Destiny 2's Solstice Event Explained

Image: Bungie

Human Made

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

It’s been a wild season so far, and Solstice is here to liven things up a bit towards the season’s end! This event is great for collecting flashy cosmetics, new weapons, and a glowing armor set (well, it kind of glows). Let’s take a look at this year’s event!

As usual, this event gives the Tower a slight makeover, adds new cosmetic items to earn and purchase, and introduces an exclusive game mode. The 2023 version is looking like it won’t be too hard to grind out, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to optimize your progress. Here’s everything you need to know about Destiny 2’s Solstice of Heroes for 2023.

Destiny 2 Solstice of Heroes 2023 Explained

This year’s Solstice event should look familiar to anyone who’s participated in previous years.

The event starts you off with a legendary armor set called Sunlit armor. From there, you’ll be tasked with acquiring materials in the EAZ (more on that later) to upgrade your armor. But first, you’ll get a quest that will help guide you through the mechanics. Let’s take a look at that first!

Starting Off With the Celebrating Solstice Quest

Before you can start upgrading your armor, you’ll need to visit Eva Levante at the Tower.

She’ll give you your free Sunlit armor set and a quest called “Celebrating Solstice”. Once you equip the armor and speak to Eva again, she’ll direct you to the EAZ (European Aerial Zone) to complete the Bonfire Bash activity for the first time.

The Primary Activity: Bonfire Bash / European Aerial Zone

Bonfire Bash drops you into the EAZ to take out a stream of Taken enemies. There aren’t many mechanics to this activity that require much attention, so you’ll mostly be running around killing waves of adds. Make sure to wear your Sunlit armor whenever you’re doing any activity with the goal of acquiring Solstice materials. The EAZ is where you transform the Silver Leaves material into the Silver Ash you need to upgrade your armor.

At the start of the activity, you just need to follow the waypoints to the spawning waves of adds. Take those out as quickly as you can, then find the yellow-bar Ignition Carrier and defeat it too. The Ignition Carriers drop three orbs (ignitions) that need to be picked up and thrown at the bonfire in the middle. Depending on where the orbs drop, sometimes one person can deposit all three. But sometimes you’ll need all three teammates to grab them and run them to where they need to be in time.

After 5 minutes (you can see the timer on the screen at all times), the big Taken boss spawns in the middle area. From there, all you have to do is drain its health as quickly as possible and the event’s over. Just don’t forget to run back up to the bonfire to pick up the loot that drops up there.

Solstice 2023 Rewards

This year’s rewards are fairly straightforward. We get three weapons this year, including some brand new ones. Let’s take a quick look at all three weapons and their recommended God Rolls! (If a weapon doesn’t have a good roll for PVP, we’ll just exclude that part.)

Something New (Hand Cannon)

Something New is a pretty solid new Stasis hand cannon. It’s better in PVE than PVP, but it doesn’t really do enough to make it a top tier pick in either area. For now, it’s best used in less difficult PVE content, or with specific Stasis builds if you don’t want to use Eyasluna. If Stasis Shards (or Stasis in general) ever gets buffed, this might be a good hand cannon to have.

PVE God Roll:

Arrowhead Brake, Corkscrew Rifling, or Chambered Compensator
Ricochet Rounds or Flared Magwell
Wellspring or Feeding Frenzy
Headstone

Crowning Duologue (Rocket Launcher)

This rocket launcher doesn’t really do anything that any other rocket launcher can’t. The perks are decent, but it doesn’t give any real reason to get excited other than being a Strand weapon. For PVE, you can certainly make this work. We just wouldn’t recommend it for difficult content.

PVE God Roll:

Volatile Launch or Confined Launch
Black Powder or Alloy Casing
Auto-Loading Holster or Demolitionist
Chain Reaction, Cluster Bomb, or Envious Assassin
(You don’t want both Envious and Auto-Loading Holster at the same time)

Compass Rose (Shotgun)

This is a good precision frame shotgun to use if you like the perks it offers. It also has a good PVP roll, making it the only weapon from this year’s event to have that.

