How to get Dawning Essence in Destiny 2’s The Dawning

If you’re looking to bake cookies in Destiny 2’s Dawning event, you’ll need a slew of ingredients, including the mystical Dawning Essence. This resource is a core part of the Dawning’s recipes and cookie-baking, and you’ll need lots of it if you want to make the most out of the celebrations.

All Dawning recipes require three different ingredients: an enemy-based ingredient, a kill-based ingredient, and Dawning Essence. Enemy-based ingredients are straightforward: they have a chance of dropping whenever you kill a specific enemy type. Defeating a Cabal enemy, for instance, has a chance of dropping Cabal Oil.

No matter the ingredients you obtain, though, all Dawning recipes have another aspect in common: they all require Dawning Essence. Here’s how you can get this resource.

How to get Dawning Essence in Destiny 2’s The Dawning

Dawning Essence drops from activity completions. Strikes, Crucible, and Gambit matches are a given since they make up the core activities, but Dawning Essence will also drop from Dares of Eternity, seasonal activities, Lost Sectors (with Legend and Master offering bigger payoffs), and even public events.

This means you’ll get Dawning Essence by doing pretty much any activity in Destiny 2. Of course, they won’t all yield the same amount, and some farms are far better than others if you’re looking to stock up on Dawning Essence.

Best Dawning Essence farms in Destiny 2

Dungeon encounters

Dungeon encounters can net you some new gear and quite a bit of Dawning Essence, especially if you’re farming them repeatedly. We recommend picking short, quick encounters and teaming up for this, since this will give you more Dawning Essence per time spent.

If you’re just after Dawning Essence, we highly recommend farming Dûl Incaru in the Shattered Throne if you have a checkpoint for it, but any encounter that can be finished quickly works for this. Farming Dûl Incaru gave us around 21-22 Dawning Essence per clear, which happened in a matter of minutes.

The Rathil fight is also a good contender since it lets you farm loot from the first encounter in Warlord’s Ruin. It doesn’t need any checkpoints, either, making it relatively easy to get into. Dûl Incaru is far faster, though.

First Contact checkpoint farming

This farm pops up whenever Destiny 2 brings up an event, and for good reason. This easy farm just requires you to run the First Contact mission from Lightfall until you get the checkpoint at the end of the mission, by the time you get to the Drop Pod (but don’t go inside just yet).

Change characters to save the checkpoint, then have a friend join your team on the character with the checkpoint. From there, run the mission as normal, grab your Dawning Essence, and repeat the process, as explained by glitch content creator Cheese Forever. Bungie has patched this farm before, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Legend Lost Sectors

Legend Lost Sectors are on the higher end of the difficulty spectrum, but they definitely pay off if you want to farm. Their short length means they can be done fairly quickly, even when soloing. If you have a fireteam, though, they can turn into a quick and easy task that will give you around 20 Dawning Essence in a matter of minutes. In our experience, we were getting 16-17 Dawning Essence from completions, plus another three from the Lost Sector chest.

The downside of running it with a team is that you miss out on the chance of getting Exotic drops. But if you’re focusing on Dawning Essence and nothing more, bringing a squad will help you hoard Dawning Essence in no time.

We got lucky enough to have Perdition as the Lost Sector during the first day, which was easy to solo. If you’re comfortable with your solo skills, this can be a good way to farm some Dawning Essence without needing the help of other players. This method is subject to the Lost Sector rotation, though, since longer Lost Sectors (like the Moon) will extend your farming time significantly.

Ritual activities

Strikes, Gambit, and Crucible are the cornerstone of Destiny 2 activities, and Bungie tries to keep them fresh enough that players can grind them mindlessly. For the Dawning, this tried-and-true formula also comes with Dawning Essence as a reward. If you’re chasing a roll of Breakneck, for instance, it might be time to set foot in Gambit knowing you’ll have Engrams and Dawning Essence for your trouble.