Bracus Forge is bringing Iron Banner back to the Tower for the first time in Season of the Haunted this week, and Bungie’s overhauled the activity to be more in line with Crucible, Gambit, and Vanguard Operations. There’s a new seal to collect as well, and if you’ve taken a look at it in your Triumphs tab, you might have noticed something — one of the Triumphs is for completing Iron Banner matches while wearing armor from the event. Now, if you’re like me and finally just cleared out your Vault at the end of last season, mercilessly ditching all of your Legendary armor pieces besides your high-stat Masterworked rolls, then you might be a little annoyed at that requirement.
But don’t worry, because there’s another way. If you’ve owned any Iron Banner armor in the past, you can use Ada-1’s transmog system to create some Universal Ornaments from those pieces. Then, you can slap them onto whatever Legendary armor you’ve already got, and boom — you’re wearing Iron Banner gear which counts towards the Triumph. You can either complete Ada’s bounties or just buy the transmog items from the Eververse store, it’s up to you.
Oh, and this trick works for increasing Iron Banner reputation, too. Equipping Iron Banner gear (armor and weapons) will increase your rank progression up to a total of 200%, and this includes ornaments. Don’t forget to wear an Iron Banner emblem if you happen to have one of those, also — it’ll increase your rank progression by another 10%.
It seems like Bungie’s approach to getting players to wear seasonal armor now that they’ve ditched sunsetting is to tie the armor sets to progression. For instance, the Season of the Haunted armor grants you more Vestiges of Dread, the seasonal currency used to generate rewards at the end of the Nightmare Containment activity. This change to Iron Banner fits right in with that. It makes sense to me — it’s a decent incentive to equip different armor sets while also not complicating builds. The decision to allow ornaments to count as armor for the sake of Iron Banner progression is an interesting one, too, as it encourages visual theming for the event while not forcing players to farm another set of high-stat armor.
What do you think of the changes to Iron Banner? Are you going to be gunning for the new Iron Lord title this season? Let me know in the comments.
If you’re looking for more help with Season of the Haunted, we have guides covering how to unlock the Solar 3.0 fragments and grenades, how to get the new Jotunn catalyst, how to farm Vestiges of Dread and Opulent Umbral Energy, all Exotics, new weapon Patterns, seasonal mods, and Season of the Haunted triumphs. In addition, we’re covering all patch notes, bugs and top issues, Bound in Sorrow quest steps, and Calus Bobbleheads. We’ve covered how to get Opulent Keys, Bound Presence in Containment, Crown of Sorrow H.E.L.M. upgrades, Iron Banner Seal Triumphs, and the Trespasser Catalyst. And lastly, we’ve written on how to find a Loyalist Commander for Battles Lines Triumph and the Cek’ik Boss.
