(Inaccessible) All You Ever Wanted to Know about Forges

All about Black Armory and forges, up to date for year 3.

Destiny Content Vault

At the start of Year 4, forges moved on to the great Destiny Content Vault in the sky. This means they were removed from the game.

Read more about the Destiny Content Vault here.[www.bungie.net]

Accessing Forges

Forge Unlock Quest

In the Tower annex, talk to Ada-1. She will give you a Machine Gun Frame. If she does not, you need to progress the New Light quest that asks you to speak to a variety of NPCs, called "Main Quest: New Light."

The Machine Gun Frame is the forge unlock quest. Most of the quest steps are self explanatory, but these steps require some background info:

Killing powerful enemies with power weapons

Power/heavy weapons are your third gun, which uses purple ammo. Powerful enemies are enemies with an orange or yellow health bar. They can be found in abundance in some heroic public events, such as Glimmer Extraction, in Escalation Protocol, or in the entrance to the Leviathan raid. If you do not know how already, be sure to look up how to make public events heroic.

Acquiring a weapon core from a saboteur

The quest will specify two possible locations. In total, there are four locations where a saboteur can spawn, but you will only be able to get a core from either of the locations listed on the quest step. Saboteurs are randomly spawning bosses that roam around the area, guarding some black armory crates. The crates and the saboteur have blue shield drones that must be destroyed in order to deal damage to them. Saboteurs usually spawn around the time of public events. The weapon core comes from opening a crate guarded by a saboteur.

Once the quest tells you to complete a forge, you can do so by clicking on the forge icon that appears on the EDZ map. Only one forge is available per day, and it doesn't matter which one it is as long as you successfully complete it.

Other info

There is a randomly spawning miniboss in the Dreaming City called a Saboteur. This is completely unrelated to Black Armory, and is part of a secret boss encounter that gives very mediocre loot.

If Ada-1 does not give you the Machine Gun Frame quest, you probably aren't done the sequence of New Light introductory quests yet.

On release, Black Armory in its entirety was paid content. Now, most of it is free to all players. It also used to have a very long and involved set of unlock quests. This is no longer the case.

How Forges and Forge Guns Work

Weapons and Frames

Ada-1 sells seven gun frames. Each of these frames makes a specific gun, and is the only way to get that gun. All of these guns are good if you already like weapons of that type. All of them besides the machine gun frame require you to use a gun of that type in order to complete the frame, so be sure to have one of those beforehand. It is entirely possible to not have a bow and not be able to easily get a bow if you do not own Forsaken, so hold on to at least one bow if you ever aspire to do the bow frame.

• Pulse rifle: Blast Furnace, kinetic slot
  
• Bow: Spiteful fang, kinetic slot
  
• Sniper rifle: Tatara gaze, energy slot, arc
  
• Sword: Stryker's Sure-Hand, power slot, arc
  
• Hand cannon: Kindled Orchid, energy slot, void
  
• Auto rifle: Ringing Nail, energy slot, solar
  
• Machine gun: Hammerhead, power slot, void

The first time you ever do one of these frames, it will have a comparable number of steps to the Machine Gun Frame, including getting a weapon core from a saboteur. Any future copy of that frame purchased ever will have just two steps, to get radiant seeds from bosses and minibosses and to get kills with a certain kind of weapon.

The first time you buy one of these frames per week, it will cost a ballistics log, has a gold border and is called a legendary frame. These are what two of the exotic forge quests call for. The only other difference is that when you complete a legendary frame, there is a chance of getting the curated version of the gun to drop alongside a random, non-curated copy. For the rest of that week, every subsequent copy of that frame will cost modulus reports, which are infinitely farmable from daily bounties and forge completions.

Curated guns have a special shader, Bergusian Night, are fully masterworked, and have a single row of non-randomized perks. Some curated rolls are good, others are very mediocre. The shader is a guaranteed drop when dismantled.

You can choose up to two frames per week to farm in this manner. Even if you have more than two ballistics logs, you will only be able to buy two frames per week with them.

Guns from these frames will also drop black armory schematics, used to purchase things on Ada-1's second page. Depending on what forge they were made in, they can come with special forge-specific shaders.

