As with all loot-based games, Destiny 2 has a plethora of items to chase. Exotic weapons and powerful sets of armor are the core pillars of Destiny's loot game. These items can be found in activities such as Strikes or Crucible. Alternatively, they can be earned through quests.
Not all quests are created equal, however. Many quests in Destiny 2 are a slog of fetch-quest objectives that lead to some sort of reward. Bungie does a good job making these items worth the grind, but they aren't perfect. Some quests are not worth the investment due to lackluster guns, usually a result of balance patches after their release. From Exotics to Pinnacle weapons, here are 10 absurdly long quests that rewarded subpar gear.
10 Luna's Howl
Luna's Howl is not a terrible weapon but lacks the bite it used to pack. As a reward from one of the longest PvP quests in Destiny 2, it only reigns in certain niche loadouts and situations.
Originally, Luna's Howl was a 180 RPM Hand Cannon and could kill enemies in as few as two bullets thanks to its Magnificent Howl perk. It has been nerfed to now by a 150 RPM and can three tap provided your first two shots are precision hits. It is still a great Hand Cannon for Crucible, but players must get an absurd amount of Hand Cannon kills and Solar kills in Competitive while reaching Fabled. With weapon sunsetting around the corner, this weapon has lost a significant amount of value that it used to hold.
9 Leviathan's Breath
Compared to every other entry on this list, Leviathan's Breath is much easier than most. What this activity makes you do, however, is mind-numbing and the reward is laughably bad.
To start, players need to make their way to Banshee-44 in the Tower and pick up his quest. From there, you explore the Tower to find his hidden workshop. The Bow is locked behind a cabinet, so instead of shooting the glass and grabbing the gun, Banshee wants you to complete Strikes or Gambit matches, obtain precision kills against Vex or Cabal using a Bow, and complete a rendition of The Arms Dealer Strike. Your reward? Leviathan's Breath, a Heavy Exotic Bow that has the lowest Heavy DPS in the game and has a draw time of over a second!
8 Malfeasance
Hand Cannons are one of the most popular weapon archetypes in the Destiny franchise. With their popularity comes a suite of Exotics, one of which is Malfeasance.
A Primary weapon that fires detonating slugs sounds appealing until you realize what that entails. Players must kill an Ascended Taken Servitor in Gambit or Gambit Prime, a random spawn that can be forced by reaching the third round of Gambit. Next, 25 Taken bosses must be slain. A rendition of The Corrupted Strike must be finished, 300 motes must be banked with deaths penalizing your progress, and then you must kill either 25 players in Gambit or get a team wipe while invading. Your reward is a Hand Cannon with low base damage and subpar damage against tougher foes.
7 Oxygen SR3
While not an Exotic, Oxygen SR3 is a Pinnacle weapon tied to a quest. It is much simpler than most quests, requiring the player to land 1,000 precision kills, generate 500 Orbs of Light, and complete Strikes and Nightfalls.
Landing precision kills and generating Orbs is busy work but not time-consuming. Completing Nightfalls, however, is a slog. Assuming you only complete Nightfalls, you need to complete 20. This is much harder than it was as launch since positive Nightfall card modifiers were removed in Shadowkeep. Put on some music and prepare to grind. Oxygen SR3 is a lackluster reward sadly, dealing almost no damage to enemies except on precision kill thanks to its Meganeura perk.
6 Sleeper Simulant
Referenced as the Gjallarhorn killer before Destiny: The Taken King released, Sleeper Simulant is a Heavy Exotic Linear Fusion Rifle tied to a tedious quest. What was once one of the best Exotic weapons in the game is nothing more than a collector's item now.
You need to get kills with the IKELOS Hand Cannon—earned from finishing the Warmind campaign—and complete parts of the Polaris Lance quest. Then, players need to find 15 Sleeper Nodes and complete reprisals of old Strikes that are somewhat lengthy. The grind is simply insane and the reward is lackluster in today's meta. Sleeper's ricochet shots deal much less damage now and its charge time is unbearable without its Exotic Catalyst, which is a whole ordeal to obtain itself.
5 Polaris Lance
Compared to Sleeper Simulant's quest, Polaris Lance is much less irritating to earn. With that said, the Exotic you get from this quest is one of the worst weapons in Destiny 2.
Busywork makes up most of the Nascent Dawn quest, ranging from completing traditional activities to completing waves of Escalation Protocol. Finishing this quest rewards the Polaris Lance Exotic Pulse Rifle. Scouts are the worst weapon archetype in the game, barely able to kill minor foes with headshots. This Scout fires a fifth explosive shot after landing four precision hits. Sadly, this explosion deals almost no damage.
4 Redrix Broadsword
Describing every quest step for Redrix Broadsword would take an entire list, but the gist of it is you need to kill hundreds of enemies in the Crucible using Pulse Rifles while resetting your Valor 5 times in one season.
Anyone who has completed this quest will tell you how grindy this is. Resetting your Valor once can take a few days if you play casually, so doing this 5 times can be quite the task. Redrix's unique Desperado perk is not worth the massive grind. This perk ups Redrix's fire rate after reloading while Outlaw is active, but other Pulse Rifles like Sacred Provenance are much more forgiving and pack as much of a punch.
3 Worldline Zero
Worldline Zero is strange in that it doesn't have a traditional quest tied to it. Instead, players obtain this weapon after finding 35 Mars Latent Data Memories. That's it.
So why is this Sword so low on the list? This is the worst Exotic in Destiny 2. After recent changes removed Wordline's ability to slingshot players, this Sword is a lackluster damage tool when compared to Black Talon or most Legendary Swords. Destroying 35 Data Memories also takes some time to complete, but even this short objective is not worth the reward.
2 Any Title
Titles are, by design, meant to be a supplement to the core endgame pursuits of Destiny 2. These seals are not meant to be the main content you engage with, yet many hardcore players do so.
Completing a seal to earn a title involves mastering an activity. There are titles for PvP, Raids, Trials, and limited-time seasonal ones. Titles can take literal hundreds of hours to unlock due to time gating or difficult content. The reward for this labor? Purple text under your name. No cosmetics, no guns, not even a ship. Only complete these for bragging rights or if you are bored with the game and want something to do.
1 Masterworked Solstice Armor
No event in Destiny 2 can compare to the insane grind Solstice of Heroes demanded, not even the recent Guardian Games event. Players could earn a sweet new set of armor after completing a mountain of tasks.
Generating unique elemental orbs, completing dozens of Destiny's core activities, and completing pinnacle activities were all tied to this event. Players could also spend 15,000 Bright Dust (yes, 15,000) for glows on their armor. The problem is Shadowkeep released and overhauled the armor system. This armor did come forward but with only 48 stats for each piece, the lowest roll possible. Most deleted this one-time armor set because of how disrespectful Bungie was to player's time and, in the case of glows, money.