Alongside the new gear that will be releasing with Destiny 2: Shadowkeep, developer Bungie is bringing most of the gear sets currently in the game forward into the Armor 2.0 system. With the system, players can customize the perks on their armor pieces in ways they never could before, all while preserving the looks of any armor set they like. No more is it about sacrificing looks for utility; players can now have both.
Arguably one of the best armor sets in Destiny 2 is the Escalation Protocol gear that was introduced with the Warmind expansion in Year 1. Featuring a futuristic theme with sharp edges and unique designs, the Escalation Protocol still stands out as one of the best introduced in Destiny 2. Unfortunately, when Forsaken released, any Year 1 gear fell by the wayside because it only featured one set of perks and could not slot the new, Year 2 mods.
However, now that Bungie is bringing everything forward and supporting Armor 2.0, the Escalation Protocol armor is now a viable set. But players that want to get it should prepare ahead since getting EP armor pieces is time-gated.
The ultimate goal is to get a decrypted key and open the chest at the end of Escalation Protocol wave 7 but getting to that point requires some work. First, players will want to collect 7 key fragments from completing activities. Then, take these to Ana Bray on Mars who will create an encrypted key.
In order to decrypt an encrypted key, the Destiny 2 player will need to successfully complete 7 waves of Escalation Protocol. These do not need to be different waves, so someone could just complete the first wave 7 times and earn the decrypted key. However, chances are there will be other players around and it will be easier to just do a normal Escalation Protocol run.
The major limitation with this process is that Ana will only encrypt the fragments once per week per character. So players can’t create more than one encrypted key per week and the keys don’t stack (you can only hold 1 at a time). However, once an encrypted key becomes a decrypted key it can stack.
In order to prepare for the release of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep, we recommend running Escalation Protocol to make a decrypted key every week. With six weeks until the release of Shadowkeep, that gives players 6 shots at Escalation Protocol armor right off the bat. It should be fairly easy to do as well since the upcoming Destiny 2 Community Challenge encourages players to complete activities on Mars like Escalation Protocol.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep releases October 1, 2019 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.