Destiny: The Taken King Guide - How to Get an Exotic Sword

Swords are a new Heavy Weapon class in Destiny’s third expansion pack, The Taken King. These weapons can inflict massive damage on other players in the Crucible and on monsters out in the open universe. They’re best suited to players who prefer to get up-close and personal with their targets and require absolutely no ammo. You can swing them as often as you like.

Getting an Exotic Sword takes quite a bit of work and requires that you complete the quest called “A Sword Reforging.” This article will serve as a guide on how to do just that. 

Firstly, to begin the questline, you’ll first need to complete the main storyline in The Taken King and unlock Dreadnaught Patrol by completing the quest “Dread Patrol.” You can also unlock the quest by finding the first Calcified Fragment in the expansion’s first story mission, “The Coming War.”

Part 1: A Broken Will 

1. Go to the Tower and speak to Eris Morn, who will provide you with the quest.

2. Speak to Lord Shaxx

3. Acquire 25 Hadium Flakes and 10 Motes of Light and give them to Lord Shaxx.

You can find Hadium Flakes in chests on Dreadnaught Patrol. Eris will also provide you with Hadium Flakes each time your reputation with her ranks up.

4. Choose one of three swords as your reward:

Arc Edge - 25 Spinmetal

Sol Edge - 25 Helium Filaments

Void Edge - 25 Relic Iron

Important: Keep in mind that the sword you choose will also determine the element of your Exotic Sword later on.

Part 2: A Sword Reforged  

1. Upgrade your Legendary Sword to 280 Attack through the use of Infuse, unlocking a 5th perk.

2. Return to Lord Shaxx and begin the quest.

3. Kill 50 Majors and 25 players in the Crucible with your sword. 

Majors are enemies with yellow health bars. To complete this part of the quest, just do some low-level Strikes on easy mode. Finding them out in the wild can be a real pain.

Ultras have a yellow health bar with skull icons. Killing them will also count towards the completion of this quest. 

Swords can kill Crucible players in a single hit, provided you have Heavy Ammo. Otherwise, they do as much damage as a regular melee strike. 

4. Kill Ecthar, Sword of Oryx in Dreadnaught Patrol. He’s located in the Asylum. 

Ecthar is a level 42 hive ultra. He’s tough. Make sure you’re well equipped before facing him down. 

Go to “The Founts” area in Dreadnaught Patrol, which is through the Cabal ship. 

Enter the first pit, make your way over to the middle room and look for three Warden Knights that have different elemental shields. 

Weaken all three of them until they have low health and kill them in rapid succession (under 5 seconds)—or simultaneously. Use your Super for this. Better yet, bring a friend or two. 

If the door doesn’t open backtrack to the previous named zone and return after a short period of time—they will respawn. 

If you do it right, a door will open, gaining you entry into the Asylum.

Kill everything. Ecthar, Sword of Orxy will spawn. He will only take damage from your sword, so hack him to death.

5. Return to Lord Shaxx in the Tower.

Part 3: A Sword Reforged (Exotic)

If you thought the previous steps were difficult, the next part will require a bit of patience and a lot of grinding.

1. You’ll need to 500 ability kills depending on the element of the weapon you chose and gather 10 rare materials relating to your weapon of choice. Ability kills are grenade attacks, melee strikes, and supers. 

Arc Edge - Get 500 arc ability kills

• A simple task for Stormcallers and Bladedancers. Strikers will have a harder time with this due to their restrictive super. 

Sol Edge - Get 500 solar ability kills

• Sunbreakers and Gunslingers will get this done in no time. Sunsingers will have to rely on their grenades and melee attacks only. 

Void Edge - Get 500 void ability kills 

• The most difficult of the three to level up. Defenders are limited to using their melee and grenade attacks. 

“Rare” materials have a drop rate of ~10% per harvest. You’ll need to harvest at least 100 material nodes to get what you need while on Patrol. Just like old times. 

Chests will not supply you with “Rare” materials. 

2. Return to Lord Shaxx.

3. Wait for some alloys to arrive on Armsday, which takes place every Wednesday. 

4. Talk to Lord Shaxx and deliver the goods he requested. 

5. No one’s actually done this yet, but dataminers who sifted through the game’s data discovered that players must defeat both Adleg, Warden of Oryx and Alak-Hul, the Darkblade under 30 seconds. You can find them in the Strike. 

6. Enjoy your weapon!

Note: This guide will be updated once the final parts are confirmed.  

Be sure to check out our guides on the fastest way to earn Legendary Marks, Infusing weapons and armor, the fastest way to raise your light level, and how the Exotic Blueprint system works.