Destiny 2 guide: Prismatic Recaster and Umbral Engrams

In Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals, everything revolves around the new Umbral Engram. Known previously as the [REDACTED] Engram, players can pick up Umbral Engrams from any activity in the world and transform it into the kind of gear they want.

Players will need to use a combination of materials — Twisted Energy, Altered Element, Trace Override — and two different machines — the Prismatic Recaster and the Umbral Decoder — to make this process work.

In this Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals guide, we’ll show you how to collect and decode Umbral Engrams into the gear you want most, as well as upgrade your Prismatic Recaster.

Collecting Umbral Engrams

Image: Bungie via Polygon

There’s not much you can do with the Prismatic Recaster without Umbral Engrams, but these new items are very easy to stumble into. You can earn Umbral Engrams from completing activities like Crucible matches or picking it up from random enemies, like a Prime Engram. The Contact Public Event on Io also has a very high chance of rewarding you with an Umbral Engram. You also get a free Umbral Engram when you upgrade the Prismatic Caster, but we’ll get to that later.

Once you have an Umbral Engram — or several — you’ll need to take it to the Prismatic Recaster in the Tower, near The Drifter.

Focusing your Umbral Engram with the Prismatic Recaster

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Using the Prismatic Recaster — the giant, glowing engine to the left of The Drifter — you can focus the contents of your Umbral Engram. There are three levels of focus, which unlocks alongside your Season Pass rank. At first, you can access Basic Umbral Focusing. At rank 32 on the Premium Season Pass, you can unlock Improved Arsenal Focusing. And at rank 72 on the Premium Season Pass, you can unlock Improved Armor Focusing. Note that you can only use Umbral Focusing for new weapons if you own Season of Arrivals.

Umbral focusing narrows your Umbral Engram’s contents down to a handful of items. After you focus it, you can decode it at the Umbral Decoder, just to your right. Depending on how you focused your Umbral Engram, it will randomly drop one of the possible rewards.

Umbral Focusing also costs certain currencies, and the more specific you get, the more expensive Focusing becomes. Basic Umbral Focusing costs an Umbral Engram and 50 Altered Element. Improved Arsenal Focusing costs an Umbral Engram and 100 Altered Element. Improved Armor Focusing costs an Umbral Engram, 250 Altered Element, and a Trace Override.

You can earn a handful of Altered Element every day by completing Prismatic Recaster daily bounties or completing Triumphs. You can buy Trace Overrides from the Prismatic Recaster once you level it up seven times. You also get three free Umbral Focuses a week, and you can increase the number of free Umbral Focuses you get with perks.

Here is the complete list of loot that can drop from each type of Focused Umbral Engram.

Basic Umbral Focusing

• Pyramid-Focused Umbral Engram: False Promises kinetic auto rifle, Hollow Words Arc fusion rifle, Temptation’s Hook Arc sword, Whispering Slab kinetic bow. When you unlock the Cold Denial kinetic pulse rifle and Falling Guillotine Void sword from the Premium Season Pass, they can also drop from this engram
• Armor-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set
• Legacy-Seasons Umbral Engram: Seventh Seraph CQC-12 Solar shotgun, Seventh Seraph VY-7 Arc submachine gun, Martyr’s Retribution Solar tube grenade launcher, Breachlight kinetic sidearm, Temporal Clause Void machine gun, Optative Void hand cannon
• Dredgen-Focused Umbral Engram: Bad Omens Void rocket launcher, Lonesome kinetic sidearm, Gnawing Hunger Void auto rifle, Night Watch kinetic scout rifle

Improved Arsenal Focusing

• Rifle-Focused Umbral Engram: False Promises kinetic auto rifle, Hollow Words Arc fusion rifle
• Edge-Focused Umbral Engram: Temptation’s Hook Arc sword, Whispering Slab kinetic bow
• Arrival-Focused Umbral Engram: Cold Denial kinetic pulse rifle, Falling Guillotine Void sword
• Worthy-Focused Umbral Engram: Seventh Seraph CQC-12 Solar shotgun, Seventh Seraph VY-7 Arc submachine gun
• Dawn-Focused Umbral Engram: Martyr’s Retribution Solar tube grenade launcher, Breachlight kinetic sidearm
• Undying-Focused Umbral Engram: Temporal Clause Void machine gun, Optative Void hand cannon
• Contrast-Focused Umbral Engram: Bad Omens Void rocket launcher, Lonesome kinetic sidearm
• Lead-Focused Umbral Engram: Gnawing Hunger Void auto rifle, Night Watch kinetic scout rifle

