Thorn is back in Destiny: Rise of Iron. There's no point in trying to take the high road, the Crucible will be filled with Guardian-piercing, damage-over-time inflicting hand cannons soon enough - you'd better get yours while you still can. Hope you've still got a good PvP Void weapon lying around somewhere!
Reddit user SteviaSteve was the first to describe the steps leading up to unlocking Thorn's Year 3 counterpart. Just like the original version, you'll need to complete an Exotic Bounty to receive the loathsome yet beloved weapon, and the individual steps should sound pretty familiar for longtime players.
For the moment, receiving the bounty seems to be a random reward for completing other bounties (SteviaSteve got it for completing one of Shiro's weekly Vanguard bounties). So start hunting. Once you acquire the quest, the first step is to finish the new The Wretched Eye Strike, apparently at any difficulty. Step two is to trawl the Plaguelands and kill every Fallen you see until your nascent Thorn's bloodlust is slaked - about 500 should do.
Step 3 is where the Roses are separated from the Thorns: get Crucible kills using Void damage to bathe your evil widdle hand cannon in Light. SteviaSteve's estimate puts it around 125 kills. At least deaths no longer seem to reduce your progress, unlike in the Year 1 version of this quest. Thank the Traveler for small blessings.
The last two steps are easy, comparatively: just use five Motes of Light to cleanse yourself, then open the hoard at the end of The Abomination Heist Strike. You'll need a Skeleton Key to open the hoard but you can get one free from the "None are Perfect" quest. And that's it - Year 3 Thorn is now yours. Use it responsibly!
I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.
