Destiny 2 Iron Banner armor, weapons, and For the War to Come guide

One of the most competitive recurring events in Destiny 2 pits two large teams of Guardians against each another in the Iron Banner. The ongoing Season of the Lost — set to conclude with the launch of The Witch Queen in February 2022 — includes a week-long bout of Iron Banner about once a month. Whether you’re trying for a god-roll on the Iron Banner sidearm Peacebond or just looking to finish off the seasonal questline, here’s a closer look at everything you need to know about Iron Banner this season.

Iron Banner host Lord Saladin Forge returns to The Tower (the game’s main social hub) about once every month.

Unlike traditional Crucible player-versus-player gameplay, level advantages are enabled in Iron Banner, which means that the most powerful players and fireteams can truly dominate. Two teams of six players each work together to capture and maintain control of three zones while eliminating enemy players, and you get more points for each defeat if you control more of the zones. So it’s a more intense twist on the traditional Control game mode — and a great opportunity to earn top-tier loot, assuming you complete the bounties and quest associated with it.

Destiny 2 For the War to Come questline steps

Each season comes with an ongoing Iron Banner quest with multiple steps, each of which typically tasks the player with eliminating enemy players within Iron Banner. There are usually a few specific conditions to consider as well. In general, make sure you focus on defeating enemies and capturing one of the three zones on the map. When it comes to deciding what weapons to use, most exotics will be a good choice, but you can also use light.gg’s handy God Roll Appraiser to get quick assessments for every weapon in your inventory.

Step 1 - Forewarned, Forearmed

• Defeat 30 Guardians
• Capture 10 zones
• Land 15 energy weapon final blows

You should complete this straightforward by playing Iron Banner normally. Any weapon with elemental damage in your top or middle slot counts as an energy weapon, but your best bet is to focus on energy weapons that use primary ammo: Auto Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Scout Rifles, Trace Rifles, Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Submachine Guns.

Step 2 - Clustered Shots

• Complete 6 matches
• Capture 20 zones
• Land 15 pulse rifle final blows

The first two items amount to “play a lot of Iron Banner.” For the pulse rifle final blows, try using an exotic like No Time to Explain or Vigilance Wing, but whichever pulse rifle you prefer will do just fine. Check out a recent pulse rifle tier list for further suggestions. Note that this season’s Iron Banner pulse rife Forge’s Pledge is also a solid choice if one happens to drop for you.

Step 3 - Antipode

• Defeat 100 Guardians
• Capture 30 zones
• Defeat 10 enemies with Solar or Stasis abilities

That’s a lot of Guardians to defeat, but it should come quickly enough. For the more nuanced third step, simply make sure you aren’t running your Arc or Void subclass. Focus on the abilities that’ll get you the most Guardian defeats, like bottom-tree Gunslinger for Hunters or top-tree Sunsinger for Warlocks.

Step 4 - The Final Lesson

• Land 15 Super final blows
• Capture 40 zones
• Land 15 sidearm final blows

If you have the exotic sidearm Traveler’s Chosen, that’s going to be your best bet. Drang or A Swift Verdict are also solid choices, but so is this season’s Iron Banner sidearm, Peacebond, which you can receive as a random drop.

After this, all that’s left to do is to go see Lord Saladin to claim some loot.

Destiny 2 Season of the Lost Iron Banner weapons

There are two Iron Banner-exclusive weapons in Season of the Lost: the sidearm Peacebond and pulse rifle Forge’s Pledge (that’s probably why sidearms and pulse rifles factor into this season’s questline). In both cases, you can earn the weapons by completing the seasonal questline. Get far enough through it, and both weapons will begin dropping. You’ll receive Iron Engrams as random drops at the end of Iron Banner matches that will often include a random roll for one of the two weapons.

Peacebond

If you can handle the intense recoil on Peacebond, you’ll find that it’s one of the very best sidearms in the game right now. Different rolls can fit within a wide variety of builds, but anything that increases range first and stability second will suit it just fine. Heating Up or Tunnel Vision are best in the first perk slot. Either Rampage or Iron Grip is best for the second.

Forge’s Pledge

The Messenger is a better pulse rifle, but Forge’s Pledge is easier to acquire. Pulse rifles are in a great place within the game’s meta in general. This one is balanced enough to excel in almost any game type even if some others have a faster rate of fire or less recoil. The best possible roll would have Heating Up and Rampage as the two perks.

Does Season of the Lost have new Iron Banner armor?

Not every season introduces new Iron Banner armor into the mix, but Season of the Lost added the Iron Forerunner set. Each armor piece comes with a new intrinsic perk called Iron Lord's Pride that increases the chance of an Enhancement Prism dropping at the end of a match. And this stacks up to four times.

Enhancement Prisms, of course, are a rare and/or expensive resource used to masterwork armor, which makes it an essential currency to farm for. You can purchase them from several different vendors at an exorbitant cost, but grinding away to get a complete set of Iron Forerunner armor is perhaps the single best way to farm for Enhancement Prisms (but only while Iron Banner is active).

Perhaps best of all:

Destiny 2 Season of the Lost Iron Banner schedule

Iron Banner always begins on a Tuesday at the 1 p.m. Eastern weekly reset and ends the following week. It pretty much always begins every five weeks with some wiggle room depending on other events. In theory, that means we can expect it to run on the following dates (everything bolded is definite):

• September 28, 2021
• November 2, 2021
• December 7, 2021
• January 11, 2022
• February 15, 2022

Events like The Dawning over the December holidays or the Valentine’s Day-inspired Crimson Days could mean that Iron Banner gets moved around a little bit. Similarly, February 22 also marks the launch of the game’s next major update, The Witch Queen, so it’s unlikely that Iron Banner would launch alongside that.