Anyone who’s looking to optimize their Destiny 2 character has to spend countless hours hunting down the best gear, but even great stats on a piece of armor is hardly useful unless it’s fully upgraded. The Masterworking process in Destiny 2 applies to weapons and armor alike, but they require different materials. By far the most valuable — and expensive — in terms of Masterworking armor is the Ascendant Shard, an Exotic-tier consumable described as “a self-stabilizing knot of spacetime geometry” in the first Destiny.
These days, the description more plainly notes that they’re “required for forging Masterwork gear.” Enhancement Cores and Enhancement Prisms are far easier to come by, but you need a lot more to upgrade gear fully. With the rare Ascendant Shards, however, you need one to fully upgrade a piece of Legendary armor and three to fully upgrade an Exotic piece of armor, both to reach the final tenth tier. Upgrading the first few levels requires only Glimmer and Legendary Shards, but you’ll want to collect Ascendant Shards to scoop the permanent +2 to all stats for a total of +12 that Masterworked armor gives. Plus, Masterwork gear lets you equip as many mods as possible.
The most you can hold at a time is 30 Ascendant Shards. As a general tip, Masterwork a full set of your best Legendary armor starting with your class item, and then work towards a handful of your favorite Exotics. Then, upgrade better gear you collect over time.
As is the case with Destiny 2’s most valuable consumables, you essentially should constantly pursue and spend your Ascendant Shards, and it’s going to take some time since there’s no easy farming method. Still, there are some tips you can follow to make things easier.
The Best Ascendant Shard Farm in Destiny 2
The most efficient way to earn Ascendant Shards has been the same for a long time: run Nightfall on Master or Grandmaster difficulty. On Master, an Ascendant Shard is an uncommon reward, and at Grandmaster, you might get one or two. Even though the “recommended power” for Master and Grandmaster is 1840, your effective Power is capped at 1820 and 1815, respectively. In other words, hit the 1810 pinnacle cap and grind out the seasonal artifact until you’re at least 1815. If you’ve got the gear and gumption, find a fireteam to run Grandmaster.
Fireteam Finder makes things a lot easier. Select Grandmaster Nightfall in your Destinations tab and select where it says “Find” under your name on the top-right to open Fireteam Finder. Then you can search for a listing under the Vanguard. Interestingly enough, Master-tier Nightfall does not have innate matchmaking, and it doesn’t pop up in Fireteam Finder. Therefore, you’re far better off just skipping right to Grandmaster through Fireteam Finder.
Grandmaster Nightfalls do present some of the game’s biggest challenges with locked loadouts, all sorts of rotating modifiers, and Champions requiring specific counters.
Each season, six different strikes are included in the Nightfall rotation, so regardless of difficulty, it’ll be the same mission across all tiers each week with a predictable rotation. Some are easier than others, so that’s worth considering.
Even more important to consider, however, are the double reward boosts that happen week-to-week that you see whenever you log in. If you see a pop-up saying there are double Vanguard or Nightfall rewards, then Grandmaster guarantees at least two Ascendant Shards per completion if you reach Platinum-tier.
The Rahool Method
Grinding Grandmasters may be the optimal method for farming Ascendant Shards the hard way, but the easiest method is to hit up Master Rahool in the Tower each week. Under Special Orders in Materials Exchange, you can purchase a few of them each week at a discounted rate of 10 Enhancement Prisms and 10,000 Glimmer. You can buy an unlimited number from him for 10 Enhancement Prisms and 50,000 Glimmer as well.
Rahool’s got a similar deal going for a few Enhancement Prisms each week to the tune of 10 Enhancement Cores and 2,500 Glimmer with an unlimited number that cost 10 Cores and 10,000 Glimmer. Assuming you play a decent amount, you’ll earn Cores from dismantling Legendary gear and from Banshee-44 bounties. It sounds like an overcomplicated scheme requiring an Economics degree, but it’s fairly straightforward. Just don’t overspend and pace yourself to scoop up a few each week on the cheap.
The Grind
Here’s a full rundown of all the ways you can get Ascendant Shards:
- Purchased from Master Rahool in The Tower.
- Dismantling masterworked legendary or exotic armor.
- Possible reward for completing Master or Grandmaster Nightfalls
- Possible reward for completing Master raid encounters.
- Season Pass rewards.
- Crucible, Vanguard, Gambit, Trials of Osiris, Gunsmith, and Seasonal vendor rank resets.
- First flawless of the week in Trials of Osiris.
- Occasional story quest reward.
Assuming you’re in it for the long haul, be sure to buy the season pass, which usually has three or so between tiers 80 and 100. Also, if you Masterwork a new piece of armor that has a similar stat spread to another Masterwork piece of armor you own, then you’re better off dismantling the old one to reclaim a Shard. However, if the spread is totally different, it’s worth keeping around so you can incorporate it into different builds.
The most important and easiest method here is all about those vendor rank resets. Every time you hit Rank 16 with a vendor and reset it, you get an Ascendant Shard. So if you’re diligent about consistently completing bounties each week with the various vendors and hyper-focusing on one of them whenever there’s a double rewards modifier, then you should have no problem resetting your rank at least once.
