Season of the Witch has just launched in Destiny 2 but already, there’s so much to do. Bungie has really packed this launch with a ton of different things for Guardians to sift through, whether it’s broad sweeping sandbox changes to Exotics and weapons that completely upend their place in the meta or several new activities and game modes that are all really entertaining and fun. There’s so much to do and so much to figure out that some players may find themselves a bit lost, especially with all the shouting about tithes and Hive Gods and whatnot. Fortunately, we’re here to give you a bit of direction in Season of the Witch and showcase some of the best additions and activities you should be trying out right now in D2.
Here are the 7 most important things that you should be doing in Destiny 2 Season of the Witch.
Want more content and articles about Destiny 2? You can find more here on KeenGamer:
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- Everything You Need to Know From the Destiny 2023 Showcase | Final Shape, New Supers, Episodes
- Destiny 2 | How to Get the Wicked Implement Exotic Scout Rifle (Secret Exotic Quest Guide)
- Destiny 2 | Ghosts of the Deep Secret Bonus Chest Locations
- Why I’m Excited to See More Vex in Destiny 2 Post The Final Shape
Start Building Your Deck in the Seasonal Activities
Beginning with something a bit simpler, Season of the Witch has done an excellent job in terms of building a compelling seasonal narrative around fun and interesting activities and mechanics. Eris, our long-time ally and expert on all things Hive, has devised a plan to get us into the good books with Savathun’s Ghost, Immaru, which involves transforming herself into a Hive. The storyline this season is dark, intense and a perfect mood-setter going into The Final Shape. That isn’t all, though, as the two new seasonal activities – Savathun’s Spire and the Altars of Summoning – are also excellent and some of the best activities we’ve received in a very long time.
The main focus of the new seasonal activity is the Deck of Whispers which brings some light deck-building elements to Destiny 2. By finding and decoding various Opaque Cards from around the system, you can slowly build up an array of powerful Major Arcana cards which, when put into a deck, will provide some crazy Exotic-level buffs and bonuses while you play through the seasonal activities. These buffs are no joke, either, and provide everything from Chain Reaction on every kill to constant Heavy and Special ammo spawns. There’s so much to experiment with and marry with certain builds and playstyles. That isn’t the only thing the Deck can do, either, as Minor Arcana cards are a new way to find resources, upgrades and other goodies.
Season of the Witch is shaping up to be a very solid season and you should make an effort to engage with everything it has to offer: from the story to the seasonal activities to the Exotics and more, you likely won’t regret spending a bit of time with Hive God Eris. If you want a handy guide explaining everything you need to know about the Deck of Whispers, and how Season of the Witch works as a whole, check out our guide here to learn more.
Build the Deck of Whispers
Use a Hand Cannon in PvE
In the update which launched alongside Season of the Witch, we got a bunch of weapon buffs and nerfs but none were more exciting than the changes coming to Hand Cannons. In response to feedback that they felt too weak in PvE, Hand Cannons have had their reload speed at 0 stats increased by 15%. This is alongside a damage increase to both minor combatants (20%) and major combatants (75%), with the latter being especially potent.
Since the update, Hand Cannons feel incredible in PvE. They already had superb gun feel but were held back by how cumbersome they felt in terms of damage: with that burden lifted, they’re allowed to be the powerful, explosive major killers they were made to be. The reload bump is also very impactful, even if it looks a bit dull on paper, as it allows you to keep fighting with your Primary instead of needing to switch to a Special or Heavy to clean up your kills. Even in tougher content like the Neomuna Patrols, Hand Cannons aren’t lagging behind anymore: it doesn’t take an entire magazine to kill one red bar, thankfully.
What’s even better is that this season has three new Hand Cannons for Guardians to test out alongside these changes: the reprised Warden’s Law which is the first of the new Heavy Burst archetype, the Malediction which is this season’s pinnacle with a super unique Origin Trait and the Kept Confidence craftable seasonal weapon. There’s been no better time to jump in and try out everyone’s favourite gunslinger tool so slap on your Lucky Pants (if you’re a Hunter) and get ready to experience true bliss as you cut through waves of enemies with your six-shooter.
Big Hand Cannon Buffs
Get the Three New Strand Aspects
Just like in Season of the Deep, Bungie continues to expand Strand by adding new Aspects each season. In Season of the Witch, we’ve received three new Aspects, one for each class, and they are all absolutely exceptional. In fact, they may be the best Strand Aspects on each class and I’m not exaggerating (much).
