Exotics are items with unique effects and a yellow background. You can equip one exotic gun and one exotic armor piece. Most have a minuscule chance of randomly dropping from anywhere, but some come from quests. Nightfalls, Vex Strike Force, and higher difficulty lost sectors are the only activities with a greater than baseline chance of dropping exotics. You can get any world drop exotic from anywhere, but some exotics must first be acquired by other means before they enter the world drop pool.

Any exotics in the Monument to Lost Lights can only be acquired there, and their previous means of acquisition has been removed. That's the point of the Monument. Underlined guns used to come from somewhere else, so be mindful that old guides will not be useful.

A unique NPC, and the best effort-to-exotic ratio. He appears in the Tower, by Ikora, on Friday and disappears Tuesday, both at daily reset time. This game's reset time is 5pm UTC (Click here to convert to your time zone[dateful.com]).

As of the Dec. 7, 2021 update, Xur's sparkly gold house is now a location in-game. Here, he functions as the Dares of Eternity game show host. Lore wise they are the same person, gameplay wise they are different NPCs

For Strange Coins, Xur sells an armor piece for each class and a gun, plus an Exotic Engram. Xur cannot give quest or raid exotics, and the engram cannot give armor for a class you aren't buying it with. This means it is most economical to buy the items he is selling first and then buy the engram!

Once you own an exotic, you can make more copies of it from the Collections tab of the character menu. This is great for guns, but the stats on exotic armor from collections are very low, so you should store exotic armor in the vault if you don't plan to use it immediately. To get different stat rolls of exotic armor, you have to have another one drop from an activity, or focus it from Rahool which costs a lot of materials.

Strange Coins come from completing Vanguard Operations activities, Gambit matches, or Crucible matches.


Xur will give you this quest as long as you haven't turned in a Xenology quest to him during that week. You must complete this quest within the week in order to accept another one from him the next week. You can only have five exotic ciphers at a time, so be sure you have room! You spend these at the Monument to Lost Lights in the Tower, at Rahool in the Tower, or at Xur to purchase a second engram per week.

Xur is always the best effort-to-exotic ratio, but you can only get a limited few per week from him. These are the ways to farm exotics, or to get exotics that do not come from Xur.

Lost sectors are small instanced areas on every destination where you fight a bunch of enemies and at the end there is a boss and a chest you open once you kill the boss. Lost sectors have map markers. When you hover over the map marker, the lost sector's name comes up. If you are unsure where one is, there are plenty of fanmade maps you can find online. Lost sector locations never change, so you don't need to worry about guides being outdated.

Each day, one lost sector is available in Expert and Master difficulty. It will have a map marker visible from the solar system map, and a flag at the entrance you interact with to select the difficulty. I recommend always doing Expert. Master has a higher exotic drop chance, but it's difficult enough that most people cannot complete it fast enough for it to be worthwhile.

Higher difficulty lost sectors are visible after you have reached the power level soft cap on your current character, but you will need to be much higher to actually do them.

Hover over the map marker to see the recommended power level. On the launch page for the activity, hover over the modifiers in the lower left to see what you should be prepared for. You must be able to stun the champions present. You need to kill every champion and be solo to have the best chance of an exotic dropping, and it is not guaranteed. The point is to farm the lost sector multiple times, so if it is difficult and takes you more than ten minutes it's worth holding off until you progress more and can clear them in only a few minutes.

Higher Difficulty Lost Sectors will give you Exotic Engrams are the only intended farmable source for exotic engrams. To view which one it is today, see this spreadsheet.[docs.google.com]

A public event on Neomuna. This is not the same thing as the Vex Incursion Zone. All players can go to Neomuna free to play after completing the Lightfall intro mission.

Like all public events, Vex Strike Force has a map icon with a four minute countdown to when it starts. Unlike other public events, it is at the pinnacle power level and shows an exotic reward when you hover over the map icon. It can drop any exotic armor, including newer exotic armor that normally has to be discovered from higher difficulty lost sectors. Unlike lost sectors, Vex Strike Force is not subject to the armor slot daily rotation. You can get any armor piece from any Vex Strike Force. Vex Strike Force is guaranteed to give you unacquired exotics (with the exception of The Final Shape exotics) for the DLC you own before giving duplicates.

There are fanmade trackers that notify you when a Vex Strike Force is happening, such as the Twitter bot Vex Net Assistant or a Discord server.[discord.gg] These both give, at most, four minutes' warning when the event is about to start. The discord server has a channel where you can join each others' fireteams, as this even is pretty tough. Be sure you have yourself set to appear Online on Steam if you want to group up.

Each season a selection of Vanguard Ops are available as a nightfall, and they rotate weekly. Some require you to own a DLC in order to enter. For a list of which nightfalls are available free, see my free to play content guide here. You can get any exotic in the world loot pool from here.

Some exotic guns have a catalyst, a quest that gives some sort of minor upgrade to the gun. On the weapon details screen, they appear in the same place as the masterwork slot on legendary guns.

A list of all catalysts can be found in the Collections tab. Hover over undiscovered catalysts for a brief description of how to get them. For details on each individual catalyst, see here.[www.blueberries.gg]

Older catalysts can be applied to a gun as soon as they are picked up before the objective is complete. Newer catalysts require you to complete the objective before applying it to the gun.

Catalysts can drop for any gun counted as "found" in your collections tab, even if you dismantled the gun long ago.

