Destiny 2: Pathfinder Explained And Rewards (2024)

Destiny 2: The Final Shape has overhauled the bounty system with something far less tedious. Known as Pathfinder, this system allows players to grind out Powerful Gear and tons of XP just by playing Destiny 2. There's not much busy work or preparation required to use this system, and it's also your main source of Ergo Sum random rolls.

Needless to say, taking advantage of Pathfinder is a wise decision for most Guardians, especially those looking to reach the Power cap. For those looking to farm XP or confused about the system in general, this guide will explain what Pathfinder is, how it works, and give a brief overview of its rewards.

What Is Pathfinder?

Pathfinder is an evolution of Destiny 2's bounty system, rewarding players with XP and Powerful Gear for completing activity challenges. These challenges are interconnected in a sort of web pattern, encouraging you to plan a route through the nodes to reach your reward, hence the name.

As of The Final Shape, the Pathfinder system is present for all ritual activities and the Pale Heart destination. Vanguard Ops, Crucible, and Gambit use the same Pathfinder board, while the Pale Heart uses a different one. This system is account-bound and is infinitely repeatable, although its rewards diminish with each reward payout. Pathfinder's rewards are refreshed on the weekly reset (Tuesday at 1700 UTC).

How To Access Pathfinder

The Pathfinder menu is generally nested inside the activity's respective Director map. As of the Final Shape, there are two Pathfinder boards you can view:

• Ritual Pathfinder: Found in the bottom-left corner of the Vanguard, Gambit, and Crucible playlist menus.
• The Pale Heart Pathfinder: Found near the top-left corner of the destination map, right above The Blooming patrol space and Overthrow playlist marker.

Creating A Path

The Pathfinder menu might look confusing at first glance, but it's far less intimidating when you look at it as columns instead of a web. Objectives are represented by nodes on the path called Field Assignments. Your goal is to create a line that runs across the entire board. To do this, you start by completing one of the six available Field Assignments on the first column of the web.

Field Assignments are effectively account-bound bounties. Each one has a single objective that awards a chunk of XP when completed. Unlike traditional bounties, these are tracked globally like Seasonal Challenges, so there's no prep work. On my Pathfinder board, I completed the sixth Field Assignment in the first column. Claiming it created a link to the sixth challenge in the second column.

The adjacent objective is to defeat a certain miniboss, but let's say you weren't interested in doing that. You could instead opt to complete another challenge in the first column to chart a more ideal path. In my case, I've already completed a challenge near the top of columns two and three, so I could complete an adjacent challenge in column one to chart a much further path. Now I'm halfway through the board and all I actively did was complete a single bounty.

That's ideally how you engage with this system. Focus on completing other quests and systems, then check in on your Pathfinder progress when you have downtime. If you're close to creating a full route, then you should go out of your way to finish your board. If there's little to claim, don't bother farming out specific challenges. Multitasking will make this seem far less tedious.

Once you've reached the end of the board, you have the option of resetting Pathfinder. This will reroll every Field Assignment and wipe all current progress, but your rewards are also reset. The reward payouts see diminishing returns after your second reset. You'll need to wait until the weekly reset to earn the initial rewards again.

Pathfinder Rewards

Reaching the Engram at the end of the Pathfinder board will give you T3 Powerful Gear, 25,000 XP, and an additional reward based on the Pathfinder type. The ritual variant gives Bright Dust, while the Pale Heart version gives you a random roll of Ergo Sum alongside some Ghost reputation.

Additionally, each node you claim on the Pathfinder board awards a small chunk of XP, roughly 4,000. You can claim every node on your Pathfinder board before you refresh it, or you can focus on claiming the Engram reward as fast as possible. We suggest the latter for most, as the big payout for completing a Pathfinder board is generally more useful.