Destiny 2 Season of the Wish: How it Works

The final season of Destiny 2 has begun with Season of the Wish. At the behest of Queen Mara of the Awoken, we have bought back the spirit of a foe we have long since vanquished: Riven, the last of the Ahamkara, Destiny’s breed of Wish Dragons. We seek passage into the Traveler so that we may end the Witness and save what’s left of the universe but, of course, things are never that simple and Riven will demand much of us if we are to use her wish magic.

Season of the Wish is set to lead us into the final major expansion of the Light and Dark saga, The Final Shape, but, following a harsh four-month delay, this season has been extended. Instead of the usual 3-month span, this season will last 7 months instead, joining the likes of Season of Arrivals and Season of the Lost as longer-than-usual seasons. It’s a good thing that this season seems fairly flush with content, then, with a lot of unique and cool weapon combinations to chase, multiple new Exotic weapons to use, a new Dungeon to farm and more.

Here’s everything you need to know about the final Destiny 2 season, Season of the Wish. 

Want more Destiny 2 content and articles? You can find more here on KeenGamer:

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2. Destiny 2 Season of the Witch Grandmaster Nightfall Guide | Season 22 Grandmasters
3. How to Get Necrochasm in Destiny 2 | Crota’s End Raid Exotic Guide
4. Crota’s End Red Border Chest Guide (Guaranteed Deepsight Raid Weapon) | Destiny 2
5. Destiny 2 Season of the Witch: How It Works

How to Start Season of the Wish

To begin Season of the Wish and its main narrative, you need to log in. As soon as you do, you’ll be given some brief preamble by Queen Mara on who Riven is and what events have previously shaken the Dreaming City before being sent into the first seasonal story mission. This first mission, and the steps which follow, reveal to us that Riven is not the last of her kind and that many hidden Ahamkara eggs lay scattered through the system. If we want the Witness, we’ll need to find those eggs.

While we already know the conclusion of the season – we have to get into the Traveler somehow – these opening missions and activities set a lot of the narrative and thematic groundwork for the whole season, including frequent visits to the massive, imposing spirit of Riven herself. Following all of the given quest steps will introduce you to many of the major mechanics in Season of the Wish, namely the two primary seasonal activities – Riven’s Lair and The Coil.

Complete The Final Wish and you’ll swiftly be given another mission which will update weekly, giving you new objectives to complete as we unravel the Season of the Wish narrative. 

The Queen and her Dragon

Season of the Wish Seasonal Activities

Riven’s Lair

Season of the Wish’s first major seasonal activity is Riven’s Lair. Of the two new activities, this is definitely more toned down. In Riven’s Lair, you and a matchmade team of two other Guardians must follow Riven’s directions through several echoes of the Dreaming City. Taken, Scorn and Vex have made the Dreaming City their home and it’s your job to weed them out while on the search for Riven’s clutch, her eggs having been lost to the Leylines. 

The bulk of the activity is moving between tight arenas full of deadly traps. From chunks of wall that will pop out and drop you down a pit to a cascade of long spikes that burst out from the floor, you’ll need to keep your wits about you as you explore these treacherous locations. Brave the traps, beat back the forces of the Darkness and you’ll be awarded with a Lair Chest at the end. 

You’ll find the node for Riven’s Lair in the H.E.L.M. and it will award Guardians with Powerful gear drops after a set amount of runs. This mode is intended for those who want to quickly and efficiently spend their Lair Keys (which we’ll go over in a moment). If you’re looking for a more engaging loop with the promise of greater rewards in the long term, you’ll want to try out Wish’s other major seasonal activity: The Coil. 

Worthy of a Wish, O Bearer Mine?

The Coil

Alongside Riven’s Lair is The Coil, another new activity which promises to be a lot more interesting. In essence, The Coil is a longer version of Riven’s Lair, serving as a new rogue-lite mode similar to the Deep Dives in Season of the Deep, only expanded with more meaningful choices. 

You’ll begin every outing by visiting the Spirit of Riven. She’ll gift you a small number of Glass Shards, which appear in the overworld as either blue or red motes (with blue motes giving +100 and red motes giving +500), which you can then use to purchase upgrades from her. There are three tiers of random upgrades, each of which gets progressively more powerful, and they can be used to shape some sort of build for the preceding run. 

