Swords are a new Heavy Weapon added into Destiny’s latest DLC. While this weapon originally comes in a Legendary form, you can also pick up an Exotic Sword from Lord Shaxx after completing a second quest line. This guide will walk you through unlock your Exotic Sword so you can start shredding through enemies. Just remember that you will end up with the same element (Solar, Arc, or Void) that you chose for your original sword quest. You will, however, get to keep both versions of the sword, so you won’t have to worry about ever being without a blade.

First, you will need to acquire a Legendary Sword by completing the quest, A Broken Will. You’ll receive the quest after completing The Taken King main story questline. Once you have your sword, and have full upgraded it Lord Shaxx will offer you a new quest for an Exotic Sword.

A Sword Reforged

Honing the Edge

Kill 50 Majors and 10 Ultras with the Sword. If you are in a rush, you can farm certain Ultra enemies like the boss, Zydron in the Eye of the Gate Lord quest on Venus, which will count as five kills, or you can hop into the Heroic Strike playlist, and you should reach your target number within a few runs. You will also need to kill 25 Guardians with the Sword in the Crucible. You can just equip the sword and get kills with the hilt of the sword, but it might take a couple hits to kill them depending on their health.

Test your blade

Time for an easy step. Head back to the Tower and speak with Lord Shaxx to move on in the quest.

Blade of Night

Head for the Dreadnaught Patrol. Make your way through The Founts area and kill the three Warden Knights that are in front of the door to The Asylum.

In order to open the door, you need to kill the Knights within 10 seconds of each other. Start by clearing out the area of the smaller enemies then begin shooting at the Warden Knights, but don’t kill any of them right away. Lower them to almost zero health. When they all are low health, start shooting them quickly. Once all three die, the door will open. If you don’t kill all three of them with 10 seconds, just head back out and they will respawn for you to try again.

After the door opens, head inside and you will see Ecthar, the Sword of Oryx. Kill the army of foot soldiers he has surrounding him to give you less to worry about, then use your sword to kill Ecthar. If you take damage, just head onto a platform and let your health recharge before attacking again. You technically only have to use your sword to take down his shield. We suggest having a friend come along to deal with adds, and also to help bring down Ecthar’s shield so you can hit him with a Rocket Launcher or Machine Gun to bring his health down a lot quicker.

Blade of Day

Fully upgrade your sword and infuse it to at least 280 damage to unlock this part of the Exotic Sword quest. After you infuse the sword, another node will show up to be upgraded. Upgrade it fully to unlock the next portion of the quest.

Essential Elements

Gather 10 special planetary materials. For the Arc Edge, you will head for Earth, head to Mars for the Void Edge or to the Moon for the Sol Edge. Collect Spinmetal, Relic Iron, or Helium Filaments. You will need to actually go and collect about 150 of the materials to get all 10 of the materials. Farming up the materials will take around two hours depending on your RNG luck. To make things a little easier you can also equip a special Ghost Shell to help find the raw materials you’re missing.

Along with this part of the quest you’ll also have to earn a certain percentage of Ability Kills. The ability you use will obviously depend on which sword you originally chose, and we learned through Trial and Error that Crucible is the easiest way to level this percentage up. We suggest hopping into Mayhem and giving it a go, since Supers, Grenades, and Charged Melee attacks count towards this percentage.

In Good Temper

Head to the Tower and speak with Lord Shaxx.

Armsday Alloys

You will have to wait for the next Armsday to receive the next step. Armsday happens every Wednesday, after the Weekly Reset.

Take Up Arms

Another really simple step. Head to the Tower and talk with Lord Shaxx to update the quest.

Sealing the Blade

After you’ve talked to Lord Shaxx you’ll unlock a special level 42 version of the Sunless Cell strike. To complete this you’ll need to fight until the end, where three Warden Knights have been added to the boss fight. You’ll need to kill the Warden Knight that corresponds to your weapon element of choice, and then defeat Alak-Hul within 30 seconds of each other. We suggest killing the other two Warden Knights, then wearing down the boss and your elemental knight’s health until they are close to dead. Then lure them in and strike for the kill.

A Blade Reborn

Now it’s time to return to the Tower and talk to Lord Shaxx for the final step of the quest. Once you’ve talked to the Crucible Master you’ll receive your shiny new Exotic Sword. What are you waiting for Guardian? We’ve got enemies to kill.