Destiny Weekly Reset for April 4: Nightfall, Heroic Strikes, and More

Last week was one of the biggest on record for the Destiny franchise, as not only did the long waited Age of Triumph finally release, but fans got their first real look at Destiny 2. After months of rumors and speculation, Bungie ended the charade by first releasing a humorous teaser trailer featuring Cayde-6, then giving fans a 2 minute CG trailer. The trailer answered a few questions, namely that the attack on the Tower story line is indeed real, forcing players to venture out to gather back their strength before leading a counter attack against the Cabal.

Fans eager for actual gameplay will need to wait a bit longer, May 18 in fact, as Bungie is preparing a livestream reveal. In the meantime, plenty of new content has been added to Destiny to keep players content until the new game arrives. Age of Triumph celebrates players and their accomplishments throughout the past three years by offering a massive record book to complete.

In addition to new quests, loot that includes elemental primaries, and new daybreak strikes, all four raids have been completely revamped and updated with new challenges, new gear sets, and a higher difficulty to help get players to maximum light level.

With a new week upon us, let's take a closer look at all of the new content, bounties, and everything else in between for the week of April 4, 2017.

Featured Raid

Week 2 of Age of Triumph kicks off with a brand new featured raid, so players who may not have gotten a full set of Crota's gear will have to wait until it comes around once again. This week, the Weekly Featured Raid playlist has shifted to the Vault of Glass, giving players a chance to finally nab some of that sweet loot from Atheon and company.

The challenges this week are fairly difficult, focusing on Atheon and the Templar. Atheon requires that each player kills the Oracle at least once during every teleport phase, while the the other challenge tasks players with preventing the Templar from teleporting once.

As promised, players have only seven days to earn the Raid specific loot as the next Destiny reset will showcase a new raid. At that point, players will need to wait until all raids have gotten a turn in the spotlight to attempt the 390 Vault of Glass once again.

Weekly Vanguard Nightfall

Before the update last week, Guardians were on a crash course back to Ishtar Sink on Venus to square off against the Nexus Mind. As fans know, things changed and Taniks Perfected showed up instead. This week however, The Nexus has returned as players face off against the world-eating machine before it can do significant damage to the galaxy.

Reintroduced four months ago as part of The Dawning update, the Nexus has a number of new tricks up its sleeve to keep players guessing. The Taken have joined up with the fighting against the Fallen and Vex forces here. In fact, the first room of this strike requires players kill three Taken Captains instead of the Servitors that traditionally float around here.

Other level changes include a room that requires players use artifacts to unlock a barrier blocking their way. Fans were formerly able to skip this area entirely, but the newly remastered strike has players collecting relic orbs and delivering them to the opposite end of the room while avoiding enemy attacks.

Once the barrier is down, the Taken-inspired Nexus Mind also have a few new abilities players need to contend with. As the new mind shields itself from attacks, players will need to use the Vault of Glass inspired shield relic to blast Sekrion, similar to the mechanics against the Templar. Once the shield is down, players can unleash on the Nexus Mind until the process again repeats.

While last week added some chaos into the Nightfall thanks to all burns and the new Daybreak modifier, this week is a bit more standard. The active modifiers this week are:

Epic adds heavily shielded enemies that are more aggressive and appear in greater numbers.
Arc Burn boosts all arc based damage from all sources.
Specialist boosts special weapon damage while slightly reducing damage from primary and heavy weapons.
Juggler prevents ammo drops for the currently equipped weapon.
Ironclad provides shields to more enemies.

SIVA Crisis Heroic Strike Playlist

The SIVA Crisis Heroic Strike probably received the least amount of attention following the Age of Triumph update. This playlist hasn't changed much at all, though it's still a great spot to gain some powerful loot. This week, Solar Burn is the active damage modifier, so make sure to pull out all those new and shiny elemental primaries that were also recently reintroduced into the game.

The active modifiers this week are:

Heroic buffs enemies, making them more aggressive and in greater numbers than normal.
Solar Burn amplifies damage from all solar sources.
Chaff removes player radar.
Brawler increases Guardian melee damage.

As with most playlists on the Director, finishing a strike from the SIVA Crisis Heroic playlist grants players a new Treasure of Ages, which is essentially a hodge-podge of gear from previous collections. In addition to 30 Legendary Marks, rare Skeleton Keys have a better chance at dropping in the SIVA Heroic Crisis playlist outside of finishing the Nightfall, which grants one automatically each week.

