So, you may be spooling up Destiny 2 today to play Festival of the Lost and earn some random rolls on the Braytech Werewolf and Horror Story. And you may be exceedingly confused when Cipher Decoders, a new currency to open bonus chests in the Haunted Forest, are not really dropping for you at all. Bungie said they would show up like Umbral Engrams, but they do not drop in the wild, and only come at the end of activities. And not every activity, every time, not even close.
And yet, throughout the course of the day I have figured out the best way to speed farm these as best as I think you can. No, it’s not Nightmare Hunts or Lake of Shadows, but rather Bungie was being pretty literal when they said made it so they could drop at the end of every activity completion.
Patrols included.
Once I heard they were dropping from Patrols, I knew where I had to go. Here is my moon-based Cipher Decoder and Chocolate Coin farm where I think you can get them faster than anywhere else (albeit in a very dull fashion). A fast loading SSD will help speed this along, but it’s not mandatory.
1. Land by Eris.
2. Head right to Anchor of Light
3. Do the “kill any enemy” patrol and the “Find Toland” patrol. None should take more than 20 seconds each. If one does not appear, do the other first and then it should appear after you’re done.
4. Go back to Eris, go left to Archer’s Line.
5. Do the “kill any enemy patrol and “Find Toland patrol.
6. Warp to Sorrow’s Harbor. Do the…you get it.
7. Go back to orbit to refresh patrols.
8. Repeat
This process got me 5 Ciphers in maybe 15-20 total bounties, again, which take no more that 20-30 seconds each, and most of that is sitting around waiting for Toland to stop talking. I know people that have been playing “normally” today for hours and hours and maybe have 1-2. This was…20 minutes? Something like that. You also get a coin for every single Patrol as you do this.
Then you have 5 Ciphers to go do a Haunted Forest run. I think they stack to 25 if you want to do this more.
I used those 5 Ciphers and only got a single Werewolf roll, and four different masks. So drop rates are not great even if you do have Ciphers.
My guess is that Bungie ups the drop rates for these pretty soon here, lest this entire event feel pointless, but if you want to farm now, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find an easier, faster way to get Ciphers. Good luck.
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