The first hidden Exotic quest introduced in Destiny 2: Lightfall will reward you with a Vex-made glaive that grants players a Void overshield as they block enemy attacks. But, in order to get the Vexcalibur Exotic glaive, you will need to find and finish the "NODE.OVRD.AVALON" quest.
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Keep in mind that the game's recommended level for this quest is 1800, but if your level is below 1790, like me, your Power level will be boosted to 1790 during the mission. I would strongly suggest you do this quest with a squad, as the final boss fight could be challenging and might take longer than you expect to finish, but I did complete the quest solely with a Hunter build, and I'll share all the build details here in case you are interested to get it done alone.
Weapons, Enemies, & Suggested Builds
Personally, I used Void and Strand builds to complete the quest. There are some points during the quest where a Vex army is flooding into the room, and Hunter's Super in Strand subclass can easily deal with those situations as a great crowd control tool. On the other hand, Hunter's Void abilities would be quite useful for boss encounters, especially the ability to go invisible, which gives you enough time to reload and regenerate your health.
Strand Hunter Build
- Super
- Silkstrike
- Aspects
- Widow's Silk
- Ensnaring Slam
- Abilities
- Marksman Dodge
- Triple Jump
- Threaded Spike
- Grapple
- Fragments
- Thread of Ascent
- Thread of Finality
- Thread of Binding
- Thread of Evolution
Void Hunter Build
- Super
- Shadowshot: Moebius Quiver
- Aspects
- Stylish Executioner
- Vanishing Step
- Abilities
- Marksman Dodge
- Triple Jump
- Snare Bomb
- Vortex Grenade
- Fragments
- Echo of Obscurity
- Echo of Expulsion
- Echo of Leeching
- Echo of Dilation
Going over weapons, I strongly suggest you grab Osteo Striga if you are playing the quest solo, as it will make it much easier to get rid of the final boss as well as the other mini-bosses. A Rocket Launcher or a Liner Fusion Rifle would also come in handy to defeat the final boss — especially in the first and second phases of the combat.
Also, if you are using the build above, wear the Graviton Forfeit Exotic helmet if you have it. The helmet will help you get even more benefits from your Void invisibility while extending its duration. As you may already know, the Void build above grants you invisibility for landing Finishers without using your dodge ability.
Starting The NODE.OVRD.AVALON Exotic Quest
The quest can be found in the EDZ, but in order to acquire it, you will need to solve a simple riddle. If you land on The Gulch in the EDZ, you will notice that there are small Vex cubes distributed in the area, and they make louder noises as you get closer to them. The plan is to grab all six Vex cubes in the area in a limited amount of time.
The map above showcases the location of all six Vex cubes on the map. Start from the one marked by 1 and then follow the numbers in order until you finish at 6. Keep in mind that you should make physical contact with the Vex cubes. You cannot grab them by only shooting, which is why you need to equip your Strand Grapple ability as some Vex cubes are placed high in the air.
Once you get the first cube, you will have 30 seconds to get the next one; as soon as you get the next cube, your timer will be charged up to 30 seconds again. Once you collect all the cubes in time, you should spot a full 6-part code on your screen, which means you are ready to acquire the Exotic mission.
Now, stand on the location of Vex cube 1 and go southwest a bit. You should be able to see a big lamp hung from a rocky edge (location X on the map above), next to which you will find a cave entrance. Go inside the cave and follow the path until you reach a Harpy. Interacting with the Harpy will kick off the Exotic quest.
Navigate To The Puzzle
This Exotic quest will not feature the usual navigation UI dots to tell you which way to go. Your biggest hint to find the way is always green dots of light on the surface of objects. Once you start the mission and go through the air tunnel, you will reach the first room, where there is white Vex water in the middle. There are two small passages at the bottom of the wall blocking Vex water, which is your way to the next room.
In the second room, you will reach a corridor. Turn left and follow the path down until you reach two Harpies. Kill them, but do not follow the way straight. If you look closely, there is a green light bar on your right, next to which there is a very narrow passage. This is your way to the next room. Once you go inside, you will spot a holographic person that disappears as you approach it. This person is your second hint to find your way and make sure that you are navigating correctly.
Continue the path down, until you reach a place where there is a huge Vex water container beneath you. Jump onto the Vex water to get teleported to a new realm. Here, you will need to solve a puzzle.
"Enter The Access Code" Puzzle Solution
This is the first time you encounter this puzzle, but it will appear a few more times throughout the quest — especially in the final boss fight. So, you need to learn it pretty well.
