How to get Thorn (Exotic Hand Cannon) after the Beyond Light update in Destiny 2
Thorn is back and enjoying a renaissance, given the nerf to 120 hand cannons in Season of the Lost. Back in Forsaken, there was a quest you had to do to get the weapon, but since Beyond Light was introduced that all changed. Arguably, it’s much easier to get the weapon these days and today I am going to go through how to get Thorn in Destiny 2.
Thorn is an Exotic hand cannon and one of the Weapons of Sorrow. It is most likely named after the thorn-like spikes on it. The weapon is sleek, dark black, with many spikes or “thorns” adorning the sides, facing the front of the weapon. The projectiles shot from it also resemble giant daggers or “thorns”. It was acquired via the Exotic bounty, A Light in the Dark. Thorn returned to Destiny 2 during Joker’s Wild and is acquired through a hidden quest. It’s risen again to be one of the most popular in Destiny 2.
Thorn
Thorn is an Exotic Kinetic Hand Cannon with some excellent exotic perks including.
Mark of the Devourer – Rounds pierce targets and deal damage over time. Kills with this weapon leave behind Remnants.
Soul Devourer – Absorbing a Remnant strengthens Mark of the Devourer and partially refills the magazine.
Looking at the stats we have Impact 84, Range 41, Stability 60, Handling 68, Reload Speed 46, Rounds Per Minute 140, Magazine 11
Since the nerf to 120 hand cannons in Season of the Splicer, 140 hand cannons have risen to the top once again. Thorn and Ace of Spades have risen to the top of the charts for the competitive PVP exotics, and if you play PVP at all I am sure you will have noticed many more Guardians wielding Thorn.
Next, let’s have a look at how to get Thorn after the Beyond Light update.
How to get Thorn
To get Thorn you can buy this from the Tower from the Exotic Kiosk in the Tower, which you can find next to the Vault and it’s called Monument to Lost Lights. At the time of making the guide you do require the Forsaken Expasion to be able to buy this, and all the exotics from Forsaken.
Thorn will cost you:
1 x Exotic Cipher
125,000 x Glimmer
200 x Dusklight Shard
1 Ascendant Shard
You can get an Exotic Cipher from the Season Pass, or you can complete the quest from Xur – he’s around from Friday until Tuesday. I do a guide on Xur’s location each week, so make sure you subscribe and hit the notifications bell to never miss an update.
Glimmer can be acquired from pretty much any activity – strikes, gambit, crucible, public events, patrols, etc. You can also go to Spider and trade in materials for Glimmer, but don’t trade in Dusklight Shards as you’re going to need those for Thorn.
For the Ascendant Shards you can purchase these from Banshee-44 in the Tower, or you can get them from high-level nightfalls as random drops from the final chest.
Finally, there’s the Dusklight Shards. This is a little more in-depth so I will get into how to farm Dusklight Shards next.
How to farm for Dusklight Shards
Dusklight Shards are the planetary material found on the EDZ and there’s a couple of ways to get them. Before you head down onto the EDZ you’ll want to prepare, in particular with your ghost shell. There’s a mod called Wombo Detector which helps you detect caches and resources within a 50m range. Put this on your ghost as this is going to come in use.
Once you’ve done this head down to the EDZ. There’s a few farming methods we’re going to combine here. Pick up all the bounties from Devrim Kay, he’s up in his church Tower perch in Trostland. His bounties will reward you a bunch of Dusklight Shards.
Next you’ll find to find the caches hidden on the EDZ, you’ll be able to see these on your map and they will reward you Dusklight Shards. Finally, you can find individual Dusklight Shards on the ground. If you get your ghost out your Wombo Detector Ghost mod will be able to help you find them nice and fast.
It also worth checking out Spider on the Tangeled Shore as he maybe selling or trading Dusklight Shards. His inventory rotates daily. Do be careful with Spider though. I would wait for the 5 x Dusklight Shards to be sold for 1 Legendary Shard, rather than 5000 Glimmer. Unless you have loads of Glimmer and Shards, as SPider will fleece you of everything you’ve got.
Once you have all the materials then head back to the Monuments to Lost Lights in the Tower and purchase Thorn.
Necrotic Grip Synergy
One of the best features in the game right now is the synergy Thorn has with Necrotic Grip, Exotic Gauntlets for the Warlock. Thorn triggers the Necrotic Grip’s poison if you kill an enemy with it (or land the final blow). As well as triggering the Necrotic Grips poison, you get the benefits from Thorn too. You can get Necrotic Grip if you are a Warlock and run Legend or Master Lost Sectors on arms day. I have a full guide on that, which you can find on the channel by searching for ‘Necrotic Grip thorn’.
History of Thorn
Thorn was once called Rose, and it belonged to the Guardian Rezyl Azzir. Once a noble hero, Azzir eventually fell to Darkness, becoming Dredgen Yor after looking to the Hive to try finding more ways to defeat the Darkness. He was soon consumed by the Darkness, and he and his Hand Cannon Rose began wantonly murdering innocents and consuming their Light, ever since, it has been hungry for the Light of other Guardians. Whether before or after it was built, Thorn became bound to Xyor, the Unwed; killing her removes the link and enables Guardians to safely use Thorn without risk of corruption.
After Dredgen Yor’s fall, cleansed replicas of the Thorn were created by the Shadows of Yor, a group of Guardians who idolize the fallen Guardian. Their activity raised enough concern for Shin Malphur, Yor’s killer, to take up arms against the Shadows. A year after the Red War, a Shadow of Yor known as Callum Sol was found and killed by Shin. The Young Wolf would find the spot of the Shadow’s final death, retrieving weapon parts from his remains for The Drifter to utilize to create a new replica of Thorn known as Malfeasance.
It is later revealed that Shin’s killing of Callum Sol was in fact a trap for people who are vulnerable to falling to the Darkness, and that Shin Malphur is actually a member of the Shadows of Yor himself.
During Penumbra, The Guardian found Yor’s original Thorn. In their hands, the Thorn would first be cleansed to reveal the original Rose underneath, and then extensively modified and charged with Light to become Lumina.
At an unknown date, a Warlock named Jana-14 obsessively researching the Thorn and other parts of Yor’s knowledge managed to reverse-engineer the Mark of the Devourer and create an explosive, contagious version of the poison, applying it to a pair of gauntlets named the Necrotic Grip. Sometime during the war against the House of Salvation, the Guardian would obtain the Grips, and would discover its ability to synergize with the Thorn itself, enabling the gun’s rounds to take on the traits of the Grips’ poison.
Thorn Lore
“To rend one’s enemies is to see them not as equals, but objects—hollow of spirit and meaning.” 13th Understanding, 7th Book of Sorrow
“The Weapons of Sorrow are not the endgame, but a road map. Each evolution, every advance in the delivery of pain and the mastery of destruction feeds the Hive’s hateful weapons research. They will map every scream, harness every aggression, until they understand every method by which to ravage the hearts, minds, and flesh of man. And in doing so, they will turn us against ourselves—feeding our lust, our greed, our fear, until we become a threat unto ourselves like none we could imagine. So, wield these, angry reaper. Strive to know the darkness in your own heart. Walk in the shadows of fallen heroes. And know that you are an enemy of hope.”
—a warning
That’s it for this guide on how to get Thorn after the Beyond Light update in Destiny 2. For more Destiny 2 content check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.