Destiny 2 The Final Shape Guide: How to Prepare for the Expansion

Destiny 2: Preparing For The Final Shape

Hey Guardians! With The Final Shape close ahead, it’s time to prepare for a game-changing expansion in Destiny’s history. This update will wrap up the running storyline we’ve been following for all these years and undoubtedly will be full of new challenges, secrets, and adventures that will reshape the world of Destiny 2.

Whether you are a grizzled vet or a blueberry stepping out of the gate for the first time as a Guardian, this guide is meant to walk you through all the necessary preparations to thrive in The Final Shape. We’ve got you covered, from quickly leveling your characters to grasping the ever-shifting meta and planning for new activities.

If you’re looking for how to build the new subclass, check out our Prismatic Titan build, Prismatic Hunter build, and Prismatic Warlock build.

Bounty Stacking

Bounty stacking is super useful at the start of any new release. The idea is to grab as many high-XP bounties as possible in the weeks before a new Season or DLC. Upon firing up the game once The Final Shape releases, you want to turn them all in. If you utilize the Ghost Mod in the first slot, you’ll also gain an extra 12% in all experience gained!

Doing this gives you a massive head start in the Season pass, along with an immediate handful of Artifact unlocks and a slight bump to your power level.

However, don’t turn them in until you get the seasonal Artifact! Jumping ahead in the season pass is lovely, but artifact unlocks, and the power boost is super useful and very important.

You can stack any bounties, but here are a few that give much more experience:

• Weekly World Bounties
• Ascendant Challenge Bounties
• Weekly Starhorse Bounties

Do not save any ritual playlist bounties. Bungie recently announced the introduction of the Ritual Pathfinder, so ritual playlist bounties are going away forever. Bungie also tweeted that ritual playlist bounties will be abandoned on June 4th, when The Final Shape launches.

Legendary Weapons & Patterns

Arguably, the most important thing any player can do between now and June 4th is acquire as many weapon patterns and God Roll weapons as possible. In this next section, we’ll review which weapons should be at the top of your priority lists and how to get them or their patterns.

It’s worth noting that you can purchase a red border weapon from each seasonal vendor every week. You can also get one guaranteed Deepsight seasonal weapon you don’t have every day from completing seasonal activities:

• Season of Defiance – Defiant Battlegrounds & Node Avalon Mission
• Season of the Deep – Deep Dives & Salvage
• Season of the Witch – Altars of Summoning & Savathun’s Spire
• Season of the Wish – Riven’s Lair & The Coil

All of the Lightfall seasons are free until June 4th!

CALUS Mini-Tool could be the best Submachine Gun in Destiny 2, especially for all things PvE. This weapon features one of the strongest perk combinations on any SMG: Unrelenting and Incandescent. This perk combo allows you to spread Scorch stacks while also healing you with Unrelenting.

Unrelenting is wonderful when paired with constant Restoration from running a proper Solar build. The high fire rate of the Mini-Tool further amplifies Incandescent’s effectiveness, making it a fast-acting add-clearing machine. Getting the pattern and crafting this weapon opens up various perk combinations, letting you tailor it to your playstyle. If you don’t have any, farm Presage until you can craft it.

Next up is Scatter Signal. You can buy one red-border a week from the Spirit of Riven. Beyond that, you get one guaranteed Deepsight Season of the Wish weapon every day from completing a Coil or Riven’s Lair run. I would farm The Coil. A full platinum run takes around 45 minutes, but the rewards are incredible if you hit all of the secret chests and score over 140,000. Scatter Signal is an excellent Fusion Rifle and one of the best Seasons of the Wish PvE weapons. It can crank out some impressive damage and is useful in almost any situation.

While Overflow might be better for DPS due to its ability to overfill the magazine, Slice is also a recommended perk. Using a Class Ability with Slice allows you to shoot from Scatter Signal and apply a Sever debuff, reducing enemy damage by a massive 40%!

