the raid’s triumphs and the Atemporal title.

The Desert Perpetual (Epic)

The Epic version went live on September 27, 2025, after being pushed back a week. It changes the mechanics of every encounter, adds three new Legendary weapons (Cusp Sempiternal, The Ever-Present and Starscape Null) and is where you earn the catalyst for the raid exotic. The fireteam leader needs a clear of the normal raid first.

Whirling Ovation

The raid exotic is Whirling Ovation, an Exotic Rocket Launcher that drops from Koregos at the end of the raid. As with other raid exotics, finishing raid triumphs improves your odds. The full loot table is below.