Ever since the Prime Engram concept was introduced to Destiny 2 with the Forsaken expansion players have had a lot of questions. Bungie explained that these special engrams would scale above a player’s power level and they would drop from killing challenging enemies or completing crucible matches but there was no way to predict when a Prime Engram was due. However, now it appears some Destiny 2 number crunchers and testers have cracked the code.

Based on some extensive testing by a couple of Destiny 2 players, it appears that the key to earning a Prime Engram is 1,800 to 2,000 kills. Every type of enemy has a different “kill value” and once players reach the aforementioned threshold, a Prime Engram should drop.

It’s not an exact science but these players have surmised that the tiers of enemies are as follows:

  • Red Bar Enemies = 1 Kill
  • Orange Bar Enemies = ~5 Kills
  • Yellow Bar Enemies = ~20 Kills

Moreover, there are different kill thresholds for rare and legendary engrams as well, with blues dropping at roughly every 100 kills and purples at every 300. According to the testers, the drop rates became fairly predictable, to the point that they could call out when both a rare and a legendary would drop at the same time.

There is obviously a lot to unpack with this new claim about Prime Engrams. The first thing to consider is that the Prime Attunement buff works differently depending on if a player has received a Prime Engram recently. If they have not then there is a type of booster attached to Attunement that speeds up the process.

destiny 2 prime attunement buff

This 1,800-kill count is based strictly on a brand new Prime Attunement buff and not a player who has gone days without receiving an engram. Those players should get their Prime sooner.

This theory also suggests that Bungie changed the way Prime Engrams worked previously, since they seemed to be tied to enemy difficulty. Now, it appears that it is harder to get a Prime Engram drop but also easier to predict. But be warned that this is merely a method for acquiring Prime Engrams; Bungie has warned players about farming the Engrams as it could hurt drops in the future.

If nothing else, this gives players an opportunity to work towards a Prime Engram and a higher power level knowing when one should drop. 1,800 kills is a lot, even when killing yellow bar enemies, but Destiny 2 is all about the grind anyway.

Destiny 2: Forsaken is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Thanks to: Rusopholis, Theunknowing777