Once you rally to the banner, make your way to the platform with the Vex army. There, you will see a purple pillar in the middle, around which three different shapes appear and disappear periodically.
There is a pattern somewhere in the room that tells you in what order you should shoot at the shapes each time they appear. You need to solve this puzzle three times, and each time, the pattern will appear in a different place in the same area. The images above and below showcase three different locations of the pattern.
You should always remember the pattern. Try to write it down if you can't remember. The first time, the pattern will include three shapes, but the number of shapes increases as you progress. The order of the pattern is from top to bottom. The shapes include a cube, a pyramid, and a bipyramid (octahedron).
Keep in mind that shooting the shapes will not remove them from the cycle, as they will appear again in the next period. You should only shoot and destroy them based on the pattern, and if you do it correctly, the mission will progress. Since there is no time limit, it doesn't matter if you lose a shape appearance period in the middle. So, imagine you are in the middle of the pattern, and the shapes appear, but you are busy killing Vex and you can't shoot at the shape. This will not remove your progress. You can still wait for it to appear again and continue the pattern.
That being said, if you insert the pattern incorrectly, not only your progress will be reset, but also the pattern will change. So, you will need to go look at the new pattern, which might not even spawn in the same place again. When you insert a pattern incorrectly, the pillar does make an alarm noise that lets you know it was incorrect.
Once you enter all three patterns correctly, the door behind will open, but a huge Vex army is awaiting there. Make sure to use your Strand Super here to clear the area. In the new room, you will need to solve the same puzzle again three times. The images above and below showcase the location of patterns in the second room.
Keep in mind that both rooms host Hobogoblin snipers, and you need to get rid of them as soon as possible. You can either use a linear fusion rifle or a machine gun to kill them. Every time that you insert the pattern correctly, those snipers respawn. There is also a Cyclops in the second room.
Once you solve the second puzzle, the door will open, and a larger Vex army will flood in. This time, you will also face Digital Variant Tracker and Digital Variant Neutralizer mini-bosses. The Strand Super is once again your best weapon to clear the area.
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Navigating To The First Boss Encounter
After killing all the enemies, Vex walls will go off, and you will need to go left. There will be a Hobogoblin there. As you reach it, you can spot that holographic person at the far end of the platform once again. Go straight toward the holographic person and then jump at the narrow edge on your right to go on top of the platform. You will need to kill a bunch of enemies here. At the far end of the platform, there is a small triangular passage, above the Vex waterfall.
Go through it, but be careful about the traps. There will be triangular sliding doors opening and closing. You will be severely wounded if they hit you. Continue the path until you reach the edge of the Vex river. There is a Harpy on your left, and if you look below to the left, you can see two platforms flashing. You need to use them to jump to the target platform ahead. Make sure to use the correct timing to land before the platforms disappear. Before you jump, make sure you have Strand subclass enabled as well as the Grapple ability.
Once you jump down, you will spot a narrow path ahead with sloped edges. While you can use the first edge as a jump platform (1), the other ones cannot be used in the same way, which is the reason why you are going to use your Grapple to traverse through this narrow passage. Using anything other than Grapple will just make it difficult for you. Also, make sure to target the far end of the path as your Grapple anchor, and perform a jump when the Grapple finishes, avoiding a fall to death.
Once you reach the other end of the path, use floating platforms to reach the rally banner location. Now, you can see a spherical platform ahead. Jump on top of it to get to the first encounter area.
First Boss Encounter Guide
This is the first boss in the mission, which includes two damage phases as well as four puzzle phases. Once you enter the area, you will spot a hole in the middle covered by a Vex glass. There is also a Vex pillar on top of it. Your main task is to kill enemies called "Dataholder (Corrupted)," who drop purple Motes after death. Once you collect 8 Motes, deposit them in the pillar to open the hole beneath it, which is a shelter.
You will need to open the shelter and take cover inside it before the timer on your screen reaches zero. You are advised to use a Void build here, as the Vortex Grenade can kill several Dataholders at once. Also, you can go invisible for collecting dropped Motes and banking them in the pillar.
Once you are in the shelter, enemies will stand on the edge of the shelter to shoot at you. Keep running inside the shelter around yourself until the timer reaches zero and the shelter turns into a portal that brings you back to the surface. Now, you'll need to do the same task again with 10 Motes. Be careful about Hobgoblin snipers on the surface. Once you repeat the same task successfully, you will return through the portal again to kill Data Nullifier, the first boss.
The boss itself is a big shielded Harpy supported by many smaller Harpies around. Ostea Striga, Void's Moebius Quiver Super, and a powerful Machine Gun are your best choices to deal with the boss. Once the first phase of damage is over, you should kill the remaining Harpies, and then Dataholders will respawn again. You will need to do the shelter part two more times with 12 Motes to reach the final phase of the boss battle and kill Data Nullifier.
