Destiny 2: The Final Shape raid will launch on June 7. The initial launch of The Final Shape expansion is scheduled for June 4, giving players a little bit of extra time to get ready before the raid begins three days later.

While preparing for a new expansion isn’t for everyone, those who have their eyes on competing in the Day One raid race will likely want to put in some effort. In fact, even casual players can benefit from some light preparation, as it will make tackling the new expansion a bit easier. So in this guide, we will show you some things if you do, the more of a headstart you’ll have at the beginning of the expansion.

Hoard Bounties

Bounty hoarding is one of the best things you can do to prepare for a new expansion. While players have no idea what the XP or leveling system will be like in The Final Shape, there’s a good chance bounties will still give XP and XP will still be important. It can help you unlock all the perks and hit new Power levels.

You keep as many completed bounties as you can in your quest slot. This essentially banks XP, allowing you to quickly claim them all when a new expansion drops, skyrocketing you through the artifact levels and season pass ranks. In addition, to maximize your XP potential, you should focus on completing as many of the Weekly Bounties as you can before filling up on daily bounties. Don’t do repeatable bounties, as these only yield 1,000 XP a piece. Weekly Bounties offer 12,000 XP each.

Gather Resources

A new expansion means new weapons to unlock and craft along with new armor to max out. In order to do this, you will need a good stock of resources. Before we go any further, Legendary Shards will be completely gone when The Final Shape launches, so spend them before Season of the Wish ends.  As for the resources you should be stockpiling, it will look the same as it did last year:

   Glimmer 
   Phantasmal Fragments 
   Upgrade Modules 
   Enhancement Cores 
   Enhancement Prisms 
   Ascendant Shards 
   Ascendant Alloy

Because Legendary Shards are going, there will likely be a stronger emphasis on Glimmer. You should have your wallet maxed out and try to keep some supplies in reserve for when you spend it all – like Phantasmal Fragments, which can be exchanged for Glimmer.

Other than Glimmer, Enhancement Cores will be the most important currency in the game. You need these to do just about everything including Masterworking armor and crafting weapons. Finally, Enhancement Prism, Ascendant Shards, and Ascendant Alloy are three of the big boy currencies. Bungie has lifted the inventory caps on these, so get as many as you can across all three characters by farming endgame content, like Grandmaster Nightfalls.

Craft Weapons

Crafted weapons are the most powerful weapons in Destiny 2. These things absolutely dominate endgame activities like Day One raids. Before The Final Shape gets here, try to get as many of the high-priority weapons crafted as you can. The more you have, the better equipped you’ll be when you roll into the raid.

Farm Artifice Armor

Artifice armor has a bonus slot in it that raises a chosen attribute by 3 points. This can massively improve your build, even offering you a chance to hit Tier 10 in two slots (sometimes three). If you’re serious about endgame content, you need to be farming for Artifice armor.

Planning to farm Grasp of Avarice, Duality, Spire of the Watcher, or Ghosts of the Deep when it is the featured dungeon. All things being equal, Grasp of Avarice is probably the easiest to farm.

Finish Exotic Catalysts

While you’re leveling up your crafted weapons, you need to be leveling up your Exotic catalysts. A good catalyst can dramatically improve an Exotic weapon, turning it from a ho-hum option into something everyone needs to have. As a starting point, try and finish off these Exotic catalysts:

   Gjallarhorn 
   Dragon’s Breath 
   Tractor Cannon 
   Thunderlord 
   Sleeper Simulant 
   Riskrunner 
   Cloudstrike 
   Sunshot 
   Witherhoard 
   Arbalest 
   Izanagi’s Burden 
   Lumina 
   Osteo Striga 
   Outbreak Perfected 
   Whisper of the Worm 
   Leviathan's Breath 
   Legend of Acrius

Clean Your Vault

Vault space is at a premium in Destiny 2. With so much gear to acquire, those slots fill up exceptionally quickly. The last thing you want to do at the start of a new expansion is spend time fiddling around trying to free up space so you can check out the new gear. Start cleaning your vault right now.

Dismantle anything that doesn’t bring you joy. The one caveat with cleaning your vault is that you should keep something that might be useful in an endgame activity. This could mean keeping two versions of Reed’s Regret, even though we all know that a Cataclysm god roll is S-tier.

Equip A Loadout

When The Final Shape launches, there’s a good chance the Destiny 2 API will be unavailable, which means no access to DIM. To prepare for this eventuality, equip your ideal loadout before the new expansion arrives and have your favorite guns and armor on hand. Following this, take some time to reassess your current loadouts and fix them up for the next raid.

Finishing unlocking Strand

Strand Meditations. These pesky little green things are what you need to unlock Strand. Chances are you’ve already got everything on one character, but now might be the time to get everything unlocked on your alts. This is going to take a whole lot of farming on Neomuna, so spend your time wisely, like completing Terminal Overload and Vex Incursion Zones.

Unlock Exotic armor & weapons

While you’re farming Vex Incursion Zones for Strand Meditations, you’ll also be unlocking Exotic armor. If you’re missing any pieces, make sure you either grab them while Xur is selling them, complete Legend Lost Sectors or keep hitting up the Incursion Zones. You never know which piece of armor will dominate the PVE meta when The Final Shape arrives. The same can also be said about the many Exotic weapons out there. Make sure you’re getting any that can be acquired via quests or guaranteed drops (Gjallarhorn, Divinity, etc).

Rahool’s Secret Stash

Each season you can pick up several valuable resources from Master Rahool’s Secret Stash. The location of this stash has changed to the terminal behind Rahool, which is now the Special Deliveries. Here you can pick up some Ascendant Alloys, Ascendant Shards, Exotic Ciphers, and Upgrade Modules.

The fun will all kick off on June 4, 2024. Keep it locked to our Destiny 2 Strategy Guide as we continue to cover this final season and The Final Shape.