Third on this list, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, is Apex Predator. This rocket truly is the cream of the crop. Unfortunately, Last Wish will not be the weekly raid again until sometime after The Final Shape drop. This doesn’t mean you’re completely out of luck though!

First off, you can still do the Riven’s Wishes quests from Mara Sov at the HELM and grab a few Deepsight weapons from Last Wish. Hawthorne still has a weekly quest that will allow you to purchase one Deepsight Last Wish weapon from her. One a week isn’t a lot, but it’s at least guaranteed! Also, you can grab the secret chest under the bridge leading to the Shuro Chi encounter in Last Wish on all three characters once a week.

The God Roll is Reconstruction & Bait and Switch. Paired with a Gjallarhorn or without one, this rocket puts out considerable damage thanks to the 30% damage buff from Bait and Switch. Another roll worth crafting is Reconstruction & Bipod. The damage decrease from Bipod truly isn’t terrible. This roll works significantly better in any PvE activity that isn’t a raid or dungeon. This rocket will undoubtedly be a staple for World’s First on the new raid!

Linear Fusion Rifles seem to have fallen out of the meta a bit when it comes to a lot of endgame content, but they still shine against certain bosses. Doomed Petitioner is without a doubt the new best legendary linear for boss damage. I would prioritize Scatter Signal, but the way you acquire both weapons is the same (one red border a week from Riven, or you can run The Coil or Riven’s Lair for a random red border).

The main selling point is being able to craft it with Precision Instrument, which provides a 25% damage bonus (30% if enhanced) after landing only two bursts on an enemy. This makes it beyond powerful for boss DPS, rivaling other top-tier damage perks. Getting the pattern and crafting Doomed Petitioner is highly recommended if you’re looking for a powerful and reliable Linear Fusion Rifle. Craft one with Reconstruction and Precision Instrument for maximum effectiveness!

Last but certainly not least, Zaouli’s Bane is the pinnacle of Hand Cannons in Destiny 2 when it comes to PvE. This weapon is essentially a legendary Sunshot. Explosive Payload delivers area-of-effect damage with each shot, making it superb for quickly dispatching groups of enemies. Meanwhile, Incandescent causes killed enemies to spread Scorch stacks, making adds disappear even faster and allowing it to synergize perfectly with Solar builds.

Its Adaptive Frame design ensures a steady and dependable firing experience. Although it might not top the charts in PvP, its prowess in PvE makes acquiring and crafting Zaouli’s Bane a smart move for any Guardian. King’s Fall returns as the final weekly raid during Lightfall on May 28th, so make sure you farm those red borders! Don’t forget you can also get Zaouli’s Bane and the Harrowed version from Pantheon!

Exotic Weapons

With the game’s landscape set to evolve, now is the perfect time to explore and acquire some of the most powerful and intriguing weapons the game has to offer. You may have some or all, of these choices, but this top 5 list includes exotic choices that promise to enhance your gameplay experience and prepare you for whatever The Final Shape has in store.

If you don’t have these exotics, you’re in luck, as only one of the picks is difficult to obtain!

Kicking this list off with a DPS staple- Gally. Gjallarhorn. It is a powerful Exotic Rocket Launcher in Destiny 2, known for its wonderful perk, Wolfpack Rounds. This perk causes each rocket to split into smaller homing missiles, making it very effective for taking down large groups of enemies or dealing heavy damage to bosses.

In Destiny 2, Gjallarhorn can also empower other Legendary Rocket Launchers with Wolfpack Rounds, making it even more valuable for cooking bosses. Its catalyst grants an extra shot and spawns a faster, more powerful missile at the target’s location upon defeating them.

If you don’t have this Rocket Launcher, all you need to do is complete the Grasp of Avarice dungeon. Upon completing it, you will receive a fairly easy quest that will bestow the Gjallarhorn upon you once you finish it!

Witherhoard excels with its unique ability to launch blight projectiles that create areas of lingering damage, providing exceptional utility and area denial. Its versatility is noticeable in both PvE, where it excels at crowd control and boss damage, and PvP, where it controls map areas and influences match dynamics.

