Destiny 2 Solstice of Heroes Complete Armor Upgrade Guide

Destiny 2‘s Solstice of Heroes event is back, and the event’s unlockable armor is flashier than ever. There are three levels of armor to obtain: Renewed, Majestic, and Magnificent. You won’t be upgrading a green set this year, thankfully, but the blue Renewed set and Legendary Majestic objectives are a chore and a half to make up for it.

Once you make your way through both of those, you gain access to the Magnificent set objectives. These are universal vanity ornaments that, by default, give off a white glow. Upgrading Magnificent gear requires endgame activity completions.

Here’s everything you need to do to get your hands on some of the better-looking armor in Destiny 2, from the challenges you’ll need to complete to upgrade sets to orb farming locations to weapon options for Gambit and Crucible that can help speed things up. 

How to Upgrade Renewed Armor to Get Majestic Armor

You’ll start your Solstice armor journey by going to the Tower and talking to Eva Levante. She’s standing to the left of the big golden statue in the middle of the area. She’ll give you a short run-down of the event and what it means, then provide you with a blue Renewed helmet. 

This helmet will give you a taste of the objectives you’ll need to complete for the rest, but you need to complete a single run of the European Aerial Zone to get your hands on the rest of the Renewed set.

Launch the EAZ either from the Tower Director (it’s the blue Crown at the top of the map) or by interacting with the blue hologram to the right of the statue. 

The activity is a time trial where you need to kill as many miniboss enemies as you can in five minutes. The more you kill, the more rewarding the activity will be.

Once you exhaust the initial five-minute timer, a final boss spawns. Kill it and collect the chest it drops to spawn more chests around the map. The number of minibosses you beat determines the number of chests that appear.

Some of the loot chests hide in little nooks and crannies, so if you have a Ghost Shell with the Treasure Hunter ability, you’ll have an easier time finding them. It’s also impossible to fail the EAZ beyond getting bored with your team’s inability to kill the final boss. 

Once you complete your first run, return to Eva for the full blue set. Each piece has three objectives, and you can’t progress to the Legendary gear until you complete all of them for every part.

Below are the requirements for each class:

Helmet

• Complete 1 EAZ Run
• 50 precision final blows (you must get the kill)
• Kill 100 Hive (Titan); 100 Fallen (Hunter); 100 Cabal (Warlock)

Gauntlets

• Titan: Defeat 50 enemies in the EAZ; Defeat 50 enemies with your Super; Defeat 50 enemies in the EAZ with an Arc subclass subclass
• Hunter: Complete 5 playlist Strikes; Collect 100 Solar Orbs in Crucible and/or Gambit; Open 10 Solstice packages
• Warlock: Complete 5 playlist Strikes; Collect 400 orbs of any element; Defeat 25 Guardians in Crucible or Gambit

Chestpiece

• Titan: Complete five adventures (orange shield and sword icons on the map); Collect 100 Solar orbs in Strikes; Defeat 25 Guardians in Crucible or Gambit
• Hunter: Defeat 50 enemies in the EAZ; Collect 400 orbs of any element; Defeat 50 enemies with a Solar subclass in the EAZ
• Warlock: Complete 5 adventures; Collect 100 Arc orbs in Crucible and/or Gambit; Open 10 Solstice packages

Boots 

• Titan: Complete 5 adventures; Collect 100 Void orbs in Crucible and/or Gambit; Open 10 Solstice packages
• Hunter: Complete 5 public events on Nessus; Defeat 50 enemies with your Super; Defeat 25 Guardians in Crucible or Gambit
• Warlock: Defeat 50 combatants (this might be bugged, as it’s only in the EAZ); Collect 100 Solar orbs in Strikes; Defeat 50 enemies in the EAZ with a Void subclass

Class Item

• Titan: Complete 5 playlist Strikes; Collect 400 orbs of any element; Complete 5 Crucible and/or Gambit matches
• Hunter: Complete 5 adventures; Collect 100 Arc orbs in playlist Strikes; Complete 5 Crucible and/or Gambit matches
• Warlock: Complete 5 Public Events; Defeat 50 opponents with Super kills Complete 5 Crucible and/or Gambit matches

You can accomplish these objectives in any order, and you don’t have to wear every armor piece to complete them. You can, however, maximize how efficient you are.

For instance, you can collect orbs of any element anywhere, so your best bet is to prioritize Crucible and Gambit and knock out three objectives at once. Do the activities you dislike the most first, so you don’t have to worry about them for the less stressful PvE activities like Strikes and Adventures (more on that below).

How to Upgrade Majestic Armor to Magnificent

You think you know how to Solstice Grind? Think again. The requirements to unlock Majestic armor will test your patience as much as they will your mettle. Where Renewed gear needed mere hundreds of Orbs or just a few matches of PvP, here you’ll need thousands of orbs and dozens of matches. 

Let’s walk down this painful road together. Below are all the requirements for upgrading the Legendary Majestic Solstice of Heroes armor.

