Destiny Taken King Endgame Guide

Destiny Taken King Endgame Guide by Vespas

I wanted to make a guide to help manage the transition from initial leveling/gearing into late game progression. This isn’t a guide on how to get more light levels; it’s a guide that outlines how you should be approaching the various end-game quests and activities to get the most out of your end-game experience. I’ve provided the reward in the title of each section so that you know what you’re working towards.

(310 Artefact, Boolean Gemini) Understand the two major end-game quest lines

Both the Vanguards and Petra Venj (at the Reef) will be giving you a very similar end-game quest chain that involves killing taken across the different planets. I highly recommend doing these quests for two reasons. Firstly, completing the vanguard quest chain unlocks a quest in the Kings-Fall raid which will ultimately award you with a 310 artefact item (the one that sits below your class item in your character page). This is the only source of a 310 artefact, so it’s worth it. Secondly, completing Petra Venj’s quest line (and being rank 3 with Queen’s Wrath) will award you an exotic Scout Rifle- The Boolean Gemini. If you aren’t rank 3, completing that quest chain with Petra will open up weekly bounties that you chip away at to earn about 1k rep per week.

For the vanguard quest-line, you’ll eventual get to a mission called ‘Fear’s Embrace’ which sends you back to Phobos. Take my advice: bring a friend or two. You’ll generally be able to find people wanting help with this on LFG.

(Touch of Malice) Collect Calcified fragments

Touch of Malice is a godly scout rifle that makes the last encounters in the King’s Fall raid a cake-walk. You want this weapon. To get it, you need to collect 45 calcified fragments. You can track how many you have using http://destinycalcifiedfragments.com/ . Be aware that this list is ACCOUNT wide, not character specific, but to get the Touch of Malice, you need to get 45 fragments on one character. This means that if you find a fragment on your Hunter, but are collecting on your Titan, this website cannot tell you which fragment you still need on your Titan. It’s frustrating, and the only way around it is to backtrack. Regardless, follow this excellent Datto guide to get them all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIHSEF_r-mQ . Most of them are very easy to get. Some of them are tricky, but doable. Some of them are very tricky. It pays to be aware of the ones relating to Tier 3 Court of Oryx as these will inevitably be your stumbling block. See below for more details

(Touch of Malice) Court of Oryx- Tier 2

Some of the calcified fragments require you to complete Tier 2 Court of Oryx events. For those that don’t know, Court of Oryx is an outdoor event found in Dreadnaught Patrol. You activate runes to summon bosses, kill them, collect loot. To get the fragments that you need for Touch of Malice, you need to complete SPECIFIC combinations of Tier 2 bosses. It’s important to note that you will only get the fragment if you yourself are the one to summon the boss using your summoning rune. Participating in the event is not enough to get a fragment. It’s also important to know that the Tier 2 fragments require SPECIFIC combinations of bosses, so when you use a rune, be sure that you need the boss that is summoned (it’s random) before killing it. If you don’t need that boss, just jump off the edge and wait for the event to reset. This will not consume your rune and you can simply try again. Check http://destinycalcifiedfragments.com/ to see which combination of bosses you need. Most of these events can be done with 2 people, so bring a friend and you should be fine. Having enough ‘Stolen Runes’ to summon can be tricky. You can buy these from Eris Morn if you are rank 5 Crota. If not, you simply run Tier 1 events over and over until you get a Stolen Rune to drop (or just be lucky enough to have a Stolen Rune drop during a raid, Dreadnaught patrol, etc

(Touch of Malice) Court of Oryx- Tier 3

You also need to complete some Tier 3 to get the Calcified Fragments you need. Tier 3 bosses are not random- there is a different boss every week, which resets at the normal weekly reset time (same as Nightfalls, etc). Again, you need specific bosses so check http://destinycalcifiedfragments.com/ to see what you need. These are tricky, so bring at least 2 friends. More than that is ideal, but you have to jump through many hoops to get 2 Fireteams into the one Patrol instance. My recommendation here is to go on LFG at the start of a week, as quite a few people are chasing these and they’ll be willing to go through the hassle of getting 6 people into the Court.

(Fabian Strategy, Ace of Spades, Tlaloc, The First Curse) Class Specific Exotics from the Gunsmith

The gunsmith offers some very nice rewards. To get rep with this guy, visit him in the tower and buy his ‘Test Weapons’ (the crappy white ones, light level 200). Use them in the way required (e.g. get precision kills, use on Vex Minotaurs, etc.) and you’ll get rep. At rank 1, you’ll get a package with not much in it. At rank 2, you’ll get quest to get yourself a class-specific secondary weapon at 280 light. At rank 3, you unlock a quest for a class-specific exotic. Titans get a crappy Auto Rifle, Hunters get a decent Hand-Cannon and Warlocks get an AMAZING Scout Rifle. At rank 5, you’ll also unlock another quest to get an Exotic Hand-Cannon that is not class specific. All-in-all, it’s fairly easy to grind this rep, and highly worth it.

Weekly Weapon Packages

The gunsmith also offers you the chance to buy weapon packages from him, which are then delivered every Wednesday (Arms Day). These are generally 280 light, but apparently they can be 300 as well (I have never seen this). Essentially, you choose what type of gun you want, and the perks on that gun are randomised when its delivered to you. It could be an amazing roll, in which case you should pick it up, or it could be a crappy roll, in which case you can actually leave it there and wait to collect it the following week, where the perks will have refreshed to something different. At the minimum, these guns are a source of legendary marks when you disassemble them, so it’s worth doing for that alone.

