Destiny Glimmer Farming Guide

Destiny Glimmer Farming Guide by DeliciousCrepes

Hi friends. Iron Banner will soon be upon us, so I wanted to make a video showcasing several different methods of glimmer farming. Also, I wanted to put some actual values on glimmer farming methods. If you browse Reddit often, you’ve undoubtedly seen posts claiming X method gives 1000 glimmer per minute, or you can max out your glimmer in 20 minutes with this one weird trick! But there’s never any evidence to back up these claims, so I wanted to actually quantify some of the runs that people use so people have real, accurate information to use when deciding how they want to farm. You can watch it in video form here:

https://youtu.be/0z0IjZk3Ezs

Or you can simply read the results below.

For each of these tests, I ran 10 cycles of each run. In this case, a cycle is the time from the end of a run to the end of the next run. This includes death time, loading screens, etc., so that the actual full time between each run is taken into account. These numbers do NOT include time spent traveling to the location of the run. So for example, you may want to take into account the time it takes to get to the gatekeeper checkpoint when deciding where to farm. Also, if I completely botched a cycle, that result was discarded and replaced, as those can be easily avoided by not being a bad player like me. The glimmer per minute values do NOT take into account the loot baubles, only actual glimmer.

LocationSeconds per CycleGlimmer per CycleGlimmer per MinZero to Max TimeConsistencyDrops
Vault of Glass – Gatekeeper – Normal49.93562.4675.936:59High14-16 majors per cycle. High Vex loot baubles.
Exclusion Zone – Warlock with Obsidian Mind38.36431674.137:05Medium-Very High8-9 majors, 0-3 reds per cycle. Moderate-high Cabal loot baubles.
Exclusion Zone – Team40.81446.865738:08High-Very High9 majors, 0-3 reds per cycle. Moderate-high Cabal loot baubles.
Exclusion Zone – Striker Titan38.16409.9644.438:48High8-9 majors, 0-3 reds per cycle. Moderate-high Cabal loot baubles.
Venus Patrol – “Servitor Loot Cave”9.35186.6555.744:59High-Very High6 reds per cycle. No loot baubles, high engram count.
The Wakening – Majors before Ogre3422539762:58Medium-High5 majors per cycle. Moderate Hive loot baubles.
Hive majors in Cosmodrome patrol20.78124.6359.8 Under review69:29Low-Medium3 majors per cycle. Moderate Hive loot baubles.
Venus “Enemy War” event30-45~ Minutes10000~222-333~N/ANoneCountless reds per cycle. No loot baubles. Extremely high engram count.

Vault of Glass – Gatekeeper – Normal

Requirements:

  • Gear: Universal Remote, another shotgun, a rocket launcher

This can be done with any class, but is best with a Voidwalker or Striker. It is possible to do this on hard mode, but much less consistent because you will die often. As such, it’s hard to find a checkpoint, and you may have to get there yourself. However, if Iron Banner is around or you otherwise need a huge amount of glimmer, it can be worth it. While the glimmer per second is about the same as the effecient Exclusion Zone runs, you’re killing 30-35% more majors per minute, meaning a good deal more loot baubles (the little triangle things). Also, running through and shotgunning these guys is a lot more fun than the Exclusion Zone.

Exclusion Zone – Warlock with Obsidian Mind

Requirements:

  • Class: Void Warlock
  • Gear: Obsidian Mind, very high/maxed discipline
  • Skills: Scatter granade, focused burst, shatter, annihilate, bloom.

One of the fastest ways to max out, and fairly well known. People often have trouble aiming correctly, but I’ve found an easy way to aim properly each time. If you are one of the many people who have trouble setting up your nova bombs properly, the video may be able to help you learn how to properly launch you bomb and 8-9 of the majors with each super use. After you’re comfortable with it, it’s hard to mess up!

Exclusion Zone – Team

Requirements:

  • Friends

Any classes can do this, and it can be done with two or three people. Decide who will kill each set of majors, then run underneath the second ship. Rocket or super your side as soon as they drop, pick up heavy ammo and your partner’s orbs, then kill yourself. Very easy to get all 9 majors each cycle. The time of the test here could be improved slightly with a more coordinated team.

Exclusion Zone – Striker Titan

Requirements:

  • Class: Striker Titan
  • Gear: Maxed discipline, rocket launcher, shotgun
  • Skills: Lightning grenade, Aftermath

I haven’t heard anyone talk about this before, but this is how I solo run on my titan. Run to the second ship and throw a lightning grenade on the ground in the middle of the spot where the left side of majors will drop , then rocket or super the right side when they drop. Kill yourself immediately after by shooting your foot inside a corpse with a shotgun, just like you would if you were shooting yourself in water. The values are similar to that of a Warlock with Obsidian Mind and within the margin of error. The major difference is the glimmer per cycle, which is caused by lightning grenades sometimes missing a target or two when not positioned properly. If you can get that to be consistent, you’ll be pushing 700 glimmer/minute.

Venus Patrol – “Servitor Loot Cave”

Requirements:

  • Gear: Icebreaker

This one is hard to mess up and can be done with any amount of people. Clear out the loot cave area, use an ether seed, and get your Icebreaker ready. Exit the room but continue aiming into the area where enemies spawn. When they spawn, shoot one of the dregs in the head, and the Icebreaker perk explosion will kill all the other enemies. Like the Cosmodrome area, this can be disrupted by passers-by, but this isn’t a very highly trafficked area. The biggest problem is the occasional Vandal or Dreg who gets away if you miss your shot or shoot at the wrong time. You usually have to sparrow over to the room to kill it, then restart. Note that you will be using ether seeds here, but the enemies are all red bars, so they don’t drop any loot baubles. Because you’re killing so many enemies though, you will get a very high number of engrams.

The Wakening – Majors before Ogre

Requirements: None

I mainly included this because I see people bring it up every so often, so I wanted to test it out. It’s really not worth it because the death animation and loading takes so long. You’re only killing 5 majors per cycle, so a lot of time is spent dead. That is, if you can kill yourself. Usually you’ll need to be using your rocket on enemies at the beginning of the run, and grenades don’t refill fast enough even with max discipline to kill yourself consistently. The vestiges don’t kill you unless you’re already fairly damaged, even at level 30.

Hive majors in Cosmodrome patrol

Requirements: None

I used this as a demonstration point in the video, but I’m sure some people still use this every once in a while to actually get glimmer. Because this is a patrol, it’s easily disrupted , and is naturally disrupted by enemies spawning elsewhere on the map. Not recommended for actual use.

Venus “Enemy War” event

Requirements:

  • Bladedancer with Encore or Voidwalker with Obsidian Mind

The numbers are estimated for this, as there’s not much of a way to test this properly. You may be able to get an extra 1000-1500 per ten minutes if you kill random enemies while waiting for the event to occur. There was a popular topic on here about a month ago about this method. However, it’s not worth it as far as glimmer farming goes. If you happen to stumble upon one, then go for it, it’s extremely fun. Otherwise, you can end up waiting around for half an hour or more doing nothing. Unlike other enemy wars, this war has no pattern and cannot be tracked on DestinyPublicEvents.com. Because there is no consistency, this isn’t useful as a glimmer farm, but certainly is a blast if you manage to be around right as it starts.

So that’s about it. Did I miss anything? Let me know and I’ll test it out!

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2 Responses

  1. Anonymous says:

    Thank you so much for doing the math!

  2. jim says:

    my go to spot is the sword of crota mission on the second difficulty with a shotgun about 4 majors spawn it takes less than 30 seconds to kill them all

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