Improved Armor Focusing

• Discipline-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set with a high Discipline stat
• Intellect-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set with a high Intellect stat
• Mobility-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set with a high Mobility stat
• Recovery-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set with a high Recovery stat
• Resilience-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set with a high Resilience stat
• Strength-Focused Umbral Engram: A piece from the Season of Arrivals Holdfast armor set with a high Strength stat

Upgrading your Prismatic Recaster

Image: Bungie via Polygon

You can upgrade your Prismatic Recaster for bonus perks and rewards this season, much like the Seraph Bunkers in Season of the Worthy or the Obelisks in Season of Dawn. For each rank, you need 250 Twisted Energy, which you can only get from weekly Prismatic Recaster bounties (1,000 per character each week) and the Season Pass (250 at Premium rank 2 and 12, as well as 1,000 at Premium rank 92).

With each rank, you can buy a new Gift (perk) for the Prismatic Recaster. At certain ranks, you can also buy new mods, cosmetic items like a ship, or a Trace Override.

The Gifts have tiers just like the Umbral Focusing, and they also have three ranks. You need to buy all of the rank one perks before you can move on to rank two, and so on. The only Gift we recommend you pick up first is Umbral Mastery, which gives you powerful rewards from your Umbral Engram and deposits a small amount of Twisted Energy directly into the Prismatic Recaster whenever you decode an Umbral Engram.

Here is the complete list of Prismatic Recaster perks:

Rank 1

• Umbral Enhancement 1: Unlocks Umbral Focusing capabilities for the Prismatic Recaster. Allows Season of Arrivals owners to get Seasonal weapons
• Umbral Discovery 1: Earn a bonus, daily Umbral Engram by completing certain activities
• Contact Specialist 1: Increases the chance of finding Umbral Engrams during Contact events
• Prismatic Transmutation 1: Adds a small chance that Umbral Engrams from Heroic Contact completions drop pre-focused
• Blood Into Stone 1: Using a Finisher on a Elite or Champion enemy has a small chance to give you planetary materials
• Free-Focus Lens 1: Up the weekly free Umbral Focusing count from three to four
• Umbral Mastery 1: Your first three Umbral Engrams drop higher power items, injects some Twisted Energy into the Prismatic Recaster each time you decrypt a Umbral Engram

Rank 2

• Umbral Enhancement 2: Unfocused Umbral Engrams can drop Exotics, all Umbral Engrams drop shaders, immediately injects all earned Twisted Energy into the Prismatic Recaster
• Umbral Discovery 2: Umbral Discovery is now twice a day
• Contact Specialist 2: Further increases the chance to find Umbral Engrams
• Prismatic Transmutation 2: Increases the chance that Umbral Engrams from Heroic Contact will come pre-Focused
• Blood Into Stone 2: Increase the chance for a Finished Elite or Champion to drop materials
• Free-Focus Lens 2: Up the weekly free Umbral Focusing count from four to five
• Umbral Mastery 2: Improves your ability to compete in the Contact event, letting you hold 15 motes and bank it for a heavy ammo box (this Gift is possibly bugged, as this should be possible for all by default)

Rank 3

• Umbral Enhancement 3: Focused Umbral Engrams drop weapons with an option for a second final perk and increased stat rolls on armor
• Umbral Discovery 3: Umbral Discovery is now three times a day
• Contact Specialist 3: Increases the chance to find Umbral Engrams even further
• Prismatic Transmutation 3: The chance that Umbral Engrams from Heroic Contact will come pre-Focused is maxed at 15%
• Blood Into Stone 3: The chance for a Finished Elite or Champion to drop materials is maxed at 15%
• Free-Focus Lens 3: Up the weekly free Umbral Focusing count from five to six
• Umbral Mastery 3: Reduces the cost of all Umbral Focusing by 50% (note that this Gift requires Prismatic Recaster rank 21 to unlock)

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