Destiny 2's Presage Exotic mission will earn you Dead Man's Tale, a new Exotic scout rifle. But if you want to further improve the gun with its Exotic catalyst, you'll have to take on a much tougher version of the mission, while also seeking out a whole lot of secrets aboard the Glykon. Here's how to get the Dead Man's Tale catalyst, what it's good for, and how to unlock it quickly.

Earning the catalyst requires you to complete Presage at least twice, but you'll get faster progress on the catalyst if you're willing to run it several times. There are a lot of moving parts involved with the new Exotic quest, however. It seems that you'll want to run the mission at least once a week to get the maximum speed out of your catalyst progress.

We've got plenty more coverage of the Presage mission, including a complete guide of how to access Presage and how to uncover all of its secrets, and a rundown of all of the hidden lore found within it so far.

Step 1: Get The At Your Fingertips Exotic Quest

Once you've cleared Presage once and unlocked Dead Man's Tale, Zavala will have a new quest for you, called At Your Fingertips. The Exotic quest sends you back to the Glykon, where Presage takes place, to explore it more thoroughly. It also unlocks the Master difficulty version of the mission, which has a suggested Power level of 1320. You'll want to make sure you've geared up to handle the more-difficult enemies found within.

Step 2: Complete Presage On Master Difficulty

This is where the fun beings. Presage on Master has a suggested Power level of 1320, making the enemies found within drastically tougher to defeat than in the standard version--which is already no picnic. The tougher mission also includes a bunch of new modifiers, including Match Game, which makes it almost impossible to destroy enemy shields unless you hit them with the same element type. Finally, Master difficulty Presage includes a 25-minute timer, so you'll need to sprint through it as quickly as you can; make sure you know the route through the mission very well or you're going to fail a lot.

Master Presage also includes the Champions: Mob modifier, which suggests the mission will spawn extra Champion enemies throughout. At least in its first week, this doesn't seem to be the case--the mission actually includes no Champions right now. It's not clear if the inclusion of Champions: Mob is a mislabeling and the mission is not supposed to include Champions, or if it's bugged and no Champions are spawning. Either way, you might want to complete it as soon as possible, before Bungie has a chance to patch it and make it even tougher.

We highly recommend you bring a full three-player fireteam for Presage on Master difficulty, especially if you're not at max Power level. The mission is tough primarily because it's easy to get overwhelmed thanks to Match Game and because the timer can end your run even if you're doing well. Having three players also allows you to bring a variety of weapons to bear in the mission.

As far as loadout, we recommend bringing along powerful boss-killing weapons. We had the best luck with at least one Anarchy, which allows you to do sustained damage to the Locus of Communion boss even after you escape from the lower section of the boss room during the fight. Ticuu's Divination can also be highly effective for clearing out weaker enemies with massive explosions. Hard Light is an obvious choice for knocking out enemy shields, and sniper rifles such as Succession from the Deep Stone Crypt raid can be very effective for taking down distant enemies who can make your life difficult.

Note that the final fight is almost all enemies with Solar shields on the top floor, and Arc shields on the bottom floor, so plan accordingly. You only need to defeat the boss within the time limit.

Finish the mission and return to Zavala to complete At Your Fingertips and earn the catalyst. You'll now need to fully progress it in order to unlock its benefits.

Step 3: Search For Hidden Caches In Presage

There are two ways to complete the Dead Man's Tale catalyst. First, you can rack up kills with the weapon--but that's likely to take a while. Another method (arguably even slower, though) is to advance the catalyst by finding secret caches hidden throughout the Presage mission. This is a bit of a process in and of itself, but each cache you find will give you approximately 12.5% completion on the catalyst, allowing you to make significant leaps in unlocking it.

How To Unlock Presage Caches

There are seeming a lot of hidden caches aboard the Glykon, and you can find them in the Presage mission, but you can't always access them. They're marked by small datapad consoles you'll find on the ground near locked doors; interact with the datapad, and the door opens, revealing a chest. The thing is, you can't interact with the datapads until you accomplish a specific goal that seems tied to the lore book that drops from Presage completions, called Captain's Log.

After the first time you complete Presage, you can re-run the mission to unlock new versions of Dead Man's Tale with different perks. Completing the mission once per week after your first run also unlocks a page of the Captain's Log lore book. At the end of each lore entry is mention of a hidden cache, so it seems like you need the lore page before the cache will become accessible to you. It appears that you can get one new lore page per week, per account.

Here's where you can find the caches that are available in the mission so far.

Hidden Cache 1: Inside The First Vent

Right after you find the entrance to the ship by platforming around the side of it, you'll enter a tight, red-tinted ventilation shaft. Watch for a vent cover you can shoot out on your left, covered by some of those weird Darkness vines. Inside is the datapad and your first locked door.

Hidden Cache 2: In The Floor

Keep moving through that first set of vents and you'll walk right over the second hidden cache. It's in a hallway painted blue along the path back to the front door of the Glykon, still in the first set of hallways after you enter the vent from the outside.

We'll continue to update this list as more caches become available.

What The Dead Man's Tale Catalyst Does

Like all Exotic catalysts, the one for Dead Man's Tale significantly changes how the weapon works, adding new benefits to using it. First, the gun will now drop Orbs of Power whenever you score multikills, which can allow you and your teammates to earn your Super abilities more quickly.

The catalyst also adds a new perk that increases the gun's hip-fire rate, making it fire very quickly when you're not aiming down the sights. The catalyst also does away with the targeting penalty you'd normally suffer for not aiming, making it possible to score headshots with the gun a lot more easily. Essentially, this makes Dead Man's Tale very similar to another well-loved Exotic, The Last Word, allowing you to unload on targets from the hip with a high degree of accuracy. The catalyst increases the lethality of Dead Man's Tale quite a bit, especially in PvP situations.

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