Fighting the Darkblade, Alak-Hul
It’s time to fight the Darkblade. When you reach the ground, you’ll be standing in the middle of a dimly lit circle. Just about everything outside of the circle is black darkness, making it almost impossible to see. The not being able to see factor probably the most difficult element of fighting the Darkblade, but it’s not impossible.
For starters, you’re probably not going to be doing a whole lot of long distance combat in this small area, so you can equip something effective at close range. My preference is usually shotgun for secondary weapon but a sidearm also works well here. Fusion rifles are viable, but the charge time might hurt you here. For primary, it doesn’t matter as much. Auto rifles are a good idea for close quarters combat but if you’re more comfortable with one of the other weapon types then you should still be okay. I used a pulse rifle, but it was mainly because it was my weapon with the highest damage at the time.
The best tip for this fight is to be brave enough to step outside of the circle, even if you can’t see for a moment. If you’re standing inside of the circle and facing out, then it’s pretty hard to see through the darkness. There are a few lights if you look hard enough for them, but they don’t provide a great deal of increased vision.
But actually, if you stand outside of the circle but face inwards, it is significantly easier to see the light in the center circle. If you walk out of the circle, you may also find that the Darkblade will kindly walk right into the middle of the circle and wait for you to blast him with rockets.
Did we mention rockets? They’re the preferred choice over machine guns for this battle because you might just have one shot in the dark as opposed to the ability to maintain focused and steady fire from a heavy machine gun.
Besides the darkness factor, part of what makes this strike difficult is the additional enemies that spawn while you fight Alak-Hul. A decent amount of them have yellow health bars, not to mention that there are also hordes of cursed Thralls attacking you. If you can communicate with your fireteam, it might be wise to have one person focus mainly on the additional enemies while the other two inflict damage on the Darkblade. This is a great time to activate heavy damage dealing Supers (the Titan’s Sunbreaker comes to mind), and alongside the rockets, it’s only a matter of time before you’ve defeated the Darkblade.
This strike can be a bit tricky. Even with the map indicators, one can easily get lost on the dreadnaught or not know how to move around in the darkness. To help you out with streamlining the strike experience, I’ve shared my own “A Sunless Cell” completion below.
More Destiny: The Taken King
- Taken King – 7 Things for Beginners to do Immediately
- How to Use the Titan Sunbreaker
- How to Beat the Fallen S.A.B.E.R. Strike
- Taken King – Wiki Guide
