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The Microcosm is arguably the most wanted Exotic right now with the release of Destiny 2 The Final Shape. It synergizes with most builds in the game and its passives let you lay waste to enemy shields. Getting this triple-threat of a Heavy Trace rifle with Kinetic-class benefits, however, is an equally arduous process.
Like some other Exotics, you have to beat The Final Shape campaign to get the Microcosm. On top of that, it requires you to get through a series of rather tedious missions, and then even go back and redo three campaign missions from Destiny 2 The Final Shape with debilitating debuffs.
The lengthy process of obtaining the Microcosm in Destiny 2 may appear too complex to some players at a glance. However, it's still worth grinding through it. Therefore, in this article, we will give you a detailed outline of everything need to do to get your hands on the Microcosm.
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Destiny 2 The Final Shape: How to obtain the Microcosm Exotic weapon
The straightforward answer is that you obtain the Microcosm as a direct mission reward for completing Convalescence: Budding. However, the road to this mission is a long-winded journey.
As with other post-campaign Exotics, you will have to beat all seven campaign missions first, including Iconoclasm. Then, once you are transported to the D1 Tower, you have to take up the Destined Heroes questline, which eventually gets you the Ergo Sum Exotic Sword in Destiny 2 The Final Shape.
However, for the purpose of getting Microcosm, all you have to do is beat Queens Part I (the first mission) and then interact with the Micah-10 console in Lost City. From there, you have to pick up the Convalescence: Rootbound quest.
In brief, here is the order of missions to obtain the Microcosm in Destiny 2:
- Queens Part I (from Destined Heroes)
- Convalescence: Rootbound
- Convalescence: Underbrush
- Convalescence: Greenery
- Convalescence: Budding, which includes re-doing Ascent, Descent, and Iconoclasm in Co-op focus mode.
The first three missions in the Convalescence quest chain are there to acclimatize you to various Pale Heart activities, and they are very rather straightforward otherwise.
Outline of the Convalescence questline in Destiny 2 The Final Shape (in order to get Microcosm)
Convalescence: Rootbound will point you towards one of the Pale Heart Lost Sector, where you will have to locate a 'lost Ghost' sitting near a ledge.
Convalescence: Underbrush requires you to open chests in the Pale Heart to get two Traveller's Blessings, and then equip them. To progress with this quest, you can also just seek out Pathfinder Objectives to secure these chests.
Convalescence: Greenery is a doozy compared to the last two. First off, you have to specifically do an Overthrow encounter in the Pale Heart landing zone.
Load into the Landing Zone and explore till you find purple Hive Crystals floating in the air. Shooting these will summon waves of enemies that you have to kill to progress. Once you are done with this, open the Overthrow chest that spawns in and repeat the same process a couple times throughout the Pale Heart.
Afterwards, the objective pointer will send you to the next part of the quest, where you must follow a series of guiding eagles made of light until you eventually stumble into a cave where the passage is closed by a Hive Shield.
After opening it with the correct sequence of Runes, you have to go pick up the Hive Sword from an Altar nearby. Destroy the Hive Crystals and cut a path through the caverns with the Hive Sword till you drop down to the final room, where three Lucent Hive Lieutenants will spawn.
After you take down each Lieutenant, don't forget to get a finisher on the ghost to stop them from reviving. Afterwards, you can 'heal the wounded Ghost' to advance to the next quest in the chain.
Convalescence: Budding is by and large the hardest part of the quest chain. Ironically, this part is not its own unique quest. Instead, you have to go to the Pale Heart Destination menu and do the three available campaign missions (Ascent, Descent, and Iconoclasm) in the cooperative focus mode to make progress. You can find these at the bottom right of the Pale Heart map.
The baseline difficulty is comparable to the Legendary-mode campaign, where the enemy score is set at 2005. Prepare with some upgraded gear for an easier time, but more importantly, try to get a co-ordinated Fireteam to get past these missions.
While you can theoretically start these solo, they are almost impossible to complete without a teammate due to the debuffs we will discuss below.
Debuffs and conditions in cooperative focus mode missions (for Convalescence: Budding)
On top of the more powerful enemies by default, the co-op focus mode also has three tricky conditions you need to deal with.
Fractured by the Witness
At certain points of the Descent and Iconolcasm mission, the Witness will cast the 'Fractured by the Witness' debuff on you.
At seven stacks, this will impede your movement abilities, and at 10 stacks, it will outright kill you. When the affected player is at seven stacks of this debuff, a teammate can interact with them to reset the counter and put the curse on themselves.
If the debuff has been taken off you recently, you also enter a 'recovering from Fractured debuff' timer, during which you cannot take it away from another affected player.
If you are going duo with your buddy, the timer essentially makes it so you can juggle it back and forth only at nine stacks of the debuff. In other words, the timing will be much tighter with less than three members on the team.
To completely get rid of the Fractured debuff, you have to beat the objective.
Changes to Glyphtouched
In the co-op focus mode, only one member on the Fireteam will get the Glyphtouched buff. This player can interact with the Glyphs, but they cannot see what symbols drop from the Resonant Warders. Naturally, the non-Glyphtouched member(s) must communicate with the Glyphtouched to progress the quest.
Berserker enemy spawns
Additionally, there are new enemies to face in co-op focus mode. Specifically, the Berserker enemies from Scourge of The Past return here. You have to defeat them to dispel the Shields of Darkness that block your objective. The mechanic to defeat them remains the same:
- Get close to the Berserker to bait out their Suppressing ability. This will expose two weak points on their chest and back. Two players have to shoot at both weak points at the same time to take away their shield and kill them.
- Once they are downed, a 'Synergy switch active' effect will trigger. Two players must shoot two ends of the Synergy shots to successfully defeat the Berserker. If the Synergy shot fails, the Berserker will respawn.
If your Fireteam is aware of these mechanics, the missions themselves are quite manageable if you gear up properly. If you beat the Witness on Legendary difficulty, you can do this too.
Once you beat all three missions in co-op focus mode at least once, you can now go back to the Micah console to end the Convalescence quest chain. A fresh copy of the Microcosm will be there waiting for you.
