The yearly Solstice event for Destiny 2 has begun. Eva Levante is back with a new gilded set of armor for Guardians to customize, featuring high-stat armor focusing options and unique glows. If you’re willing to participate in the Bonfire Bash activity, you’ll be able to get your hands on some fantastic armor and some solid weapons.
Whether it’s your first or fifth Solstice, this guide will cover everything you need to know about this year’s Solstice event. We’ll cover what Solstice is, how to start participating in this event, how to reroll your gear, the best Silver Leaf farms, and showcase the best rolls you can earn from this event’s exclusive weapons.
What Is Solstice?
Solstice is an annual event that occurs from July 18 to August 3. This event gives your Guardian a gilded set of armor that can be modified with Solstice’s unique currency items. You’ll earn these new currencies by completing core activities, the limited-time Bonfire Bash activity, and Event Card challenges.
The real draw of this event is the armor itself. Your Solstice armor can be rerolled whenever you please, biasing specific stats. With max Kindling, you’ll be able to acquire the exact high-stat armor rolls your builds require. And as with all Destiny 2 events, Solstice has some exclusive weapons you can earn throughout the event, featuring unique perk combinations seldom found elsewhere.
Celebrating Solstice Quest Guide
Eva Levante will serve as your main contact for the Solstice event, offering bounties and event-exclusive rewards for the duration of the Solstice. Speaking with Eva Levante for the first time will grant the «Celebrating Solstice» quest. This short quest explains how the event works, how to upgrade your armor, and introduces the Event Card UI and challenge system.
The quest itself is rather straightforward:
- Equip a full set of Solstice gear.
- You’ll receive a full set immediately upon speaking with Eva.
- Complete a Bonfire Bash activity. This will grant Silver Ash.
- Claim an Event Card challenge.
- Reroll one piece of Solstice armor.
You’ll receive this year’s new Solstice armor set when speaking to Eva for the first time. Equip the armor set, then open up your map to find the new Bonfire Bash activity. This is a three-player matchmade activity that takes place on the EAZ—a variant of the EDZ with far more verticality. The objective of this mode is simple: kill Ignition Carriers and throw their orbs into the central bonfire. This will stoke the flames. The hotter the bonfire gets, the greater your rewards.
Completing the Bonfire Bash will convert Silver Leaves into Silver Ash, a currency that’s used in rerolling Solstice armor. When you’re done with your first Bonfire Bash, speak with Eva Levante again to complete your first Solstice challenge. You’ll need to claim it by visiting the Event Card screen, viewable under the Quests tab.
Claiming the challenge will grant Kindling which is used to unlock rerolling options on your armor. Inspect any Solstice armor piece in your inventory, use the Kindling on the fifth mod socket, then reroll the armor piece with the sixth mod socket. Doing this once will complete the quest. The first reroll won’t be great, but you can improve these stat rerolls by earning more Kindling, acquired from Event Card challenges.
Silver Leaves And Ash Explained
You must have Solstice armor equipped to earn Silver Leaves.
Before you can earn any Silver Ash, you’ll first need to get your hands on Silver Leaves. This is a currency obtained from completing any activity besides Bonfire Bash. This includes Vanguard Ops, Crucible, Gambit, seasonal content, and even patrol activities. Generally, you’ll earn more Silver Leaves from longer, more difficult content.
When you acquire a stockpile of Silver Leaves, complete a Bonfire Bash activity to convert your leaves into Silver Ash. The more ignition orbs you throw into the bonfire, the more leaves you’ll be able to convert from a single run. All Silver Ash you created can then be spent to reroll the stats on your Solstice armor. Better rerolling options will cost more Silver Ash and require a set number of Kindling.
The Fastest Silver Leaf Farm
We have two farming strategies for Silver Leaves:
- Solo Strategy: Farm Public Events.
- Grants +4-5 Silver Leaves per event.
- Group Strategy: Reach the Tormentor checkpoint in Lightfall’s «First Contact» mission. Kill the Tormentor, enter the drop pod, then reload the checkpoint.
- Grants +15 Silver Leaves per clear.
- This strategy requires at least two people.
Farm Public Events
If you don’t have a group to farm activities with, your best source of Silver Leaves will be public events. They award 4-5 Silver Leaves per clear depending on how much Solstice armor you have equipped. Some good locations for public events include the EDZ, Nessus, and the Cosmodrome. Complete the event, join another public event, and repeat the process until you have enough Silver Leaves. While somewhat monotonous, public events are significantly faster than farming ritual or seasonal activities.
First Contact Farm
If you have a friend willing to farm Silver Leaves with you, boot up the «First Contact» campaign mission on Neomuna; the difficulty doesn’t matter. Proceed as normal until you reach the Tormentor fight. One player will need to save this checkpoint on one of their characters. Load the checkpoint, create the fireteam, then swap off the checkpoint character before rejoining. Finish the mission, then repeat as needed until you have enough Silver Leaves.
When done efficiently, you’re looking at roughly 15 Silver Leaves every couple of minutes. This is by far the best Silver Leaf farm in the game, although this strategy only works with at least one other player.
Armor Stat Rerolling
Rerolling your Solstice armor seems much more convoluted than it really is. You’ll need three things to get started:
- A piece of Solstice armor.
- Silver Ash.
- Kindling.
All Solstice armor comes with six mod sockets. The last two mod sockets are used for stat rerolling. Hover over the fifth mod socket to select your Kindling upgrade. The fifth socket unlocks stat rolling options in the adjacent socket. Better options require additional Kindling, so you’ll need to complete a few challenges found in the Event Card UI to get the best focusing options.
