Destiny 2 exotic class item: All perk combinations and how to get it

The exotic class item remains one of the most desirable additions in Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion, giving you a special exotic you can use with the prismatic subclass that can mix and match perks from other pre-existing exotics. Sounds powerful? It is!

Titans can now throw lightning hammers like Thor, hunters can jab enemies with electric punches causing them to explode, and warlocks? Well, as ever, warlocks can get some cracked grenade regen and damage with combos like Osmiomancy/Verity. There are plenty of other possibilities, too, if you get a roll with some decent perk synergy. 

The good news is that due to community complaints about drop rates, Bungie has also made it significantly easier to acquire the item, and there will even be a method coming in Revenant—episode two—that'll let players attune for their desired perk combo. If you haven't unlocked it yet, here's what you need to do, all the available perks, plus everything we know about the new attunement system.

How to unlock the exotic class item

Unlocking the Exotic Class item requires completing the new Dual Destiny mission. To access that, though, first you'll need to do some prep in the Overthrow events found in the Pale Heart patrol zone.

You need to complete the Overthrow event in each location—The Landing, The Blooming and The Impasse—beating the final boss. Afterwards, in the five minutes of peace before the event kicks off again, you'll need to hunt down a Secret-Keeper of the Witch Queen who will be hidden away somewhere in the area. They're easy enough to find if you ride around, looking for enemy markers on your radar, but to be sure of their location check the video below.

How to get and farm for the exotic class item. - YouTube

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When the Secret-Keeper in each location is defeated, head to The Blooming and look for a green beam of light shooting into the air. The source of the light is The Refraction area. Inside is a small spot of light that you can interact with to gain the Savathun's Envoy buff and a seven minute timer.

While you have the buff active, you'll see two markers on the map. At each location, you'll fight waves of Dread and, at the end, a Subjugator miniboss. Once defeated, the boss will drop one of two orbs—Refracted Light and Refracted Dark. After you pick up an orb, carry it back to the location where you got the Savathun's Envoy buff, and dunk it on the corresponding Light or Darkness plate. When both plates are activated, the Dual Destiny mission is available. 

If you don't want to complete the mission straight away—you need to bring a friend along to complete it—don't worry. Once unlocked, you can activate the mission from orbit, on the Pale Heart map. See the video above for an explanation of the mission.

How to farm the Exotic Class item

There are now multiple ways to acquire the exotic class item once you've completed Dual Destiny once. These are:

• Complete Dual Destiny each week: You can complete the mission once per weekly reset to earn an improved two exotic class items. This is definitely the easiest and most straightforward way to acquire more, and you can get that weekly drop on each separate class if you play multiple.
• Buy one from Xur: This vendor of the nine hangs out in the tower every weekend now and randomly sells exotic class items in exchange for Strange Coins provided you've acquired it through the mission. It'll cost you 41 coins to purchase one, which means if you have max coins you can buy two at once. It's worth noting that Xur seems to sell these infinitely, so provided you farm up more Strange Coins that weekend, you can go back to him to get more.
• Open Overthrow chests: Completing Overthrow and opening chests during the activity has a chance—albeit a fairly low one—to drop an exotic class item. This is probably the least consistent method to get them. Unless you're also looking for Ergo Sum and Pale Heart weapon unlocks, I'd recommend the first two methods over this.

When is exotic class item attunement coming?

Though we don't know all that much about it yet, Bungie did tease that exotic class item attunement should be arriving in episode two, Revenant, which is set to launch on October 8. If the attunement system is anything like those that Bungie has used in the game previously, you'll be able to attune to specific perks and that will give you an increased chance of you getting a class item with those. It'll still take some grinding, of course, but it should mean you have more chance to get the roll you want.