Witherhoard complements a multitude of load-outs, making it a huge asset as players prepare for The Final Shape. Its broad utility makes it an essential addition to any player’s arsenal. The best part about Witherhoard is how you acquire it. Go to the Exotic Archive between the Vaults at the Tower, and just buy it!

The catalyst is super important, so make sure you get that and finish it as quickly as possible. The catalyst maxes out the Handling stat and gives it an Auto-Loading Holster.

Izanagi’s Burden sticks out in Destiny 2 as a great exotic sniper rifle acknowledged for its ability to supply large single-shot damage. Izzy’s perk, Honed Edge, allows you to consume a whole magazine to load a single, extremely effective shot, making it rather powerful for taking down high-priority targets like champions, and it works very well in raid boss DPS rotations.

Like Witherhoard, all you need to do to add this weapon to your collection is to buy it from the Exotic Archive at the Tower. Also, like Witherhoard, the catalyst is a must-have as it offers you even more damage while 4 bullets are consumed.

Thorn is highly regarded in Destiny 2 due to its intrinsic perk, “Mark of the Devourer,” which causes rounds to deal damage over time and penetrate enemy shields, disrupting their recovery. This makes it effective in both PvP and PvE. Kills with Thorn also produces Remnants that refill, overflow the magazine, and enhance the damage over time effect.

For Warlock mains, Necrotic Grips’ poison effect does synergize with Thorn’s poison! Thorn is also easily accessible, as it can be purchased at the Exotic Archive like the aforementioned weapons!

The final must-have Exotic on this list technically isn’t available at the time of writing, but it will be on May 14th at reset! That weapon is Outbreak Perfected.

Yes, you can get the original version right now from the Exotic Archive, but the craftable version is sure to be the more suitable option. Outbreak Perfected is arguably one of the best weapons ever in the Destiny 2 arsenal due to its unique versatility and raw power, attributed to its intrinsic perk, The Corruption Spreads.

This is a unique feature where the weapon causes enemies defeated by it to spawn SIVA nanites, which attack other close-by enemies for quick, additional damage. Outbreak’s utility in dealing with large groups of enemies and formidable single targets makes it a must-have for various endgame activities. The Zero Hour mission returns on May 14th and will be exciting and grant you that beautiful, crafted Outbreak!

Saving up Materials

With the addition of new Exotic Armor and legendary weapons, hoarding materials leading up to a new DLC or season is always smart. Being able to masterwork anything new and cool you receive is huge, along with having Upgrade Modules handy to infuse all the new weapons we’ll be able to acquire.

The Coil has proven an excellent way to stock up on Enhancement Cores, Prisms, Ascendant Shard, and Ascendant Alloys. Grandmaster Nightfalls also gives you lots of materials as a reward for completion! Here are some materials you’re going to want to save and how many you can hold:

• Ascendant Shards (30 max)
• Ascendant Alloy (30 max)
• Upgrade Modules (25 max)
• Enhancement Prisms (100 max)
• Enhancement Cores (no max, try and have at least 100)

As for Glimmer, it is vastly more important than it was a few seasons ago. Bungie has already started to phase out Legendary Shards and plans to remove them from the game.

The Glimmer cap is currently resting at 500,000, much better than previous years, but how do you stock up? Go to the Moon and visit the Lectern of Enchantment. There, you can purchase Phantasmal Fragments for 10 Legendary Shards a piece.

These can then be sold to Master Rahool for 10,000 Glimmer! Go stock up on those, and you’ll have no shortage of Glimmer going into The Final Shape!

One last item you want to be stashing would be Exotic Engrams. At The Final Shape launch, Master Rahool will become the sole source of new Exotic armor, introducing a Reputation Track rewards program where decoding engrams increases your reputation with him.

Completing the Track grants access to a higher tier of focusing, allowing you to purchase any Exotic armor piece for one Exotic Engram and Exotic Cipher, with no weekly limit. Vex Strike Force public events will continue to reward Exotic Armor not in your collection.

