How to get new Exotic armor in Destiny 2

Jump to:

How to unlock new Exotics
How to farm Exotic Engrams

To get new Exotic armor in Destiny 2, you need to access Master Rahool’s exclusive Engram Ensiders club by resetting your vendor reputation rank. Earning reputation by handing over your Exotic Engrams to him takes a while, however, as you’ll need to gather many engrams and must spend a lot of Destiny 2’s most precious resources to improve your rank most efficiently. To help you gain favor with Master Rahool so you can get some new gear, I’ve covered exactly how you unlock any new Exotics you don’t have in Destiny 2, as well as the best ways to get the necessary Exotic Engrams.

How to unlock new Exotics in Destiny 2

Destiny 2 how to get new exotics and engrams master rahool vendor menu screen with focused decoding — (Image credit: Bungie)

To be able to unlock any new Exotic armor piece in Destiny 2, you need to max out and reset your vendor rank with Master Rahool by decrypting Exotic and Prime Engrams. Once you’ve hit Legend (Rank 16), claim the Exotic Cipher reward to reset your rank and unlock Novel Focusing, which lets you get any Exotic armor piece, including brand-new gear that you don’t have. Be aware that, as of Destiny 2 The Final Shape, this is the only way to get new Exotic armor pieces too.

Using Novel Focusing to acquire a new Exotic armor piece also makes it available to unlock via Precision Decryption too, so you have two options for getting additional rolls of any armor piece depending on the sorts of resources you have available to you. This is also how you can end up with some of the best Destiny 2 Exotic armor, as these focusing methods generally dish out high-stat armor. Remember, the best Destiny 2 Exotic weapons are generally unlocked through quests and season passes rather than engrams.

The difficulty here then is increasing your reputation with Master Rahool as quickly as possible to unlock any new Exotic armor in Destiny 2 – note that you’ll have to do this every season as your vendor ranks reset. As mentioned, you do this by decrypting engrams but focusing Exotic Engrams increases the amount of reputation gained.

Here’s how much reputation you get for decrypting one Exotic Engram with each of Rahool’s decryption methods, as well as the resources needed:

Random decryption: 150 reputation, free
Daily Decryption Deal: 75 reputation, free
Advanced Decryption: 250 reputation, costs 30,000 Glimmer and 10 Enhancement Prisms
Precision Decryption: 500 reputation, costs 60,000 Glimmer and 2 Ascendant Shards

Obviously, the fastest way to level up is to use Precision Decryption as this offers the most reputation for Master Rahool, but you’ll need a lot of Ascendant Shards to do that. And unless you had Exotic Engrams stockpiled in your engram inventory, getting the necessary Exotic Engrams in the first place is tricky too.

How to farm Exotic Engrams in Destiny 2

Destiny 2 how to get new exotics, exotic engram reward from lost sector tool tip — (Image credit: Bungie)

While there’s no obvious farming method for quickly amassing Exotic Engrams in Destiny 2 to help you unlock new Exotics, there are quite a few ways you can get these engrams, so bear these in mind when you’re playing to help you rank up your reputation with Rahool quickly:

Random drops from enemies: Every so often, an enemy that you kill will drop an Exotic Engram for you to collect.
Legend and Master Lost Sectors: Completing a solo run of the daily Lost Sector on Legend or Master difficulty has a chance to award an Exotic Engram. Master difficulty is harder but offers the best odds of getting an Exotic Engram. Lost Sectors at these difficulties can also be repeated as many times as you want.
Vex Strike Force Public Event: This event, which is exclusive to Neomuna, is quite rare, but guarantees an Exotic Engram upon completion. You do not need Destiny 2 Lightfall to complete this Public Event either.
Season Passes: Every Season Pass in Destiny 2 also contains lots of Exotic Engrams that you can grab and decrypt, though most are found at the higher levels. If you forgot to collect some rewards from the last season pass, you can log into your Bungie.net account and claim anything you missed from that pass.