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Destiny 2 has a lot of resources you gotta manage. There are Legendary Shards, Enhancement Cores, Enhancement Prisms, Recon Data for Season of the Hunt, Herealways Pieces introduced in Beyond Light, and a specific resource for each of the game’s many destinations.
But the thing you’ll always need is Glimmer. Glimmer is as close as Destiny 2 comes to cold, hard cash. You need Glimmer to buy bounties, Glimmer to slot mods, Glimmer to upgrade your arms and armor, and Glimmer to do just about anything. When you run out of Glimmer, your game grinds to a complete standstill.
Keeping up your Glimmer supplies is a necessary thing in Destiny 2, but not something you want to spend too much time on. Here’s every way you can earn Glimmer in Destiny 2 and some of the fastest Glimmer farms you can use.
Updated May 19, 20223, by Charles Burgar: Destiny 2: Lightfall has made Glimmer more important than ever. Now that buildcrafting is a central pillar of Destiny's progression, having the resources needed to upgrade your gear is essential to surviving the game's harder activities. We've updated this guide to include updated Glimmer sources, updated the resource exchange section to reflect economy changes, and added a Public Event farm that's currently the best Glimmer farm in the game.
How To Get Glimmer
Virtually everything you do in Destiny 2 will grant Glimmer. Defeating enemies, completing activities, and speaking to certain vendors will be your main sources of earning Glimmer. Notable methods of earning Glimmer is listed below:
Rainmaker Deprecation
Rainmaker consumables will also be deprecated in Season of the Deep, dismantling into 3,000 Glimmer each. If you need some emergency Glimmer and have played Destiny 2 in previous seasons, it's not a bad idea to dismantle these.
Method |
Type |
Glimmer Amount |
---|---|---|
Killing Enemies |
Activity |
Miniscule |
Dismantling Rares And Vanity Items |
Misc. |
100 |
*Planetary Chests |
Activity |
400 |
**Lost Sector Chests |
Activity |
1,800 |
Playlist Match Completion |
Activity |
2,500 |
Public Events (Normal) |
Activity |
3,300 | 4,645 |
Rahool's Resource Exchange |
Vendor |
5,000 |
Public Events (Heroic) |
Activity |
10,000 | 12,500 |
Season Pass |
Season Pass |
250,000 |
*Chests taper your Glimmer rewards when farmed. You'll gain less Glimmer as you open chests in a short time span.
**Only grants 1,800 for the first five Lost Sector chests that session (excluding Dreaming City and Moon chests).
Credit to Pyro Gaming for most of the Glimmer values listed above.
Season Pass
Each Season Pass will grant Glimmer during certain ranks, both for the free and premium tracks. Assuming you own the current season, you can earn 250,000 Glimmer from the Season Pass. Glimmer bundles are given at the following ranks:
Rank |
Track |
Amount |
---|---|---|
Rank 3 |
Free |
8,000 |
Rank 6 |
Free |
8,000 |
Rank 9 |
Paid |
10,000 |
Rank 12 |
Free |
6,000 |
Rank 16 |
Free |
6,000 |
Rank 17 |
Paid |
10,000 |
Rank 23 |
Paid |
12,000 |
Rank 29 |
Paid |
25,000 |
Rank 37 |
Paid |
30,000 |
Rank 49 |
Paid |
40,000 |
Rank 74 |
Paid |
45,000 |
Rank 82 |
Paid |
50,000 |
New Lights can get up to 28,000 Glimmer from the Season Pass. Season owners get significantly more, up to 250,000 Glimmer upon reaching rank 82.
Public Events
It might be surprising to hear that Public Events are the best source of Glimmer in Destiny 2 currently. A change in Season 19 greatly improved Public Event Glimmer drops. Normal Public Events grant 3,300 Glimmer for easy ones and 4,645 for more lengthy events. If you make the event Heroic and complete it, you'll earn at least 10,000 Glimmer. Longer events will pay out 12,500 Glimmer instead.
Assuming you can make every event Heroic, you can easily earn a full stack of 250,000 Glimmer with an hour or two of Public Event farming. Excluding resource exchanges with Rahool, this is easily the best source of Glimmer.
Boosting Glimmer Gains With Ghost Shells
Those planning to farm for Glimmer should consider modding their Ghost Shell for Glimmer mods. Ghost Shell Glimmer Boosts can increase your Glimmer gains by up to 65%. This includes all Glimmer sources that drop in the world, so virtually everything except bounties and the Season Pass.
Rahool's Resource Exchange
Before you decide to farm for Glimmer, head to the Tower and speak to Rahool. All planetary currencies can be exchanged for Glimmer. Since most planetary resources were all effectively deprecated, there's no reason to hold onto these items. You can exchange stacks of the same planetary resource for 10,000 Glimmer, reduced to 5,000 Glimmer if the resource is deprecated.
You may also exchange ten Legendary Shards for 10,000 Glimmer, although we don't recommend this due to the widespread use of Legendary Shards across all Destiny 2 vendors and upgrade systems.
You can exchange the following resources with Rahool:
Curios |
|
---|---|
Legendary Shards |
World Loot |
Dark Fragments |
Dreaming City |
Phantasmal Fragments |
Moon |
Herealways Pieces |
Europa |
Deprecated Resources |
|
Microphasic Datalattice |
Nessus |
Dusklight Shards |
EDZ |
Baryon Bough |
Dreaming City |
Glacial Starwort |
Europa |
Spinmetal Leaves |
Cosmodrome |
Glimmer Farm #1: Farm Public Events
If you need Glimmer and don't have any resources to exchange, farm Heroic Public Events. There's almost always a Public Event active on the EDZ and Nessus. Load into the destination, reach the Public Event, and make it Heroic as soon as possible. Complete the event to earn 10,000 Glimmer, boosted by Ghost Shell mods. With some luck, you'll get a short Public Event that only takes a couple of minutes to complete. Reload the instance to farm the same Public Event one or two more times, then join the next Public Event on the map.
With some luck, you'll be able to earn at least 100K Glimmer an hour. With a Ghost Shell specced for Glimmer gains and some good RNG, you can potentially earn a full stack of Glimmer in an hour. If you don't know how to make Public Events Heroic, check out this useful video guide from YouTuber JustCaptain.
As for the best Public Events to farm, keep an eye out for the events listed below. Most of these spawn in the EDZ and Nessus:
- Ether Resupply
- Ether Ritual
- Taken Blight
- Weapons Exchange
Glimmer Farm #2: Farm Planetary Chests
Still not enough Glimmer? Here’s a quick combo to use with your Ghost’s Glimmer Booster Mod. In the second slot on your Ghost will be a mod called Expert Hunter, allowing you to scan chests up to 75 meters away from you. Apply it to your Ghost Shell, then head to your planet of choice. Most prefer the EDZ since it's jam-packed with chest spawn locations.
That’s not bad, but we can do a lot better. It’s unknown if this is a bug or a feature, but peering through the scope of a sniper rifle extends that 75-meter radius to basically the entire map. Suddenly, every treasure chest in your current area will be visible, with the only caveat being you have to now have to painstakingly correct your Sniper Rifle’s aim to be in the general direction of the chest to spot it.
Honestly, that doesn’t take very long, and you can easily whip out your Sniper Rifle, spot a chest, hop on your Sparrow, open that chest, and repeat for all remaining chests in the region until you’ve made a few thousand Glimmer in just a few minutes. Then all you need to do is speed off to the next area to repeat the whole process over again. Just keep in mind that these chests will stop granting Glimmer if you open too many of them in a short timeframe. If your Glimmer starts to taper off, consider farming public events or patrols for a few minutes.