The Weird New Way To Prep For Destiny 2’s ‘The Final Shape’

Destiny 2’s economic and farming system changes in some pretty strange ways when The Final Shape arrives, and will require a different type of preparation this time around.

Some things will stay the same. It appears that stacking bounties before The Final Shape will still be necessary, with Bungie keeping the artifact power system in place, in addition to creating new power caps via gear when the content itself launches. But bounties will, as always, give you an XP boost.

But now you can prepare to more or less instantly get the new exotic armor that The Final Shape launches with, given the changes to that system that seem lackluster, as I said, but ultimately seem like a way to get this equipment faster.

The new system relies on ranking Rahool by concentrating or deciphering engrams. Focusing high cost exotic engrams gives you the most XP, normal exotics give you some, and Prime engrams give you the least. Bungie is talking about a “comprehensive collection” of exotic engrams, that is. occupying all your slots, this should be enough for you to max it out in order to start the new focus level to get the new Final Shape/Echoes exotics (we don’t know how many there are yet, probably at least six, two per class).

So you need a full inventory of exotic engrams, but also other things. But to start:

Exotic Engram Sources

• Many milestones have been changed from “powerful gear” to instead giving you a drop of exotic engram, which can be saved.
• The season pass contains many exotic engrams that you can collect before the end of the season. I’m not sure if there is still an active way to extract engrams from old battle passes, as I know the old methods have been removed, but I’m looking into it.
• Exotic engrams are random drops in the world, but so rare that you can’t farm them significantly.
• Exotic engrams can come from high-tier content like Nightfalls.
• Exotic engrams can come from vendor resets after the first one.
• Starting with The Final Shape, exotic engrams drop from legend and master lost sectors, but you can’t prepare with that because at the moment they are still decrypted.

Ascending Shard Sources – Bungie also recommends stocking up on these as they are used to concentrate exotic items that will give you more XP.

• Ascending fragments can come from vendor resets.
• Ascending Shards can be released at nightfall.
• Ascendant Shards can be collected from chests in later waves of Onslaught.
• Ascendant Shards can be collected from Trial Chests or Postcard Farming.
• Dungeon Masters can drop Ascendant Shards.
• High-level reel races/seasonal activities may drop ascending shards.
• You can purchase Ascendant Shards from Rahool for Prisms and Glimmer, the discounted ones have a weekly limit.

Exotic figures – You also need it to focus new equipment. These now have a higher cap of 5, but they have incredibly few sources.

• You can get one per week from Xur right now with an activity-based bonus.
• You can get one in the Seasonal Battle Pass.

Yeah, that’s it, unless I’m missing something. Since you can only hold five at a time, if there are more exotics than that when The Final Shape arrives, you can’t fully stockpile them to focus them.

So uh, enjoy. This all sounds dreary to me, but it should get you the exotics in less time than RNG farming the Lost Sector and waiting for the right day.

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