How to get the Cloudstrike Catalyst in Destiny 2

Season of the Seraph is live in Destiny 2, bringing a grand conclusion to the year before the release of Lightfall in February. While the return of Rasputin and the new Seraph weaponry is undoubtedly enjoying the spotlight, a number of notable other new pieces of loot dropped alongside them in secret. One of the most intriguing of these is a Cloudstrike Catalyst for the Exotic Sniper Rifle. Naturally, players are now scrambling to find out how to obtain it.

Cloudstrike was an Exotic that released way back in the Beyond Light expansion as a rare reward in Empire Hunts. Its power lies in its ability to cast storms, with precision final blows generating a lightning bolt at the target’s location and successive precision hits on larger targets creating an entire lightning storm in the area. The area of effect of the lightning bolts has made Cloudstrike a deadly tool for talented PvP players, who can easily turn one kill into many with a precision headshot on the right enemy Guardian.

Its PvP powers aren’t in question, but it has been somewhat overshadowed in PvE. As a rapid-fire sniper rifle that’s supposed to deal great amounts of damage with rapid precision shots, it should be great on raid and dungeon bosses. However, a fleeting ammo capacity and an inability to generate lightning storms on the cage of Divinity until this season prevented it from truly excelling in this department.

But in Season of the Seraph, Cloudstrike now works with Divinity and its new Catalyst solves its ammo economy issue. That’s because according to reports, the new Catalyst gives Cloudstrike the perk Triple Tap, a perk constantly sought out on weapons like it as scoring rapid precision hits will refund ammo to the magazine and extend your damage uptime.

Related: All new Season 19 weapons in Destiny 2 from Pro Game Guides

Where to get the Cloudstrike Catalyst in Destiny 2

The Cloudstrike Catalyst, according to the Collections tab, is available via the core playlists. This means it is most likely a random drop from Strikes, Gambit, and the Crucible that can be earned upon the completion of matches. Whether endgame activities such as Nightfalls or Competitive Division offer a greater drop chance remains to be seen.

How to complete and equip the Cloudstrike Catalyst

Once you have acquired the Catalyst, you will need to get 400 kills with Cloudstrike to complete it and equip its effects to the Exotic weapon. The newfound potential it has in PvE will make the investment well worth it, especially if the weapon meta in endgame content ever pivots back to Sniper Rifles over Linear Fusion Rifles again.