Destiny 2 exotic class item perks: Titan

The Titan’s exotic class item, Stoicism, has the following perks available across two columns:

The best perk combinations on the Titan exotic class item

So many of Titan's best (some might argue only) prismatic builds come down to throwing as many Consecrations as possible. So, no surprise that melee-oriented perks are sought after on the Stoicism mark. Spirit of Inmost in a no-brainer given you have three Frenzied Blade charges, and Synthoceps is a Titan staple that fits perfectly here. You could swap in Severance for more explosions, but honestly I find those to be a little underwhelming. A more funsies pick is the invisibility from Assassin combining with the jolt-on-kill from Contact. That combo makes your Consecration kills electrocute nearby enemies and also make you disappear from view—very handy in higher-end content.

For a pure DPS alternative, go for Eternal Warrior and Star-Eater. Again, you'll get a juiced up super, but now when it ends you'll get another of those 4x damage surges to the weapon element that matches your super. Twilight Arsenal is the obvious choice of super, thanks to its weaken effect, and the fact it's already decent damage output got a buff recently.

For a purely defensive option, try Abeyant and Scars, which offers huge amounts of crowd-control and healing on demand. That's about it for Titan, sadly. Bungie has said it plans to buff their prismatic kit at some point, including reworking some of the class item perks. 

Destiny 2 exotic class item perks: Warlock

The Warlock’s Exotic class item, Solipsism, has these perks across two columns:

The best perk combinations on the Warlock exotic class item 

The best Warlock build in the game right now doesn't use an exotic class item, instead relying on the broken interaction of the Getaway Artist gloves spawning both a Bleak Watcher turret and a Sentient Arc Soul each time you eat your grenade. That'll probably be nerfed eventually, though, at which point there are multiple rolls of Solipsism that will supercharge your Prismatic build.

Spirit of Inmost is great on any build that wants to spam abilities, which Prismatic tends to do, and Star-Eater sends the damage of Nova Bomb through the ceiling. It's also good with Needle Storm, but less so on Song of Flame as your ignitions don't benefit from the Feast of Light buff. 

Other combinations I like are Claw and Inmost combined with the powerful Incinerator Snap melee. For a super-focused build, Harmony will generate energy fast from weapon kills matched to the element of your super, and can be paired with Apotheosis which lets you fire off multiple grenades and melees after your super ends. It's worth noting that the damage from multiple Vortex grenades doesn't stack. One solution is to run Threadling grenades and pair them with the Euphony linear fusion rifle from the new raid, if you're lucky enough to have it. Alternatively, just use the much easier to acquire Microcosm heavy trace rifle, which will do surprisingly competitive damage against tanky bosses such as The Witness.

Destiny 2 exotic class item perks: Hunter

The Hunter’s class item is Essentialism and has access to these perks across two columns:

The best perk combinations on the Hunter exotic class item: Relativism

As with Warlocks, Hunter's strongest Prismatic build doesn't rely on an exotic class item, instead using Celestial Nighthawk and the Still Hunt sniper rifle to dish out massive burst damage. But there are plenty of fun and powerful combos of perks to be found on the Relativism cloak. For melee builds focused on Combination Blow and a One-Two Punch shotgun, you want to match Spirit of Caliban with either Synthoceps or Liar. Not only will your melee hit brutally hard, kills will trigger an ignition every time. You can safely ignore Assassin, as the Stylish Executioner aspect provides invisibility from ability kills anyway. Galanor is an odd perk, because although the super regen sounds great, the best option for maximising the return is Silence & Squall, which was buffed when The Final Shape launched but is still more of an add clear option than a boss killer.

Also noteworthy is Gyrfalcon, which gives easy access to Volatile Rounds and can pair with just about anything provided you're running void weapons. I run it with Inmost for extra ability uptime, and it feels very comfy.

A slightly slept-on perk is Foetracer, which grants a 4x damage surge after you damage a boss or elite with an ability. Note that the surge only applies to weapons which match the element of the ability you just used, but if you set your build up with this in mind it can provide a massive DPS boost. When fighting the Herald of Finality in the new raid, I would fire off my tether and then go to town with a Falling Guillotine sword that now had a 25% buff.