D2: Crafting Weapons

First things first

To craft a weapon you need its blueprint, and that means a weapon must drop with Deepsight Resonance (DR) active on it, indicated by a red border around the weapon icon.

Note that some weapons can drop with a red-border icon, but they won’t be craftable weapons.  Regardless, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt to extract the resonance.  The only way to get the material needed to craft weapons is through completion of the Deepsight extraction process, apparently.

To extract materials from a weapon, you will need to progress its Resonance bar to 100%.  Accomplish this by simply using the weapon to dispatch enemies, and completing activities with the weapon equipped.

Be aware that the majority of weapons that can be crafted will require multiple extractions in order to get the blueprints.  Drilling down into “Patterns & Catalysts” within your Triumphs tab will present you with the current weapons in your possession that can be crafted.  Hovering over a weapon will declare the number of extractions required for that particular weapon.  For example, the Sweet Sorrow auto rifle needs 5 extractions, meaning you’ll need multiple copies of the Deepsight versions (i.e. dropping with a red-border icon) of this weapon to be able to unlock it.

And now, a warning — you can only extract a weapon one time.  Using the Deepsight extraction process on a weapon will turn that weapon into an ordinary gun.  After extraction, do with it what you may.  To keep the blueprint progress rolling, more copies of the weapon in Deepsight form will need to drop for you.

Relic weapon crafting table in the Enclave on Mars. — Bungie

Finally, a blueprint

With your weapon blueprint firmly in your grasp, it’s now time to engage in weapon-smithing.  Go to the Enclave on Mars and interact with the Relic.  Open the crafting menu by selecting “Shape,” and select the weapon that you want to tinker with.

The Intrinsic stat is simply in default mode at level 1.  Understanding how previous Masterworking of weapons is done will give you a good sense of how elevating the Intrinsic stat is done — it’s very similar.

Up next will be your choice picks for crafting the 2 minor perks, such as magazines, barrel types, that sort of thing.  This is followed by your choice for the 2 major perks (i.e. traits).

As with all things Destiny, crafting weapons is an expensive process.  Right?  The basic perk versions require “Neutral Element” and “Resonant Alloy” currency to be able to slot them.  If this is your first weapon-crafting experience, it should only cost you 750 Neutral Elements and 5 Resonant Alloys (plus some Glimmer).  Keep in mind you won’t have access to the higher level perks until the weapon is levelled up, which of course, requires that you routinely use the weapon as you dispatch the alien invaders.  A noble concept.

Note that most perks on a weapon will unlock by level 16, and at level 20, you will get another minor stat boost.

Patterns & Catalysts page in the Triumphs tab. — Bungie

The materials

The only way to get the materials to enable weapon-crafting, is exploiting with Deepsight Resonance extraction on weapons that drop with a red-border icon.

Extracting the resonance on a weapon will net you 200 Neutral Element currency, and 12 variable legendary elements.  Crafting a weapon nay employ up to 4 different legendary elements, correlating to a specific perk type, which, by the way, caps at 250:

     Element — Remarks

     Adroit — handling, accuracy, ability, etc.

     Energetic — movement, ammo, reload speed, Frenzy, Subsistence, etc.

     Mutable — ability-based, energy-based, Moving Target, etc.

     Ruinous — damage-based perks.

Getting a weapon that drops with Deepsight Resonance will enable you to extract 2 possible legendary elements that are based on the perks of the weapon that dropped for you.  Simply hover over the perks on the weapon that dropped to see the amount of that specific material available to you.  There is NO OTHER WAY to visualize the amount of crafting material you have at any given moment, aside from actually being at the crafting site.

Another significant currency for crafting is called “Resonant Alloy,” which is acquired by dismantling legendary weapons.  The vast majority of weapons will cost 5 Resonant Alloy to craft something (although some weapons are a bit more expensive).

Reshaping a weapon entails re-working the perks of a weapon that has already been crafted.  In this process, feel free to exchange anything that’s available on the weapon, while keeping in mind that perk pools may limit your perk choices.  At this point you may want your crafted weapon to feature an enhanced trait.  Yes — that’s right — they’re like traits — only enhanced.  Which means bigger buckazoids!  Not too surprisingly, enhanced traits are very expensive.  Expect to shell out many more Neutral Elements and an “Ascendant Alloy” (AA currency, which is essentially an Ascendant Shard, but for weapon-crafting).

Earn AA currency from the Weekly Campaign mission that’s unlocked when you get Fynch up to rank 13.  When Fynch attains the rank of 18, the Wellspring master mode is unlocked, rewarding AA currency upon completion of that activity.  Note that at the time of this posting, the AA currency frequency and amount is not yet known.

But you can also beg AA currency from the cryptarch (Master Rahool) in the Tower once per week, for a cost of 400 legendary shards.  Get another AA currency piece from the gunsmith (Banshee-44) in the Tower once your rank with him reaches level 16.  The maximum number of AA currency that you can hold at any one time is 10.

Mementos

Mementos add cosmetic options to change the look and feel of your weapon, but don't provide any weapon function parameters. If you're looking for special shaders and trackers, you'll want to complete specific activities so that you can unlock them for some added vanity flair.  Mementos are earned from high difficulty activities, and again, as of this posting, they appear to only be available via Gambit.

Dismantling weapons

Unfortunately, you won’t retrieve any previous materials when dismantling weapons.  You will get Resonant Alloy currency from dismantling legendary weapons, but that’s it.  In terms of reshaping weapons, you may do that as often as you wish, provided you have the materials available.  But again, there is no currency recovery in the reshaping process, only expenditure.

More reading

Glean more information from these excellent Gamespot articles:

• Destiny 2 Weapon Crafting Guide

• Destiny 2 Wellspring Activities