Refurbished black armory guns are random drops from completing a forge successfully or defeating a sabotuer. These guns can only be acquired in this manner, never from a frame. I have not been able to verify if certain guns only drop from certain forges or saboteurs. Dismantling these guns is the only way to get the Refurbished Black Armory shader. The shader, being much more common than Bergusian Night, has only a low chance of dropping upon a dismantle.

The bottom row of Ada-1's first page is blue Augmented Frames. These make legendary items from whichever loot pool the frame is for. So for example, the Dreaming City augmented frame will make a random Dreaming City gun, and the Crucible augmented frame makes a random Crucible gun. The difference is that these guns have an extra toggle-able perk option, like this Bygones that can switch between rampage and kill clip.

Forges

There are four different forges on a daily rotation. They are all launched from the same map icon in the EDZ, even the two that are technically on Nessus, and Nessus daily bounties work in the Nessus forges, while EDZ bounties only work in the two set in the EDZ. The order is:

1. Volundr: Cabal enemies, can drop Anti Paladin sparrow
   
2. Gofannon: Fallen enemies, can drop Futurecraft ghost shell
   
3. Izanami: Vex enemies, can drop Fusion Matrix ghost shell
   
4. Bergusia: Fallen enemies, can drop obsidian radiance used to purchase an item that makes forge guns glow and have 5% bonus damage in forges

Forges have power level based matchmaking, so they will generally be easier if you are at or above power level 900, the point where power level increase slows and players begin to be familiar with game mechanics and invest more in keeping guns they like for longer periods of time. Forges are perfectly feasible with random matchmade players, but you do need to bring adequate boss damage to defeat the wave 3 boss in time, and random gear scooped up in the course of leveling will most likely not cut it. Ideally, you want to bring one gun of each ammo type, but you don't need to worry about farming meta weapons specifically to do forges.

Waves of enemies spawn, with some that glow blue. When the blue glowing enemies are killed, it adds time to the timer. Throwing batteries does as well, but most of your time will come from killing the blue glowing enemies. As a team, you must throw 20 batteries at the forge in rounds 1 and 2 in order to succeed. In round 2, batteries will bounce off the vertical support bars, so you must be sure to hit the center of the forge.

Maximum Temper

Upon a successful completion, by default there are 10 seconds before you are placed back in forge matchmaking. If you want to avoid this, make forges "maximum temper," which gives you 30 seconds. To do this, destroy two hidden shield drones that spawn at the start of round 2. They are in the same place every time. This is also necessary to do for the Izanagi's Burden exotic quest, detailed below. Making a forge maximum temper causes a box to materialize near the forge at the end. There is a prompt to hold E to collect loot, but you won't get anything from these except the keys for the Izanagi's Burden quest. A youtube video showing all the drone locations.

Izanagi's Burden, Jotunn, and Le Monarque

These guns are from exotic quests given by Ada-1. Only owners of Forsaken can do these quests.

Jotunn and Le Monarque's quests, A Giant's Might and Butterfly's Grace, take a minimum of 5 weeks, if you do two legendary frames every week. Before the New Light update, they were random drops from forges while forging a legendary frame, but this is no longer the case. The quests are the only way to get them. As described above, legendary frames are the ones that cost a modulus report. No other frames will count for these quests, which is why it takes a minimum of 5 weeks.

Izanagi's Burden, from the Mysterious Box and Key Mold quests, is one of the most sought after exotics for its utility in killing bosses and minibosses. It is a relatively long quest. There are a wide variety of guides for this quest that can be found elsewhere on the internet. Before the new light update, you found this quest hidden in a cave where the Volundr forge is in the open world, you could only get the Key Mold quest from Ada-1 after getting the keys from the first three forges, and the step to do Shattered Throne was much more painful because Shattered Throne was only available once every three weeks. None of those are the case any more, but it is good to know these in case you find an older guide to use.

There are a lot of different steps, but for the first one, you must complete each forge on max temper and open the crate that materializes near the forge at the end. Later steps include doing Shattered Throne and a special version of the Pyramidion nightfall, which I highly recommend getting teammates for. While the entire Izanagi's Burden quest is technically soloable, these two steps are very difficult solo.

