Destiny 2’s Ascendant Challenges are among several moving parts involving the Dreaming City’s intricate curse, which envelops the area in a three-week time loop.
The curse ranges from weak to strong to strongest, and each cycle brings a ton of treasure to hunt for – if you’re brave enough to dive into the Ascendant Plane in search of riches. Destiny 2 features six Ascendant Challenges that rotate weekly. They’re a surefire source of Dreaming City gear, including reissued versions of Waking Vigil, Tigerspite, and Twilight Oath.
Here’s how to find this week’s Ascendant Challenge and how to complete it in Destiny 2.
How to check weekly featured Ascendant Challenge in Destiny 2
To check this week’s Ascendant Challenge, use a website like TodayInDestiny. While it doesn’t feature content released after The Final Shape, it still shows rotations from previous expansions. In the Forsaken tab, check the name of the Ascendant Challenge. Then follow the steps below to find the entrance and complete it.
How to find and complete all Ascendant Challenges in Destiny 2
Agonarch Abyss
- Challenge: Agonarch Abyss
- Entrance: Bay of Drowned Wishes Lost Sector (Divalian Mists)
Each Ascendant Challenge has a special entrance that you can only see using the Tincture of Queensfoil, available from Petra Venj or found in Dreaming City chests. It grants a 30-minute buff that allows you to see the secrets of the Dreaming City.
Consume Tincture of Queensfoil and head into the Bay of Drowned Wishes Lost Sector, right next to the landing zone. Do the Lost Sector as normal and clear the first area of enemies. Before the barrier leading to the boss room, there’s a Taken portal on the right.
In the Ascendant Plane, follow Toland all the way down to the arena. Kill two Taken Wizards while occasionally clearing blights, and you’ll complete the challenge.
Ouroborea
- Challenge: Ouroborea
- Entrance: Aphelion’s Rest (The Strand Lost Sector)
The Ouroborea Ascendant Challenge starts in the Aphelion’s Rest Lost Sector, but don’t forget to stop by Petra Venj in Rheasilvia to pick up your bounty. Aphelion’s Rest is right below the gazebo by the Strand, and you can find the portal in the slope leading to the boss room.
Head inside the Ascendant Plane and you’ll spawn into an area with a series of crystals shielded by magic. You must destroy all the crystals in the room, though of course, you must dispel the magic before you can actually break them.
Look around for four Taken Blights in different corners of the Ascendant Plane. Destroying all of them also disables the magic protecting the crystals, so you can head back to the center of the room to break them all. A few Hive Knights will spawn, but they’re slow enough that they barely pose a threat.
The hardest part is actually finding all the Blights, though you can see them somewhat easily in the distance. Be careful when jumping, since you might fall into the darkness. Still, you shouldn’t have much of an issue getting to the spots you need, especially if you have an Eager Edge sword.
Cimmerian Garrison
- Challenge: Cimmerian Garrison
- Entrance: Chamber of Starlight Lost Sector (Rheasilvia)
Each Ascendant Challenge has a special entrance that you can only see using the Tincture of Queensfoil, available from Petra Venj or found in Dreaming City chests. It grants a 30-minute buff that allows you to see the secrets of the Dreaming City.
Consume Tincture of Queensfoil and head into the Chamber of Starlight Lost Sector. Do the lost sector as normal, and in the boss room, there’s a Taken portal on the cliff. Jump inside the portal to enter the Ascendant Plane.
In the Ascendant Plane, run. There are Abyssal Champions that will chase you, and while you can deal damage to them, your primary objective is to escape. The path is straightforward, but it can get tricky in the dark.
Run forward until you encounter Shriekers where the path turns to the right. Follow it until you reach a spiral staircase. At the staircase, more Abyssal Champions spawn, except these are faster. Run up the staircase and then jump across a few floating rocks to reach the final arena.
In the arena, kill the Abyssal Champion boss that spawns. Be careful of the Taken Phalanxes, who also spawn in the arena, as they can push you off. Dying in the Ascendant Plane means you’ll have to do the entire challenge again.
