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How to bounty prep - Destiny 2

Everything you need to know about bounty prepping in Destiny 2 from which bounties to hoard and how much XP they give to things to avoid.

Sam Chandler

May 19, 2024 9:50 PM

Bungie

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Bounty prep is a long-standing tradition in Destiny 2. This process has players completing bounties and holding on to them until a new season releases, and then claiming them to get a boost in XP. This allows players to fast-track their way through an Artifact, acquiring many perks and increases in Power early on.

Bounties to prep

Destiny 2 has a lot of bounties and all of them are not created equal. In order to maximize how much XP you take into a new season, expansion, or episode, you must focus on the bounties that grant the most XP. You can check out our guide on Destiny 2’s XP values system, but below are all of the weekly bounties you can collect. These offer the highest value among bounties.

There are 27 weekly bounties in Destiny 2. Each of these bounties is classified as rewarding XP++, which is 12,000 XP or 324,000 XP if you do them all. Those that can do all 27 weekly bounties on all three characters will have 972,000 XP stored (before XP boosts).

For the remaining 36 slots, you should focus on completing daily bounties as they have the next highest value (6,000 XP). If you are reading this in preparation for The Final Shape, do not complete Vanguard, Crucible, or Gambit bounties. Bungie has announced it is reworking these core ritual vendors with a new upgrade system called Pathfinder, which means these bounties will be removed.

One important thing to note is that you should leave at least one slot free (or a few) on your main character. Campaign missions are counted as quests and require a quest slot. If all your quest slots are full with bounties, you could encounter problems when starting a new season, episode, or expansion.

Assuming you complete all Weekly Bounties and completely fill up on Daily Bounties (leaving one slot free), you will have stored 1,614,000 XP (before any XP boosts).

How bounty prep works

To actually bounty prep, collect your bounty and then go do the task that completes it. Instead of clicking it to claim the XP, let it sit there. Because it is completed, it will not expire and will not be removed from your inventory. When a new season starts, collect the Seasonal Artifact, join another player, and then claim your bounties.

As stated above, doing this effectively stores almost 2 million XP for you to instantly claim at the start of a new season. Referring to our Artifact XP table, you could get 9 Artifact perks and almost 7 bonus Power a few minutes after the start of a new season.

The reason players want to bounty prep is that it saves them the effort of having to grind bounties when new content is released. You can instead put your efforts into playing the new content, farming new weapons, and unlocking Exotics.

For players looking to take on a Day One raid, bounty prepping ensures they have access to as many Artifact perks as possible. These can dramatically improve a build, granting players better damage output against bosses or better survivability and utility.

When to claim your bounties

After you’ve prepared your bounties, you need to know when to claim them. When a new season starts in Destiny 2, you must first play through the campaign until you unlock the Artifact. Once you have the Artifact, ensure you have a Blinding Light Ghost mod on and then you are free to start popping those bounties.

However, it can be worth holding off until you can join someone who is at least Season Pass Rank 5 or 26 as they will boost you with Shared Wisdom. An extra two or four percent might not sound like much, but if you maximized your prep, that could be between 32,000 and 64,000 XP.

If you want to get even more granular, you could try and min-max the Well-Rested buff. To do this, earn enough XP to be 1 XP short of Season Pass Rank 5 (or as close to 500,000 XP without going over) and then claim a Seasonal Challenge. Week 1 Seasonal Challenges typically offer 25,000 XP which is doubled with the Well-Rested buff. Even though you are 1 XP away from five levels and the Well-Rested buff disappearing, the entire 25,000 would be doubled. It’s not massive, but it’s also not nothing.

Bounty prep resources

One of the best bounty prep resource is Destiny Recipes, specifically, the Checklist page. This page lists all available bounties and tracks how much XP you have stored and offers an estimate of the Artifact perks and bonus Power you will unlock.

Note that this page does not take into consideration Shared Wisdom (Fireteam XP Boost). The percentage boost from Shared Wisdom will depend on the player you join and what rank they are in the season pass.

Bounty prepping can be a tedious process but the effort you put in before a new Destiny 2 expansion can help you focus on enjoying the new content with more Artifact perks at your disposal early on. Remember that once you turn in the bounties, go and pick up more and focus on quests, seasonal challenges, and other mid-game activities. All of these will help you gain more XP, level up your season pass, and power up your Artifact. Take a look at our Destiny 2 Strategy Guide for more planning and preparation tips.

Sam Chandler

Head of Guides

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as Head of Guides. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler