The first Iron Banner of the post-Final Shape era has arrived in Destiny 2, bringing a fairly significant change to the formula for a PvP event Bungie has included in the game for the last 10 years. For the first time, the usually week-long event will now span two weeks. It also brings some reprised guns back for you to chase, complete with new perks.
While the Iron Banner is pretty straightforward–it’s a 6-on-6 multiplayer event with its own set of rewards, reputation track, and Triumph seal–there are a few idiosyncrasies to keep in mind, particularly if you’re new to Destiny 2 or haven’t played in a while. Wearing and using Iron Banner gear offers some significant benefits, for example. Here’s everything you need to know about Iron Banner, how it works, and how to make the most of your time earning weapons and Pinnacle rewards.
New Iron Banner Format
First and foremost, there’s the new, two-week change that’s come to Iron Banner with the latest expansion. Iron Banner will now span two weeks rather than one, but each of those weeks will have its own game mode for you to play.
In the first week, starting on July 2, the Iron Banner mode is Control, where you and your teammates try to capture three points on a given map, with points scored for kills increasing with control points secured–one point scored with one location locked down, two points for two locations. If one team gets all three points, they trigger a brief period in which they score three points per kill before the locations reset and have to be captured again.
The second week of Iron Banner starts on July 9 will feature the Tribute mode, in which players drop a crest item when they’re killed, and you score points by nabbing your opponents’ crests and picking up your teammates’ crests so the other team can’t. When a team gathers enough crests, a control point appears in the center of the map, guarded by powerful Cabal turrets. Capturing the point increases that team’s score while it’s owned, so it’s a chaotic dash for everyone to converge on the control point and take it over to maximize the scoring potential.
Iron Banner ends on July 16 with the weekly reset, so get your matches in before then.
Iron Banner Weapons
This Iron Banner event sees two guns added to the loot pool: Claws of the Wolf, the Void pulse rifle, and Crimil’s Dagger, a Kinetic hand cannon. Both guns have appeared in Iron Banner before and you might even have versions of them in your vault, but these both can roll some of the new perks that have been added with The Final Shape.
To unlock the guns, you need to play Iron Banner. They might drop as random rewards for completing matches, but you’re guaranteed both new weapons as you level up Lord Saladin’s reputation track. Claws of the Wolf unlocks at reputation level 4–you’ll probably have that within three matches–and Crimil’s Dagger unlocks at level 7.
Once you’ve added both guns to your Collections by earning one of each, you’re free to focus them in Lord Saladin’s vendor menu using Iron Banner engrams you get from playing matches. That allows you to try to get specific rolls for the guns, rather than wait for them to drop as random rewards.
Earning Iron Banner Reputation
Like other activities throughout Destiny 2, Iron Banner has a reputation track where you get rewards as you level up. But unlike those other tracks, you can fast-track your Iron Banner rep and earn more rewards more quickly by unlocking multipliers that increase the amount of reputation points you earn for each Iron Banner match you play. There are two main ways to do that: wearing Iron Banner gear and completing Iron Banner challenges.
The more Iron Banner gear you wear while playing matches, the bigger a bonus you get to your reputation gains. This includes both armor pieces and weapons, up to a total of five–so with an Iron Banner gun and four pieces of armor, you’re still able to use an Exotic armor piece for your build. You also get this benefit whether you’re actually using Iron Banner armor or just transmogrifying your armor with Iron Banner ornaments. Either way, you get the benefit.
Iron Banner Armor Set Bonus
There is an upside to using actual Iron Banner armor pieces, however–Enhancement Prisms. All Iron Banner armor now carries the Iron Lord’s Pride trait, which gives you a chance of earning an Enhancement Prism at the end of an Iron Banner match. The chance of a Prism dropping stacks with each Iron Banner armor piece you’re wearing, up to a total of four pieces, so it can be worth it to actually use the Iron Banner armor, and not just transmogrify for it.
Iron Banner armor will drop randomly from matches, and you can also focus Iron Banner engrams into armor from Lord Saladin’s menu. He offers the option to purchase old Iron Banner ornaments if you missed any over the years, too.
You also get a reputation bonus for using an Iron Banner emblem while playing in the event, so don’t forget to equip one.
Challenges Offer Big Bonuses, But Not All At Once
Finally, there are Iron Banner challenges. These are goals that unlock in succession as you play matches, usually focusing on earning kills in a specific way, completing objectives like capturing control points, or winning matches. Each time you complete a challenge, you earn a reputation bonus, and you’ll usually do so pretty quickly just by playing the mode normally.
The only thing to remember about challenges is that they only become available over time, as the Iron Banner mode continues. Thus, you can only complete the first challenge on the first day of Iron Banner; on the second day, two challenges are available, while there are three on the third and four by the fourth, with all four available from then on. So if you have limited time to play Iron Banner, don’t overdo it early on in the week–save your heavy playtime for after all four challenges are available.
You can complete challenges on multiple characters, however, and those challenges are unlocked on the account level. Therefore, if you complete the first challenge on three characters, you’ll get three challenge bonuses for any character you play. The total bonuses you can earn from challenges is four, but if you’re looking to unlock or gild the Iron Banner seal, you’ll want to chase the Triumph for completing all four challenges on three characters in a single event.
With all the bonuses for challenges, gear, and emblems, you can eventually get your Iron Banner reputation multiplier up to 10x, which can make it very quick to earn rep and even reset your Iron Banner rank. You now have two weeks to do that, making it a little easier to earn that Iron Banner seal and unlock a ton of rewards, too.