Weekly Story Playlist

New to the Age of Triumph update is the Weekly Story Playlist, which is a randomly picked story mission ramped up to level 42, with a recommended light level of 380. Like the other playlist items on the director, the Weekly story offers players legendary marks and a Treasure of Ages reward box for completing the mission for the first time.

This week features stories between Mars and Venus and includes the following modifiers:

Heroic buffs enemies, making them more aggressive and in greater numbers than normal.
Arc Burn amplifies damage from all arc sources.
Specialist boosts special weapon damage while reducing damage for primary and heavy weapons.

Crucible Playlist

The Crucible playlist has received a makeover of sorts, offering players a choice with rotating game types. The Weekly Features Gametypes are available right on the director screen in the normal Weekly Crucible spot each week. For the week of April 4, the featured crucible mode is Zone Control.

Another big change following the Age of Triumph update is that the current Crucible game modes were shuffled around with some even disappearing completely. Each week finds modes alternating, so players will no longer have access to every single mode at the same time. The reset this week features:

Clash
Rift
Skirmish
Rumble Supremacy

Tower and Iron Temple Bounties

Kicking things off at the Iron Temple on Felwinter Peak, Tyra Karn has her usual good deed quest, where players can earn a token they can exchange for one of three Iron Lord Artifacts. This week, the local cryptarch is offering: Memory of Perun, Memory of Timur, and Memory of Felwinter.

Memory of Perun highlights enemies with low health and other guardians who have a full super meter.
Memory of Timur gives a small chance to convert a minor enemy of the darkness against its enemies after getting hit by a melee strike.
Memory of Felwinter removes the players super meter, but provides a small boost to all stats, grants an extra grenade, and melee strike. Not only that, all orb pickups recharge grenade and melee energy.

The Vanguard Scout, Shiro-4, should also be a visit before leaving to start his weekly Plaguelander quest. As usual, players will need to complete various patrol missions in and around the Plaguelands. For better or worse, it's an Archon's Forge heavy week once more as the Exo has: Together We Rise, Archon's Forge: Shanks, Archon's Forge: Dregs, and Archon's Forge: Captains.

Together We Rise requires players to complete five public events in the Plaguelands.
Archon's Forge: Dregs requires players to complete four Dreg encounters inside of Archon's Forge.
Archon's Forge: Shanks requires players to complete four Shank encounters inside of Archon's Forge.
Archon's Forge: Captains requires players to complete four Captain encounters inside of Archon's Forge.

Don't forget that finishing these bounties are the only way to have a slight chance at starting the Thorn exotic quest line. It's one of four that is needed to finish off the four exotic quests in the Rise of Iron record book.

Next up at the Tower head down to the Vanguard area to visit Lord Shaxx. The Crucible handler is featuring two new bounties this week focusing on Clash and Rift. Here's how to complete each bounty this week:

Back to Basics requires players to finish seven Clash matches, get 50 primary kills, 25 assisted kills, and 25 ability kills.
A Game of Rift needs players to finish 7 matches, earn 50 kills, 25 assists, and stop the runner once.

Continuing on, stop by the Titan Vanguard, Commander Zavala to find some new strike elite bounties. As usual, Sunrise and Strike Elite are once again available, along with the return of Make a Rainbow. Here's what players need to do this week:

Sunrise - Earn a Gold Tier Medal before time expires in the Nightfall Strike.
Make a Rainbow - Rapidly earn Primary, Special, and Heavy Streak Medals in a row to earn a Rainbow Medal. Do this ten times.
Strike Elite - Earn 9 Gold Tier, Silver Tier, or Bronze Tier Medals.

For players not interested in the Nightfall, these weekly Strike and Crucible bounties are alternative ways to earn Nightfall tier rewards and loot that will help get closer to that maximum light level of 400. As always, the Icebreaker exotic quest has a small chance to be started by turning in the Sunrise bounty each week.

Challenge of the Elders

Last but certainly not least is Challenge of the Elders. Before diving into this playlist, head to the Reef to speak with Variks in order to obtain the Elder's Sigil, which is required for entry. Pick up any bounties from the reformed Fallen, and head back to orbit to kick things off.

The modifiers for this week are: