Destiny's Challenge of the Elders: How to beat Sylok the Defiled

This fiery number's hot to trot.

How to beat Sylok the Defiled

This page is part of our guide to Challenge of the Elders, the Prison of Elders end-game activity included as part of Destiny's April update. It's updated every Tuesday and includes all the information you need on the weekly reset, modifiers and bosses.

This Taken Knight takes his cues from Urrox, the Flame Prince though his attempts to incinerate Guardians are more localised and easier to avoid if you play it smart.

Usually when fighting Hive bosses in the Prison of Elders, the most common strategy is to head far-left and hold the fort in the raised, barricaded area. The tricky thing with Sylok is that he quickly transforms that entire area into a frying pan with overlapping heat spots that take a long while to cool down and disappear. As risky as it sounds, the best way to ensure that your Guardian always has room to manoeuvre is to spread out and own three separate areas of the contoured arena: far left, far right, and patrolling the area just outside the airlock (perhaps the toughest of the three).

The hotspots sap both the shield and energy of any Guardian within seconds, meaning that they are always to be avoided – just as with the burning floor versus Urrox. However, if he is constantly being turned to face whoever is damaging him most, the projectiles tend to get spread out and miss their intended targets somewhat more. This leaves the Taken Hive to contend with, who contribute a great deal to this particular challenge: wizards, knights and thrall requiring swift attention with rockets or heavy machinegun fire, or suppressed with confident auto rifle handling at close range.

Sylok’s weak spot is his head, which is conveniently visible at most times above the central area that he cares to patrol. Really, the task at hand is to keep on moving as a three-man unit, or within the three areas that you choose to dominate, avoiding at all costs the burning patches and maintaining steady adds control for the benefit of the entire team. If you see a wizard, that’s yours straightaway; don’t leave it up to somebody else to deal with because they’re likely as under pressure as you are! Keep a cool head, and this a walk in a green and misty, probably quite hot and stinky park.