PVE God Roll:

Rifled Barrel or Smoothbore
Assault Mag
Lead From Gold
Incandescent, Trench Barrel, or Vorpal Weapon

PVP God Roll:

Rifled Barrel or Smoothbore
Assault Mag or Accurized Rounds
Quickdraw
Snapshot Sights or Incandescent

Solstice Materials and Armor Upgrading

Just like last year, to upgrade you Sunlit armor you’ll have to acquire a series of currencies. Here’s a brief rundown of the different currencies and how to acquire them.

Silver Leaves: the base level currency. To get this, all you have to do is complete activities while wearing your Sunlit armor. You can keep an Exotic armor piece on, but you’ll want the rest to be Sunlit armor.
Silver Ash: transformed from Leaves. To get Ash, just play Bonfire Bash while you have Silver Leaves to transform them by stoking the flames.
Kindling: the main way to upgrade your armor. You can only get Kindling by completing Event Challenges, and you’ll be able to get the exact amount you need to unlock the glowing effect on your armor! We’ll take a look at all those challenges in the last section!

How To Upgrade Sunlit Armor

If you wanna unlock the glow for your Sunlit armor, you’ll have to spend all that currency you’ve been farming. Kindling is the main resource for unlocking the glow, so go grind out some Event Challenges to get the 6 needed for any piece of armor. Luckily, this year the glow is account based, so you won’t have to unlock it on all your characters.

Once you have the Kindling you need, just go into the armor screen and apply it. Once you’ve done that, you’ll also want to use your Silver Ash to increase the armor’s stats. The last armor mod tab on this set will allow you to re-roll the armor’s stats and choose one stat to guarantee a +20 spike in. You can combine this with your Ghost mod to control two of your high-point stats. This is the only armor in the game you can do that to, which makes it worth having in any circumstance.

Solstice 2023 Event Challenges

Here’s a list of all the event challenges for this year’s Solstice event!

Bashing Success: Complete the Bonfire Bash activity.
Good Ignite: Defeat Ignition Carriers in the Bonfire Bash.
Torch the Taken: Defeat Prismatic Taken in the Bonfire Bash.
Fuel for the Fire: Stoke the flames in the Bonfire Bash.
Ash Tray: Collect Silver Ash.
Fuel for the Fire II: Stoke more flames in the Bonfire Bash.
Fuel for the Fire III: Stoke even more flames in the Bonfire Bash.
Like Wildfire: Defeat targets anywhere in the system. Defeating Guardians awards bonus progress.
Superlative: Defeat targets with Super abilities.
Forged in Flame: Defeat opposing Guardians in any activity.
Hand Lighter: Defeat targets with Hand Cannons, Shotguns, or Rocket Launchers.
Burn Them Down: Defeat bosses anywhere in the system.
Raking the Coals: Complete playlist activities to earn Silver Leaves.
Dare to Dream: Complete runs of the Blind Well or Dares of Eternity activity to earn Silver Leaves.
Brightfall: Complete Vanguard Ops or Nightfalls to earn Silver Leaves.
Fires of Competition: Complete matches in Crucible or Gambit playlists to earn Silver Leaves.
A Spark in the Dark: Complete rounds of Altars of Sorrow or Salvage to earn Silver Leaves.
In the Hot Seat: Complete activities on Neptune to earn Silver Leaves.
Flamekeeper: Claim the Solstice 2023 title.

When Does the Solstice Event End?

Solstice of Heroes Wrapping Up — *Image: Bungie*

The Solstice of Heroes events and armor set can only be played and upgraded throughout the event. Destiny 2’s Solstice event will end on August 8, so make sure and get it all done before then! That gives us a couple more weeks to finish grinding all weapons and armor stats we could ever want, so take advantage of it while it’s here.

Celebrating the Past and Preparing for the Future

We hope that this guide helps you get the most out of this year’s Solstice of Heroes Event. Be sure to share this article with your Fireteam on your favorite social channels. For the latest on Destiny 2, subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the know.