How to Get Essence of Dawning in Destiny 2

A little Holiday Spirit

It’s the Dawning in Destiny 2, and Eva needs YOUR help to get THESE cookies into HUNGRY bellies. But first, we gotta scrounge up some Christmas Spirit (and by that, I mean Essence of Dawning).

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How to Farm Essence of Dawning in Destiny 2

Getting Essence is easy – it drops from every activity, be it PvP matches, Seasonal activities, Nightfall/Strike runs, or Lost Sectors. Farming Essence is a little trickier, but my go-to strategy as a solo player is Legend Lost Sectors, which drop about 17 Essence each run.

There are some other, cheesier Fireteam-based farms, like spamming the last checkpoint in the First Contact Lightfall mission, but I would be wary of relying on these since they have a penchant for being nerfed. Unless you’re absolutely hellbent on spamming Eva’s repeatable bounty for a paltry 10 Bright Dust a pop, I’d just focus on activity completions at your leisure.

Another quick tip is to get the Essential Harvest upgrade from Eva, which costs 35 Dawning Spirit (earned by delivering cookies across the system which are baked in Eva’s oven, or by completing Event Card activities). This upgrade nets you Essence every time you complete a Dawning Bounty, meaning you’ll have another passive form of Essence flowing in alongside your activity completions.

Essence of Dawning is used in every recipe that Eva offers, meaning it will almost certainly be your limiting reagent when baking cookies. It’s easy to see why players so willingly farm the stuff ad-nauseum, but I’ve rarely had issue completing my bounties while collecting it passively. I certainly haven’t run into a situation where I’ve farmed a Legend Lost sector more than a few times for a little boost.

If you’re knee-deep in the Dawning, why not stop by our Dawning Recipe Guide for 2023?


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About the Author

David Morgan

David is a pediatric asthma researcher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital by day, and Prima Freelancer by night. He always finds time for the games he loves, and then some more to tell you all about them.