If you are looking to obtain all the Powerful Gear you can in Destiny 2 Forsaken before the raid next week then you’ll want to kill Blood Cleaver. This fearsome Cabal Gladiator is an extremely tough fight, especially for Guardians who are under leveled. However, there is a shockingly easy way to kill this brute as long as you have a lot of patience and don’t get greedy.
Credit to Reddit User The_Other_Manning for first discovering this cheeky way to kill him.
To start, head to Io and grab the Aventure marked “WANTED: Blood Cleaver.” This is a fairly easy mission since you won’t hit a reset zone until the actual boss fight. Slowly make your way up through the hordes of dogs and turrets until you get to the big man himself. After you shoot him a few times Cleaver will summon a big orange shield.
Stepping into this shield will deactivate all your guns and abilities. However, there is a split second where you can pop a shot off at Cleaver before you’re suppressed. Since Cleaver will always stay in his shield, you can pop in, shoot him, and back out. For this fight, we recommend using a shotgun, bow, fusion rifle, sniper rifle, or hand cannon. You can use rockets or grenade launchers, but there’s a chance you’ll blow yourself up.
One way to pour on the damage is to step into the shield, toss a grenade and back out. It will still damage Blood Cleaver, so pick one that is stationary like Pulse Grenade. Do not bother using your Super unless you’re using a Golden Gun. The shield will suppress you before you can deal any damage to him.
The tricky part of this battle comes from the turrets, dogs, and mini-boss war dogs he periodically spawns during the “fight.” While it might be tempting to jump on the rocks, you can actually run back to the cave entrance – marked by a change in color – and be relatively safe. Only the red dogs will chase you in here and the turrets won’t have a clean shot at all.
Shockingly, the yellow bar dog will not chase you into this tunnel. This means you can just stand in the entrance and shoot this dog until it dies. Blood Cleaver will spawn a lot of these dogs so always be vigilant and watch the radar for more enemies. He doesn’t give a signal for when they spawn, so it’s up to you to stay alert.
Blood Cleaver’s fight will take a fair amount of time, but you should be able to beat this boss with relative ease. Just always play it safe and never get greedy, even if it looks like he’s about to die. Slay this foe and the piece of Powerful Gear will be all yours!