Destiny: The Taken King Expansion has been out now for a little over a week and there’s plenty of new stuff to do and see in this expansion for the game. While a major complaint levied towards the game has been what to do after the story missions are over, The Taken King gives Destiny players plenty of quests to go on and loot to earn.
So what do you do when you’ve finished the Story Missions for the Taken King? Here are our top five activities that will keep you busy for a while:
Farm Exotic Engrams with Three of Coins
A new item that has been introduced in Destiny: The Taken King is called the Three of Coins, and you can only get it by visiting Xur in one of his scheduled trips to the Tower. This new item is powerful and worthwhile as it increases the drop rate for Exotic Engrams when defeating Ultra Class enemies. You’ll need Strange Coins to purchase Three of Coins from Xur, and these are consumables that have a stacking effect when used in multiples.
A popular area to use this Exotic Engram farming method is on the Scourge of Winter Mission while defeating Draksis. The catch with this farming method is to continually use a suicide rocket tactic when killing him as the enemy will continually respawn while leaving your potential Exotic Engrams remaining.
It’s not clear how long this method will be around as Bungie has already been hinting at potentially disabling this method of farming Exotic items.
Update: Bungie has issued a hotfix that changes the way that Three of Coins works.
Farm Legendary Marks for Vanguard & Crucible Gear
If making your way through the Destiny: The Taken King story didn’t get you to level 40, you’ll need to first get there to start earning Legendary Marks. You can shoot your way to level 40 in Destiny in a number of different ways as the levels are no longer tied directly to your gear.
If you are a level 40 you can start doing a number of things to start earning Legendary Marks to spend on Vanguard & Crucible Legendary Gear. Both the Daily Heroic Story and the Daily Crucible Challenges will both reward you with 15 Legendary Marks, but those two are both tied to your account and can only be gotten once.
More Legendary Marks can be earned by doing the Vanguard Heroic Strike and you’ll earn +10 every time you do the strike, these can be done with multiple characters.
Outside of the activities, you can also earn Legendary Marks by doing specific quests. Just open the new quest tracker to see which quests give you the opportunity to earn the currency. Finally, you can also dismantle Legendary items to earn Legendary Marks as well.
Chaperone Exotic Shotgun Amanda Holliday Quests
The Taken King has a number of quests chains that you can go on for Exotic Weapons including one for The Chaperone, a new Exotic Shotgun. You’ll need to visit Amanda Holliday to start the quest line.
The first quest she’ll give you is Shindig in The Crucible, where you must defeat other Guardians while having the Exotic Hand Cannon The Last Word equipped. You can only obtain this after completing the main Taken King quest line and you also have to be a rank 3 in the Crucible. You’ll increase the percentage completed of this quest by making kills of any kind, with bonuses for streaks and headshots, while deaths put you back a bit.
Once complete, you’ll get another quest called Fiscal Persuasion that asks you to purchase a “generous donation” for Tex Mechanica from the Cryptarch. This will cost you 15,000 Glimmer to perform. The quest that follows is called Buckshot Bruiser, which asks you to use a shotgun to defeat guardians in the Crucible, as well as high-level minions of the darkness.
The next step towards the Chaperone is Two for the Road, which just asks you to defeat the Shield Brothers on the Dreadnaught. After all of these quests are complete, return once again to Amanda Holliday and she’ll give you a quest called “Bide Your Time,” which essentially makes you wait for the next weekly reset (Tuesdays) in Destiny, where you return to her again to claim your prize.
Touch of Malice Exotic Scout Rifle Quests
The Touch of Malice is a brand-new scout rifle for Destiny: The Taken King with a number of interesting perks. “Touch of Malice” means that the final round of the magazine deals bonus damage at the cost of the user’s life force, and hence will never run out of ammunition so long as you have life to spare. On the flip side, the rifle has a perk called “Touch of Mercy,” which returns health to the user. Sounds good right? So how do you get the Touch of Malice?
You’ll need to start with Eris and do the Shattered Past Quest Line to obtain five calcified fragments. While you might not know it at the time, if you keep collecting Calcified Fragments and reach 15 of them, Eris will give you a new quest called Hunger Pangs. In Hunger Pangs, you must Kill Bracus, the Taken Centurion in the Salt Mines in Bunker War-4. Once this is completed things get a little complicated.
You’ll need to gain entry to the King’s Fall Raid, and once inside, before battling the first boss, you need to return to Eris for yet another quest. This will be The Old Hunger quest that asks you to obtain The Blade of Famine, Shroud of Ir Anuk & The Ravenous Heart while doing the King’s Fall Raid. Essentially, complete the Raid and you’ll complete this quest. Return to Eris for another quest of farming 25 Wormspore from the Dreadnaught, 50 Hadium Flakes from Chests in the Dreadnought, and you’ll also need 50 Weapon Parts. This will complete another leg of this long quest for Touch of Malice. Once you’ve reached 30 Calcified Fragments, you’ll take on another portion of the Hunger Pangs quest and you’ll need to kill Morgath, the Lore Keeper in the Undying Mind Strike.
Once you get to 45 Calcified Fragments you’ll receive the final part of the Touch of Malice Hunger Pangs Quest. The last leg has you killing Mar-Zik, the Blightcaller in the base on Phobos.
That’s a long quest line for Touch of Malice, but you’ll still need to farm Hadium Flakes to fully upgrade this new Exotic Scout rifle for The Taken King.
King’s Fall Raid
The King’s Fall Raid is arguably the best end-game content that Bungie has put out for Destiny thus far, and it once again requires that you team-up with other Guardians as it requires a ton of communication. However, the Raid also offers some of the best loot that Destiny: The Taken King has to offer for completing its challenges.
Like Bungie’s first Raid in Destiny, King’s Fall has players working together through every step of the raid. Simply getting inside the Raid is a challenge as players must open a portal by obtaining orbs and placing them in a statue to begin the journey in a fashion that simply cannot be done alone.
The King’s Fall Raid has a numerous stages after that, which includes a fight with The Warpriest, Golgoroth, The Daughters of Oryx, and Oryx himself.
If you don’t have the friends to do this, it’s definitely worth checking out one of the communities that helps Destiny players team up like Destiny LFG or others.
Tackling the King’s Fall Raid will require you to both have a team capable of communication, but also that your team has the appropriate fire power and light levels to take down some of the game’s toughest bosses.
