Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion has finally been released and there’s a ton of new content for players to sink their teeth into. Along with a new story, exotics, loot, endgame content, and a build crafting system, Lightfall also introduces our second Darkness subclass, Strand. Coupled with this expansion is the Season of Defiance, which revolves around the Shadow Legion invading Earth. Similar to previous seasons there are various upgrades that users can unlock that will give you additional benefits in the new seasonal activity, Defiant Battlegrounds. Three of these upgrades, which are tied to the We Stand Unbroken quest, are Awoken Favors. Here’s how Destiny 2’s Awoken Favors work, which ones you should buy first, and how to earn them in Defiant Battlegrounds.
How to Unlock Awoken Favors
To unlock Awoken Favors in Destiny 2 you will first need to complete a few steps in the Season of Defiance story. Eventually, you will complete your first Defiant Battleground and earn a War Table Upgrade. With this upgrade in hand, go to the H.E.L.M. and open up the upgrade menu at the console in the front of the ship. At the top of the upgrade menu, you will see a category labeled “Favor Attunement.” Below that are three different types of favors, each of which has different benefits and requirements for spawning in a Defiant Battleground.
- Exemplar of Justice – Defeat enemies with abilities to spawn; Favor improves melee ability recharge.
- Exemplar of Grace – Defeat enemies with Special weapons to spawn; Favor improves mobility for a short time.
- Exemplar of Zeal – Defeat enemies with Heavy weapons to spawn; Favor improves grenade ability recharge.
Of the three, I recommend snagging either the Exemplar of Justice or Grace. These are easy to consistently trigger and won’t punish you for not running a mob-clearing Heavy weapon like a machine gun. You can use Exemplar of Zeal, but in my testing, I found that it isn’t that consistent compared to the other two.
How to Get Awoken Favors to Drop
Once you purchase an Awoken Favor from the upgrade menu, head into the Defiant Battleground playlist. This is accessible via the H.E.L.M. destination menu in the top right corner. Inside this activity, you will need to kill enemies with either ability, Special weapons, or Heavy weapons depending on which Favor you chose. Doing so has a chance for one of these favors to drop on the ground when that foe is slain. They will look like large columns of Light with the symbol of that Awoken Favor in the middle (shown above). You pick up a Favor simply by running over it, causing the benefits of that Favor to instantly trigger.
If you’re struggling to have Favors drop, I recommend slapping on some Season of Defiance gear. These come with the intrinsic perk, Queen’s Favor, which reduces the number of kills needed to generate a Favor. You can stack this buff up to four times, so consider keeping a set of Season of Defiance armor stashed away if you need to quickly generate Favors for a quest. Additionally, allies can also make favors for you that you can run over so make sure to keep an eye out for them!
