Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals – Ruinous Effigy and Missive quest guide

The Ruinous Effigy is an exotic trace rifle that’s part of Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals. You can obtain it via the “Missive” quest chain. You can also take a look at all 50 Savathun’s Eye locations for the Ruinous Effigy’s catalyst. Here’s our guide to help you out.

Note: For more information about the other activities and content for this season, check out our Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals guides and features hub.

Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals – The Missive exotic quest

The “Missive” quest steps to obtain the Ruinous Effigy exotic were originally datamined by Light.gg. Here they are:

1. Growth: Visit the Prismatic Recaster in the Tower Annex – This is normally what you do each weekly reset anyway, so go ahead and get this part done. You’ll notice that the exotic quest can be picked up (seen above).

2. Gift: Complete “Means to an End” – This mission changes each week and rewards pinnacle gear. Due to a rotation, you might be familiar with what’s in store for the Interference and “Means to an End” activities this week.

3. Pendulum:

• Collect 25x Calcified Light on Io, Mars, and Titan using your Ghost’s scanner – You can check our Calcified Light locations guide if you need help finding these collectibles in various planets.

• Defeat 15x Savathun’s Marionettes on Io and Titan – These are the yellow bar, champion-like enemies that spawn alongside the Contact public event boss once it reaches 50% health. Make sure to kill the Marionette first before the boss, otherwise, they’ll despawn.

Note: It looks like you don’t even need to kill Savathun’s Marionettes. Just make sure that the boss isn’t nuked to fast so that the Marionette appears first and takes a bit of damage. Then, eliminate the boss which will cause the Marionette to disappear and that’ll be added to your tally.

4. Feed:

• Defeat 100x targets using the Void element.
• Get 25x precision multi-kills – You should be able to do this easily enough in solo areas like The Whisper mission, the entrance cavern of the Prophecy dungeon, or the Core Terminus lost sector on Mars. Alternatively, just do an Escalation Protocol and pray that blueberries don’t steal your headshot kills.
• Complete Gambit or Reckoning activities – There are 18 points needed to progress, but higher tiers of Reckoning, defeating invaders, and kills as an invader provide additional progress. It might be better to just do Gambit Prime, use Truth or Xenophage, and go to town on hapless randoms. A handful of Guardian kills in this mode will already push you past the halfway point for this tally.

5. Shape – You’ll get an exotic engram once you’re done with the “Feed” step. Head to the Umbral Decoder in the Tower and you’ll get the Ruinous Effigy.

Ruinous Effigy exotic perks

So, what exactly are we looking at when it comes to this new Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals exotic trace rifle? Well, the Ruinous Effigy has two known unique perks according to dataminer Ffom:

• Transmutation – Kills with this weapon collapse victims into void transmutation spheres.
• Evolution – Transmutation spheres you create can be picked up and wielded as weapons by your or allies. You can use light and heavy attacks, as well as guard and drain nearby hostiles.

It seems a little gimmicky, at first, but we’ll soon find out if the Ruinous Effigy is a worthwhile weapon to use. Don’t forget to destroy Savathun’s Eyes for the catalyst as well as a triumph.

Update: I was definitely wrong about this one. The Ruinous Effigy is a ridiculously good weapon when used effectively. Here are some tips for PvE and PvP.

Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals is available on Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.