The newest piece of content has just dropped for Destiny 2 and it’s letting players obtain one of the game’s most infamous weapons. Tied to a lengthy quest, the Thorn is fully obtainable today. Thankfully, this quest will require users to complete a variety of activities all across the galaxy. Keep in mind, this quest leaked via light.gg a few days ago, so if any steps changed we will update them!
Here’s how to get the Thorn and complete the Independent Study quest:
1) Twisted Hunk of Metal Location
The first thing you need to do is find the Twisted Hunk of Metal item in Destiny 2. This is actually not given out by a vendor or dropped from an enemy, but hidden in the EDZ. When you load up, fly to the Trostlands and then enter the Salt Mines on the other side of the church.
Make your way through this location and enter the Salt Mines. Fight your way to the elevator room and go to the transporter next to the elevator. Once you transmit, go to the top of the hill and walk alongside the guardrails when you reach the shielded wall. You should see a hole just above you leading to a camp. Jump up there and sift through the ashes to get the Twisted Hunk of Metal. Now go to Banshee-44 to start the actual quest.
2) Get Hardronic Essence
After you speak with Banshee-44 you’ll be sent out to obtain Hardronic Essence. This can be obtained by killing Warlocks in the Crucible, finishing bounties for Asher Mir on Io, or completing Nightfalls. The latter will grant the most Hardronic Essence, so consider forming a fireteam to grind out this step.
Killing Warlocks is incredibly inconsistent and there are only three bounties you can complete for Asher Mir a day. Because of this, we suggest just running a few Nightfalls until you obtain enough Hardronic Essence.
3) Get Plasteel Plating
The next step of the quest asks players to collect Plasteel Plating by completing a variety of different activities. This includes killing Titans in the Crucible, finishing bounties for Sloane on Titan, and participating in the Blind Well.
Since Heroic Blind Well’s are the best method for farming Plasteel Plating, we suggest just dropping into The Dreaming City and completing this activity. Remember to pick up a few Unstable Charges of Light from Petra so you can enable the Heroic variation of this mode. Like the previous step, killing Titans is very inconsistent, so if you want to finish this quest step quickly just participate in the Blind Well.
4) Obtain Sapphire Wire
Like the previous two parts, you will need to obtain Sapphire Wire via one of three different methods. This includes finishing bounties from Ana Bray on Mars, killing Hunters in the Crucible, or completing waves of Escalation Protocol. Again, we don’t recommend going the PvP route since you’re leaving up a fair amount to chance.
Instead, just arrive on Mars, grab the bounties from Ana, and start completing waves of Escalation Protocol. Given how many players will be focusing on completing this quest we suspect there will be a lot of people on Mars doing this activity.
5) Get Void Hand Cannon Crucible Kills
Your next step requires you to kill Guardians in the Crucible with a Void Hand Cannon. If you manage to get precision kill sprees or play in Iron Banner/Competitive you’ll gain more progress towards finishing this step. This part will probably take the most time for most players since it requires a very specific type of kill.
We recommend using the Kindled Orchid or IKELOS_HC_v1.01 for completing this step. You can also use the Thin Line or grab A Cold Sweat from your Collection if you’ve unlocked it. When using your hand cannon just pace your shots and try to land critical hits if possible.
6) Kill Sardav and Telesh Then Complete Savathûn’s Son
The final parts of this quest require the player to kill the Arbiters Saradav and Telesh. We suspect that this is tied to a quest, but we cannot directly confirm this. There are no enemies in the game with this name before the Thorn quest released, so this furthers the belief that it’s a separate quest.
Once you vanquish these foes, the final step involves beating a special variation of the Savathûn’s Song Strike. Like other altered versions of Strikes this one is much harder, so make sure to bring a few Guardians with you. After completing this step you will unlock the Thorn and be able to reign terror upon your foes.