Rare Black Armory Bounty

If possible, try to do daily bounties every day for Ada-1 in order to get a rare Black Armory bounty. These bounties drop randomly from completing daily or weekly bounties. As of Update 2.7.1, it is now a guaranteed drop if you complete all available weekly and daily bounties will acquire a rare bounty within five days. Once you have one drop, complete it and do not turn it in until you reach the step of the Izanagi's Burden quest that tells you to complete a rare bounty. Completed bounties will not expire. You have to press and hold a button to turn in a rare bounty, so there is little risk of accidentally turning it in. You can only hold one rare bounty at a time. They will give a random forge armor piece or refurbished gun upon turn in. The possible rare bounties:

• Killing enemies in forges with each elemental damage type
  
• Doing 6 forges
  
• Throwing a battery at the forge each round in 25 forges (the text says 50 rounds, so it will be longer if you forget to throw a battery!)
  
• Completing the Last Wish raid, Scourge of the Past raid, or Shattered Throne dungeon with at least 4 Black Armory items equipped.
  
• Completing a variety of activities (patrols, public events, strikes, either gambit or crucible, etc.) with at least one Black Armory weapon equipped
  
• Completing daily and weekly forge bounties
  
• Defeating enemies with 3 Black Armory weapons equipped
  
• Defeating enemies with only Black Armory guns and armor equipped

Note: some people claim to have had a rare bounty drop incredibly rarely from forge completions. Rare enough that I and many others have never experienced this after hundreds of forges, and I have doubts that this actually occurs. The gameplay footage or screenshots I have seen that show this all predate year 3, back when Ada-1 had a weekly challenge to forge two guns, and the rare bounty was shown dropping from the challenge completion, not just from doing a forge.

Scourge of the Past

Only owners of Forsaken can do this raid. It is generally considered the second shortest raid. Legendary guns from this raid will count as Black Armory guns for the purpose of Black Armory bounties. In the past, armor from this raid did not count as Black Armory armor, but I cannot verify if this has been fixed in a subsequent update.

The exotic grenade launcher Anarchy has a 10% chance of dropping from the chest at the end of this raid.

Forge Puzzles

Each forge has some odd things scattered around it, such as little boxes with symbols on them, glowing blue markings on the walls that are only visible through the scopes of forge guns, and screens that want you to present a quest. These are all clues used for one of the following hidden quests.

While forge activities are accessed through the playlist in the EDZ, each forge also has a physical location in the open world. You used to have to start forges by going to the physical locations, but now their main use is exploration and completing these objectives.

Niobe Labs and Niobe's Torment

I don't know if this requires Forsaken ownership or not. A hidden mission that requires 3 players and gives you an exotic ghost shell and an emblem upon completion. A video guide for Niobe Labs/Niobe's Torment.

Lost Souvenir

This requires Forsaken, and used to be called Mysterious Datapad before the New Light update. It appears in your quest inventory after completing the Izanagi's Burden quest. Completing it gives you a cutscene and a triumph necessary for the Blacksmith title. A video showing how to get all the "crests" (emblems) and the solution to the Lost Souvenir.

[scout_beingshotinvincible33.wav]

Hahaha I accessed it

[Earbutts]

f

[TorunSmokVT]

"All You Ever Wanted to Know about Forges" but you left out which of the specific family shaders comes from where and totally skip over the fact theyre also associated with certain frames.

[Keksut]

please add screenshots for drone locations. youtube videos are annoying

[Hyoh  ]

soloing it is a bit of a problem

[Heliopteryx]

If you cannot matchmake with other players, it could be:

An internet connection issue with your computer, or something in your settings. more info: https://www.bungie.net/en/Help/Troubleshoot?oid=13602
A server side issue.
You are at too low a power level (for example, being below 750).

[d4rasmus]

do it solo then

[Hyoh  ]

i cant find oplayers to do the forge with me

[Hyoh  ]

FUCKING HELL

[tsoL]

Thanks for putting this all in an easy to digest piece.