The Borealis is an intriguing Sniper Rifle for players to use in Destiny 2. With the Fundamentals perk it’s capable of delivering Solar, Arc, and Void damage at will. Its probably not the best Sniper Rifle out there, but it is handy for surprising opponents in PVP and is adaptable for PVE thanks to being able to change elemental damage.
Deciding whether to go to the effort of acquiring and upgrading the Borealis Catalyst is tricky. It does improve the weapons capabilities, but players are in for a grind that may not be worth the tradeoff. Here’s how to find the Borealis Catalyst and what it does.
What It Does
The Borealis Catalyst provides the weapon with a single benefit:
- Increase reload speed by 18.
There’s no perk or other benefit related directly to damage. Admittedly a faster reload speed does result in more shots sooner which does boost DPS. But it’s not a revolutionary improvement like other Catalysts and is a relatively minor boost for a lot of work.
How To Find It
The Borealis Catalyst has a rare chance to drop whenever the player defeats a non-Guardian enemy. The enemy can be located anywhere in the system and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that specific enemies have a higher drop rate.
It also doesn’t matter if the enemy is encountered during a Strike or not. For efficiency's sake, the player probably wants to get these kills during a Strike or other event, but it ultimately doesn’t matter.
Upgrading
Once the player has the Borealis Catalyst they will want to look into upgrading it. To upgrade the Boreelais Catalyst players will need to get 150 kills while doing Arc damage with the Borelais, 150 more with Solar, and 150 more with Void. This is a total of 450 kills.
While not as bad of a grind as other Catalysts it can be easy to waste time and waste kills. It’s common for players to forget they’re in a particular elemental mode after getting 150 kills and have their future kills go to waste. Remember to switch over as soon as 150 kills are achieved.
Tips
As mentioned before, the PVE enemies can be encountered anywhere under any circumstances. To maximize efficiency players should be doing something else at the same time. A good example is pursuing the Skyburner’s Oath Catalyst which can drop rarely during Strikes.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the upgrading kills can be retroactive. Any kills obtained prior to getting the Catalyst will count after getting it, but only for that elemental type. Using the Borealis to find the Borealis Catalyst is highly recommended.
The last thing to consider is cycling damage types of grinding them out in phases. Some players opt for doing a normal run and switching damage types based on the enemies they encounter. Other players will grind exclusively for enemies weak to whatever damage type they’re working on. Either method will work in the beginning but it is recommended to grind specific enemies to finish off a particular element.