Shattered Ruins
- Challenge: Shattered Ruins
- Entrance: Spine of Keres (Divalian Mists)
Each Ascendant Challenge has a special entrance that you can only see using the Tincture of Queensfoil, available from Petra Venj or found in Dreaming City chests. It grants a 30-minute buff that reveals the secrets of the Dreaming City.
The Shattered Ruins Ascendant Challenge starts at the Spine of Keres in Divalian Mists. From the landing zone, follow the path to the Observatory (where the Oracle Engine leading to Mara’s throne room is) and keep going north to the shore. As you follow the road, you should see the Taken portal from afar.
Inside the Ascendant Plane, there’s a jumping puzzle with a boss fight. There isn’t anything special in this challenge – climb up the rocks while avoiding enemies and Taken blights that can push you off until you reach the top with the boss. Kill the boss, grab the loot, and exit through the portal above.
Keep of Honed Edges
- Challenge: Keep of Honed Edges
- Entrance: Harbinger’s Seclude (Rheasilvia)
Each Ascendant Challenge has a special entrance that you can only see using the Tincture of Queensfoil, available from Petra Venj or found in Dreaming City chests. It grants a 30-minute buff that reveals the secrets of the Dreaming City.
The Keep of Honed Edges Ascendant Challenge starts in the Harbinger’s Seclude. In Rheasilvia, head north across the bridge into the Awoken building. Follow the path until the very end, where there’s an Awoken statue. It’s well outside the main destination map, and that’s perfectly fine.
The Taken portal is at the top of the statue. Use the blights and rocks (you can stand on the statue’s hands) to reach it. In the Ascendant Plane, head towards the large arena. Kill all the adds, then grab the sword from the middle and kill three Knight minibosses. Knights are immune to any other damage, so you must use the relic.
After killing the Knights, Toland will lead the way towards the exit portal. You must bring the sword with you. Look out for floating and disappearing rocks as you move. Once you get to the final platform, the chest will appear, and you can safely leave.
Forfeit Shrine
- Challenge: Forfeit Shrine
- Entrance: Gardens of Esila (area south of The Strand)
Each Ascendant Challenge has a special entrance that you can only see using the Tincture of Queensfoil, available from Petra Venj or found in Dreaming City chests. It grants a 30-minute buff that allows you to see the secrets of the Dreaming City.
The Forfeit Shrine Ascendant Challenge starts in the Gardens of Esila. From the landing zone, head to The Strand, and then head south while keeping to the right. On the south end, there’s a door on the right side you can go through to reach the Gardens.
The Taken portal is behind the cliff on the left side of the Gardens of Esila. Inside, there’s an arena where you must carry three Arc Charges to the middle. Grab the Arc Charge, go back to where you entered the challenge, and deposit them at the small pool in the very center of the platform.
While you’re carrying charges, be mindful of the Abyssal Champions. These are giant knights that have a lot of health and can knock you out fast if you’re not careful. If you go down inside the Ascendant Plane, you’ll have to restart the challenge.
After depositing all three charges, you’ll see a Light pool in the middle that grants Super energy. Use your Super or anything else to defeat three Abyssal Champions and complete the challenge.
How to get Dreaming City gear in Destiny 2
Dreaming City gear got another revamp with Season of the Wish, making those weapons even more relevant. While they’re not a part of the tier system introduced in The Edge of Fate, a gun like Waking Vigil with Voltshot can still perform well.
Blind Well continues to be a good source of reprised gear (though its new power delta makes it more of a slog than before). Petra offers weekly bounties for a piece of Legendary gear and an Offering to the Oracle that you can take to Mara Sov’s throne room on weeks when the curse is strongest. You can also find an Ahamkara Bone there if you’re hunting for Cursebreaker.
In addition, check out Petra’s bounties every day for a daily objective that awards gear, as seen in its tooltip. Finishing eight daily bounties and doing Petra’s weekly quest will yield Dreaming City gear if you purchase the objectives. Like Ascendant Challenges, these are on a weekly lockout per character. You can accomplish them more than once a week if you’re not on the same Guardian.
