Destiny 2 Forging Iron Quest Guide: How To Unlock All Iron Banner Steps Quickly

Update: Season of Plunder has kicked off with a new Iron Banner event, complete with a new mode: Eruption. Check out our guide for everything you need to know to win Eruption and earn Iron Banner rewards in Season of Plunder.

The second and final occurrence of Iron Banner in Destiny 2's Season of the Haunted returns today, July 12, and will run until the weekly reset on July 19. That makes these next few days your last chance to complete the new seasonal quest and check out the new Iron Banner systems introduced this season. Iron Banner bounties are now gone, and in their place is a reputation system akin to those available with other activity vendors, including those for the Crucible, Gambit, the Vanguard, and the Gunsmith. Completing the quest unlocks your ability to focus the event's new Iron Engrams into specific weapons and pieces of armor.

Lord Saladin will get you what you need to start unlocking new reprised Iron Banner weapons, The Wizened Rebuke fusion rifle and The Hero's Burden submachine gun. Here's how to complete the Forging Iron quest quickly and what new elements of the reputation system you need to know about to succeed.

Forging Iron Quest Steps

Step 1: Complete an Iron Banner match

This one's pretty obvious, and the good news is that you don't need to win. If you have old Iron Banner gear, however, you want to equip it now. You'll gain additional reputation points for using Iron Banner weapons and armor, and gaining more points now will get you ahead for later steps. Try to equip up to five pieces of gear, whether they be weapons or armor, plus an Iron Banner emblem to maximize your gains. Transmogrified armor counts in this regard, it should be noted, so you can use Iron Banner armor ornaments, rather than the actual armor pieces themselves, and still get the reputation boost effect. Also be aware that, as of June 1, there is a bug where the Forging Iron quest (and the Jorum's Howl triumph) won't advance if you're wearing more than five pieces of Iron Banner armor. Again, ornaments are counted here, so be sure your combo of armor and ornaments don't tally more than five total Iron Banner pieces.

Step 2: Complete a Daily Challenge

Lord Saladin no longer offers Iron Banner bounties for you to complete during the course of the week of the event. Instead, Iron Banner now offers daily challenges, which you can see on the Iron Banner node on the Director screen. For this challenge, you'll need to knock out three matches, which will reward you with a Pinnacle gear drop.

Completing daily challenges also increases your total Iron Banner reputation gains as you play in the event. You'll get four boosts from daily challenges, which suggests that you can earn four total Pinnacle gear drops from the Iron Banner event, per character. That's the same number of Pinnacles you could earn from the old Iron Banner system through its bounties, so expect a total of four daily challenges in a week.

Step 3: Earn Iron Banner Rank points

This is why you put on all that Iron Banner gear at the start of this quest. You need to earn a total of 300 rank points, which actually isn't much--you can likely earn all the points you need in three or four matches, and the grind goes even faster when you have Iron Banner gear or ornaments equipped.

Using Iron Banner gear increases your rank gains significantly, so make sure you're using the right armor, weapons, and emblem.

On the Iron Banner Director screen, before launching a match, you can actually see your total reputation boost multiplier based on your current gear, if you mouse over the icon on the left side of the screen. The daily challenge you completed gives you a 2x rank boost; each piece of Iron Banner gear and an emblem gives you a 0.4x boost for a total of 2.4x. So for your next set of matches, you should be earning 4.4 times the Iron Banner reputation on your way to a total of 300 points. As always, wins reward more points, and you get more points if you build up a streak of completed Iron Banner matches, as well.

Step 4: Claim an Iron Engram

Increasing your Iron Banner reputation rank earns you Iron Engrams, which you can focus into specific weapons and armor from Saladin, or turn into random drops at the Cryptarch.

After you've ranked up a bit, you can head back to Lord Saladin in the Tower. On his vendor screen, check the top-right corner to see how much you've ranked up with him. By completing the previous steps, you should have earned a few Iron Banner ranks, unlocking new Iron Engrams for each level. Claim one now to complete this step. If you've played in the Iron Banner in past seasons and unlocked weapons and armor, you can now focus this engram with Saladin to turn it into a specific piece of gear. Otherwise, like with Umbral Engrams, you can take the Iron Engram to Rahool the Cryptarch and turn it into a random piece of Iron Banner gear.

Step 5: Talk to Lord Saladin

From here, you're finished with the quest. Talk to Lord Saladin one more time to complete the quest, which will fully unlock Saladin's vendor options. In order to earn more rewards, you're going to want to play Iron Banner matches, where you can get random gear drops and earn more reputation points. Those points will advance you along the reward track for Lord Saladin, unlocking his new weapons, The Wizened Rebuke and the Hero's Burden. Earn reputation ranks faster by equipping lots of Iron Banner gear and playing each day to knock out daily challenges.