One of Destiny 2’s top PvP events, Iron Banner, returns today for its first appearance in Season of the Chosen. Lord Saladin is back with his usual selection of pinnacle gear bounties, weapons, and armor to chase down.
Much like regular Crucible Control, Iron Banner pits two teams of six players against each other in a fight for control over three objectives. Although Iron Banner has some extra rules that make the mode more competitive and encourages teams to be more cooperative in their objective play.
Two reissued weapons from Destiny 2’s first year will also be returning in Season of the Chosen’s inaugural Iron Banner. The Time-Worn Spire pulse rifle and the Multimach CCX SMG will be back with random rolls, meaning lots of new perks will be available on these weapons for the first time.
During the week-long event, both weapons can also drop with a new perk called Iron Reach, which will boost the weapon’s range considerably, but at the cost of a large decrease to stability. They will also be able to roll with the previous Iron Banner perks, Iron Grip and Iron Gaze.
There will also be a new seasonal quest that will reward players with weapons and reissued Iron Truage armor for each step they complete. This quest lasts for the entire season, so players can complete it across several Iron Banner events, provided they are in the Season of the Chosen.
Lord Saladin will be back in the Tower above Banshee-44’s gunsmith workshop today with four bounties to give to Guardians, each awarding pinnacle gear upon completion which will help players massively in reaching the new hard power cap of 1300, and the pinnacle cap of 1310. Players can also cash in 20 tokens for a piece of Iron Banner gear from Lord Saladin. Tokens can be earned by completing Iron Banner bounties, or just by playing Iron Banner, with victories awarding players with more tokens.
According to Bungie’s Season of the Chosen roadmap for Destiny 2, players can expect Iron Banner to return in four weeks on March 23.
For any new players, Iron Banner is similar to regular Control except it has a few extra rules in place. Most notably, Guardian power level advantages are enabled. This means that a player’s overall power level has a direct impact on how much damage they deal and receive to other players. Guardians of a higher level will dominate lower-level Guardians, but any Guardians of a similar level will have an experience that is more like a regular Crucible where power does not matter. However, in Iron Banner, the power level is only calculated by gear and misses out on any additional power gained from the seasonal artifact, the Bell of Conquests in this case.
Furthermore, if a team manages to capture all three objectives at the same time during a match, the game will enter a hunting phase, where all the capture zones become locked for a short period of time. The team that started the hunt also maintains triple points for this time so they can rack up lots of points, provided they get kills in this time. Once the hunt ends, all three objectives are made neutral again and need to be recaptured.
Finally, the score limit is only 125 points, rather than the usual 150 points in regular Control. The lower score limit coupled with the extra points a team can gain from the hunt, generally makes matches a bit shorter than usual too.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light and the new Season of the Chosen are available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Source: Bungie