One of Destiny 2's Oldest Currencies Is Going Away. Best Ways to Spend Legendary Shards Before The Final Shape

Legendary Shards have been a part of Destiny 2 since 2017, but with the upcoming launch of The Final Shape, the last chapter in the game's multiyear Light and Darkness saga, all those shards will be going away for good. Some of us have been hoarding them for years, amassing thousands of those shiny little purple gems. Now that they're going away, we need to unload them as fast as possible -- and get some value for our amassed treasure.

There are different ways to spend Legendary Shards, some more efficient than others. There isn't much time left, as the Final Shape goes live on June 4 (or with an early look today if you saw the PlayStation leaks), so jump on these ways to convert them as soon as possible.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape

The last DLC of the Light and Dark Saga

The Final Shape is the culmination of a saga that has spanned a decade. It finishes the light and dark saga that started in Destiny, and while it isn't the end of Destiny 2, it's going to be a neat bookend to lead Bungie in a new direction.

$50 at Xbox

Depending on your gaming style, there are multiple ways that Legendary Shards can be useful to exchange. If you play a lot of player versus enemy, Raid banners are a good choice, but if you play mainly player versus player, like Crucible or Trials of Osiris, banners are not going to be as helpful as Glimmer, which remains the main currency of Destiny 2.

How I'm spending my Legendary Shards

I'm one of those Destiny 2 players that's in it for the monsters. I love to do PvE over PvP, and play a lot of endgame content like Raids, Dungeons and legendary events like Onslaught. To that end, I've spent a chunk of my Shards on Raid banners, which give your team members extra energy and ammo. I now have three stacks of 100 to see me through and the rest of my shards I'm converting to Phantasmal Fragments, so I can have a nice supply of Glimmer moving forward. Having that supply of Glimmer lets me use my Ghost upgrade slot for other things, too. 

The best uses for Legendary Shards are:

• Exchange for Raid banners (PvE)
• Exchange for Glimmer if you have space
• Exchange for Phantasmal Fragments (for future Glimmer use)
• Grab a tier 5 Masterwork from Banshee if there's time (which I don't think there is)

You could also just not bother and let them go away.

Raid banners

The simplest way to spend your Legendary Shards is through Raid banners. You can buy one for three Shards, but you should buy 10 for 30 Shards and be done with it. You can currently stack 100 Raid banners per inventory slot, but they're so helpful it's worth having a few stacks to see you through. 

Raid banners are not just used in Raids. They can be placed at significant battles across multiple playlist activities, such as Onslaught and Dungeons, so stocking up is a good idea.

Exchange for Glimmer

Glimmer is a resource that never goes out of style. It's the main currency of the game and, as such, is needed for almost every transaction. One of the easiest ways to get rid of your shards is a direct conversion of 10 Shards for 10,000 Glimmer at Master Rahool's material exchange in the Tower. As you can hold 500,000 Glimmer at any time, it's an easy way to use 500 Legendary Shards in one go. 

This way of exchanging Shards for Glimmer will only work while you still have access to the Shards. If you want to have a way to get more Glimmer after the Final Shape is live, you need a secondary resource.

Phantasmal Fragments

Phantasmal Fragments are that secondary resource. Found at the Lectern of Enchantment on the Moon, you can convert 10 for 10,000 Glimmer. The catch is that they cost 10 Legendary Shards to buy, so you aren't getting as good a deal on the exchange. That being said, they will still be available to you in The Final Shape, so you can get the benefit even after Legendary Shards go away.

There's also no stack limit for Phantasmal Fragments, so you can have as many as needed in your inventory and still only take up one slot.

Masterwork and doing nothing

One of the ways you could spend Legendary Shards that would have been very helpful is by buying the level 5 Masterwork weapon that Banshee occasionally carries. That will always deconstruct into an enhancement core, so you could buy that weapon and farm cores that way. However, we're running out of time, and there's a random chance that he'll have the Masterwork between now and June 4, so it may not be an efficient use at this point.

The final thing you can do with the Legendary Shards is the easiest. You can do nothing and let them go away when the Final Shape loads up for the first time. After all, the economics of Destiny 2 are not particularly unkind when it comes to resources. Raid banners are given through your season (or episode as they are called now) passes, and Glimmer is available on almost every kill. You could just save yourself the hassle and not bother. It's really your call.

What else is going away when the Final Shape arrives?

A fair bit of content and several different materials are leaving when the Final Shape rolls around. It's always hard to lose content, especially if you like it, but Bungie has its reasons (I guess). I really dislike that the Hall of Champions is going away, but the Onslaught missions aren't. Odd choice, I think. Here's what Bungie says is leaving with the Final Shape update:

• All Bounties, Missions, Quests, Engrams, Seasonal Heirlooms, and Artifacts from Season of Defiance, Season of the Deep, Season of the Witch, Season of the Wish, and Into the Light
• All Ritual and Pinnacle Weapons and Ornaments from Tower Vendors (the gear will become available in the Monument to Lost Lights Exotic Archive)
• Legendary Shards
• Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit Bounties
  • These are being replaced with a new Ritual Pathfinder rewards system.
• Mementos
  • These will become one-time consumables with the launch of The Final Shape and will appear unlocked for use on any crafted weapon when consumed. Note: Mementos share the same inventory space.
  • Dismantling these before The Final Shape launches will not add them to your crafted weapon inventories.
  • Crafted and enhanced weapons will no longer need to visit the Relic on Mars to apply mementos. Players can apply the memento of their choosing directly in the weapon inspection screen.
  • Memento stack cap limits will be raised from 1 to 3.
  • If you are holding three (or more) of a particular memento, it will not drop again until you spend your mementos to be under the stack size limit of three.
  • Using or replacing a Memento will remove it from your Memento inventory.
• Spec Mods: Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, Adept Big Ones Spec
• Defiant Keys
• Deep Dive Keys
• Salvage Keys
• Fishing Tackle
• Witch's Keys
• Powerful Offerings
• Robust Offerings
• Feeble Offerings
• Lair Keys
• Wish Tokens
• Trophies of Bravery
• Resonant Alloy
• Harmonic Alloy

All of those keys and tokens make sense as the activities that they're connected to are also leaving -- you should cash out those engrams too, before they go -- and the bounties are being replaced with a new system. We're losing seasonal content, which still irks me, but it's been that way for a while now, so we have to take it on the chin.

I'm still excited to play The Final Shape, even though we're losing some content. It's the culmination of hundreds of hours of gaming, and I can't not finish the ride. My bonk Titan is going to be ready and willing to go prismatic and take on the Witness. He'll just be a little lighter without all those pesky Legendary Shards weighing him down.