As a looter shooter, Destiny 2 thrives off of having unique weapons and armor to chase. Destiny 2's Beyond Light expansion might have removed quite a few items from the loot pool, but Year 4's seasonal content drops have done a great job expanding the loot pool thus far.

Related: Destiny 2: How To Reach The Power Level Cap Quickly

Nightfalls, Crucible, Override, and Gambit are just a few activities that grant loot in Destiny 2. While playing any activity in Destiny 2 gives you loot, not all loot is created equal. Some activities take too long to complete, don't grant valuable rewards, or sometimes both. Today, we'll be going over the best and worst activities you can farm in Destiny 2 as of Season of the Lost.

Updated September 25th, 2021 by Charles Burgar: Destiny 2 has reworked a few activities in Season of the Lost. Strikes now have a reward track, Trials of Osiris saw a fundamental overhaul, and new activities have been added for Guardians to farm. We've updated this list to account for Season 15's activity changes and additions, discussing the best and worst activities you can currently farm.

10 Best: Legendary Lost Sectors

Destiny 2 Cellular Suppression

Beyond Light introduced a difficult variant of Lost Sectors. Known by most as Legendary Lost Sectors, these Lost Sector variants have a high chance of dropping Exotic armor in a specific armor slot if you complete them solo. There are two Legendary Lost Sectors available each day, one Legend and the other Master. Master Lost Sectors have a higher chance of dropping an Exotic armor piece but are significantly harder.

Target-farming Exotics has never been easier after Bungie added this activity. Guardians that want a perfect roll for their favorite Exotic helmet just need to wait for a difficult variant to appear that offers a helmet. Year 4 Exotic armor pieces are also tied to these Legendary Lost Sectors, highly encouraging players to give this playlist a chance. This is by far the best Exotic armor farm for solo players in Destiny 2.

9 Not Worth It: Astral Alignment

Destiny 2 Astral Alignment Guide Featured

Season of the Lost introduced an activity called Astral Alignment. A team of six Guardians has to complete various objectives before defeating a final boss, granting two chests of loot at the end of the mission. This sounds quite similar to the Menagerie and Sundial on the surface, yet this activity lacks enticing rewards to keep players coming back each week.

This activity takes around ten minutes to complete and grants a weapon or armor piece, sometimes both. The armor drops with sub-60 stat totals, and the weapons are much easier to obtain through Focused Umbral Engrams. Unless you need Powerful Gear or the Ager's Scepter Catalyst, there's virtually no reason to play Astral Alignment. If you want a good Vulpecula or Fractathyst, go farm and focus Umbral Engrams instead.

8 Best: Nightfalls

Destiny 2 Champion

Nightfalls are the definite way of farming Masterwork materials for your weapons and armor. Enhancement Cores, Enhancement Prisms, and Ascendant Shards can all be earned from this playlist. The higher the difficulty, the better loot you'll receive. Higher difficulties also have a high chance of granting an Exotic armor piece. Those that want to min-max their build will want to farm this activity whenever they can.

Related: Destiny 2: Every Possible Way To Obtain Ascendant Shards

Bungie frequently enables double loot weeks as well, making Nightfalls the definitive way of earning Masterwork materials. Various seasons also added fantastic Nightfall weapons for players to chase. Palindrome, Uzume FR4, and Plug One.1 are some of the best weapons in their respective archetype, giving you further incentives to farm this activity over and over again. If you can brave Grandmaster difficulty, you'll even obtain Adept variants of these guns and Adept mods you can socket into them, resulting in weapons that have stat packages well above their competition.

7 Not Worth It: Gambit

Destiny 2 Splicer Gambit Gild Featured

Gambit saw the same reward track update that the Crucible did a few seasons ago. It also has some great weapons to chase, yet there's one problem: its Gambit. This mode hasn't seen any substantial changes since Gambit Prime during Year 2. Beyond Light did merge Gambit and Gambit Prime together, but it didn't fix core issues with this game mode. To name a few:

  • Heavy ammo bricks don't spawn deterministically.
    • Ammo finders help, but this doesn't address the core issue.
  • Gambit was tuned around Forsaken-era power levels. Guardians are much stronger now.
  • Infamy ranks take longer to level than other ritual playlists.

All of these issues make for a gamemode that promotes snowballing and has a slower reward track than Vanguard activities or PvP. Gambit tries to make up for this with a great weapon pool, yet that's undermined by how long Gambit matches are. And even if you do get the weapon you want, each weapon has 12 potential perks in each of the final two perk columns. Good luck getting the roll you want.

6 Best: Vault Of Glass

Destiny 2 Vault of Glass Atheon

The Vault of Glass is the only raid in Destiny 2 that gives out Pinnacle Gear currently. That alone makes it incredibly rewarding, but VoG also has some of the best weapons that Destiny 2 has seen thus far.

Fatebringer is an excellent PvE Hand Cannon and one of the only 140 RPM Kinetic Hand Cannons you can use in PvP. Corrective Measure is the only Machine Gun that can roll with Subsistence, and it's the only weapon that can use Demolitionist and Adrenaline Junkie simultaneously. Praedyth's Revenge deals more damage per second than Succession with the right roll.

