How to get the Thunderlord Catalyst in Destiny 2

Destiny 2 Exotic lightning machine gun Thunderlord — (Image credit: Bungie)

The Destiny 2 Thunderlord catalyst is a new loot drop with the release of Season of Plunder, and it's earned randomly after completing playlist activities. With a bit of luck, you should get the Exotic Catalyst for Thunderlord reasonably quickly, so then you’ll just have to get the requisite 500 kills to fully upgrade it and unlock the bonus perk, Return Stroke. This perk allows the machine gun to partially reload itself from reserves whenever it causes a lightning strike, which is obviously a very useful improvement to an already decent weapon. We’ve got the details on how you can get the Thunderlord Exotic Catalyst in Destiny 2 below.

How to get the Destiny 2 Thunderlord Exotic Catalyst

Destiny 2 Thunderlord Exotic catalyst dropping in crucible match

The Thunderlord Exotic Catalyst can only be obtained as a random drop from Crucible match, Gambit match, and Strike completions. Since it’s random, there’s no special trick to guaranteeing that you’ll get the catalyst, so you’ll just have to keep playing any of those activities until you get it. While PvP isn’t everyone’s favorite, Rumble matches are generally quite short, so we recommend playing as many of them as you can stomach and hopefully the Thunderlord Exotic Catalyst will drop as an end-of-match reward.

Destiny 2 Thunderlord Exotic machine gun firing at loot cave enemies — (Image credit: Bungie)

Generally, the drop rates for Exotic Catalysts added at the start of a new season, are quite generous, so it shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours to unlock. Importantly, they are also permanent additions, so the Thunderlord catalyst isn't going anywhere once Destiny 2 Season 18 ends.

Once you do have it, you need to get 500 kills with Thunderlord to fully upgrade the catalyst and unlock Return Stroke, which will take a while in regular PvE play. Here are a couple of places to farm kills and quickly upgrade the Thunderlord Exotic Catalyst:

Altars of Sorrow Public Event on the Moon: This public event features lots of enemies and is free to all players.
Grasp of Avarice loot cave: At the start of the Grasp of Avarice Dungeon, enemies will infinitely spawn from the loot cave. Make sure you avoid collecting the fake Exotic Engrams they drop and don’t deposit any at the crystal in the loot cave as this will progress the Dungeon and the enemies will stop spawning. To play Grasp of Avarice, you must own the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack.

What does the Destiny 2 Thunderlord Exotic Catalyst do?

Destiny 2 Thunderlord Exotic catalyst progress — (Image credit: Bungie)

Once you’ve got all the kills, make sure you apply the upgraded Exotic Catalyst onto Thunderlord and Return Stroke will always be active. This extra perk causes Thunderlord to partially reload itself from reserves whenever it causes a lightning strike, which happens to be quite often! Kills or even just continuous damage with Thunderlord will cause lightning to strike the ground, so the weapon should be steadily reloading itself, giving it a massive magazine compared to its usual state, provided you’re dealing a lot of damage. This’ll make Thunderlord a top-tier choice for a lot of Destiny 2 Arc 3.0 builds too, so make sure you get this catalyst.