Five ways that engram focusing is changing in Destiny 2: Lightfall

Everything you need to know about pursuing weapons and armor from Season 20

Destiny 2: Lightfall is coming in hot at the end of February, and alongside a whopping new campaign and the hidden Neptune city of Neomuna, Bungie is taking this opportunity to rework a bunch of the underlying systems that keep its shooter MMO ticking over. As well as huge changes to the armour mod system, players can also expect opportunities to unlock and grind for god-roll legacy gear. Here are five important developments that you need to know about before we get boots on the ground in Neomuna.

Zavala can now focus Vanguard gear

Commander Zavala, played with inestimable poise by Lance Reddick, will gain the ability to focus Vanguard gear starting in Season 20, which is to say when Lightfall goes on sale. What this means in practice is that if you have previously unlocked a Vanguard weapon, you will be able to spend materials with Zavala chasing god rolls, rather than just having to run the activity repeatedly. (Although, we will probably still do that as well, won’t we?)

Similar to Gambit, Crucible and other ritual activities, Vanguard playlist activities will now reward “Vanguard Engrams”, stored with Zavala in the top right corner of his menu. During Season 20, players will be able to focus them directly into Vanguard armor (the Photosuede Set) or weapons (including Royal Entry, Empty Vessel and Prolonged Engagement). Focusing gear will cost one engram, 5,000 Glimmer, and 25 Legendary Shards per focus.

New Vanguard gear added in any given season will only be available as reward drops for that season, say Bungie, after which it will be added to the focusing pool. Bungie also says Zavala’s focusing options will expand further in future seasons. The goal seems to be to let players chase the weapons and rolls they want in their own time, which is a nice change for Guardians who can’t throw hundreds of hours into the game season after season.

Zavala can also focus Nightfall weapons

More excitingly perhaps, Zavala will also offer Nightfall and Adept Nightfall focusing, although there are limitations and it sounds as though the latter in particular will be very expensive. Nightfall weapons available to focus for Season 20 will be Militia’s Birthright, Mindbender’s Ambition, Wendigo GL-3, Hung Jury SR-4, The Swarm, and Buzzard. Players will need to have unlocked the Nightfall weapon first before they can focus it, as expected, and the cost will be one Vanguard engram, 20,000 Glimmer, and 25 Legendary Shards.

To focus an Adept Nightfall weapon, players will also need to have unlocked it, and will have to grind through Grandmaster Nightfalls to obtain the new Adept Nightfall Cipher. Completing a Grandmaster Nightfall to Platinum standard will net a pair of these Ciphers, while Gold completions award one. (Expect LFG channels to fill up with people farming these things before you know it.) Focusing an Adept Nightfall weapon will require three Vanguard engrams, 50,000 Glimmer, 50 Legendary Shards, and 10 Adept Nightfall Ciphers. Damn, Zavala’s saving up for a house deposit!

Not only that, but Commander Zavala will only offer a single Adept Nightfall weapon for focusing each week, matching the Nightfall weapon currently in rotation. For Season 20, that means the guns mentioned previously. If we chase anything, it will probably be a nice Wendigo roll, although Hung Jury is always tempting as well.

You can buy old gear that you missed out on!

Commander Zavala’s focusing exploits are all well and good, but what about older guns that we missed out on because we were doing other things at the time? Either there is something in the air up in the Pacific Northwest or Bungie, which turned 30 last year, is getting sentimental in its dotage, because starting in Season 20 you will also be able to straight-up buy old weapons and armour from Vanguard, Crucible, Gambit, Iron Banner, and even Trials of Osiris activities. We never thought we’d see the day.

The options are too numerous to list, but standout weapons include The Hothead (Vanguard rocket launcher) and Trials weapons like Shayura’s Wrath (SMG) and Reed’s Regret (Linear Fusion Rifle. Buying them up won’t be cheap, requiring multiple engrams for whichever ritual the item comes from (e.g. Trials Engrams for Trials weapons), along with mountains of Legendary Shards and Glimmer. But for the opportunity to fill those tantalising spots on the Collections page, a lot of dedicated players are bound to be excited at the prospect. Also, if you did manage to obtain a weapon previously, the cost of buying a new one is cheaper, which makes sense.

In addition to the weapons and armor sets, Bungie is adding shaders, emblems, Ghost projections and other cosmetics into the loot pool for playlist rewards. Which is to say that if you play Vanguard, Crucible, Gambit and Iron Banner matches, you might find some legacy goodies dropping at the end of the match. Hopefully nothing takes the edge off a narrow Trials defeat quite like the sight of a rare shader tumbling into your lap.

Focusing costs have gone down

This has actually been live in the game for a little while now, but it is worth reiterating that Bungie has also reduced the cost of focusing engrams that are currently into the ritual loot pool. What that means is that if a weapon can drop from one of the playlist activities, and you have already unlocked it, you can waltz up to the relevant vendor and focus an engram to try for a better roll at a reduced cost compared to previously. This certainly makes farming for perfect rolls on the meta picks a bit more palatable, even if the odds remain against you.

There is a tiered cost system in place based on the activity, as you might expect. Crucible, Gambit and Vanguard focusing is now one Ritual Engram, 5,000 Glimmer and 25 Legendary Shards. For Trials of Osiris, Iron Banner and Nightfall, that rises to 20,000 Glimmer and 50 Legendary Shards in addition to the endgram. Finally, Adept focusing for those current Trials and Nightfall weapons will cost one Ritual Engram, 50,000 Glimmer, 50 Legendary Shards and either a 7-Win Trials Ticket (Trials) or 10 Adept Nightfall Ciphers (Nightfall). Throwing all that after a god roll may seem slightly deranged, but we’re not going to pretend we won’t do it. Committed, not addicted!

Ada-1 is selling legacy shaders

Finally, Black Armory vendor Ada-1. Remember her? She has been a bit of a sideshow over the past few seasons, and now that she won’t be selling rotating armour mods any more, there was going to be even less reason to stop by her annex and see whether she’s finally stocking that one Charged With Light or Warmind Cells mod that never seems to be available. Bungie obviously felt this was unfair, and so the developer has thrown her a bone—or a bunch of legacy shaders, to be precise.

Yes, starting in Season 20, the Ada-1 will sell Destiny 2 shaders that have been unavailable for some time, offering three per week for 10,000 glimmer apiece. As one of two wags on YouTube have noted, Ada-1 is now Shader-1. Speaking as players with troubling gaps in our shader collections, we couldn’t be happier.