Trouble is brewing on the streets of Neomuna, but fortunately, not even an army of time-traveling mechanical aliens and the almighty Shadow Legion of Calus can stand up to a few heavily armed Guardians. Similar to public activities such as Escalation Protocol and Altars of Sorrow, Terminal Overload is a challenging showdown between Cabal and Vex forces that plays out across three stages.
It’s a high-level event, you’ll want to finish the Lightfall campaign first and power up your Guardian for the battles that lie ahead. Up to six players can participate in Terminal Overload, and with some particularly nasty enemies to deal with, you’ll want to ensure that you have a full fireteam ready for all phases of action.
How to prepare for Terminal Overload
You’ll want to make certain that you’ve reached a sufficient power level for Terminal Overload, as this mode recommends being at high level for the challenges that lie ahead. The current pinnacle cap of Destiny 2 is set at 1810, and that’s a level that you’ve very unlikely to reach in your first week of playing Lightfall. There are ways to level up quickly in Lightfall, and the closer you get to the pinnacle level, the better your overall survivability odds. If you’re looking for a guaranteed way to get up to power level 1770 at the very least, playing the Lightfall campaign on Legend difficulty is one of the best ways to do so, as you’ll be rewarded with armor and weapons that are way above the current soft cap of 1750 once you’re done.
How to start Terminal Overload
Terminal Overload events take place on Neomuna, in the Ahimsa Peak, Zephyr Concourse, and Liming Harbor sections of the patrol zone, rotating in and out daily. You can check your map for the icon, and to make getting to it easier, you can unlock a landing zone on the Terminal Overload location of the day by reaching reputation rank 11 with Nimbus. Rank 13 unlocks a daily bounty that rewards you with a Terminal Overload key for a chest, and rank 15 will guarantee that a Terminal Overload weapon drops from the chest at the end of the event.
Once you’re ready, head to the location and look for a Shadow Legion Psion. Shoot the three Darkness mini-conduits around the Psion, and the event will begin. As a public event, any nearby Guardians are free to join you, or you can assemble a fireteam and grind through the event for its loot.
How to complete Terminal Overload
Terminal Overload cycles through multiple phases as you fight Vex and Shadow Legion Cabal, each with a unique objective that you have to complete in a set amount of time. So far, we’ve seen these tasks range from capturing sync plates from Vex, defeating Shadow Legion troops, taking out Psions around the map, and destroying Vex nodes. Once you’ve worked through several of these phases, you’ll face a boss at the end of the stage that you’ll need to defeat.
These bosses will regularly activate shields that are impenetrable to conventional attacks, but once you’ve destroyed the nearby objects powering their defenses, you’ll be able to resume your assault on them.
How to get Terminal Overload keys
After finishing three stages and their assorted phases, you’ll earn two chests for all your hard work. The regular chest rewards you with standard loot, while the second chest requires a Terminal Overload key to open and retrieve the higher-quality gear, such as the powerful weapons with Strand-energy attributes. Weapons of the day rotate in and out of the event, and so far, the Void Shotgun Basso Ostinato, Stand machine gun Circular Logic, and Strand submachine gun Synchronic Roulette have been up for grabs.
As mentioned above, you can unlock a bounty from Nimbus that’ll reward you with a Terminal Overload key, or you can randomly acquire one by completing public events, exploring lost sectors, and finishing patrols on Neomuna.
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