How to get new exotic armor in Destiny 2: Final Shape

A lot has changed in Destiny 2 with the release of The Final Shape. One of the changes that will affect your game as you progress towards high-level content is how exotic armor will be distributed in the future. The old way of unlocking new exotic items by playing in Lost Sectors is over. Instead, you’ll need to earn reputation with Rahool, the Cryptarch of the Tower, if you want access to these stylish new armor pieces.

Here’s a quick summary of how exotic armor works now, how it’s changed, and what you’ll need to do to level up Rahool enough to gain access to his new goods.

No more lost sectors

Over the past few years, Destiny 2 has introduced a number of new exotic armor pieces, with The Final Shape featuring two new pieces of armor for each character class. You can get one of them by completing the Legend of the Final Shape campaign, but the other one will remain locked until you complete the campaign again or gain access to a new type of Exotic Focus: a Tier 3 Focus.

Previously, to earn new Exotic armor, you had to complete the daily rotating Lost Sector on Legend or Master difficulty. Each day featured a different type of armor, so if you were missing an exotic helmet in your collection, wait until headgear day arrives and play Lost Sector until you get the helmet you want.

This method has since ended, however – while the daily Legend/Master Lost Sector still rotates around the map, it no longer drops a specific type of exotic armor. You can still play Legend and Master Lost Sectors to earn high-end materials and exotic engrams, but they won’t earn you any specific exotic armor.

Visit Rahool to get all your exotic armor

Instead, in addition to what you receive in the campaign or specific exotic missions, all new exotic armor pieces come through Rahool. He is the one who decrypts exotic and basic engrams for you in the Tower. Rahool now has a reputation system, so the more engrams you decrypt, the more points you earn, unlocking rewards along the way.

Previously, Rahool also offered “Focus” services, which allowed you to choose which piece of Exotic armor you received from an Exotic Engram. You had three options: you could decrypt the exotic engram normally and get a random armor piece for free on top of spending the engram; you can focus on decrypting a specific expansion or seasonal release to narrow down the random pool to just a few exotic armors, but at the cost of shimmer and upgrade prisms (called level 1 focusing); or you can choose the specific armor piece you want if you are willing to pay more Glimmer Shards and Ascension (called Level 2 Focus).

With The Final Shape, Rahool adds Level 3 Focus, which allows you to purchase “new” exotic armor pieces and add them to the Collections tab. These will cost one Exotic Engram and an Exotic Cipher, which you can earn by leveling up with Rahool or from Xur when he appears every weekend. Xur will offer you the Exotic Cipher mission, thanks to which you can obtain it every week, and you will receive another one for resetting his reputation rank. There are also a small number of Exotic Ciphers available as rank rewards within the Season Pass. You can keep a maximum of five in your inventory.

That said, you don’t start with access to Level 3 Focus – you have to reach Rank 17 with Rahool to unlock it.

How to increase your Cryptarch rank

This part is easy, although it can be time-consuming or expensive. To increase your rank in Rahool, simply decrypt the engrams. The more accurate the decryption, the more reputation points you will earn for each of them, so decrypting level 2 will give you the most points (500), decrypting level 1 will give you a little less, decrypting an exotic engram gives you even greater losses, and decrypting a Prime Engram will give you the least .

If you want to level up quickly, you should eliminate some Tier 2 focus decrypts. They can get expensive quickly, but will get you higher in the rankings Quick–many Cryptarch ranks are only a few hundred points, and even the highest ranks cost around 800 points, so you can climb to that level in a matter of minutes if you have the materials and engrams gathered.

Once you reach the peak of Rahool’s reputation, focus level 3 will be unlocked for all your characters and you won’t have to worry about it anymore. You will now be able to purchase new exotic armor, including those from the Legend of the Final Shape campaign, as long as you have engrams and exotic ciphers.

Check out our The Final Shape guides hub for plenty of answers on what’s new in Destiny 2, and read our Final Shape review along the way.