The best way to upgrade Destiny 2’s Season of the Seraph skill tree

Another season of Destiny 2 is here with “Season of the Seraph,” and that means a new upgrade tree to help your character improve over the course of the season. For Season of the Seraph, that new upgrade tree is the Exo Frame in the HELM. You’ll need the new Exo Frame Modules to purchase the upgrades.

In this guide, we’ll tell you how to find Exo Frame Modules, what the upgrades do, and what order we recommend you buy them in.

Exo Frame Modules

Image: Bungie via Polygon

As has become the custom with the past few Destiny 2 seasons, you’ll have two main Seasonal Challenges each week which will reward you with a special upgrade currency. In Season of the Seraph, that upgrade material is called Exo Frame Modules.

These materials will appear in the Seasonal Challenges tab for the first seven weeks of the season (after which you’ll have all 14 you need to max the tree), and acquiring them is the only way to upgrade the Exo Frame in the HELM — which will not only benefit you throughout the seasonal grind, but is also required for the new Seraph Seal and title.

Thankfully, all of the seasonal challenges are retroactive once they’ve been released, so you could theoretically just wait until January and unlock the entire tree all at once.

Upgrades

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Each week, you’ll be able to choose two upgrades for the Exo Frame in order to help improve your abilities in Season of the Seraph. The upgrades are broken up into two categories: Focusing Upgrades and Efficiency Upgrades.

Focusing Upgrades will give you the ability to spend resources and focus specific weapons instead of just pulling from a general pool. Efficiency Upgrades will help you earn more currency and increase your total currency cap.

There is one final category of upgrade: Infiltrator Gear. These upgrades make the process of running the seasonal activities faster and more efficient by disabling traps and other nuisances like that. You’ll unlock them automatically as the weeks go on, so you can’t choose one over the other. Still, we’ve listed their descriptions below for your convenience.

Focusing Upgrades

• Tier 1: Seraphic Armor Focusing — Gain the ability to focus individual high-stat Season of the Seraph armor pieces. Armor must be acquired previously in order to focus.
• Tier 2: IKELOS Weapon Focusing — Gain the ability to focus individual IKELOS weapons. The weapon must be acquired previously in order to focus.
• Tier 3: Seraphic Weapon Focusing — Gain the ability to focus individual Season of the Seraph weapons. The weapon must be acquired previously in order to focus.
• Tier 4: Umbral Activities — Completing raids, dungeons, Dares of Eternity, and non-seasonal playlist activities has a chance to reward Seraphic Umbral Energy.
• Tier 5: Umbral Silence — Defeating Deathtongue Choristers in playlist Heist Battlegrounds before they activate the alarm will grant Seraphic Umbral Energy at activity completion. The amount is increased in Heist Battlegrounds on Legend difficulty.
• Tier 6: Focusing Double Perk — The first IKELOS or Season of the Seraph weapon you focus each week will have an additional selectable perk.
• Tier 7: Focusing Deepsight — The first IKELOS or Season the Seraph weapon you focus each week will have a Deepsight Resonance.

Efficiency Upgrades

• Tier 1: Heisted Seraphic Gear — When opening the locked Seraph Chest in playlist Heist Battlegrounds, the chance of getting new Season of the Seraph gear is greatly increased compared to the chance of repeatedly getting gear you’ve already acquired. When a repeated item does drop, essentially a guarantee after you’ve acquired all gear, it comes with additional Exo Frame reputation.
• Tier 2: Heisted Deepsight — The first time you open a locked Seraph Chest in playlist Heist Battlegrounds each week, an additional Seraph weapon that you do not have the pattern for will drop a guaranteed Deepsight Resonance.
• Tier 3: Seraph Key Code Bounties — Exo Frame bounties reward Seraph Key Codes.
• Tier 4: Heisted High Stat — The first time each week you open a locked Seraph Chest in the Heist Battlegrounds playlist, you receive an additional high-stat piece of Season of the Seraph armor.
• Tier 5: Seraph Key Code Capacity — Increase the maximum quantity of Seraph Key Codes you can carry from 2,000 to 4,000.
• Tier 6: Seraph Key Code Combatants — Defeating combatants has a chance to reward Seraph Key Codes.
• Tier 7: Seraphic Deepsight Bonus — Locked Seraph Chests in playlist and Legend Heist Battlegrounds have a chance to drop an additional seasonal weapon with a guaranteed Deepsight Resonance that you do not have the pattern for.

Infiltrator Gear

• Tactical Armor — Allows the bypassing of traps and reduces damage taken from traps and laser barriers in Heist Battlegrounds and the mission “Operation: Seraph’s Shield.”
• Security Clearance — Allows interaction with terminals to open locked doors in Heist Battlegrounds and in the mission “Operation: Seraph’s Shield.” Can be used to gain an additional PDT Refraction Core outside of submind vaults.
• Extreme Ordnance — Allows the spawning of a power-up that refreshes all abilities and grants a damage bonus against Deathtongue Choristers in Heist Battlegrounds and Sentinel Servitors in the mission “Operation: Seraph’s Shield.”

Best order to upgrade the Exo Frame

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Upgrading the Exo Frame is a matter of preference, and you will eventually be able to unlock all 14 nodes. However, we believe that with a shorter season — only 12 total weeks, compared to the 15-week Season of Plunder — and without the luxury of using the following seasons to catch up (you won’t be able to acquire any of Season of the Seraph’s gear after Lightfall’s release), the best course of action is to unlock the seasonal crafting patterns as quickly as possible.

It’s also worth mentioning that you’ll need to upgrade your tree in tiers. So you’ll need to start with Tier 1, unlocking at least one upgrade there before moving on to Tier 2. However, you aren’t locked to a single path as you go. So you can purchase the first upgrade in Tier 1 Efficiency and then purchase the second upgrade in Tier 2 Focusing without owning the first.

With all that info out of the way, here’s the order in which we’d recommend upgrading your Exo Frame Module tree this season:

1. Heisted Seraphic Gear
2. Heisted Deepsight
3. Seraph Key Code Bounties
4. Seraphic Weapon Focusing/IKELOS Weapon Focusing
5. Seraph Key Code Capacity
6. Seraph Key Code Combatants
7. Focusing Deepsight
8. Seraphic Deepsight Bonus
9. IKELOS Weapon Focusing/Seraphic Weapon Focusing
10. Umbral Activities
11. Umbral Silence
12. Focusing Double Perk
13. Heisted High Stat
14. Seraphic Armor Focusing