Season of the Splicer

Destiny 2 – How to get Ether and Decrypted Data in Season of the Splicer

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Decrypted Data and Ether are a couple of new currencies added to Destiny 2 this season, and you are going to be wanting to gather as much of this as possible to upgrade the Splicer Servitor in the H.E.L.M for upgrade bonuses, mods, and ultimately more loot from the Override activity. Today I am going to look into both currencies, plus how to get them fast so you can quickly get the most loot possible. The following is a guide for how to get Ether and Decrypted Data in Season of the Splicer.

In Season of the Splicer, we’ve had a new 6-person activity introduced called Override. To get the new seasonal loot we’re going to need to craft Key Codes to allow us to open the chest at the end of Override. To allow us to craft Key Codes we’re going to need Ether, and once we open the chests we’ll also get some Decrypted Data as a reward, which we’ll need to use on the Splicer Servitor in the H.E.L.M. to allow us to gather the upgrades.

This is the key gameplay loop in Season of the Splicer and upgrading the Splicer Servitor is going to increase our capacity for gathering the currencies as well as offering more bonuses for even more loot from the end of the Override activity. The same currency is also used to focus on Umbral Engrams this season, however, I would prioritize upgrading the Splicer Servitor in the H.E.L.M. BEFORE focusing on any Umbral Engrams, as the benefits here outweigh the focusing options. Once you have fully upgraded the Splicer Servitor, then I would start focusing on Umbral Engrams.

Let’s have a look at both of the currencies in turn. I’m going to start with Ether.

How to get Ether

Gathering Ether is done by playing activities in Season of the Splicer like Strikes, Crucible, and Gambit matches. Before you start the best thing to do is check out the Splicer Gauntlet, and you’ll notice there’s a daily bonus on there, meaning certain activities are going to offer significant bonuses for gathering Ether. Check out the Gauntlet in your quests tab and see what’s on offer that day.

Whether you are doing Strikes, Crucible or Gambit then you are going to get a drop of Ether at the end. Be sure you check out your Splicer Gauntlet and make sure you aren’t maxed out on your Ether. At the end of the activity you’ll get a drop of about 50 Ether, however, if you are running the daily bonus activity then you’ll get around 75.

Check out the text on the Splicer Gauntlet and it says “Complete playlist activities, public events and defeat combatants anywhere in the system to gather Ether. Bonus Ether can be obtained by – daily objective”.

At the time of making the guide my daily objective was completing strikes, so you’ll get a nice extra bunch of Ether when you finish a strike, but this rotates between strikes, the crucible, and gambit each day, so make sure to check the Splicer Gauntlet.

The Splicer Gauntlet also makes note of “defeating combatants”, so when you are running through activities you want to make sure you are killing as many enemies as possible. Rather than running through the activities as fast as you can, try and systematically take out everything. Warmind Cell builds can help with this, as you are going to be creating Warmind Cells, which you can then explode, helping you to kill as many things as possible.

Running the daily objective is very good, but if you are looking for a quick and efficient way of gathering Ether then Public Events are best for this. These are much quicker than playlist activities like Strikes, Crucible, or Gambit. You’ll get 10 for a regular public event, and 20 for a Heroic Public Event. Check out the Map on each location to see where public events are spawning, and try to trigger the heroic mode whenever you do a public event. If you can get a few friends together then this is the best way, or you could try on an LFG website like Bungie’s app or DestinyTracker.

Public events are fast, but you can also exploit a long-known issue with public events called ‘Double Dipping’. For example, if you finish up the public event nice and fast and then load back into the zone, you have the chance to spawn into the public event in another instance, and sometimes you can gather the loot chest again, meaning you get double the loot and more chance for Ether to drop for you. To do this you can either leave the zone on your sparrow and come back in, or you can load into the zone near the public event and try to get to the public event again, and pick u the chest for the second time.

In summary for gathering Ether:

  • Check out the Splicer Gauntlet for the daily bonus
  • Run those activties and grab the Ether bonuses
  • Do public events for efficient Ether gathering

Next let’s have a look at getting Decrypted Data.

How to get Decrypted Data

You’ll need Decrypted Data to unlock the bonuses and level up the Splicer Servitor in the H.E.L.M. There are a few locations this season where you can get Decrypted Data.

First of all, at the end of the Override activity, there are 2 chests. The one on the left will drop regular loot and the one on the right will drop Splicer loot and also Decrypted Data. You’ll need a Key Code to unlock the chest on the right that contains the Decrypted Data, so make sure you follow the steps we’ve talked about to gather as much Ether to make sure you can craft that Key Code.

Seasonal Challenges are another good source of Decrypted Data. This can be found in your quests tab and there are 2 available this week called Hello, World, and Maximum Override. These two challenges will give you a bunch of Decrypted Data. It’s likely every week we’ll have a few challenges that give us Decrypted Data, so it’s worth checking out the Seasonal Challenges each week to give yourself a nice bump in Decrypted Data.

The season pass is another good source of Decrypted Data. At ranks 2, 12, and 32 there’s a cache of Decrypted Data, although this is reserved for the paid track, rather than the free track so that is worth bearing in mind. If you have access to the paid track, then this is another good source.

Finally, there’s a loot Goblin in the Override Activity who will drop a bunch of Decrypted Data. This is a rare spawn, he doesn’t show up all of the time, but when he does and you kill it, then you’ll get a drop of 30 Decrypted Data. DMG from Bungie said it’s random, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for this guy, and if you kill it then it’ll drop a nice extra bunch of Decrypted Data for you. AFAIK there’s no way to make this thing spawn, it’s purely down to random chance.

Once you have the Decrypted Data go back to the Splicer Servitor in the H.E.L.M. and you can use this to upgrade the loot table there. Personally, I have been prioritizing the Memory Expansion upgrades, which allow for the Ether capacity to be increased by 50 and also the Key Code capacity to be increased. I also upgraded the Override Efficiency, as this leads to more seasonal loot and focused Umbral Engrams. Ultimately you want to upgrade the Splicer Servitor Loot Table completely and as fast as possible and the choices you make along the way are entirely up to you. For me, getting more Ether capacity and Key Codes, plus loot was the most important thing, so I prioritized these nodes on the upgrade table.

In summary for gathering Decrypted Data:

  • Open the Conflux Chest (on the right) at the end of the Override acitvity
  • Do the seasonal challenges each week
  • Upgrade the season pass and get at ranks 2, 12, 32.
  • Find the loot goblin

Let me know what you think down in the comments.

That’s it for this guide for how to get Ether and Decrypted Data in Season of the Splicer. For more Destiny 2 content, check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.