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Navigating To The Final Boss Encounter
Once Data Nullifier is dead, look around to spot a platform with three red dots on it. Beyond that platform, there is a narrow passage to the other side. Jump down and lead the way on the other side, as you will face a Wyvern before seeing the holographic person once again.
Go to the other side using an edgy platform. Here, you will see obstacles pushing out periodically, trying to throw you away. Once you get past them (Grapple can significantly help), you will see another spherical platform that sends you deeper into the Vex structure. Follow the path until you see the holographic person again.
Now, you will go down on a sloped platform and jump onto a long corridor ahead. Reaching the end of this corridor will lead you to the final encounter.
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Final Boss Encounter Guide
It's time to kill the final boss, Variant Stalker Brakion, Repurposed Mind. This will be a 3-phase battle, and there will be no checkpoints between the phases. You will need to solve the pattern puzzle that we faced earlier in phase 2 as well. Each phase has a different approach, but you are advised to use your Void build in the entirety of this encounter.
Phase One: Kill The Wyverns First
You will drop onto a triangular platform with three anchors. The boss will teleport between anchors within a certain timeframe. In between the anchors, you will face Goblins, Quantum Wyvrens, and Minotaurs. While Osteo Striga will still be a good choice to damage the boss in this phase along with your super, you can also use a Linear Fusion Rifle or a Machine Gun as your Power weapon. If you don't use Osteo Striga, we strongly suggest you equip the Deterministic Chaos machine gun.
Your first priority in phase 1 of the battle is to get rid of the Wyverns first, as they can attempt to make a jump on you, which throws you away from the platform, leading to a painful death. Once you kill them, start damaging the boss. When you clear the first damage bar of the boss, it will disappear, but you will need to clear the remaining Vex army. After that, you can use the portal in one of the anchors to move to the second phase.
Phase Two: Solve The Puzzle & Stay Alive
This is the most difficult part of the battle. The boss will spawn inside a cage, and while you can't damage him, he can shoot at you or throw Void bombs. In order to take that shield off, you will need to solve the same pattern puzzle. There are two locations for patterns to spawn, which you can see in the images below. The patterns are inside shelters covered with Vex glass.
However, before the puzzle pillar appears, you need to kill a Harpy mini-boss. But, even before that, your first priority is to get rid of the Quantum Wyverns again. Then, kill the Harpy. Now, two Cyclops will spawn on each side of the boss. Destroy them as soon as you can, and then solve the puzzle. This time, you will only need to solve the puzzle once, but don't rush on solving it.
Insert all the patterns except for the last one, and wait until all your abilities and super are recharged. You will only be annoyed by mini Harpies here. If you hide next to wall "A" in the image below, the boss cannot hit you at all. This place also keeps you safe from Cyclops, in case you have not destroyed them yet.
Once you insert the final pattern, the shield will go off, and you will only have 30 seconds to damage the boss before the shield regenerates. Once the timeframe is over, you will need to restart all the tasks in Phase Two once again to continue the damage. It took me three repeats to complete Phase Two, but with a powerful Linear Fusion Rifle in the Power slot, you can finish it in two attempts.
Phase Three: Stay On The Move
Hopefully, this is the easiest part. The boss will not have any shields, and you will not face Wyvrens, but the boss will keep following you closely, which is the reason why you should always be on the move in this phase. You will also need to use the invisibility of Void for health regeneration and reloads more frequently. For this purpose, we suggest you damage Goblins or Minotaurs, but leave them in the Finisher state. This way, every time you need invisibility and your own ability is on cooldown, you can land a Finisher and go off-sight for a short duration.
Since both you and the boss will be moving quite frequently in this phase, you are advised to use an SMG or a Machine Gun to deal damage. There will be a glowing core in the belly of the boss, which is his weak spot. The more you damage him, the weaker he becomes.
Once the boss is dead, you will interact with Vexcalibur in the room, which puts an end to the mission.
Visit The War Table
Head to the H.E.L.M. and visit the War Table to acquire Vexcalibur. This weapon doesn't have a catalyst, but once you finish the Exotic quest, you will receive a Legendary quest that requires you to get Vex final blows using Vexcalibur. Finishing that quest unlocks an additional mod for Vexcalibur called Authorization Override. Also, you will get a Legendary Defiant Engram next to that mod.
Aside from Vexcalibur, finishing this Exotic quest also leads to the completion of four Triumphs.
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