Helmet

• Titan: Complete 10 Gambit matches; Collect 1000 elemental orbs matching the daily element; Defeat 100 Guardians with Arc weapons
• Hunter: Defeat 2,000 enemies with elemental damage; Defeat 200 enemies in EAZ; Defeat 300 enemies with Arc weapons 
• Warlock: Defeat 600 enemies in Strikes with a daily matching energy subclass; Collect 200 elemental orbs in the EAZ; Defeat 20 bosses (bright yellow bar enemies. Usually large in size)

Gauntlets

• Titan: Complete 10 Heroic public events; Defeat 100 combatants with abilities (melee, grenade, Super); Defeat 20 bosses (bright yellow bar enemies. Usually large in size)
• Hunter: Complete 10 Heroic public events; Collect 300 Arc orbs in playlist Strikes; Defeat 300 Cabal using the daily matching elemental subclass 
• Warlock: Defeat 2,000 enemies with elemental final blows; Collect 1,000 elemental orbs while using a subclass matching the daily element; Defeat 100 Guardians with Solar weapons

Chestpiece

• Titan: Defeat 600 enemies in Strikes with a daily matching energy subclass; Defeat 200 enemies in the EAZ; Defeat 300 Fallen using the daily matching elemental subclass  
• Hunter: Complete 10 Gambit matches; Collect 1,000 elemental orbs while using a subclass matching the daily element; Defeat 100 enemies with Void grenades
• Warlock: Complete 10 Gambit matches; Defeat 100 enemies with abilities; Defeat 300 enemies with Void weapons

Boots

• Titan: Defeat 2,000 enemies with elemental final blows; Collect 300 Void orbs in playlist Strikes; Defeat 100 enemies with a Solar melee ability
• Hunter: Defeat 600 enemies in Strikes with a daily matching energy subclass; Defeat 100 enemies with abilities; Defeat 100 Guardians with Void weapons
• Warlock:  Complete 10 Heroic Public Events; Collect 300 Solar orbs in playlist Strikes; Defeat 300 Hive

Class Item  

• Titan (Mark): Complete 5 patrols on Io; Collect 200 elemental orbs in the EAZ; Defeat 300 enemies with Solar weapons
• Hunter (Cloak): Complete 5 EDZ patrols; Collect 200 elemental orbs in the EAZ; Defeat 20 bosses
• Warlock (Bond): Complete 5 Patrol activities on Titan; Defeat 200 EAZ combatants; Defeat 150 enemies with Arc Supers

How to Get the Magnificent Armor Set

Alright, you have the full Legendary set. Hours and hours and hours of grinding lay conquered at your feet. Now you want the Magnificent set, those glowy universal ornaments you can make even glowy-er (if you choose) with Bright Dust or Silver.

I hope you like endgame activities because that’s where you’re headed. By the grace of the devs at Bungie, there is only one objective per armor piece, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be easy — especially if you’re lower Power.

• Helmet: Complete a Master Nightfall Strike (Power 1080 enemies)
• Gauntlets: Complete a Master Nightmare Hunt (Power 1080 enemies)
• Chestpiece: Complete the Pit of Heresy dungeon on the Moon
• Boots: Win 7 matches in Trials of Osiris
• Class Item: Defeat the final boss in the Altars of Sorrow on the Moon

Best Methods for Upgrading Solstice Armor

Before we get started with strategies for the most efficient Solstice grinding, Bungie Community Manager dmg04 confirmed on Twitter that there’s a quality of life feature you should know about.

Once you have the Magnificent version of one set of armor, the rate at which you complete objectives increases. Once your main character is done, your first alternate character advances at double the speed. Your third alternate is three times as fast. 

It appears, though, that if you start a Titan on the Soltice grind either first or second, the progress multiplier does not activate. If you have three characters, do your Titan last.

Maximizing Kills and Orbs 

Every kill with an elemental weapon (your secondary and Power weapon) drops an elemental orb, and you create additional elemental orbs based on the current daily element.

That means your first order of business is finding a good place where you can kill a lot of enemies quickly. 

More powerful enemies drop more orbs but take longer to kill, so the calculus is on which you have an easier time killing more of. Perhaps the best place to farm enemies and orbs is on Mars, in Escalation Protocol. It’s got high enemy density and plenty of higher-tier combatants to take out.

If you have friends who can hold checkpoints, another great option is the final room of the Hollowed Lair strike. Getting there is a bit of a chore, but so long as you make it to the final damage phase but then wipe before the fight is over, you can generate tons and tons of orbs at little risk or cost to yourself or your fireteam.

Two other options that, while harder to get to, can be just as valuable are in the Whisper activity on Io and the Shattered Throne dungeon. Both have rooms where infinite Thrall enemies spawn, meaning you can spend an eternity in them, killing and harvesting their orbs to your heart’s content. 

The Whisper is on a timer, and the Thrall tunnel in the dungeon takes some doing to get to, but they’re worth the trouble if you want safe, efficient farming.

Lastly, EAZ farming is simple enough. Go in, kill things, collect orbs.

Gambit and Crucible Farming Tips

There’s not much to optimize about Gambit or Crucible Solstice farming. You want to use a weapon with the appropriate element, and you need to be consistent at getting kills with it. Certain options are generally better than others.

• For Void kills: Gnawing Hunger, Recluse, Hammerhead, Hard Light (an exotic)
• For Arc kills: IKELOS SMG, Riskrunner, Waking Vigil, Thunderlord (an exotic), Hard Light (an exotic)
• For Solar Kills: Sunshot (an exotic), Mindbender’s Ambition, Xenophage (an exotic), Ancient Gospel (from Garden of Salvation), Felwinter’s Lie

That’s just a shortlist of weapons/exotics. Use whatever elemental weapons you feel comfortable with, but be prepared to grind for the long haul. You’ll need patience to make it to glowy goodness. Lots and lots of patience.

But now that you know what you need to do to get the armor sets in Destiny 2 Solstice of Heroes, you’re many steps closer to achieving your goal and looking good while doing it. If you’re in need of other Destiny 2 tips, head over to our list of Destiny 2 guides here!