Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph guide to get new loot
Season of the Seraph has arrived in Destiny 2, bringing new and old Warmind-themed gear found in Rasputin’s bunkers.
Our Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph guide will help you quickly learn all there is to know about the new activities to complete and resources to collect so that you can earn the new Warmind-themed loot and reprised IKELOS weapons. In Season 19, it's up to Guardians to help Ana Bray reactivate the dormant Warmind AI, Rasputin, by taking on Heist Battlegrounds and Operations. Plenty of quality-of-life improvements have been made to the Destiny 2 seasonal loot grind for Season of the Seraph, making it much easier to get armor, weapons, and Deepsight weapons for crafting patterns.
This all culminates in the new Operation: Seraph's Shield Exotic mission for the new Revision Zero Exotic Pulse Rifle. You'll be able to complete the mission multiple times to get upgrades and multiple catalysts for the weapon too! The new Dungeon, Spire of the Watcher, has also arrived in Season of the Seraph, adding a new set of wild west outlaw-themed weapons and armor. You’ve got until the Destiny 2 Lightfall launch date of February 28 to complete everything in Season of the Seraph and the previous seasons before some of their activities are removed.
Here's everything new for Season of the Seraph in Destiny 2:
- Play Heist Battlegrounds and craft Override Frequencies for new loot
- Earn Seraph Key Codes to open Seraph Chests
- Use Exo Frame Modules to upgrade the Exo Frame and get better loot
- Earn Exo Frame reputation to rank up the Exo Frame
- Complete the new Revision Zero Exotic Quest
New Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph activities
With a fresh revamp for Competitive Crucible in Season 19, the Destiny 2 Rose Hand Cannon also returns
Season of the Seraph has introduced a couple of new activities to Destiny 2, with the main one being the Heist Battlegrounds missions and playlist. These missions see you delve into Rasputin’s secret Seraph Bunkers to rid them of enemies and claim some new weapons and armor. There’s also the new Spire of the Watcher Dungeon and a pretty substantial update to the Competitive Crucible playlist, which has brought in Destiny 2 Competitive ranks, but thankfully those are permanent editions that will outlive Season 19. Here are the new activities that have been added with Season of the Seraph:
- Heist Battlegrounds: A three-player Battlegrounds playlist activity that’s structured a bit like a Strike. During these heists, you’ll have to infiltrate a Seraph Bunker, clear out Xivu Arath’s forces, and defeat a boss to retrieve a fragment of the Warmind – and some loot, of course. You can spend 500 Seraph Key Codes to open the optional Seraph Chest at the end of a Heist Battlegrounds mission to get some extra Seraph armor or weapons and Seraphic Umbral Energy, which is used to focus Umbral Engrams into Seraph gear at the HELM’s Exo Frame. The rewards from Heist Battlegrounds completions are increased on Legend difficulty.
- Operations: These are short missions for up to three players that serve as the main way of progressing the Season of the Seraph story each week and have you contributing to the reconstruction of the Rasputin. Operations are added as part of the weekly Seasonal Quest called ‘More Than a Weapon’ and can only be completed once per character. After completing the Operation, you’ll get to choose a reward from the Exo Frame in the HELM.
- Override Frequencies: Speak to the Exo Frame to collect the Resonance Amp device which is used to convert four Resonate Stems into one Override Frequency – Resonate Stems have a chance to drop from any activity completions. Once you’ve used the Resonance Amp to get an Override Frequency, check the text box for a clue to the location of a Warmind device somewhere out in the solar system. Find the device while patrolling the relevant destination and interact with it to get a piece of Seraph gear in return, and then you can create another Override Frequency if you’ve got more Resonate Stems.
- Spire of the Watcher: A new three-player, endgame-level Dungeon with its own set of Tex Mechanica armor and weapons (yee-haw). Grab the relevant dungeon quest from Ikora Rey and then launch the Dungeon via the Throne World map. We've got a full guide on Destiny 2 Spire of the Watcher here, so you can easily stop the Vex threat menacing this Warmind spire facility.
Destiny 2 Season 19 Seraph Key Codes
Destiny 2 Seraph Key Codes are the main resource needed to get Season of the Seraph loot. You can earn Seraph Key Codes by completing any activity, but ritual playlist activities provide the most. You need to use 500 Seraph Key Codes to open the bonus Seraph Chest found at the end of Heist Battlegrounds to get more Seraph Loot and Seraphic Umbral Energy.
There’s no cap on how many Seraph Key Codes you can earn in a week or how many times you can open the Seraph Chest, so keep completing activities to earn Seraph Key Codes. You can also upgrade the Exo Frame in the HELM to unlock new ways of earning Seraph Key Codes, such as Exo Frame bounties.
