Weapon Crafting Guide in Destiny 2 Witch Queen (Patterns, Shaping and Resonant Materials)

February 26, 2022February 27, 2022 This week in video games D2 Weapon Crafting, Destiny 2 Weapon Crafting, Weapon Crafting, Weapon Crafting Guide D2, Weapon Crafting Guide Destiny, Weapon Crafting Guide Destiny 2

Weapon Crafting is one of the major new additions to Destiny 2 in the Witch Queen expansion, which allows us to use Relic to help us craft and customize weapons. This is a huge new feature and it has a few complex parts, so today I am going to run through the crafting in detail including how to get started, what weapon patterns are, how to shape and reshape weapons and explain what materials you need and why.

How to get started with Weapon Crafting

During the campaign in Destiny 22 Witch Queen, you’ll get an introduction to weapon crafting in the first few missions. You’ll have a chat with Ikora Rey and she’ll give you a quest called The Relic, and this walks you through the basics of Weapon Crafting in the Enclave on Mars. At the end of the short tutorial, you’ll have your first crafted weapon, the new Glaive.

In the first few missions of the Witch Queen Campaign you will also pick up a new ability called Deepsight, and one of the benefits of Deepsight is the ability to craft weapons. You can also unlock memories from the past and find hidden loot chests too. Once you have Deepsight, you’ll be able to receive weapons with Red Borders on them, and this means they have something called Deepsight Resonance. By using the weapons with Deepsight Resonance, you’ll be able to extract the materials needed for weapon crafting.

Patterns

To start crafting a weapon, you’ll need its Pattern. This is another name for a weapon blueprint, or something similar to that. It’s essentially the starting guidelines for creating a weapon. You can unlock Patterns by completing the objectives on the Deepsight Resonance weapons, also some quests will give you Patterns as rewards. To see your current Patterns, you can navigate to the Triumphs page in your character menu and check out the available Patterns. Not all weapons in Destiny 2 have Patterns, only 23 to start with. This includes the new Throneworld Weapons and the Season of the Risen Weapons, as well as a few Exotics like Osteo Striga and the new Exotic Glaives.

During the campaign in the Witch Queen, you’ll get given the pattern for Enigma, a Legendary Glaive. You’ll be walked through interacting with the Relic and selecting perks and traits. Once you have put the weapon together, you can level up the weapon. The more you use the weapon, the higher level it will go, and you’ll be able to unlock more features on the weapon.

How to Shape and Reshape Weapons

To start crafting a weapon, head to the Relic at the Enclave and interact with the prompt. You’ll be presented with two options; Shape or Reshape. Shaping and Reshaping is the term used by the Relic for Crafting. If you are starting from scratch, you’ll want to Shape a weapon from its pattern. If you want to modify an existing weapon then you’ll Reshape it.

To Shape a weapon, select it from your available Patterns. Then you can add intrinsic, two minor perks, two traits, and then finalize the shape. When you first start out, shaping options are going to be minimal, but they will progressively get deeper and more complex over the course of Destiny 2 Witch Queen as you shape more weapons and unlock new features.

You will need some materials for Shaping and Reshaping weapons and they include Neutral Elements, Resonant Alloy and Glimmer.

Reshaping means modifying an existing weapon and you can edit the perks on the gun to better suit your playstyle. You can choose from the available perks on the weapon and if you have leveled up the weapon enough, then you’ll have more flexibility on what perks to add to the weapon. If you find your options limited, then get out there in the world and level up that weapon more.

There are also enhanced traits, which are better versions of current traits we know and love. Given that enhanced traits are better, then there is a higher cost associated with these meaning more materials and an Ascendant Alloy. This is a new rare material that can only be acquired in a few locations in the game including the Weekly Campaign Mission, which is unlocked at Fynch Rank 13 on the Throne World, and also Master Mode for the new Wellspring activity, also unlocked at Fynch at Rank 18.

Before you Shape or Reshape the weapon you’ll be able to see how much it will cost, so it gives you all the info you need to know to make that decision. You can effectively Reshape as many times as you want, as long as you have the materials.

Resonant Materials

To be able to Shape and Reshape, you are going to need a number of Resonant Materials. These can be acquired through playing activities in Destiny 2, and always look out for activity descriptions to let you know which materials will be rewarded.

Resonant Alloys

Resonant Alloy is the most basic material for weapon crafting, and this is needed for the intrinsic, for example, Adaptive, Precision, Aggressive etc. If you level up your weapons then you can have stat bonuses here and you have different Resonant Alloys to collect. Some are specific to certain activities like Raids, and some can be acquired through dismantling weapons or completing activities.

Ascendant Alloys and Resonant Elements

Ascendant Alloys and Resonant Elements are used for enhanced traits, and you can get these from the Weekly Campaign Mission and the Master Mode of Wellspring. You can also buy from Banshee-44 and the Cryptarch.

Mementos

Mementos are a cosmetic option rather than something that is going to benefit the stats of the weapon. For example, shaders and trackers. These can be unlocked by completing various activities, but Mementos are purely for cosmetic value at this moment in time.

Resonant Elements

There are various Resonant Elements for different perk combinations. Everything requires Neutral Elements, while some perks require specific ingredients of Resonant Elements.

Ruinous Elements – Damage or projectile modification-related trait perks.
Adroit Elements – Weapon performance-related trait perks such as handling and stability.
Mutable Elements – Provides ability modification-related trait perks.
Energetic Elements – Used for ammo or reload-related trait perks.
Drowned Elements – These are Raid-exclusive trait perks.

Levelling up weapons

The benefit of leveling up a weapon is you’ll get to unlock for advanced features for the weapon in the shaping and reshaping process. To level up a weapon it’s fairly simple, just use the weapon to get kills and you’ll level it up. Think of it as a specific weapon bounty or objective. The more you invest in a particular weapon, the more personal it can become to you.

Attuning Weapons

Resonant Weapons have to be attuned with Deepsight Resonance, which then extracts the Resonant Materials from the weapon. The extracted materials are then used to shape or reshape weapons.

You can choose the materials to extract from a weapon when you attune it, and this can only be done once. After this process, the gun will lose its unique aspect and will operate as a normal weapon. Also, weapons need a 100% Resonance rating before Deepsight Resonance can be extracted. Making progress with Deepsight Resonance is very simple though, just use the weapon or have it equipped.

Let me know in the comments what you think of Weapon Crafting in Destiny 2. It’s a lot of info to take in and a big change for Destiny, but we’ll all get used to the system in a very short time.

That’s it for this Weapon Crafting Guide in Destiny 2 Witch Queen. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.