Once the buy phase is complete, you and your fireteam will begin venturing into the depths of the Dreaming City. There, you will encounter four randomly assigned rooms, each of which will share a randomly chosen modifier. For example, you may have to constantly seek out pools of light to wipe away stacks of Pervading Darkness or you might have to avoid large traps of toxic gas littered about the arena. Do be wary that this mode Extinguish as a modifier: lose all of your rez tokens and you’re back to orbit. 

There are four of these mini-encounters in each path of the Coil, all of which end in some sort of boss fight. As you’re exploring each path, you’ll want to keep on the lookout for more smashable pots which contain large quantities of Glass Shards. Additionally, in every other encounter (so every 1st or 3rd room) you have the opportunity to unlock a secret chest which drops seasonal weapons and armour if you reach a high enough score, with those chests being hidden in nooks around the arena (use a Chest Detection Ghost Mod to easily find the chests). 

After you’ve defeated the boss, you’ll return to Riven, who will have a chest and a new bounty of Glass Shards for you to collect. From here, you have a choice: leave with your loot or continue deeper. If you decide to continue further, you can speak to Riven to purchase more upgrades with your collected Glass Shards, allowing you to tap into the tier 2 or tier 3 upgrades. The deeper you go, the more dangerous the enemies get and the higher quality the loot will get, in return. 

So far, there seem to be about four cycles to The Coil, meaning that you need to survive 16 encounters. If you manage to reach the end with a Gold score or lower, you’ll get a bunch of extra loot and rewards, including a chance at Wish Engrams and Ascendant Alloys. If you manage to reach the end with a Platinum score, though, you’ll unlock access to the Chamber of Wishes, an exclusive area with four extra chests. The only thing that matters to getting a high score is how many Glass Shards you collect, so make sure to scour each and every zone for as many breakable pots as you can find. 

Beasts in the Lair

Lair Keys

Another thing to mention alongside the seasonal activities is the Lair Keys, a new type of currency introduced with Season of the Wish. If any of you have played previous Lightfall seasons, the Lair Keys should feel very reminiscent of things like Deep Keys.

You will acquire Lair Keys by completing activities around the system, with activities taking place in the Dreaming City having a much greater chance of awarding them. These keys can then be spent on chests in either Riven’s Lair or The Coil for additional rewards: you’ll already earn a good amount of loot without the keys but, with them, you’ll be earning a bunch more, especially from chests in The Coil. 

You can hold up to 5 Lair Keys at once so be sure to spend them for extra rewards whenever you’re near the cap. 

Stolen Machines

Starcrossed

Lastly, in terms of activities, there seems to be a new Exotic Mission launching later this season called Starcrossed. So far, the only information we have on this activity is from the Season of the Wish page on Bungie.net.

“The stars will be your guide through the Dreaming City and beyond. Complete your mission and claim a weapon of great power lying hidden within the Black Garden.”

Destiny 2 Starcrossed Mission Descrption, Bungie.net

That weapon of great power is the Wish-Keeper, a new Exotic Strand Bow which we got to see a bit of in the Season of the Wish launch trailer. The weapon’s official descriptor mentions that you charge it by dispatching your foes, allowing you to lay traps for any that remain.

Starcrossed will launch on December 19th, the fourth week of Season of the Wish. 

Wish-Keeper Exotic Bow

Seasonal Upgrades

Another thing that Season of the Wish has in common with Season of the Deep is how it handles seasonal upgrades. Instead of being found on a vendor or through an upgrade table, you will find Season of the Wish upgrades under the Seasonal Bonuses tab in the Seasonal Challenges menu. 

There are a total of 9 bonuses to collect and you must complete certain triumph-like requirements to unlock them. This can be completing a full run of The Coil with a high enough score, reaching Rank 10 with the Spirit of Riven, redeeming a certain number of Lair Keys and more. One upside compared to Season of the Deep is that there don’t appear to be any time-gated Seasonal Challenges, allowing you to earn any bonuses that tickle your fancy right away. 

As for what the challenges get you, they’ll offer a suite of different bonuses for Season of the Wish activities. The most important bonuses for many are going to the ones which help with Wish Engram Decoding – Wishful Armor Focusing and Wishful Weapon Focusing – as they’ll let you quickly begin farming specific seasonal loot at the Spirit of Riven. Other bonuses grant you additional sources of Lair Keys, unlock new upgrades during The Coil and so much more.

