If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That seems to be the philosophy behind the spiraling popularity of Hard Light in Destiny 2, not just dominating Trials, but Survival, regular Crucible and probably Iron Banner today, if I had to guess.
The weapon has 5x the kills of the next closest primary in Trials (SUROS) and it’s essentially a must-have and must-use on most maps until Bungie nerfs it, which does seem inevitable at this point. But if you’re a newer or returning player, you may not have it, and may feel out of the loop or like you can’t compete.
Well, I’m here to help.
The bad news is that there is not a specific exotic quest to get Hard Light. It’s a Destiny 1 weapon and was in Destiny 2 from the start. It’s been around a long, long time but only been good recently, and it’s a random drop.
However, here are all the ways you can potentially get it:
Xur Can Sell It – Granted, Xur only sells one weapon a week and his pool is pretty large now, so your odds are not good. Xur is a vendor who sells a rotating set of exotics on weekends for legendary shards and you can find where he is at Friday reset here. Xur also sells a “random” exotic engram for more shards which will give you an exotic you don’t have. So if Hard Light is on that list, it’s probably your best “targeted” shot at getting it, though odds are still not great.
Battle Pass Exotic Engrams – The seasonal battle pass has a few exotic engrams on it in that function the same way, as in they will give you an exotic you don’t already have. They are at ranks 25, 60, 74 and 98, so that’s four chances if you get all the way through.
Destiny 2
BUNGIE
Milestones – Outside of targeted engrams, you best bet for exotics is completing weekly milestones, the powerful drops that appear as objectives marked by a yellow circle all over your map. That’s anything from doing three strikes to completing 8 Crucible bounties to doing objectives on a flashpoint planet. Most of the time you’ll get legendries, but you can get exotics from completing those.
World Drops – It doesn’t happen often, but exotics can simply drop as engrams in the world. I would say anywhere between 3-5 Prime Engram drops, you will usually see an exotic sub in as a drop. Again, a rarity, and it requires a lot of gameplay, but it happens.
Heroic, Legend and Master Nightfalls – The only activity that directly rewards exotics right now are higher tiers of Nightfalls, but if you’re a player consulting a guide on how to get Hard Light, no offense but I’m guessing you may not be ready for this level of endgame content yet, particularly with the recent power increases. Heroic is 970 and drops them rarely, Legend is 1000 power and Master is 1030 power and drops them frequently. But yeah, this is probably not the move for newer players.
That’s really all the major exotic sources I can think of, and fundamentally, you’re just going to have to get lucky to some degree.
The catalyst? That you can farm.
A catalyst is something that drops once you get an exotic weapon that gives it a boost in some way. For Hard Light, it’s particularly valuable because it maxes out its stability and makes it the laser beam that is constantly killing you in Crucible.
The Hard Light catalyst drops from strikes and Nightfalls. The harder the Nightfall and the higher your score, the better you’re supposed to see catalyst drops rates, but I’m not 100% convinced that’s true. This will appear as a drop from the final chest in a strike.
This may be a conspiracy theory, but I would try to make sure you finish up other open catalysts you have. I’ve found that some catalysts drop almost instantly if you’re not working on another one, but I can’t say this isn’t anecdotal.
Once you do get it to drop, it’s 1,000 Hard Light kills to complete it. It’s a lot, but given how strong it is right now, there are worse guns you could be using. And I believe Crucible kills count a lot more than normal PvE kills.
So, why am I telling everyone how to get a weapon that too many people are already using? I just want to watch the world burn in a glorious light show, I guess (and to get it nerfed faster).
Source: forbes.com