- Weavewalk (Warlock): Dodge while airborne to enter the weave, gaining damage resistance from combatants and players. Reactivate your air dodge or cast your Rift to exit the weave. While in the weave, you generate perched Threadlings over time.
- Whirling Maelstrom (Hunter): Destroying a Tangle will weave a violent, writhing mass of Strand fibres. The Strand mass seeks out and damages targets, emitting Unraveling projectiles when it defeats them.
- Banner of War (Titan): Defeat a target with a melee attack, finisher, or Sword to raise a Banner of War that pulses with energy, periodically healing nearby allies and increasing melee and Sword damage. Targets defeated by you and nearby allies charge the banner, increasing the speed of its pulses.
New Strand Aspects
The strength of these Aspects cannot be understated. Banner of War is a very strong offence and support tool, facilitating a ton of different melee-focused playstyles for your entire team and giving Strand Titan an identity outside of Suspend. Meanwhile, being able to summon little Strand Beyblades with Whirling Maelstrom is absolutely brilliant, especially when you’re able to chain Tangles together much easier with the decrease in the cooldowns. And don’t get me started on Weavewalk which looks like a true PvP menace as it has insane levels of damage resistance, while also having a sneaky assassin playstyle in PvE that Warlock’s aren’t accustomed to.
If you want to pick these new Aspects up for yourself, you’ll first need to head on over to Nimbus on Neomuna. They’ll give you a quest that asks you to listen to some new dialogue from the Veil Containment activity: If you’ve yet to visit this place, you can find the node for it in the bottom left of the Neomuna map. Then, once you’ve listened to it, head back to the Strand Meditation area where you can pick up your shiny new Aspect for completely free. Slap it on and enjoy the Strand onslaught that ensues.
Weavewalk May Be a Problem…
Pick Up the New Exotic Arms
In addition to the new Strand Aspects, Season of the Witch also continues the tradition of adding a new set of Exotic armour for players to mess around with. This time, all classes get a new set of Exotic Arms and they all look pretty excellent with one in particular gearing up to make a big splash.
- Briarbinds (Warlock): Your Void Souls have a longer duration. They also gain escalating damage and durability as they defeat targets. You can retrieve your Void Souls by interacting with them, allowing them to be redeployed.
- Mothkeeper’s Wraps (Hunter): Your grenade becomes a cage of loyal moths that release on impact and fly toward the nearest target or ally. If they reach a target, they detonate in a blinding explosion; if they reach an ally, the moths grant your ally a Void overshield.
- Pyrogale Gauntlets (Titan): Modifies Burning Maul into a single high-damage slam of your hammer that creates five cyclones of flame. Consecration’s second slam creates a cyclone of flame.
Motherkeeper’s Wraps
The two Exotics to pay particular attention to belong to Hunters and Titans. For the former, their new Exotic has a unique interaction with the Ex Diris Grenade Launcher, the Season of the Witch pass Exotic which emulates a Hive Boomer: when you kill an enemy with Ex Diris with the Mothkeepers equipped, they will spawn an additional Void Moth which grants you an Overshield alongside the ordinary Arc Moth. This works incredibly well, giving you a constant feedback loop of damage and shields with every kill and Grenade throw.
Meanwhile, the Titan Exotic allows players to transform Burning Maul into a one-off Super, something Titans have been begging for. Not only that but the new Super – humorously nicknamed the Celestial Nightbonk – is actually quite competitive in terms of damage for certain encounters, even beating out Curiass Thundercrash if you use the Synthoceps switch bug. Additionally, this Exotic escapes the main problem with Nighthawk by giving extra utility outside of just the Super, with the additional effects added to Consecration making it a much more attractive Aspect.
Even though it isn’t as standout as the Titan or Hunter one, the Child of the Old Gods-focused Warlock Exotic is still pretty good and has great flavour. All three Exotics are just excellent and you should pick them up as soon as you can. If you cannot wait for Exotic Arms Day to roll around for the Legendary Lost Sectors, try to sneak into a Vex Incursion event on Neomuna which guarantees a new Exotic on completion.
Pyrogale Gauntlets
Pay to Level Up Some Crafted Weapons
Since its introduction in The Witch Queen, Guardians have always been trying to circumvent the main downside to crafting: needing to level up the weapons to reach the perks you want to use. The main method of this was mindlessly farming Shuro Chi until your weapon popped up to level 17. It wasn’t very fun, wasn’t engaging and took attention away from other areas of the game. Thankfully, Bungie hasn’t nerfed Shuro Chi or her gains in Season of the Witch, but instead, they’ve given us a way more direct route to easily level weapons.