Seasonal Upgrades

Season of the Wish H.E.L.M. Area

Spirit of Riven Reputation

With the season so heavily revolving around the Ahamkara, we need our own Wish Dragon to guide us. To this end, the Spirit of Riven will be our main seasonal vendor for Season of the Wish. You’ll find her through a portal in the eastern wing of the H.E.L.M. and she has a lot of different things to offer the Guardians. 

First and foremost, as you complete activities within Riven’s Lair, The Coil or the Dreaming City, you’ll earn Spirit of Riven reputation. Once you reach a certain level of reputation, your rank with the Spirit of Riven will increase, allowing you to earn additional Wish Engrams and pick up special rewards from the Spirit of Riven reward track. 

Each time you rank up with the Spirit of Riven, you’ll earn one Wish Engram which you can decode for Season of the Wish gear. Meanwhile, each major rank (Brave, Heroic, Fabled, Mythic, etc.) will give you a Wish Weapon Engram from the rank rewards, guaranteeing you one of the six new Wish weapons. Additionally, other rewards available from the rank rewards track include additional Lair Keys, an Ascendant Alloy, an Ascendant Shard and an exclusive Exotic Sparrow called the Gloaming Journeyer. 

You’ll want to return to the Spirit of Riven pretty consistently to redeem your Wish Engrams, pick up your rank rewards or grab some bounties for additional reputation. 

Spirit of Riven

Wish Engram Focusing

Once you have a Wish Engram, you can decode it into Season of the Wish loot. However, depending on what you’re hunting for, there are several different decoding options available to you, which you can view from the Wish Engram Decoding tab on the Spirit of Riven vendor. Wish Engrams don’t appear in your inventory like Prime or Bright Engrams do, instead staying on the Spirit of Riven for easy decoding. 

In Season of the Wish, there are four different decoding options available to Guardians: 

• Wish Engram Decoding: Decodes one Wish Engram into a random Season of the Wish gear piece.
• Wish Weapon Focusing: Decodes two Wish Engrams into a random Season of the Wish weapon. 
• Undying Weapon Focusing: Decodes two Wish Engrams into a random Season of the Undying weapon. 
• Wish Armor Focusing: Decodes two Wish Engrams into a random Season of the Wish armor piece.

Wish Engram Decoding

Out of the four available options, the most enticing ones are the two weapon-focusing ones, Wish Weapon Focusing and Undying Weapon focusing. To unlock these focusing options, as well as the one which lets you focus a specific Wish or Undying weapon, you’ll need to complete the associated Seasonal Challenge. 

As for what these engrams can decode into, there are six Wish weapons available: 

• Supercluster Strand Slug Shotgun
• Scatter Signal Strand Rapid-Fire Fusion Rifle
• Appetence Stasis Trace Rifle
• Scalar Potential Arc Rapid-Fire Pulse Rifle
• Lethophobia Void Lightweight Bow
• Doomed Petitioner Void Linear Fusion Rifle

Additionally, there are four returning weapons from Season of the Undying which you can earn from Undying Weapon Focusing. These weapons, like the Wish ones, are craftable and can drop as red borders:

• Optative Void Precision Hand Cannon
• Adhortative Solar Adaptive Pulse Rifle
• Imperative Kinetic High-Impact Scout Rifle
• Subjunctive Arc Lightweight SMG

Season of the Wish Weapons

Season of the Wish Seasonal Loop

So, with all the cards on the table, what is the seasonal loop of Destiny 2 Season of the Wish looking like?

1. Play activities around the system and in the Dreaming City activities to earn Lair Keys.
2. Enter either Riven’s Lair or The Coil with Lair Keys to earn more rewards from Lair Chests.
3. Try to venture deeper into The Coil with a higher score to earn additional loot at the end.
4. Unlock new seasonal bonuses by completing Season of the Wish Seasonal Challenges.
5. Rinse and repeat. 

In terms of seasonal structure, Season of the Wish is actually fairly simple. The most complex thing about it is The Coil and how its various rogue-lite elements work but they’re fairly isolated from the rest of the season, leaving a streamlined path to loot and rewards for most Guardians.

One final thing. On Friday the 1st of December, a brand new Dungeon will go live for all Season of the Wish owners called Warlord’s Ruin. While official information is sparse, we do know from the Badge description that it will take place in an old castle somewhere in the Cosmodrome. Oh, and that it’ll have a Rocket Pistol.

The Ahamkara Looms

That was everything you needed to know about Season of the Wish in Destiny 2.