How to Farm Gunsmith Materials in Destiny 2

Image: Bungie via HGG / Kody Wirth

Human Made

Penned by Kody Wirth

Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Destiny 2 has plenty of materials and currencies that you have to grind out in order to consistently upgrade, purchase, and combine gear. From more common types, like Glimmer and Legendary Shards, to rarer collectibles like Bright Dust and Exotic Ciphers—there is seriously so much to keep track of. They all serve different purposes and can be acquired through very specific methods or just by playing the game consistently. In this guide, we’ll be covering how to farm Gunsmith Materials—a more common but surprisingly useful material in Destiny 2.

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What Are Gunsmith Materials?

Gunsmith Materials is one of the more common material types in Destiny 2. Similar to Glimmer and Legendary Shards, it’s just a general material that you’ll come across and use in various ways. However, it separates itself from other basic materials by being incredibly useful for acquiring Upgrade Modules or specific rolls from The Gunsmith.

So, if you find yourself lacking Gunsmith Materials, or wanting to pad out your inventory to never worry about them again—here is everything you need to know about farming Gunsmith Materials.

How to Get Gunsmith Materials

Before we dive into some specific go-to methods for getting Gunsmith Materials, let’s clear up how the material is acquired. There are no specific quests, challenges, or bounties that will increase your chances of earning Gunsmith Materials, it’s actually much more simple than that. Gunsmith Materials can be earned by dismantling Rare, Legendary, or Exotic weapons and armor. The higher the gear rarity, the more Gunsmith Materials you’ll earn with Rare gear earning you one while Legendary and Exotics will net you three. 

Now, let’s get into a few methods to help you keep your Gunsmith Material supply flowing.

1. Dismantle Unnecessary Weapons and Armor

Dismantling gear is necessary to earn Gunsmith Materials. That doesn’t mean you should dismantle every piece of gear that you come across. Here are a few best practices for dismantling gear.

Rare Items

Rare items or Blue-colored gear is one of the biggest and most frustrating holdovers from the original Destiny. This type of gear has limited Perk slots, typically lower Power levels, and is generally frustrating to deal with. That’s why, unless you’re a New Light, you should simply dismantle these whenever they hit your inventory. Sure, they’ll only give you one Gunsmith Material at a time, but you’ll likely find that these pop up very often while playing.

Clear Your Vault

It can be incredibly easy to let your vault get overrun. Holding onto every potential God Roll, old Exotics, exclusive Sparrows, and even just cycling gear out of your inventory can quickly lead to a lot of unnecessary items being stowed away.

So, if you’re really needing a quick hit of Gunsmith Materials, just work through your vault. Clear out anything that isn’t relevant, iconic, or useful. After all, you can always recollect items from the Collections menu if necessary, so there’s not much harm in removing more gear than you think.

Umbral Engrams

With Season of the Lost dragging on for so long, you’ve likely collected a ridiculous number of Umbral Engrams. If you’ve focused all of the rolls you want, collecting and using them can be a great method for dismantling Legendary items and snagging three pieces of Gunsmith Materials. This is a great method for any season really, but especially for any that goes on for a long amount of time.

2. Equip Ghost Shell Mods

Ghost Shell Mods are the unsung heroes of acquiring materials, Glimmer, and experience. For amping up your Gunmsith Material collecting, there are currently two different Mods worth equipping.

Banshee Special

This Economic Mod increases the generation of Gunsmith Telemetry Data with any Elemental weapon final blow. These are the alternative materials that can be used as currency with the Gunsmith. It costs five energy to equip and can be a great way to generate additional reputation with Banshee alongside your Gunsmith Materials.

Prosperity

This Activity Mod will provide the chance to drop an additional piece of Legendary gear when completing or winning activities. It costs three energy to equip and can only be acquired if you’ve Masterworked your Ghost first. It’s actually the perfect Mod to use with our next tip.

3. Run Playlist Activities

Playlist activities are anything in Destiny 2 that are cyclical events that can be replayed over and over again. This includes Vanguard activities as well as PvP, and they can all be accessed from your main Guide. These activities are typically quick to complete and provide guaranteed gear, which makes them some of the best to grind out. 