Whenever you inspect a crafted weapon, you should now spy an additional slot next to the mod slot. This is the Weapon Level slot where you can spend a fixed amount of Glimmer and Enhancement Cores to instantly increase your weapon’s level by 1. The price of increasing a weapon’s level changes as you reach higher values, but even then the most expensive it ever gets is about 10,000 Glimmer and only 7 Cores for a full level. If you have the resources, you can take a crafted gun from nothing to fully decked out with Enhanced Perks in under a minute.
This is the best-case scenario for all players: those who just want to use the weapons right away can pay the toll and instantly get the perks they want, whereas more patient players who want to test the waters can still level up via activities, kills or even Shuro Chi. It’s a massive burden lifted off the crafting system which has continually received numerous updates and changes over the last year and a half. So, whenever you log on to play Season of the Witch, consider beefing up your arsenal with Glimmer and Cores.
Level Up Crafted Weapons with Glimmer
Enter the Exotic Mission Rotator
Next up on our list, we have a new addition to the Legends tab: the Weekly Exotic Mission Rotator. This new playlist serves several purposes but the most important is that it’s the home for older Exotic Missions that were taken out of the game, allowing new and old players alike to experience some of Destiny 2’s best content again.
As of Season of the Witch, the rotator contains 3 old Exotic Missions from previous years in Destiny 2, with Bungie saying that they plan on adding more missions down the road. The available missions will rotate weekly, giving you a three-week gap between each appearance. Currently, you can play the following Exotic Missions in the rotator:
- Pressage (Season of the Chosen)
- Vox Obscura (Season of the Risen)
- Operation: Seraph’s Shield (Season of the Seraph)
Exotic Mission Rotator
Another massive boon for these Exotic Missions, and a reason for players who’ve already experienced them to come back for more, is a massive update to their rewards economy. As the name suggests, these missions were all connected to a specific Exotic when they first launched – Dead Man’s Tales for Pressage, Dead Messenger for Vox Obscura and Revision Zero for Seraph’s Shield – and they’ll be rewarded to all players whenever they complete that mission in the playlist. However, there’s more. Not only are those weapons available to earn again, but they’ve turned into craftable variants: this means that, after only a single run of Pressage on Normal difficulty, you can craft your very own Dead Man’s Tale exactly how you like it.
In addition to this, the Exotic Missions also have their own loot pools made up of past seasonal weapons and gear. Upon completing a mission in the rotator, you’ll receive gear thematically appropriate to the mission from older seasons – for example, Pressage will drop Opulent and Haunted gear from Season of the Haunted. These weapons also have a chance at being Deepsight variants and you will get a guaranteed Deepsight drop for a pattern you haven’t unlocked once per week.
While limited in scope for now, the Exotic Mission Rotator looks to be an excellent addition to Destiny 2. Whether it’s giving players access to cool loot and Exotics that previously vanished on the wind or simply allowing Guardians to experience these incredible Exotic missions one more, there’s something really cool about this new playlist. When you have the time and want to take a break from Eris’ occult shenanigans, consider hopping back into Pressage for a sweet new DMT.
Crafted Mission Exotics
Farm Your Favourite Core Playlist
Finally, you should pop in and say hello to your favourite core playlist. No matter where you like to spend your time, there has been at least some progression or change in almost every one of the core playlists, meaning Strikes, Crucible and Gambit.
The most wide-reaching change has to do with the weekly Exotic challenge. Previously, there was a weekly challenge attached to each playlist which required you to play 3 matches for an Exotic engram that you could decode at Rahool: this meant that you had to play 3 Strikes, 3 Crucible games and 3 Gambit matches each week to get the rewards. In Season of the Witch and beyond, things have changed. Now, you can play 9 matches of anything and still get the same rewards. If you wanted, you could play 9 Crucible matches and get those 3 Exotic engrams, or you could do 4 Strikes and 5 Gambit matches to achieve the same effect.
As for more specific changes, Vanguard Ops just received the much-requested Medals and Strike Scoring features, breathing new life into the playlist for those who like to chase big numbers and low completion times. The Crucible has received several updates, including the new Multiplex Vex Network map, alongside the addition of new Trials armour to hunt and two new modes called Relic and Checkmate (with the latter being focused on Primary gunfights above any sort of ability spam). And Gambit… honestly, still is pretty neglected, but it should be some small comfort to Gambit fans that they don’t need to play Strikes or Crucible for rewards anymore.
Play Any Core Playlist You Want
Those were 7 things all players should try out in Destiny 2 Season of the Witch.
