The Leviathan’s Breath is one of the more entertaining bows in Destiny 2. With its intrinsic perk, Big-Game Hunter, it fires a massive bolt that can stun unshielded foes and down Unstoppable Champions. It may not be the most powerful bow out there, but it is fun to use.
The Leviathan’s Breath Catalyst does provide significant benefits to the weapon. But deciding whether it’s worth going through the effort of obtaining it is a different story. Here’s everything players may need to know about the Leviathan’s Breath Catalyst in Destiny 2 and where to get it.
Updated on April 9, 2023, by Anastasia Maillot: The Leviathan's Breath has gone through some significant changes since its initial introduction in Destiny 2. As one of the least used heavy weapons in the game, Bungie decided to introduce major buffs to it during the year 2022. Leviathan's Breath now has an intrinsic anti-champion feature, making it particularly strong against Unstoppable Champions. On top of that, its Catalyst has been made more desirable with an additional draw-time buff. Moreover, with Surges and Overcharged weapons introduced in the Lightfall expansion and season 20, having a Void heavy weapon like the Leviathan's Breath for tougher endgame content is looking more and more desirable.
Getting The Leviathan's Breath
The Leviathan's Breath can be purchased from the Monument to Lost Lights Exotic kiosk located in the Tower. Simply navigate to the Shadowkeep tab to find it. Players will need the following resources to purchase it:
- 1 Exotic Cipher
- 100,000 Glimmer
- 150 Legendary Shards
- 1 Ascendant Shard
What The Leviathan's Breath Catalyst Does
The Leviathan's Breath Catalyst now provides two key perks to the weapon, as opposed to the single buff that it used to give.
- Colossal Quiver – Increase quiver size by five.
- Precision hits decrease the draw time of the bow.
Previously, the Leviathan's Breath suffered from not having any significant DPS-enhancing perks save for the increase in ammo reserves from the Catalyst. However, thanks to the decrease in draw time the Catalyst now gives, it has turned the Leviathan's Breath into a potential DPS weapon for bosses that take precision damage in particular and who have a longer DPS phase. The Spire of the Watcher boss, the Siren, is one example of such a boss.
This small Catalyst buff has therefore made the weapon and farming its Catalyst far more desirable, on top of the fact that it has an intrinsic anti-champion perk against Unstoppable Champions.
How To Find It
The Leviathan’s Breath Catalyst has a chance to drop whenever the player kills a powerful enemy. Powerful enemies are essentially anything with an orange or yellow bar.
There's a special method in the Grasp of Avarice dungeon's first encounter in front of the loot cave that has a high chance of dropping the Leviathan's Breath Catalyst. If players don't pick up the engrams that give the Burden of Riches debuff and bank them, enemies will keep on spawning, including the two Hive witches. Killing these Hive witches over and over again is by far the most effective strategy in the game, even if it can be tedious.
Make sure to get the last hit using the Leviathan's Breath weapon itself.
Upgrading
Once the player obtains the Leviathan’s Breath Catalyst they’ll want to upgrade it. This is a bit of a grind as players need to defeat 1,500 enemies using the Leviathan’s Breath. Even mowing through low-level enemies is going to take a while, especially since it's a heavy weapon with an incredibly low ammo count and the bow is quite sluggish to get kills on.
Fortunately, these kills can be retroactive, so if the player used the Leviathan’s Breath prior to upgrading those kills should count. PVE seems to be the best way to rack up these kills quickly.
Tips
Following vaulted content, farming Wrathborn kills for the Leviathan's Breath Catalyst is no longer an option, as players won't have easy access to Wrathborn enemies in early Lightfall. Luckily, there are other ways to speed up the process.
Killing Lucent Hive enemies with the Leviathan's Breath (Hive guardians, specifically, not rank-and-file enemies) counts as four kills each. Players can head to Savathun's Throne World, find a Lucent Lightbearer, and kill them, but never destroy their ghost which allows the Lucent Hive Lightbearer to resurrect over and over again.
Lucent Hive Lightbearers can be found in the Florescent Canal area and its Lost Sector, as well as in the western region of Miasma in front of the Vow of the Disciple raid entrance, where two Titan Lucen Hive Lightbearers will spawn frequently. While this is still tedious, it's a nice alternative method for those who don't want to buy rally banners and farm the Shuro-Chi checkpoint in the Last Wish raid. In season 20, players can take advantage of the Bricks from Beyond artifact perk to keep ensuring that they receive heavy ammo drops even while farming in patrol.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.