Giant’s Scar (1st Mission)

Restricted Zone

Enemies Encountered

• Taken: Centurions, Psions
• Vex: Goblins, Hobgoblins, Minotaurs

Objectives

• Locate the Warmind Vault.

Mining Base

Super: Optional

Grenades: Recommended

Make your way to the Sector known as Giant’s Scar, where a small contingent of Taken is battling Vex guarding the base entrance. You can sit back and enjoy the carnage, or fight headlong into the warring Combatants. If you choose the latter, it’s wise to stay along the bottom of the left perimeter rock cliff so you aren’t overrun and can tactically choose the foes closest to you. Note that the Taken features a group of Psions led by a Taken Centurion. The Centurion has many of the attack patterns its Cabal counterpart uses.

However, it uses an Energy Shield (usually Void), can teleport small distances, and prefers firing its homing orb, which you should shoot before it badly damages you. Or, find nearby cover and dart behind it so the orb hits the rocks and not your armor.

The Taken Psions are easier kills, after which you must be aware of two Vex foe clusters. There are Goblins and a Minotaur around the large cylindrical tower, and Goblins, a Minotaur, and a Hobgoblin on the entrance platform. Cover, a possible grenade lob, and lower torso shots are needed here. With the area devoid of foes, head up the ramp and enter the base entrance. Turn right once you’re inside, head up an interior ramp, and go to a window overlooking a rather impressive mining drill.

Drill Site

Super: Recommended

Grenades: Recommended

Warning!: Restricted Zone

Vex are teleporting to your location. Face two Minotaurs and a group of Goblins, lob in a grenade to start the fight, and switch to Void Energy weapons to remove Minotaur shields. Focus on the Minotaurs unless a Goblin is in your face (in which case, punch it twice). Feel free to back up or use the upper windowed ramp area to your left to gain the height advantage.

Push through the next large doorway into a storage chamber, where a Hobgoblin has taken up a camping spot ahead and left of you (above the sunken exit area). Kill him as the other Vex warp into view.

Then, use the entrance doorway as cover, and remove the advancing Goblins with ease. There are around 10 Goblins and two Minotaurs, and their close proximity to one another makes grenades, a grenade launcher, or your shotgun a good choice, along with normal Kinetic or Energy weapon fire.

With the Vex temporarily neutralized, check the upper ledges for a scannable object, then inspect the orange-colored computer terminal, powering it on. This unfortunately doesn’t raise the drill, forcing you farther into the mining base. Head out of the exit (right and down of the terminal) and across the edge of the large exterior drill site, up to an arched entrance. Then, head down into Excavation Site II.