With two weeks of Destiny under our belts, most of us are finding ourselves stuck in the 20s, with the slow grind towards better gear inhibiting our ability to queue up for the tougher content. Luckily, there are faster ways to get a new helmet besides playing 50 PvP matches.
Here are five of my favorite ways to quickly farm Engrams in Destiny, which will hopefully translate into some Legendary and Exotic gear for you!
Cosmodrome Cave
This seems to be everyone’s favorite farming method right now, and for good reason: it’s painfully simple and quite possibly the easiest way to find Engrams. Simply queue up a Patrol on Earth, head left towards the airplane graveyard, then enter the area you first fought the Hive in way, way back (the room with the Wizard). Then head out the back, and in front of the big building across the ways from you will be a little cave.
It shouldn’t be hard to find, as it is such a popular spot that there will likely be two or three players already farming it. Don’t worry though, this won’t hinder your ability to join in the fun (in fact, it will be really helpful).
What happens is a group of Hive spawn from that cave, and will continue to spawn with no cooldown as long as two conditions are met. One, all of the enemies in that group need to be dead; and two, you need to keep your distance from the cave, stay behind the big rock slab that the other players are likely gathered around.
If everyone maintains their distance and manages to kill the enemies as soon as they run out, the cave will provide a never-ending supply of bad guys to shoot, and a never-ending supply of loot drops. You can easily farm dozens of Green, Blue, and Purple Engrams here in an hour or so (provided everyone is helping), and if you run out of ammo, don’t worry. Just sit by and wait for your ammo to regen, any kills that happen while you’re standing nearby will still drop loot for you, even if you’re not doing anything.
A note on etiquette though! Running into the cave to collect your loot will prevent new enemies from spawning, so it’s best to go as a group, as to not disrupt the flow of things. Don’t be a jerk and run in every time you see an Engram drop, wait for everyone to take a break to grab loot.
We’ve Woken the Hive!
This is my personal favorite spot to farm, if only for the ridiculous body count you’ll be amassing. Queue up the mission “The Dark Beyond” on the Moon, and continue until you reach the entrance to the Temple of Crota.
After a short cutscene, your Ghost will yell “We’ve woken the Hive” as the doors to the temple open. Either be a big fan of Peter Dinklage of mute your TV, because you’re going to be hearing this line a lot.
Once the doors open, a horde of Hive will swarm out. Murder all of them, but do not kill the Knight. Killing the knight will trigger the mission’s next checkpoint, and we don’t want that.
As you’re killing the Hive, don’t worry too much about your health. In fact, just stand in one spot and let them beat the crap out of you. Once you die, you’ll respawn right as the doors are opening again, prompting another group of Hive to run out. Even if you’re a terrible shot, you should have no problem racking up hundreds of kills very quickly, which will likely net you plenty of Engrams. I can usually rake in four or five Blue Engrams in under 30 minutes.
Due to the fact that you will need to die over and over to use this method, I recommend setting the difficulty to something consummate with your level. Even at difficulty level 20 or 24, a Blue/Purple-geared Guardian should have no problem mowing down the initial surge of Hive. If you make it to easy, you will likely kill the knight unintentionally, which derails this farming method. Plus, at level 20 and above, yellow health-barred Acolytes will spawn, which give you a bit of bonus Glimmer.
For even more fun, combine this farming method with a Black Wax Idol. There are more efficient ways to farm Glimmer, but there’s no reason not to grab a few thousand Glimmer while you’re here, especially since some of the enemies will drop Idols anyways.
The Academy
If the above two methods are a little too monotonous for you, this Venus location might provide a little more action for you. To reach the spot, queue up to patrol Venus, then head down the right path towards The Shattered Coast. Continue to follow the path to the entrance of the Ishtar Academy (where you first fight the Vex). Head to the back of the room, through the corridors, and outside to the Commons.
Then, head towards the back wall, facing the tail end of the crashed starship. From here, you’ll have a great vantage point for picking off multiple mobs of Vex and Fallen, who will respawn almost as fast as you can pick them off. If you’re a good shot, you can rack up a huge body (and Engram) count relatively quickly.
Be warned! You will occasionally get a notification that “the enemy is moving against each other.” This is a random event that will spawn a large group of enemies who will fight each other. There will be some high level enemies in the mix here, so make sure you’re Guardian is strong enough to survive them (you shouldn’t be farming below level 20 anyways).
The Nexus
This used to be the go-to farming method for most players, so much so that it made actually queuing this strike to complete it a total pain in the ass. It’s since fallen off in popularity quite a bit, thanks to the three methods above, but it’s still a pretty effective way for three players to farm Engrams.
Queue up The Nexus strike mission on Venus. Then proceed through the mission until you reach the path overlooking a steep cliff, right before the room with the final boss. There will be a huge group of Vex on the path that you can quickly lay waste to with grenades and rockets.
Once you’ve killed this group, have everyone in your party jump off the edge of the cliff. You’ll respawn at the start of this path again, with the entire group of Vex back as well. Kill, die, respawn, repeat until you have more Engrams than you can carry.
Rocketyard Chest Run
Chest runs are way less efficient means to farm Engrams than killing enemies. However, they do have one advantage: crafting materials. In fact, the Engrams will likely be the icing on the cake compared to the dozens of Spinmetals you’ll be collecting.
Still, if done right, chest runs on any planet can be a great way to earn Engrams, Glimmer, crafting materials, rare currency, and even ships. The great thing about chests is that rare ones have the chance of spawning loot that you can’t get from normal farming methods, which makes this routine great for those who like to gamble a little.
Here’s an example of a great one on Earth:
If you’re looking for specific crafting material on other planets, there are plenty of chest runs for them as well. Here are example runs for Helium, Spiritbloom, and Relic Iron. The Relic Iron one is my personal favorite, give it a try if you’re feeling lucky.
