Everything to know about the Destiny 2 Vow of the Disciple raid race

At 12pm CT on March 5, the raid race begins for Vow of the Disciple, the newest raid to be released for Destiny 2. While The Witch Queen’s campaign has concluded, mysteries still surround the Pyramid seen in the Throne World destination. Answers await the thousands of six-player fireteams that will take on Vow of the Disciple day one, as well as the chance at being the world’s first to complete the raid. Being the first to beat the raid not only comes with bragging rights, but a physical World First title belt for each Guardian involved.

Here is everything you need to know about the Vow of the Disciple raid race, from where to watch it to what’s on offer for getting involved.

Watch parties

Bungie will be hosting a watch party that starts 30 minutes before Vow of the Disciple launches tomorrow. The Destiny 2 developers will be keeping a close eye on the competition as teams battle to conquer the new raid in the first 24 hours. They will be making sure the race remains fair and that the team to take the World First title does so cleanly without the use of any exploits or bugs. Many of the major players involved will also be streaming the raid race on Twitch, and a ‘Raid Day Tailgate’ hosted by previous World First title holder ProfessorBroman and Reck1568 will spotlight many of these streams throughout the race. This will be the easiest way for audiences to see where various fireteams are in the battle for the title.

Once a team has completed the raid, looted the final chest, and returned to orbit, a validation process will begin to make sure that the first team to conquer Vow of the Disciple did so fairly before the official winners of the race will be announced later via Twitter. But the watch parties and Twitch streams of other participants will continue as the rest of the day one leaderboard is filled out.

Contest mode

For the first 24 hours of Vow of the Disciple’s release, contest mode will be enabled in the raid. Contest mode will cap all participants at 1530 Power, meaning that each encounter must be completed at 20 Power beneath the recommended. This will make the combat challenge of each encounter tough for all involved, and create a level playing field amongst the contestants. Bonus Power from the seasonal Artifact will be enabled, but will only assist players in reaching that 1530 cap and will not take them above it.

Anybody can assemble a fireteam and tackle Vow of the Disciple in these first 24 hours, and any who successfully completes the raid while contest mode is live can earn a unique emblem.

Disabled gear

The Witch Queen expansion introduced with it a number of significant changes to the Void subclass with Void 3.0, and this has had unintended side effects for a plethora of weapons and Exotic armor effects. Newly introduced loot and balance changes also come with their own series of bugs that have had to be looked at as well. Because of this, Bungie has either nullified certain perks or disabled items entirely to retain the integrity of the competition.

Here is the complete list of gear you won’t be seeing within Vow of the Disciple during the first 24 hours, according to the recent This Week At Bungie:

• Weapons
  • IKELOS_SMG_V1.0.2 (Legendary SMG)
  • Imperial Needle (Legendary Bow)
  • Grand Overture (Exotic Machine Gun)
  • Wardcliff Coil (Exotic Rocket Launcher)
• Armor
  • Wormgod Caress (Exotic Gauntlets)
  • Peregrine Greaves (Exotic Legs)
• Mods
  • Suppressing Glaive (Artifact Armor Mod)