Engram decryption in Destiny 2 has come a long, long way since the game first launched in 2017.
Focusing engrams to try and find the god roll on a weapon or armor that you enjoy has become quite easy, and yet another avenue for players to grind and chase down specific loot to help customize their experience.
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There are several different kinds of engrams to keep track of in Destiny 2 now, though, and one of them is Vanguard Engrams. Commander Zavala is your guide to decoding and decrypting them, but first, you need to snag some of your own before you can get the gear inside.
Here’s all you need to know about Vanguard Engrams and how to get them in Destiny 2.
How to get Vanguard Engrams in Destiny 2
Unsurprisingly, Vanguard Engrams are rewarded from Vanguard activities, such as Vanguard Ops and Nightfall Strikes. These engrams drop as rewards for finishing activities like Strikes and Battlegrounds missions.
The higher the difficulty, the more likely you are to receive a Vanguard Engram. So a solid method of farming Vanguard Engrams is playing the week’s Nightfall Strike at the Hero difficulty since it offers matchmaking. If you want to play higher difficulties, you’ll need a fireteam or you have to run it solo.
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Vanguard Engrams will only drop from Vanguard activities, much in the same way that Gambit Engrams only drop in Gambit, and Crucible Engrams only drop in Crucible. If you want a specific Vanguard weapon or armor, get comfy in the Vanguard Ops or Nightfall activities to try and farm as many engrams as you can.
Once you have Vanguard Engrams, which you can track via the Engram Tracker in your inventory, you can return to Commander Zavala in the Tower to cash them in.
Here, you can decrypt the engrams for random Vanguard gear. Or you can select the Focused Decoding option and attempt to decode an engram for a specific piece of gear.
Then, you can decode engrams for new rolls on any piece of Vanguard gear you’ve already received. You can’t decrypt something you haven’t already gotten as a random dropped reward, so keep that in mind.
You can focus an engram to receive one of the Nightfall weapons, like Hung Jury SR4 or The Swarm, albeit for a price. Decrypting a Vanguard engram will cost you the engram, plus Legendary Shards, Glimmer, and other currencies.
You can also use Vanguard Engrams to focus Legacy gear, such as older Nightfall Strike weapons like The Hothead, Horror’s Least, Plug One.1, or The Comedian, or previous Vanguard armor sets from years past in Destiny 2.
