Best Ways to Farm Legendary Shards in Destiny 2

Legendary Shards are one of the most common currencies in Destiny 2, and though there’s been some argument for their removal, you can do much in the game without them. Upgrading weapons, crafting, buying from a vendor, focusing Engrams — you name the system, you’ll probably need Legendary Shards. There are tons of ways to get them, but we’ll cover the best ways to farm Legendary Shards in this guide.

Best Legendary Shard Farms in Destiny 2

Putting aside the exploits that allow for maximum Legendary Shard farming, there are a few great ways to farm tons of Shards for minimal effort. Though some of them revolve around the seasonal content, others are almost as old as Destiny 2 itself. Even better, some of them are easier to do than ever before thanks to some updates to the game.

Best Overall Legendary Shard Farm: Finishing Crucible Matches

Destiny 2 PvP has been in an odd state for a long time, with many of its veteran and high-skill players bemoaning the state of the Crucible. However, regardless of your skill level, it’s one of the most rewarding activities in the game (at least as regards Shard farming).

At the end of every match, you’ll likely receive at least one Legendary weapon. Most of these are trash rolls, and you can freely dismantle them for 3-4 Shards apiece.

Depending on how fast your matches are, you can make 50 or so Shards an hour. Add in the Prosperity (Crucible) Ghost Mod and you’ll have a good chance of getting an additional Legendary reward (which, I’ll be honest, you can probably dismantle as well).

As you level up your vendor reputation with Shaxx, you can then trade in his Crucible engrams for rolls on specific Crucible weapons, many of which will also be trash. And the cycle repeats infinitely.

Easiest Legendary Shard Farm: Fishing!

If you’re up for one of the most chilled-out activities in all of Destiny 2, fishing is a fantastic way to make masses of Legendary Shards for almost no effort but plenty of relaxation. You will, of course, need a lot of Bait to catch the higher-rarity fish to make the most of the farm. Even if all you catch are blue and green-rarity fish, so long as you have a lot of them, turning them in at the H.E.L.M. makes for a hefty reward drop.

Fishing is also a great Shard farm because when you run out of bait, you’ll need to do other activities to get more Bait, earning other opportunities for Legendary engram drops and even more Shards for your trouble.

Best Seasonal Legendary Shard Farm: Completing Deepsight Versions of Seasonal Weapons

For those of you who are playing Destiny 2 consistently, even with the crazy release schedule right now (which my sleep routine isn’t fond of), completing the Deepsight objective for seasonal weapons and crafting them is a great way to get some easy Shards. After all, once you have a crafted version of a seasonal weapon, there’s not much reason to keep anything that drops from a random reward chest.

As you make your way to a full craftable set of seasonal weapons, you’ll be free to dismantle any dropped version of a weapon you can already craft. The same is true of non-red border variants of a weapon you’re getting close to being able to craft. If you want to keep playing the season’s activities after you have everything you want reward-wise, that’s just more Shards in the bank.

Best Endgame Legendary Shard Farm: Farming Dungeon and Raid Bosses

Every week, one of the older Raids and Dungeons in Destiny 2 becomes the Featured version of that activity, allowing you to farm for good rolls on the weapons and armor from that activity. That usually involves defeating a specific boss over and over again, and the community tends to come together to make that possible.

The most recent Raid and Dungeon are also always farmable, so you can complete their encounters as many times as you want every week. You won’t get Pinnacle drops, but you will get the loot rewards.

In short, whenever an old Raid or Dungeon you enjoy is up on the Featured list — or you want to grind the current one more — head in with a fireteam and go ham.

There are many other ways to get your hands on Legendary Shards in Destiny 2, but few are as immediately and easily rewarding as the four we’ve listed here. Which you engage with are up to you, but if you play the game consistently, Shards aren’t hard to come by at all. For more guides on Destiny 2 and its downright criminal amount of content, check out our guides on how to get Deepsight Harmonizers, how the Deep Dive mode works, and more in our D2 guides hub.