You get the idea. Vault of Glass has a fantastic selection of guns. It also contains the best Spoils of Conquest farm in the game for players that want to chase god-roll weapons after their weekly completion. And if your fireteam is powerful enough to beat the Master variant, Vault of Glass provides guaranteed high-stat armor with a specific stat bias, making this the best high-stat armor farm in Destiny 2. When you combine all of these incentives with an action-packed raid with the perfect blend of combat and mechanics, you have a recipe for a great time.

5 Not Worth It: Glory Crucible

Destiny 2 Crucible Titan

Valor Crucible has seen an overhaul in Season of the Chosen, now granting Masterwork materials and even Exotics for increasing your rank. If Valor ranks got such a massive rework, what interesting loot did Bungie give the Glory playlist?

Nothing. Season of the Splicer fixed an issue where Glory was increasing at a slow rate. Season of the Lost made some changes to third-person peeking, but those only arrived due to Season 15's Trials of Osiris rework. This mode has been neglected more than Gambit, and it has even worse rewards. Glory rank-ups do provide Powerful Gear, but this game type lacks unique weapons, armor, or other cosmetics. Unless you care about chasing Unbroken or love competitive PvP, there is virtually no reason to play the Glory Crucible playlist at this time.

4 Best: Trials Of Osiris

Destiny 2 Trials Flawless Tips Featured

If you haven't played Destiny 2 recently, this might come as a complete surprise. Bungie did a fundamental overhaul to Trials of Osiris in Season of the Lost, restructuring its reward and matchmaking systems. The end result is a much healthier playlist that showers players in loot.

Related: Destiny 2: The Best Loadouts For Trials Of Osiris

We recap all of the changes in our Trials of Osiris guide, but here's a quick summary of the changes:

  • Rewards are now based on round and game wins.
    • Passages no longer track losses.
  • Saint-14 has a reward track, similar to other ritual vendors.
  • Enhancement Prisms and Ascendant Shards can now drop from Trials matches.
  • Adept weapons can be farmed from Flawless Passage wins.
  • Solos and duos can now queue into the Trials playlist.
  • Special ammo doesn't carry over between rounds.
  • Third-person peeking has been removed.

It's a significantly better PvP experience than it's ever been in Destiny 2, but it's still Trials. Players can still get stomped by experienced three-stacks, cheesy meta loadouts are still an issue, and the playlist is only active during the weekend. Even with all of those issues, the rewards from Trials are so great that all players should give this game mode a try whenever it's active. If you're a great PvP player, this is effectively a PvP variant of GM Nightfalls. Its reward structure is that good.

3 Not Worth It: Wrathborn Hunts

Destiny 2 Season of the Hunt

Season of the Hunt introduced Wrathborn Hunts to Destiny 2. Unlike previous arena activities, Wrathborn Hunts focus on tracking down a single enemy and killing them in an instanced mission. Completing a mission grants a certain item based on what Lure Mods are slotted into your Cryptolith Lure.

The issue is that Bungie locked these hunts behind a moderate degree of busywork. Not only do Guardians need to farm for Cryptolith Lure upgrades, but they also need to complete arbitrary activities to obtain charges to complete a hunt. Players can only do five hunts sequentially before they need to farm more charges. Charging your lure has different objectives that rotate daily, ranging from getting precision kills to completing Gambit matches. Even your reward options are randomly generated with every hunt. Want to farm a Deafening Whisper? You better hope you get that option after every hunt.

If the time investment and RNG weren't enough, most of the weapons and armor tied to this activity are subpar when compared to current offerings — Deafening Whisper being the main exceptions.

2 Best: Prophecy

Destiny 2 Prophecy Hexahedron

Similar to the Vault of Glass raid, the Prophecy dungeon is the only dungeon in Destiny 2 that can be farmed. Players can still earn reissued, non-sunset gear from the Shattered Throne and Pit of Heresy dungeons, but they can't be farmed like the Prophecy dungeon.

Your first completion of an encounter grants an item you have yet to receive. Subsequent encounter completions will offer duplicate items until the next weekly reset, allowing you to farm certain encounters for weapons rolls or high-stat armor. Nearly every weapon in this dungeon is excellent, and armor almost always drops with high stats. Unlike the raid, you can even solo this dungeon if you have the right gear. For most players, this is the best source of high-stat armor you can repeatedly farm that doesn't require a raid team.

1 Not Worth It: Planetary Activities

Destiny 2 Cabal Public Event

Planetary activities include public events, standard Lost Sectors, Adventures, and Patrol missions. Planet-exclusive activities, such as the Dreaming City's Blind Well and the Moon's Altars of Sorrow, are excluded from this entry; those are usually worth doing.

All of these activities offer a small chunk of Glimmer and a few Rares, infrequently rewarding a Legendary world drop. The days of farming public events for Exotics are long gone. You would be better off spending that time elsewhere.

Next: Destiny 2: Beyond Light Complete Guide And Walkthrough