Note: Some say there is a cap on how many unfinished catalysts you can hold. I have seen no evidence for this that could not be explained by simple random chance. I have had as many as 11 incomplete catalysts at a time.

Completing the The Final Shape Legendary campaign will allow you to choose one of the two exotic armors for that class that released with the expansion. You can only get one exotic per class from the Legendary campaign. Replaying it will not let you choose the other one.

You will need to do every mission on Legendary to get the exotic reward at the end. You don't need to do them in order and you can go back and replay them in Legendary if you start on normal.

Available for $20 USD of silver in Eververse. It is not included with Episodes or with The Final Shape, and does not require The Final Shape or the Episodes season pass.

Necrochasm can be found in the New Light Free to Play Guns section.

Completing certain triumphs will raise the drop chance of Conditional Finality

Completing the Lightfall Legendary campaign will allow you to choose one of the two exotic armors for that class that released in Season of Defiance. Unlike Witch Queen Legendary, which gave an exotic with the low Collections stat roll, Lightfall Legendary gives a random stat roll for the armor piece. Just like Witch Queen Legendary, you can only get one exotic per class from the Legendary campaign. Replaying it will not let you choose the other one.

You will need to do every mission on Legendary to get the exotic reward at the end. You don't need to do them in order and you can go back and replay them in Legendary if you start on normal.

Available for $20 USD of silver in Eververse. It is not included with the season pass or with Lightfall, and does not require Lightfall or the season pass.

After acquiring one exotic glaive from the quest, the blueprints for the others can randomly drop from Wellspring or be purchased for a high price from the Evidence Board.

Read more about Dead Messenger and Revision Zero in this Bungie News post.[www.bungie.net] These missions used to be from season passes that have since been removed.

You can choose one of the Witch Queen exotics added in Season of the Risen upon completion of the entire Legendary difficulty campaign.

Some Season of the Risen Witch Queen exotics do not work unless you own Beyond Light!

Season of the Seraph did not bring any armor exotics.

Available for $20 USD of silver in Eververse. Despite the name, this purchase works independently of Witch Queen itself. It is not included with and does not require Witch Queen.

You have a chance of getting these exotics once per class per week, unless the dungeon is the weekly featured dungeon, in which case you can farm for it. Completing certain triumphs will increase the drop chance.

Forerunner is free to play and can be found in the New Light Guns section.

Initially, Dead Man's Tale came from a season pass mission called Presage. It was moved to Xur's inventory with a different random roll each week. Starting in Season 22 (Season of the Witch) Presage was brought back and can be launched from the Legends icon on the destinations tab.

You must complete the campaign to get the story reward exotics. After that, they can drop anywhere. If you complete the Shadowkeep campaign without buying Shadowkeep, you will instead get a random exotic. You will receive the campaign exotic armor piece when you purchase Shadowkeep.

• Monument to Lost Lights: This Exotic Archive was added at the start of year 4. You can purchase items that used to be acquired in other ways, such as from destinations or quests that were removed. Everything there used to come from somewhere else.
  
• Chaperone: Quest used to require Forsaken, now appears to be available if you own either Forsaken or Beyond Light.
  
• Lord of Wolves: Used to be Spider wanted bounties only. Apparently non Forsaken owners can only get it from Spider wanted bounties. Forsaken owners can now get it from Xur or as a random drop. Unclear if this is intentional, or an unintended side effect of Spider wanted bounties now being available to all players.
  
• Malfeasance: Used to be quite an undertaking to acquire this quest, but now it is conveniently found in the quest archive. For a brief time, it was available for free to play players, but now once again requires Forsaken.
  
• Truth: Used to require completion of a Corsair Down quest in the Dreaming City. Now requires completing patrols in the Dreaming City.
  
• Wish Ender: Shattered Throne used to be only available every 3 weeks, but is now always active. You no longer need to do the entire beginning part of the quest involving charging the talisman and doing a mission on the (now removed) Tangled Shore. If you cannot find the quest, be sure to check the Quest Archive in the Tower or HELM. From there, the steps you must complete inside the Shattered Throne are the same as when this quest was added in 2018 so any guide should work.

New as of Season 21, Season of the Deep! Ikora offers three quests per class that introduce the basics of subclass ajdectives such as scorch and jolt. From completing each of these quests, you will receive one exotic, some of which you cannot otherwise get for free. Be sure to lock these by pressing shift so you do not accidentally dismantle them!

Ikora also offers a quest for Monte Carlo, an auto rifle. But you can make identical copies of exotic weapons from the Collections tab once you have gotten them before, so it is not important to save the original copy like it is for armor.

• Monument to Lost Lights: Items whose original source has been removed are now only available there.
  
• Arbalest:First introduced in a quest during the 2019 Revelry (Easter) holiday event. Quest disappeared at the end of the event, gun is now a random drop.
  
• Graviton Lance: Used to be a Red War campaign reward. Now random drop or from Xur only.
  
• Necrochasm: Upon the first time you clear the final encounter of Crota's End, you will get the gun Husk of the Pit. You must pick up the Bottomless Pit quest from the vendor at the end of the raid.
  
• Rat King: Used to come from the cryptic Rat King quest, where the player first meets Mithrax.
  
• Riskrunner: Used to be a Red War campaign reward, now comes from a quest.
  
• Sunshot: Used to be a Red War campaign reward. Now random drop or from Xur only.
  
• Thunderlord: First introduced in a quest during the 2018 Festival of the Lost (Halloween) holiday event. Quest disappeared at the end of the event, gun is now a random drop.