(Black Spindle) Do the Black Spindle challenge, feel good about yourself

Bungie included a very cool secret that leads to an amazing sniper rifle. When the mission ‘Lost to Light’ is the Daily Heroic story mission, there is a secret area at the back that allows you to get back into the Taniks strike area. Completing this mission in 10 minutes nets you the weapon. This is a very difficult challenge. I recommend being 290 light and having a team of 3 (some say it’s easier with 2, but I haven’t seen evidence of that). There are lots of guides for how to do this, so look up a few before going in.

(The Chaperone) Do the PVP quest for an exotic shotgun

If you have the patience, there is a super-painful PVP quest that involves using The Last Word hand-cannon to score kills and maintain a high KDA in the crucible. Following that quest to completion nets you an exotic shotgun. I have not yet done this (Thorn was enough PVP pain for me) so I can’t offer any tips here other than that you don’t lose points if you don’t have the weapon equipped, so take it off when you are facing a team that is stomping you.

(Exotic Swords) Collect all three Exotic Swords

You would have likely got a sword while levelling your character. If you did the quest chain, you would have turned that bad boy into an exotic. If you want the other swords, here is a pro tip. Collect them on your alts, but then ascend and level them on your first character (the one that already has the exotic quest chain completed). This will skip over the frustrating PVP component of the quest, and move you straight onto the ‘Collect 10 resources and kill a bazillion enemies with elemental damage’. You can then run the Sunless Cell strike and kill both knights and the boss at the same time to complete the 2 remaining exotic swords at once.

(Random Exotics) Do Nightfalls

Nightfalls aren’t what they used to be, but they are still worth doing as they remain one of the best sources of exotic drops in the game. I personally have got about 5 exotics from Nightfalls so far, so it’s not as bad as many people would have you think. Pro tip here: find a side-arm for each elemental type and level it to 300. You can essentially use a sidearm as a primary weapon in most instances, and since very few of our primary weapons currently have elemental damage, this is extremely helpful to get our damage up to where it needs to be.

(Raid Gear, Touch of Malice, 310 Artefact) Do the King’s Fall Raid

Don’t be scared of the raid- it’s actually really easy. If it’s your first time, be honest and ask lots of questions. You’ll need 290 light before most LFG groups will be willing to take you, but really this is entirely about execution. Bring a good sniper rifle with you for Oryx and you are set.

Weekly Heroic Strikes

Legendary Marks are very important, so it’s worth doing three of these each week to hit your cap. They are very easy after about light level 280, so don’t worry about that.

(Random Exotics) Xur is good, Xur is kind…

Ok so, a few things here. Firstly, Xur sells a collect of armour, and EITHER an engram or weapon. The items that aren’t decrypted are light level 280 (which is low). Still, if you need them for your collection, buy them. The engrams you purchase from him will decrypt at light level 290 UNLESS you are over light level 300, at which point they MAY decrypt to light level 310. There is a fairly high chance of this happening (I’ve had quite a few myself). So, pro tip here: if you have plenty of coins and are over light level 300, buy plenty of these engrams, decrypt them, and if you get any 310 exotics you don’t want, infuse them into items you do, allowing you to push those items to 310 light.

Xur also sells ‘3 of Coins’ which is a consumable you pop to give you a chance to get an exotic engram from an ultra. I don’t have math on this, but I would say anecdotally that this gives you around a 5-10% chance. Personally, I buy 20 each week and just work through them as I raid, do strikes etc. Very worth it. Again, these engrams can decrypt to 310

Spending legendary marks

Alrighty, a very important topic: how should I spend my legendary marks? There are a few ways that I would recommend. Firstly, the Vanguard ghost shell is probably the best you’ll get until you get one from the King’s Fall raid, so I recommend that straight up. Secondly, you’ll need a HUGE number of these to infuse your various pieces of gear. Don’t underestimate how many you will require, so always keep a few spare for this. Thirdly, you will likely run out of resources (Helium Filaments, Relic Iron etc) and you can use marks to purchase these at a rate of 10 marks for 20 resources. I have had to drop a lot of marks into this because I refuse to farm. Fourthly, there is one weapon that you simply MUST buy if you PVE, and it’s the Hung Jury scout rifle from the Dead Orbit vendor. Get rank 3 on of your characters and then buy this weapon immediately- it really is just amazing and the only thing worth using in your primary slot before the raid pulse rifle, the warlock-exclusive Tlaloc or the Touch of Malice for the last two raid bosses.

Beyond that, if you have Year 1 exotics in your collection, you’ll be using marks to buy these at year two. Some are very much worth getting, so work away at it week-by-week to catch em’ all. Don’t forget you have a cap of 200 for marks, so be sure to spend them.

Gearing your alts

Super simple- collect engrams on your other characters, send them to your alt. They will be 290 in no time at all. Pro tip: aim to get at least one purple item per slot on your alt. Then, decrypt blue items on your higher light level main. You can then transfer these items to your alt. They wont be able to equip them, but they can infuse them into their own gear, meaning they can jack their light level very quickly.

And that’s it guys, Hope you find this as useful as my previous guide and as before I’ll be around to answer any questions that pop up. Thanks and enjoy!