How to get Wish-Keeper and its catalysts in Destiny 2
Unlock the new exotic quest to get a special strand bow.
The new Wish-Keeper exotic bow in Destiny 2 is a pretty cool weapon concept wise. Just like Verglas Curve from the Season of Defiance, Wish-Keeper continues the trend of bows that tie heavily into elemental subclasses. It builds energy on precision hits and final blows before unleashing a Snareweaver arrow that can suspend enemies.
Though suspend isn't quite as good as it was, you'd usually need to use an ability like a Drengr’s Lash barricade, Ensnaring Slam dive, or a Shackle grenade in order to activate the effect, so getting it as part of a weapon adds a fair bit of subclass versatility. If this sounds like your kind of bow, here's how to get Wish-Keeper for yourself, plus its intrinsic upgrades and catalysts.
How to get Wish-Keeper
To earn the new exotic strand bow in Destiny 2 you need to complete the Starcrossed exotic mission, and that first means unlocking it. This mission appears as part of week four's Season of the Wish questline. First, you'll have to complete the Apophasis mission in which Riven's Egg gets stolen, but after that, you'll unlock Starcrossed in the HELM, where you can select and start it.
This mission sees you venture into the Black Garden, where you'll have to acquire a variety of buffs by stepping into pools to complete its encounters:
- Blue pools give you the Sire's Obligation buff—this lets you damage the immune Obdurate Phalanx enemies and see any symbols floating above them. In the first encounter, you'll want to examine the three symbols by the locked gate, then kill the phalanxes in that order, going top-to-bottom based on the symbol floating above each.
- Red pools give you the Dam's Gift buff. This lets you travel into the red misted areas without taking continuous damage. In the second encounter, you'll need to use this to defeat the Gatekeeper Wyvern's in each red area and then activate the node near to each to unlock the gate.
- The final buff, Crowned by Dragons, comes from acquiring both of the previous buffs at the same time, and will let you damage the final boss: Akardon, The Pitiless Mind. Make sure to keep re-upping your buff by stepping into the pools so you don't start taking damage when it runs out.
Once you've completed all encounters, you can open the chest and grab a red-border version of the Wish-Keeper bow. Make sure to extract the pattern so you can craft it in future—in case you ever somehow dismantle this one. Otherwise you can just reshape this bow when adding new intrinsics and catalysts to it.
Wish Keeper catalysts
Similar to the Seraph's Shield mission for Revision Zero back in the Season of Seraph, it's likely that you'll get the new intrinsic upgrades for Wish-Keeper by completing Starcrossed in subsequent weeks. The same goes for the four Wish-Keeper catalysts, though if they're anything like the Avalon mission for Vexcalibur, you'll need to complete it on Legend each week to earn one.
The Wish-Keeper catalysts are:
- Enduring Snare Refit: Snareweaver Traps last longer.
- Multi-Threaded Snare Refit: Snareweaver Traps can now suspend more targets.
- Vorpal Weapon Refit: Extra damage to bosses, vehicles, and Guardians with super active.
- Hatchling Refit: Precision or rapid final blows have a chance to spawn a Threadling.
If you're wanting to earn all of these, the fastest way will be to complete one Legend run of Starcrossed each week for the next four weeks. Be warned that, similar to Legend in other exotic missions, you'll have to face Unstoppable champions. Luckily, the Unstoppable Bow perk is available this season, and you just got a bow that can stun them with its suspend, too.