Destiny 2’s Season of the Wish brought dozens of new weapons, but the Wish-Keeper Exotic bow might just be the crown jewel of this season’s additions.
This Exotic is bound to draw players’ attention to its beauty alone, but its effects match that beauty with an extra dose of lethality, especially if you’re using the newest subclass. The bow itself was revealed on the seasonal page when the season launched, but Bungie’s API had already shown this bow’s firepower before it even reached the servers.
Here’s how you can get Wish-Keeper in Destiny 2 and what it does.
How to get the Wish-Keeper in Destiny 2
The Wish-Keeper Exotic is locked behind the season 23 Exotic quest, Starcrossed. This mission kicks off after week four of the seasonal storyline, so to start it, you need to be at least on step 29 of Wishing All the Best. After the Sol Divisive Vex steal one of Riven’s eggs, the Guardian goes into the Black Garden to retrieve it, and uncovers much more than they thought.
The Starcrossed mission is available both in regular and Legend difficulties, with each bringing its own rewards. You unlock Wish-Keeper after your first clear, so you don’t need to replay the mission to get the bow itself—but you need to do it on different weeks to upgrade the bow’s intrinsic and get its catalysts.
The intrinsic upgrades are available from Starcrossed secret chests in either difficulty, but you need to find all four Celestial Anomalies and wrap up the Exotic mission on Legend to obtain more catalysts. These are available each week, with a small time-gate if you’re all caught up.
Starcrossed is more in-line with Seraph’s Shield and NODE.OVRD.AVALON in terms of mission length, so players can expect a bit of a trek before unlocking Wish-Keeper. It took us around 40 minutes for our first solo clear, counting the time we spent admiring the Black Garden, but we’ve trimmed that time down considerably after learning the mission and drafting other guardians to help (thanks, Fireteam Finder). The power delta can spring up on you if you’re not careful, so account for that and the threat/surge when you dive into the mission.
What does the Wish-Keeper do in Destiny 2?
The Wish-Keeper is certainly gunning for Hierarchy of Needs, Verglas Curve, and Ticuu’s Divination when it comes to the most unique bows, even if its formula is a bit drawn out by now. It comes with a bonus, though: It’s a Strand bow, and its effects synergize perfectly with Strand subclasses. Here are Wish-Keeper’s effects, as seen in-game:
- Snareweaver: Precision hits and final blows build energy towards a Snareweaver arrow that can be fired from the hip. On impact, Snareweaver arrows create a pattern of traps that suspend nearby targets.
- Silkbound Slayer: This weapon deals bonus damage to suspended targets. Gain faster draw time for a short duration when you suspend a target from any source or damage a suspended target with this weapon.
- Base draw time: 684ms (consistent with Precision bows and changeable through crafting).
The crafting menu also lists a series of Refits, which are essentially catalysts for craftable weapons such as Revision Zero (Season of the Seraph) and Vexcalibur (Season of Defiance). Wish-Keeper has four catalysts that range from improving the weapon’s effects to giving it readymade perks like Vorpal Weapon and Hatchling.
One handy addition this go-around is the Enclave telling you whether you can acquire an intrinsic upgrade or catalyst, which makes it easier to know if you should dive back into Starcrossed or wait for the next weekly reset until you do.
Wish-Keeper is certainly carving a spot in our arsenal (when we can put down Necrochasm, Sunshot, or Dragon’s Breath). While we’re excited to use it on our Titan, having access to Suspend across different subclasses offers great utility, especially as Strand Warlocks are in a bit of a rough spot.