Rotating PvP Playlists

Depending on the Crucible Modes you play, these can be among the quickest ways to grab additional gear to dismantle. You’re almost always guaranteed at least a handful of Rares and Legendaries every time, meaning that you’re walking away with anywhere from two to six pieces of Gunsmith Materials. However, not every PvP playlist can be completed as quickly as others. So, if you’re wanting to quickly work through a round, keep an eye on the rotating PvP playlists. 

Gamemodes like Rumble, Mayhem, Momentum Control, and Team Scorched are some of the quickest and most fun to play. However, if Iron Banner is running, it may be worth spending a bit more time to collect tokens and Iron Banner reputation alongside your standard Valor reputation. Really, it’s up to what you like to play since most of these gamemodes will take basically the same amount of time and give you the same rewards.

Basic Strikes

Standard Strikes can be some of the easiest things for you to complete. They typically take a bit longer than Crucible matches, but you can throw in additional PvE bounties, and also go for the weekly Pinnacle gear to sweeten your playtime. There’s no real trick here for the type of Strike to complete outside of just keeping it easy so grab a Fireteam and run right through everything to keep your times tight.

Battlegrounds

If you just can’t stand to run the same Strikes over and over again, you may want to opt to run Battlegrounds. These quick, enemy-heavy PvE activities were introduced as part of Season of the Chosen and are still among the best Playlist Activities worth diving into. The rewards are fairly similar, although there is a longer list of weekly gear to acquire which may make running a bunch of these worth your time.  

Override

Override is another Seasonal Activity kept from Season of the Splicer with some unique reward twists that can make it far more valuable to run. For starters, you get access to two chests at the end of each run and you can rack up Umbral Engram drops fairly easily. This makes it more likely that you’ll acquire Legendary gear to dismantle over typical Rare drops from other PvE activities. 

Dares of Eternity

Dares of Eternity is the new 6-person activity that came with the 30th Anniversary expansion. It’s free to everyone, features some of the best gameplay in any playlist-like activity, and typically only takes 9-12 minutes to finish. If you complete Starhorse or Xur Bounties, you only increase your likelihood of earning additional gear through specific drops. 

Aside from that, you can expect about the same gear drop rate as the other activities on this list. But if you’re trying to grind out reputation with Xur or any other element of the new DLC, this should be your go-to. 

4. Level Up Vendor Reputation

As you run these playlist activities you’ll begin to earn reputation with specific Vendors depending on what you’re playing. PvP will apply to Lord Shaxx, PvE to Savallah, and Gambit to the Drifter. There are also additional vendors like Xur, the Gunsmith, and seasonal vendors that can be upgraded as well, although they typically require bounty completions.

The benefit of leveling them up is that you’ll acquire Legendary gear whenever you reach a new level. Some higher-level tiers will grant additional drops and other more unique rewards like upgrade materials and weapon skins. The key to truly taking advantage of these systems is to focus on one at a time. 

Grab and complete bounties to start, this will give you small boosts toward your reputation. Then make sure that you play the same Playlist activity multiple times in a row. This will provide you with a reputation boost the longer you play subsequent rounds of the same activity. Just keep in mind that this is a slow method to acquire Gunsmith Materials. You won’t be getting multiple at a time or grabbing these in ten minutes. However, it can be a nice boost to grab as you grind out activities.

What to Do With Gunsmith Materials

So, now you have all of these Gunsmith Materials, what exactly should you do with them? Most of what you’ll use them for is with Banshee-44. The easiest thing to do is upgrade your Vendor Reputation and go for better rolls of weapons that are available. This can also help you earn Legendary Shards that can go toward other items available in the Gunsmith’s shop. Just remember that you’ll also need additional materials to actually purchase them.

Join the High Ground

Hopefully, you’re well on your way to stocking up on a bunch of Gunsmith Materials to help you go after specific weapon rolls from Banshee-44 or to acquire upgrade materials for other items. While the use cases for these materials are fairly limited, they are integral to either improving your current gear or trying for the best the Gunsmith has to offer.

Be sure to share this article on your favorite social platforms to help your Fireteam rack up on Gunsmith Materials, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest on Destiny 2.