Once you’ve kindled the armor, you can then select a focusing option in the sixth mod socket to reroll the item. Doing so will cost Silver Ash, with better options costing additional ash. You may reroll Solstice armor an unlimited number of times. Unlike Focused Engrams, Solstice focusing options let you pick a specific stat. This stacks with your Ghost Shell’s Armorer mod, allowing you to obtain hyper-specific stat distributions with intelligent use of Armorer mods. Consult our high-stat armor guide for more information on optimal stat distributions and focusing tips.
If you fully rekindle an armor piece, it will receive a universal white glow. This glow is permanent and can be transmogrified onto your character, similar to last year’s Solstice armor. A variant of this armor with subclass-themed glows can be purchased for Bright Dust or Silver in the Eververse store.
Solstice Event Card Challenges
You do not need to purchase the Solstice Event Card to complete Solstice challenges.
As with previous events, this year’s Solstice event features a unique set of challenges that award event-exclusive cosmetics, currencies, and weapons. More importantly, some of these challenges award Kindling which is required to unlock the best stat-focusing options for your Solstice armor. Excluding Flamekeeper, every challenge awards at least one Kindling. Exact challenge requirements can be found below.
Solstice 2023 Rewards And God Rolls
Beyond rerolling your Solstice armor, this event also has three unique weapons to chase: Something New, Compass Rose, and Crowning Duologue—the first Strand Rocket Launcher in Destiny 2. All three of these weapons can be obtained by completing the Bonfire Bash activity.
Crowning Duologue God Roll
Crowning Duologue is Destiny 2’s first Strand Rocket Launcher. It’s a Precision Frame Rocket Launcher that comes with the Dream Work origin trait, allowing assisted kills to partially refill the magazine from reserves. Since this is a Rocket Launcher and not a Primary, it’s fairly unlikely you’ll get much use out of this origin trait.
Unfortunately, its damage type is the only thing Crowning Duologue has going for it. The perks on this weapon are nothing spectacular, with the only notable option being Hatchling in the second trait column. You can pair this with Demolitionist or Auto-Loading Holster to assist with reloading, but that’ll hardly compensate for the weapon’s lack of good damage perks or Precision Frame. If you’re a Crucible player, you might enjoy Impulse Amplifier for a faster rocket, although you’d be better off using a Grenade Launcher at that rate. Unless you love monochromatic builds and Strand, skip this weapon. It’s not worth your time.
|
PvE Best Roll |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Barrel |
Magazine |
Trait 1 |
Trait 2 |
|
Quick Launch |
Impact Casing |
Auto-Loading Holster |
Hatchling | Chain Reaction |
|
PvP Best Roll |
|||
|
Barrel |
Magazine |
Trait 1 |
Trait 2 |
|
Quick Launch |
High-Velocity Rounds |
Impulse Amplifier |
Hatchling | Chain Reaction |
Something New God Roll
Something New returns in this year’s Solstice, complete with a perk refresh. This weapon is a 120 RPM Hand Cannon that deals Stasis damage, featuring the Dream Work origin trait. This is solid for overflowing the weapon’s magazine in group activities where assisted kills are possible.
For perks, the excellent Wellspring and Demolitionist combination from last year makes a return, serving as an amazing tool for ability-centric builds. For add-slaying, Subsistence paired with your favorite damage perk works wonders here. Headstone is best for Stasis builds centered around shattering, while Frenzy is a great all-rounder. And if you tend to use melee abilities on Stasis, Golden Tricorn isn’t a bad pick. Just bear in mind that Stasis shatters don’t always trigger this perk, making Golden Tricorn somewhat inconsistent while on a Stasis subclass.
For PvP, Something New is surprisingly lethal with the right roll. Harmony returns from last year, allowing this weapon to two-tap T5 Resilience Guardians or lower when active. If you want to slay out with nothing but your Hand Cannon, use Kill Clip instead. This will let you two-tap T9 Resilience Guardians instead. Pair this with Rapid Hit for a solid dueling Hand Cannon. Once the zoom overhaul launches next season, we wouldn’t be surprised if Something New became a great Primary option for the Crucible. Keep an eye on this gun.
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PvE Best Roll |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Barrel |
Magazine |
Trait 1 |
Trait 2 |
|
Preference |
Flared Magwell |
Wellspring |
Demolitionist |
|
PvP Best Roll |
|||
|
Barrel |
Magazine |
Trait 1 |
Trait 2 |
|
Smallbore |
Ricochet Rounds |
Rapid Hit |
Kill Clip | Harmony |
Compass Rose God Roll
Compass Rose is a notable Shotgun this year thanks to some fairly recent Shotgun archetype changes. Precision Frame Shotguns are dominating the Crucible meta currently, featuring the best spread pattern and effective damage falloff distances.
PvE players looking for a good DPS option sadly won’t find it here, but there are some interesting perk combinations on this gun. Genesis and Cascade Point is a great combination that lets you obliterate a shielded target with a barrage of pellets while Cascade Point is active. If you care more about slaying adds, you can’t go wrong with Lead from Gold and Incandescent.
PvP players that have yet to nab a good Matador 64 might want to farm for this gun. Quickdraw and Snapshot Sights is a great perk combination on a Shotgun, letting you instantly swap this weapon and line up a shot. It can’t roll with Opening Shot like most meta Shotguns, but it can roll with Adagio if you want to make the weapon’s TTK more forgiving after a kill. It’s not going to dethrone any meta contenders, but Compass Rose is a great pick for free-to-play Guardians looking for a good PvP Shotgun.
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PvE Best Roll |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Barrel |
Magazine |
Trait 1 |
Trait 2 |
|
Smallbore |
Accurized Rounds |
Lead from Gold |
Incandescent |
|
PvP Best Roll |
|||
|
Barrel |
Magazine |
Trait 1 |
Trait 2 |
|
Smallbore | Smoothbore |
Accurized Rounds |
Quickdraw |
Snapshot Sights |