Lost Sectors will no longer drop Exotic Armor, but will instead drop Exotic Engrams that you can decode at the Tower. Note that neither of the activities mentioned above will grant you any new exotics. New Exotic armor will only be able to be obtained through Master Rahool. Stock up on Exotic Engrams so you can try out the new armor sooner!

Clean Out Your Vault!

This, for me, is the hardest part. I play for a lot of reasons, but achieving impressive armor stats brings me life. I hoard armor and always stress about cleaning out my vault. The unfortunate truth is that managing and cleaning out the vault is crucial.

The vault’s capacity of 600 slots means that space is a hot commodity. Regularly clearing out obsolete gear ensures that you can store essential or high-value items effectively. I will start by giving a few pointers on how to clean out your armor first!

Everyone is different, but if it’s non-artificial legendary armor, I suggest deleting it if the stat total is under 65 or if it lacks in the big 2 stats you want for most builds. As for Exotic armor, the same applies, but keep any piece of armor if it’s your only one!

When it comes to weapons, go ahead and keep the 5 copies of whatever you plan on using your Deepsight Harmonizers on! Also, you should go ahead and keep all your god rolls.

Remember that every weapon that was sunset previously will be “un-sunset” during The Final Shape, so don’t dismantle any legacy gear you miss using! Shoot for having at least 50-100 free spaces in your vault!

Seasonal Content

With a new expansion on the horizon, much of the content from this season and the past 3 will be leaving in June. It would be wise of everyone to go back and get as many of the weapon patterns from the last few seasons as possible in the time we have left.

Regarding the exotic missions from Lightfall, I wouldn’t stress much about them. With the Exotic Mission Rotator, I imagine the 3 missions from Lightfall will be added to the rotator very quickly, if not immediately!

You can access unclaimed rewards from old season passes on Firefox. On the Bungie website, you can claim rewards from whatever the last season is at the time. There happens to be an extension for Firefox that allows you to access ANY season pass you had! Use it while it still works!

Seasonal Engrams

With seasonal engrams going away, now is the time to use them. You have two options when going about this:

1. Farm high-stat armor.
2. Try to get as many Deepsight weapons as possible.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to make a guide on armor and stats soon, but I’ll keep it short for now. For example, say you have 99 Deep Engrams and all the weapon patterns from that season. The optimal way to use those engrams is to roll armor.

Lightfall seasonal armor drops with high stats fairly frequently. Use whatever ghost mod you want for armor stat distribution, and spend away! Don’t disregard the seasonal armor! I have a plethora of good artifice armor and still find myself using NPA Weir Walker armor and Veiled Tithes armor more often than not!

As for the weapons, you can get a lot done with a full 99 engrams from any season. Your best bet is just to roll whatever weapons you want the patterns for. The drop rate isn’t exceptionally high, but if you’re lucky, you can quickly get a new weapon pattern! It’s safe to assume that these weapons will be much harder to get your hands on once we move into The Final Shape.

BRAVE Arsenal

As we reach the end of the guide, we have to talk about Into The Light. All of the content will stay after Lightfall ends; however, the masterworked variants of the weapons will not be available at that point.

During The Final Shape, these “shiny” variants of the BRAVE weapons will be able to be taken to the Enclave, and perks will be able to be enhanced! These weapons are incredible and I would recommend getting as many god rolls of these while you can still get your hands on the “shiny” variants!

In Conclusion

Lastly, it’s worth noting that DIM and Destiny’s servers are notorious for going down when they release new in-game content. The easiest way to improve your quality of life at launch will be to go ahead and save new load-outs in the game!

At Mobalytics, we have an entire website section dedicated to Destiny 2 meta builds! You can filter by character and subclass. Many of the builds have video guides, all containing all the information you’ll need to use. Enjoy them!

Check it out and set up any loadouts you like in-game so you won’t have to worry about DIM failing to work at release!

If you paid attention to the trove of information above, you can guarantee that you will be set up for The Final Shape. Now go clean out your vault!