While I know many people reading this are living all over the world, if you’re in the US like me, chances are you may have today off work/school for Labor Day. And with Destiny 2’s Forsaken expansion out tomorrow, that means you can put in some catch-up/preparation time in today if you want.
For my money, your time is best spent not crawling your way to current max power as the cap is about to be raised by a ton and you’ll likely level up quickly from here. Rather, I think you should be trying to pursue a number of relevant exotic weapons that have proven they’re still probably going to be really good in the Forsaken era. And if you have them already, then it’s time to get their catalysts to make them even better.
While almost all current Destiny 2 legendary weapons are going to be made irrelevant pretty quickly with the new random roll/additional perks system, that’s not true for exotics, and these will remain the same in the Forsaken era. Here’s what you should be hunting if you have time today.
Whisper of the Worm
I am listing this first because you only have a few hours to make the attempt for it at the time of this writing. The Whisper is a quest that shows up every weekend, but disappears today at 1 PM ET at daily reset.
You have to park yourself on Io and wait for a Taken Blight event. You kill a miniboss then jump in a portal on the map for a timed, incredibly hard quest you’re going to want a fireteam to help complete, which you can find with the Bungie app. There’s more to it than that, but you can read my full guide here.
The Whisper remains arguably the best power weapon in the game after recent tweaks to the weapon loadout system, and it a monster for taking down bosses in everything from raids to now Gambit. It survived a recent box breathing nerf (which it gets from its catalyst, which you can get from running the Heroic version of the Whisper mission multiple times), and it’s going to remain strong in the Forsaken era.
Polaris Lance
While getting the Whisper is one of the toughest hunts in the game, Polaris Lance is a little more achievable. When Warmind launched, it took weeks to get all the quest steps from Ana Bray on Mars, but now you can do them all in a row, which will get you not just the Lance but its catalyst too, if you do all five steps.
Here’s a full guide of all the quest steps, none of which are super difficult. Getting 10 waves of Escalation Protocol clears is probably the most annoying, but it’s easier now than it was before with everyone now a much higher power level. And yes, you can do level 1 ten times in a row and it counts.
Polaris Lances was the MVP of the Summer Solstice event, as it’s a DPS machine with essentially unlimited ammo. With a clear path to get it, this is definitely something you want in your collection heading into Forsaken.
Sleeper Simulant
Sleeper has been kind of ignored for a couple months now, but it has found new relevance thanks to its insane strength in Gambit where it can burn down bosses and kill enemy players even through their supers with one shot.
Like Polaris Lance, it also has a specific quest from Warmind you can follow to get it. It’s an eight step quest and you can see how to complete it with a guide I wrote a while ago here. You have to beat the Warmind story to unlock it, but after that, it should be pretty smooth sailing minus again, needing a few Escalation Protocol round clears.
If you want to go a step further, the catalyst for Sleeper Simulant drops from the Prestige Spire of Stars Raid Lair, and then requires a whole lot of kills to complete it. This may be out of reach for a day of farming, but it’s worth a shot if you already have it.
Update: You may be out of luck on the Sleeper Simulant for now, because with heroic strikes removed you cannot complete one of the steps, and legacy strikes don’t count at this point. Looking for a workaround.
Riskrunner/Wardcliff/Prometheus Lens/Coldheart Catalysts
So, you can’t really “farm” these weapons specifically because there are no exotic quests for them, they’re just random drops. You can however buy Prometheus Lens from Xur today (who is hiding up high in the north part of Winding Cove in the EDZ), which you should. You can also gamble shards for an engram that has the potential to drop one of these you don’t have.
But if you do have these, you may want to keep grinding for their catalysts, given that all of these weapons seem like they’re going to be relevant/useful in the Forsaken era. All of these are dreaded strike catalysts, which only drop from heroic strikes (now legacy strikes) or Nightfalls, and have a way, way lower drop rate than anything else in the game.
I have been pretty fortunate and after a metric ton of strikes, I have all four of these (I’m only missing Merciless now). Drop rates have recently been buffed a tiny bit, but it’s still tough to get them. I would say that your best bet is to speed run Nightfalls with a few modifiers for your best shot at them. I got two in about 20 nightfalls this weekend, as opposed to another two in about 200 heroic strikes before that. I also pop three of coins when farming because I secretly believe that catalysts are coded as exotic drops by accident, and so it helps with drops rates, but I cannot prove this actually works, I only have anecdotal evidence from myself and others that have found luck with it.
Crimson/Tractor Cannon Catalysts
Two more weapons that you can’t farm for specifically, but these catalysts are ones that will simply drop anywhere, from any kills. You may have already gotten them and just haven’t completed them yet, but these weapons are going to be good in Forsaken, particularly in Gambit, so I would make sure to finish off those catalysts if you haven’t yet, which are just a few hundred weapon kills each.
Telesto Catalyst
Telesto is insanely strong right now, and as such, you may want to make it even stronger by farming the catalyst, which only drops in the Prestige Eater of Worlds Raid Lair. Another high end activity, but the drop rates are supposed to be pretty good, and runs only take an hour or so if your team is good. I may try for this one myself today.
So, that’s my advice for weapon farming today. Or just kick back, relax and wait for Forsaken when all of this may fly out the window with tons of new gear entering the game. Up to you!
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