The Salvager’s Salvo is a new ritual grenade launcher in Destiny 2‘s Season of the Chosen, and it’s a fun one. With an assortment of useful perks and powerful base stats, the Salvager’s Salvo is a great weapon to have in your arsenal for PvP and PvE. It’s a grind to earn, though. Here’s how to unlock the Salvager’s Salvo ritual weapon in Destiny 2.
Get the most out of Season of the Chosen
- Destiny 2: Battlegrounds guide
- Destiny 2: How to unlock and upgrade the Hammer of Proving
- Destiny 2 Gambit guide: How to melt the Primeval fast
How to unlock the Salvager’s Salvo
You’ll earn the Salvager’s Salvo for completing the Messy Business quest. The quest steps speak for themselves, though we have a few tips to make the grind a little easier. Before that, though, you need to actually pick up the quest.
Banshee-44 has it in the Tower, and as long as you’ve spoken to him since the start of Season of the Chosen, you should already have the quest in your inventory. You need to rack up 7,500 points from Gambit, Crucible, and/or strikes, as well as complete a certain number of matches. In true Destiny 2 fashion, the points are nebulous. However, grenade and grenade launcher kills award more progress. Gambit and Crucible wins award bonus progress, too, as do Nightfall strikes.
- Complete 100% of matches — Awarded for completing strikes, Gambit, and Crucible matches. Victories and Nightfall strikes award bonus progress.
- Earn 7,500 points — Awarded for defeating enemies during strikes, Crucible, or Gambit. Grenade and grenade launcher kills award bonus progress.
As long as you’re playing Destiny 2, you shouldn’t have any program completing the matches. Nightfall strikes are slightly better for progress, but you’ll hit 100% of matches well before you earn 7,500 points (we had around 4,500 points when the matches were complete). The grind is completing those final matches.
To make things as easy as possible, make sure to equip a breech-loading and barrel-loading grenade launcher, as well as any mods that lower the cooldown of your grenade. Other weapons award points, but you want to try to get as many kills with grenades as possible. If you have a proper setup, you can easily cut the number of matches you need to complete in half.
As far as what game mode you should use, it comes down to where you think you can get the most kills. We tackled Gambit mainly, as the constant mobs of enemies provide plenty of fodder for your grenades. Nightfall strikes award bonus progress, but you shouldn’t grind them with randoms. There aren’t nearly as many enemies to kill in most strikes, and ammo drops can be few and far between without the right mods.
Crucible is, well, Crucible. You can grind the Mayhem playlist and spam your super to rack up kills. Otherwise, your mileage will vary widely depending on what gear you have and how much you play Crucible.
We finished the quest after around 10 Gambit matches and 20 strikes, but the number of matches it will take is entirely dependent on how many enemies you kill with grenades. Keep in mind that only final blows award progress, not just damage.
After you’re done, head back to the Tower and speak with Banshee-44 to claim the Salvager’s Salvo.
Salvager’s Salvo perks and mods
The Salvager’s Salvo is a breech-loading grenade launcher, meaning it fires one grenade at a time and uses special ammo, not heavy ammo. It has the perks Quick Launch and Spike Grenades by default. Quick Launch speeds up aiming while Spike Grenades increases stability and damage on direct hits.
It also has four other traits in two categories:
- Ambitious Assassin or Demolitionist
- Vorpal Weapon or Chain Reaction
Ambitious Assassin is a killer. As a breech-loading launcher, you can only fire the Salvager’s Salvo once before you need to reload. With Ambitious Assassin, you’ll be able to load more shots as you get kills with the weapon. Demolitionist builds your grenade meter for every kill, and when you throw a grenade, triggers a reload. This can be very effective, too, allowing you to almost instantly recharge your grenade after throwing it (provided you get enough kills).
Vorpal Weapon is a little unexciting, though still useful. It increases damage against bosses, vehicles, and Guardians with their Super active. Chain Reaction adds a little bit of flare, creating an elemental damage explosion whenever you get a final kill.