Upgrade the Season of the Seraph Exo Frame in Destiny 2
For the first seven weeks of Season of the Seraph, new Seasonal Challenges will unlock and two of them offer an Exo Frame module as a reward for completion. You need to use these Exo Frame Modules in the Upgrades menu of the Exo Frame found in the HELM to add new ways of getting Seraph loot and improve existing methods. There are 17 Exo Frame upgrades, but 14 of them are unlocked with modules – the other three will be unlocked as the weekly ‘More Than a Weapon’ story quest progresses.
The Exo Frame upgrades that can be unlocked with modules are split into two tracks: Focusing and Efficiency Upgrades. Focusing Upgrades add or improve ways of getting new Seraph loot through focusing Umbral Engrams or add new ways of earning Seraphic Umbral Energy. Efficiency Upgrades improve the rate at which you can get new Seraph loot and unlock weapon crafting patterns. Overall, these upgrades offer much more bad-luck protection and streamlining compared to previous seasons in Destiny 2, so getting those weapon patterns should be much easier.
If you want to focus on getting the best weapons and unlocking all the weapon patterns for crafting quickly, these are the Exo Frame upgrades that you should prioritize getting and the order we recommend for unlocking them:
- Heisted Seraphic Gear: Greatly increases the chance of getting Seraph gear that you don’t already have when opening the Seraph Chest in a Heist Battlegrounds playlist mission. Also causes repeat gear from Seraph Chests to drop with additional Exo Frame reputation.
- Heisted Deepsight: Guarantees that a Seraph weapon that you do not have the weapon pattern for will drop with Deepsight Resonance when you open a Seraph Chest for the first time in each week.
- IKELOS Weapon Focusing: Allows you to focus Umbral Engrams into IKELOS weapons at the Exo Frame.
- Seraph Weapon Focusing: Allows you to focus Umbral Engrams into Seraph weapons at the Exo Frame.
- Umbral Activities: Raids, Dungeons, Dares of Eternity, and other playlist activities now have a chance to award Seraphic Umbral Energy.
- Focusing Double Perk: The first IKELOS or Seraph weapon you focus in a given week will have an additional selectable perk in one slot.
- Seraphic Deepsight Bonus: Seraph Chests have a chance to drop an additional Seraph or IKELOS weapon with Deepsight Resonance that you don’t already have the weapon pattern for.
- Focusing Deepsight: The first IKELOS or Seraph weapon that you focus each week will have Deepsight Resonance.
Rank up the Season of the Seraph Exo Frame in Destiny 2
Upgrading the Exo Frame with modules is very important when it comes to making the loot grind easier for Season of the Seraph, but you can also get a few extra rewards to help you out by increasing your reputation rank with the Exo Frame. Completing Heist Battlegrounds playlist missions is the only way to earn Exo Frame reputation. The Heisted Seraphic Gear Exo Frame Upgrade will give you a little more each time you get a repeat reward item.
The four daily bounties from the Exo Frame also grant you 25 Exo Frame reputation, so make sure you complete these to get some extra reputation each day. Complete any eight Exo Frame bounties each week to get a piece of Seraph gear as a reward.
At Exo Frame Rank 7, you can get a Deepsight IKELOS weapons Umbral Engram, and at Rank 13, you can get a Deepsight Seraphic weapons Umbral Engram – both will give you a Deepsight Resonance version of one of the respective weapons that you don’t already have the crafting pattern for. Once you’ve reached Exo Frame reputation Rank 17 (Legend) and then maxed out the rank with a total of 10,000 Exo Frame reputation, you can reset your rank to get even more rewards by collecting the Ascendent Shard.
Destiny 2 Revision Zero Exotic Quest
Revision Zero is a decent Pulse Rifle but here are the best Destiny 2 Exotics right now
The Exotic Quest for the new Destiny 2 Revision Zero sees you take on the Operation: Seraph's Shield mission, which involves infiltrating the Seraph launch facility and rocketing up to the Seraph Station orbiting Earth. It's a long mission involving all sorts of puzzles using the Scanner, Operator, and Suppressor Augments from the Deep Stone Crypt Raid, but there are plenty of secrets to uncover along the way.
Once you've got Revision Zero, you can get more Exotic quests to obtain four Exotic Catalysts and upgrades for the weapon, steadily improving it and giving you plenty of customization options to make it your own.
Season of the Seraph is the last season before Destiny 2 Lightfall drops, so get up to date on what's new in the expansion.
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Will Sawyer is a guides writer at 12DOVE who works with the rest of the guides team to give readers great information and advice on the best items, how to complete a particular challenge, or where to go in some of the biggest video games. Will joined the GameRadar+ team in August 2021 and has written about service titles, including Fortnite, Destiny 2, and Warzone, as well as some of the biggest releases like Halo Infinite, Elden Ring, and God of War Ragnarok.