Riven is not defeated simply by emptying her health bar. The Last Wish final boss requires two coordinated teams to cleanse symbols, record and destroy specific eyes, shoot Riven’s weak points during a plate descent, survive the Ascendant Plane, destroy her heart, and then complete the separate heart-carrying encounter.
This guide covers the current encounter and the current way to launch Last Wish in Destiny 2 Update 9.7.0.
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How to launch Last Wish
Open the Director, select Destinations, choose Raids and Dungeons, and select Last Wish. Update 9.7.0 deprecated the old Legends node, so instructions telling you to launch the raid from the Dreaming City map are outdated. Last Wish is included with the Forsaken Pack.
Last Wish is a pre–The Edge of Fate raid and now uses Bungie’s updated tiered reward system. Featured status affects the available reward tier, and Bungie says Last Wish armor can be focused at Hawthorne for 10 Spoils of Conquest per piece. See the Update 9.7.0 notes for the current reward rules.
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Before you start: team roles and callouts
Split the fireteam into two groups of three. After activating the starting plates, each group goes to one of the lower rooms. Teams commonly call these the blue and yellow rooms, or the tree and crystal/rock sides.
- Add clear: keeps Taken enemies under control and protects the mechanics players.
- Taken Essence holder: kills the Eye of Riven, carries the relic, and performs the cleanse.
- Glass-side reader: stands behind the glass and identifies where the required symbol appears.
Agree on symbol names and an eye chart before beginning. Labels such as L1, R3, or “left eye two” are community callouts, not official in-game names. Different guides use different charts, so use one chart consistently for the entire team.
Encounter terms
- Eye of Riven: Taken Knight that drops the relic.
- Taken Essence: the relic used to cleanse a symbol.
- Glowing eyes: weak points revealed when Riven is staggered.
- Taken orb: the orb in Riven’s mouth during damage windows.
- Riven’s heart: the Taken Blight destroyed after her health reaches zero.
Lower-room mechanics
The two rooms do not necessarily receive events in the same order. In either room, Riven or the Eye of Riven can appear first. React to what spawns rather than assuming a fixed sequence.
If Riven appears first
- Watch Riven’s attack. If she extends her tentacles, bait the slam and damage the exposed tentacle after it strikes.
- If she presents the fire-breath or mouth attack, damage the Taken orb in her mouth.
- Deal enough damage to stagger her. Two glowing eyes will be revealed.
- Call both eyes precisely to the opposite room.
- Riven retreats. The room then handles its Eye of Riven and symbol cleanse.
- When Riven appears in the other room, that team damages the mouth orb until her mandibles close, then destroys the two eyes called out earlier.
The correct eyes must be destroyed during the required window. Shooting the wrong eye or failing to destroy the correct eyes in time wipes the encounter.
If the Eye of Riven appears first
- Kill the Eye of Riven and pick up the Taken Essence.
- The relic holder looks toward the lower part of the stairs or pillar and reads the symbol displayed there.
- Call that symbol to the player in the opposite viewing position behind the glass.
- The glass-side player finds where the same symbol appears in the room and directs the relic holder to that location.
- Stand at the matching symbol and use the relic’s grenade ability to cleanse it.
- The lift opens after a successful cleanse.
- When Riven appears, damage her and destroy the eyes previously called out by the opposite room.
Cleansing uses the character’s grenade ability, not a special fixed Interact command. If you changed your grenade binding, use the button shown in your HUD or keybind settings.
Repeating the lower-room cycle
When Riven appears for the eye check, attack the orb in her mouth until her mandibles close. Destroy the two eyes called out by the other room before the wipe occurs. Riven retreats when the check succeeds.
Take the lift at the back of the room to the next level and repeat the symbol and Riven sequence. After both lower levels are complete, use the central lift to return to the top room.
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- Using an eye chart different from the one used by the caller.
- Destroying an eye before the team has identified it precisely.
- Assuming Riven always spawns before the Eye of Riven.
- Sending the relic holder to the wrong symbol position.
- Trying to cleanse before the glass-side player confirms the location.
- Destroying the correct eyes after the mandibles-close timing window.
Top-room eye phase
- Group all six players in the center of the top room.
- Clear Taken enemies, especially Goblins and Ogres.
- Riven appears through one of the black gates.
- Stagger her either by baiting and damaging a tentacle slam or by damaging the Taken orb in her mouth when she presents it.
- Record the two glowing eyes revealed by each stagger.
- Repeat the stagger process three times, recording six eyes total.
- Assign one eye to each player, or otherwise give every eye a dedicated caller and shooter.
- When Riven appears a fourth time, damage the mouth orb until her mandibles close.
- Destroy all six recorded eyes.
Assign eyes immediately after each stagger. Do not rely on remembering all six at the end. Ogres and continuing add spawns can interrupt callouts, so keep the room controlled while the team records the eyes.
Breaking the wrong eye or skipping the final six-eye check wipes the encounter.
Plate descent and Riven’s weak points
- Clear enough enemies to reach the plates safely.
- Have all six players stand on the plates.
- Descend through the chamber.
- As Riven crawls around the central crystal, shoot her glowing weak points.
- Each destroyed weak point removes a substantial portion of her health.
- At the bottom, split into the two rooms again and repeat the required cycle.
Continue the lower-room and descent process until Riven reaches her final health segment. The exact point at which the final threshold is reached can vary; it is not tied to one permanently fixed room or phase.
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When Riven reaches her final health segment, the fireteam is teleported to the Ascendant Plane.
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- Reach the beam of light at the top.
- One player touching the light returns the team to the main room.
Ascendant Atrophy prevents health regeneration and steadily drains health, so keep moving. Taken Phalanxes can knock players from the platforms; avoid fighting unnecessarily and prioritize the route.
Final stand: destroy Riven and her heart
- After returning from the Ascendant Plane, regroup.
- Damage the Taken orb in Riven’s mouth.
- Reduce Riven’s remaining health to zero.
- Wait for her defeat animation and mouth opening.
- Enter her mouth and destroy the Taken Blight, Riven’s heart.
Metaphysical Bleed steadily damages players inside this section. Destroy the heart promptly rather than lingering.
Destroying the heart completes the Riven boss encounter, but it does not complete the Last Wish raid.
The heart-carrying encounter after Riven
- One player picks up Riven’s heart.
- The rest of the team stays inside the carrier’s aura to prevent Creeping Darkness from reaching lethal stacks.
- When the carrier enters the other realm, players there collect beams of light to reset the carrier’s timer.
- Repeat the heart transfers while moving back through the raid.
- Keep the route clear: the carrier can only walk and single-jump.
- Reach the basin near the statue of Riven. The heart is deposited automatically there.
Do not outrun the carrier. Guide and protect them instead. Leaving the aura, missing the light collection, taking a detour, or expecting the carrier to jump normally can end the run. The raid is complete only when the heart reaches the basin.
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What old Riven guides get wrong
- “Riven always appears first.” Either Riven or the Eye of Riven can appear first in a lower room.
- “Shoot her mouth for every stagger.” Some attacks require baiting and damaging a tentacle slam.
- “L1 and R3 are official eye names.” They are player-created callouts.
- “The six eyes finish the fight.” You still need the weak-point descent, Ascendant Plane, final stand, heart destruction, and heart-carrying section.
- “Riven dying completes the raid.” The heart must reach the basin afterward.
- “Last Wish is Power 580.” That wording comes from the raid’s 2018 launch-era documentation, not a current recommendation.
- “One Thousand Voices drops from Riven.” Riven awards the key used for the final chests; those chests are reached after the heart-carrying section. See Bungie’s Last Wish reward update.
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