• Guide

Iron Banner quest in the Season of Opulence - Destiny 2

Get ready to grind, Guardian, because the Iron Banner quest in Season 7 of Destiny 2 is about to test your patience in a few different ways.

Bill Lavoy

July 23, 2019 3:30 PM

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Players hopping into Destiny 2 for some Iron Banner goodness in Season 7: The Season of Opulence are in for a bit of a change up. This season, to earn the entire Iron Banner armor set, players will need to go about completing an Iron Banner quest for Lord Saladin. This quest will not be done quickly, and some of the steps will most certainly test the patience of even veteran Guardians. Below, we’ve outlined each of the steps and given a few tips on how to complete them as painlessly as possible.

Test of Strength

• Points earned

The first step in the Iron Banner quest in the Season of Opulence is to earn points by defeating Guardians as a team. In Destiny 2, defeats mean causing damage to an opposing player and contributing to their death. You do not have to score the killing blow. As an example, if you shoot an opposing player with Thorn, then your fireteam member kills them with a melee, you’re getting credit for a defeat, but they’ve scored the final blow. Expect this step to take approximately 4-6 matches to complete.

Armed and Dangerous

• Points earned

This is by far my favorite, and Bungie should be rewarded for this step while being chastised for some of the other steps coming up. This one only requires that you capture zones while playing Iron Banner. The more people on the flag to capture it, the more progress you make. Oh, and getting a Power Play — where your team holds all three zones at one time — will earned 10 percent progress even if you don’t capture the zone that initiates the Power Play. This one will vary, but 3-5 matches is reasonable.

Light It Up

Note: Shacknwews has an in-depth guide on how to get grenade kills in the Crucible for those struggling on this step.

• Super final blows
• Melee final blows
• Grenade final blows

This quest step is awful for the average player just because of how little progress is made with a grenade kill and how long it takes to get your grenade back. The Super final blows and Melee final blows are very likely to complete as you focus on grenades, so put all your focus on the grenade kills. I went deep on this one and inserted Ordnance Mods into all my armor to speed up my grenade regeneration, and it was worth it. Expect one percent progress for a fireteam member getting a grenade kill, and three percent progress for one of your own. Focus on flags that the enemy is taking. Focus on throwing grenades at already weak enemies for a better chance at the kill. If you’re wondering what grenade to use, GameRant has a great list to look over. This took me about 10-12 games, but highly skilled players can likely do it faster.

Non-Stop

• Auto Rifle final blows
• Fusion Rifle final blows
• Scout Rifle final blows
• Sniper Rifle final blows
• Sword final blows

A bit less awful than the last step, but this one is still nonsense. Most of these should be fine because Scout Rifles and Auto Rifles at least use primary ammunition. Jotunn would make a lot of sense for the Fusion Rifle kills, and for the Sniper Rifle kills check out our guide on the best PvP Sniper Rifles in Destiny 2. The Sword kills are silly and will require heavy ammunition, which means your entire team (and theirs) will be camping heavy, making this a gross experience to go through. My advice is start by running one of each weapon type and just playing, hopefully making progress in multiple areas at the same time. If you're wondering about how many points you get per final blow, I've got it fiarly well nailed down for you.

• 3% per Scout Rifle final blow
• 3% per Auto Rifle final blow
• 3% per Fusion Rifle final blow
• 8% per Sniper Rifle final blow (approximately)
• 10% per Sword final blow (approximately)

The Scout Rifle, Auto Rifle, and Fusion Rifle numbers are correct, but it's also worth noting that members of your fireteam (not your overall team) contribute to your progress. Each Scout Rifle, Auto Rifle, and Fusion Rifle final blow your fireteam members get is 1% progress. Each Sniper Rifle final blow your fireteam members get is 4% progress, and each Sword final blow is about 5% progress, give or take.

Headstrong

Maybe it's just me, but this was one of the silliest quest steps of all. After 20-25 matches of Iron Banner, your only requirement is to play more. The math is a little wonky, but the idea behind this is that each completion is 2% progress. If you win a single game, it's 2%. If you lose a game, it's 2%. However, if you string multiple wins together, you start getting extra progress. When I began this quest step I was on a two match win streak. I won my first match (for a three-match win streak) of the Headstrong step, and it bumped me straight to 30% completion. I won my second match of this quest step (four-match win streak) and it bumped me to 56%. From there I alternated wins and losses for a few matches, making only 2% progress each match.

That said, it appears that win streaks work out as follows, at least for a two-match win streak:

• Win x 1: 2%
• Win x 2: 16% (2% completion + 14% bonus)

Obviously, if you were to win your third match in a row this would increase, although I finished the quest before ever getting to that point. It's hard to say how long this will take, because if you alternate wins and losses for five games you'll only make 10% progress. If you win five in a row, you're likely to be nearly, if not completely, finished.

If you manage to complete every quest step, your reward will be a complete set of Powerful Iron Banner armor from Season 7: Season of Opulence. It looks pretty good (at least the Hunter stuff does with the New Age Black Armory shader), but you're going to pay a heavy price to get it.

That does it for the Iron Banner quest in Season 7: Season of Opulence in Destiny 2. It will most certainly be a Test of Strength, and you can expect to spend one very long day completing the quest, or break it up over the course of the week if you aren't crazy like myself. For more on Destiny 2, be sure to visit our Destiny 2 complete strategy guide for more tips on being the best Guardian you can be.

Bill Lavoy

Managing Editor

Bill, who is also known as Rumpo, is a lifelong gamer and Toronto Maple Leafs fan. He made his mark early in his career through guide writing and a deep understanding of editorial SEO. He enjoys putting in the work to create a great content, be it a wild feature or grinding out an in-depth collectible guide. Tweet him @RumpoPlays if you have a question or comment about one of his articles.