Note: Although you can’t currently get your hands on Year 2 Exotics (September 15, 2015), you can visit the kiosk in the Hall of Guardians to see which of your current weapons will make the transition to The Taken King DLC. Weapons like The Last Word and Red Death will get Year 2 buffs, while fan favorites like the Gjallarhorn and Ice Breaker will remain at Year 1 levels.
Weapon blueprints are exotic weapons that you have found in the game, or could perhaps find in the future. If you would like to see a list of what you currently have, head to the Hall of Guardians at the Tower and look at the kiosk just inside the door and to your right. It should be almost directly behind Ikora Rey, the Warlock Vanguard.
Once you access the kiosk, you will see several things that you should take note of. The first is that you are on the Collection 1 tab, and have listings for Year 2 Primary, Year 2 Special and Year 2 Heavy. Most of these will appear as engrams, and we’ll get to why that is in a moment.
Scroll over to the Collection 2 tab and you’ll see the headings for Year 1 Primary, Year 1 Special and Year 1 Heavy. There will be no Engrams here, as these are exotic weapons that you have found as you played Destiny during its first year.
Think of the weapons on the Collection 2 tab as an expensive vault. These are exotic weapons that you have found in Year 1, and that’s why there are no Engrams - you must have discovered the weapon for it to show up on this page.
What’s the purpose of this, you ask? Well, if you have a Year 1 version of the Gjallarhorn right now, and then dismantle it from you inventory, you would be able to return to this kiosk and get it back. Once you have the blueprint (meaning you’ve discovered the weapon in the game), you have it forever. The only catch is that getting the weapon back once you’ve dismantled it will cost you an Exotic Shard and 2,500 Glimmer.
The exotic weapons you find in Year 2 work very similar to what we’ve already discussed. If you are on the Collections 1 tab you’ll see that some of the weapons are showing, and others appear as engrams. The weapons that are showing are exotics that you have found in the game that can be upgraded to Year 2 levels once The Taken King launches, and you’ve hit Level 40.
For example, in the images above, we have Read Death, fully upgraded with a 170 attack rating, the Year 1 maximum. If you look at the second screen, you’ll see that we have discovered the Year 2 blueprint for Red Death (just by having the weapon), and that its attack rating is 280. What this means is that rather than waiting for the gun to drop in The Taken King, we can visit this kiosk at the appropriate time and upgrade to the Year 2 version. Of course, this can only be done if we have the 150 Legendary Marks required.
Note: Legendary Marks are the new currency in The Taken King. These will combine Crucible Marks and Vanguard Marks, replacing them with Legendary Marks.
As for the weapons that are only showing up as engrams, these are just weapons you haven’t yet discovered. For example, many of the people I play with have not discovered Red Death, so if they were to open this kiosk up right now, it wouldn’t be listed.
There’s a lot more to see and do in The Taken King, so be sure to visit our Destiny: The Taken King Walkthrough and Guide for all of your Guardian’s needs.
