Bounty Prepping is a great way to get a head start on upcoming expansions and seasons. If you want to know how it works, let me explain the best farming route to bounty prep for The Final Shape in Destiny 2.
What is Bounty Prep in Destiny 2?
Just so we’re all on the same page, let me quickly explain what Bounty Prep is for returning players and newcomers alike. Just like how we need to be on the same page for what the best Destiny 2 expansions are.
Bounty Prepping is somewhat of a tradition before Destiny 2 expansions and can give you a sizeable progression boost on day one of the Expansion if you do it correctly.
You must complete Bounties as usual, but don’t hand them to their respective vendors. The idea is to fill your inventory with as many completed Bounties as possible. When a new season or expansion begins, you can turn in all of your stored bounties for mountains of XP toward the new Battle Pass, Light Levels, and any Seasonal Artifacts.
You cannot store unfinished Bounties as they have an expiration time. As each character has a separate inventory for Bounties, you can effectively hand in well over 100 Bounties the moment the expansion begins to get an early boost.
How to Bounty Prep for The Final Shape in Destiny 2
Now that you know what Bounty Prepping is all about, you may think you can just collect a ton of Bounties from whatever Vendor you like. The catch is Bounties aren’t created equally.
Weekly Bounties give the best XP rewards but are also the hardest and may be out of reach for some players. I’ll go over the most important locations you can grab these in the following section.
Once you’ve exhausted your Weekly options, you can rely on Dailies instead. Daily Bounties will make up the bulk of your Prep, and you can grab these from Zavala, Lord Shaxx, or Banshee-44 in the Tower.
Finally, we have Additional Bounties. You get these when you spam the “Additional” Bounty option and grant the lowest XP gain. If you’re min-maxing, you ideally don’t want any of these.
Fortunately, it’s easy to tell what Bounties are the best as they reward XP++. Daily Bounties give XP+, and your Additional Bounties only give regular XP.
The Best Bounties to Use for Bounty Prep in Destiny 2
Bounty Prep is a little more involved than a stroll around the Tower, so here are all the Bounties I recommend you pick up. Remember, you can do this on each character if you have the time to do so:
Nimbus Weekly Bounty
- Location: Neptune – Strider’s Gate Landing Zone
Nimbus always has a Weekly Bounty up for grabs focused on Vex Incursions. You’ll need to have completed the Lightfall Campaign to access this, but it’s an easy way to earn a ton of XP.
Starhorse Weekly Bounties
- Location: Eternity – Xur’s Treasure Horde
The Starhorse has three Weekly Bounties up for grabs. Just beware: There are six to choose from, and the other three are just dailies. If you’re a new player and wondering what on earth a Starhorse is, this area is pretty weird and requires the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack.
The pack includes arguably one of the best Dungeons in the game and the Gjallarhorn Rocket Launcher.
Variks the Loyal Bounties
- Location: Europa – Charon’s Crossing Landing Zone
Variks offers two Weekly Bounties in his inventory. These Bounties are some of the easiest and can be completed very quickly with a friend.
Petra Venj
- Location: Dreaming City – Divalian Mists Landing Zone
Petra has a couple of Weekly Bounties available, including one in the Blind Well.
Suraya Hawthorne
- Location: Tower
Suraya has four Bounties available weekly, although they require you to complete activities with Clan members. If you’ve got a squad to play with, this is easy XP for your entire Fireteam.
Lecturn of Enchantment and Eris Morn
- Location: Moon – Sanctuary Landing Zone
You can grab a couple of Weekly Bounties from the Lecturn of Enchantment and Eris. Oddly enough, Eris’s Weekly Bounties don’t show XP++ as a reward, but the rewards for these Bounties are well-known in the community, and you can use them for Bounty Prep.
A quick word of warning…
Final Shape Bounty Prep does have a couple of caveats and restrictions. You may have noticed I didn’t suggest grabbing Bounties from the Hall of Champions or HELM. Both these areas will likely go when the Final Shape drops, and any outstanding Bounties will likely be wasted.
Finally, I recommend leaving at least a few Bounty slots free. We can’t say for certain, but quest items infrequently use those slots. If you get some when you start The Final Shape but don’t have space, it could cause problems.
If you’ve got your Bounty Prep sorted, why not chase some Exotics if you have time? You can unlock many great weapons in time for The Final Shape.
