Destiny 2 Iron Banner quest guide: Tips for finishing Scour the Rust

(Image credit: Bungie)

The new Destiny 2 Iron Banner quest, Scour the Rust, is a short marathon that challenges you to get kills with different weapons and abilities. It's much shorter and more manageable than last season's quest, and at least where loot is concerned, it's also incredibly rewarding. Each step comes with a free weapon, and once you complete the whole quest, you can turn in your Iron Banner tokens to Saladin in exchange for packages which dish out Enhanced armor mods remarkably frequently. You can knock out some Pinnacle Iron Banner bounties while finishing the quest, so as long as you're a reasonable Power level - I'd say 920 or higher - there's no reason not to jump in this week. 

Scour the Rust is very doable, but players with less PvP experience and fewer weapons to choose from may struggle with certain parts, so we've put together a quick guide explaining everything you have to do for each quest step, complete with recommendations for accessible weapons that will help you do it. 

Tips for finishing Scour the Rust 

(Image credit: Bungie)

Spectacle: defeat 30 opponents, capture 10 zones, get three kills with your Super. This is the simplest step: get zones, get kills, and make sure you use your Super for some of those kills. In other words, play the game. Super armor was nerfed in Shadowkeep, so play a little more carefully, and if you find yourself getting countered, try to use your Super when the enemy team is low on Supers. Remember that objectives like capturing zones are cumulative, so capturing more now will help you with other steps later. 

Intent: complete six matches, capture 20 zones total, and get 25 kills with pulse rifles. If you don't have a good pulse rifle and you don't like the freebie you got for completing the previous step, you can get a good Adhortative pulse rifle from the Vex Offensive. Once you finish the Destiny 2 Eyes on the Moon mission, grab the pulse bounty from Ikora and play a round or two of Vex Offensive. A Feeding Frenzy + Multikill Clip Adhortative will do just fine. 

Timing: defeat 100 opponents total, capture 30 zones total, and get 25 kills with fusion rifles. The Wizened Rebuke that you receive at the start of this step is in a strong archetype, but if you don't like the rolls you get, you can always use Loaded Question if you have it. Failing that, go trade in some weapon parts at the Gunsmith in the hopes of landing a well-rolled Erentil. 

Execution: get 15 total Super kills, capture 40 zones total, and get 15 kills with submachine guns. Recluse is obviously the best option here, but you can also get good submachine guns from Vex Offensive and its bounties, as well as the Essence of Obscurity available at the Hive Lectern on the Moon. Here's how to get the Destiny 2 Withered Plumes collectible for this Essence. 

Conviction: complete 15 matches total, capture 50 zones total, and get 10 submachine gun kills. As previously reported, this step of the quest is bugged, so while it says you need Super and grenade launcher kills, you actually need 10 submachine gun kills. So, just use whatever SMG you used for the previous step. 

Forgeborne: return to Saladin. Voila! Quest done. Enjoy your packages, polish off your bounties if you haven't already, and keep an eye out for more Iron Banner bounties in the days to come. 

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Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.