Destiny 2: How to brew Exotic Tonics

While a current focal point of Destiny 2‘s Episode: Revenant is a Tonic system that didn’t initially work as intended, the third Act offers players a reliable way to brew Exotic Tonics. While it was possible for Guardians to create an Exotic Tonic before, there weren’t recipes for the concoction until recently. Of course, as with many things in Destiny, players aren’t just given the means to produce these valuable Tonics. First, Guardians must uncover the Tonic recipes for themselves; otherwise, strike it lucky on a never-ending treadmill of chance.

The Tonic system in Destiny 2 is a feature of Episode: Revenant that served as a way for players to influence gameplay and rewards. The idea is that players earn Tonic ingredients by defeating enemies and completing certain activities. Those ingredients can then be distilled into either a Volatile Tonic that boosts a specific effect or an Enriching Tonic that augments rewards. Of course, before Guardians can brew a Tonic, they’ll need its ingredients and the required recipe. That’s where Exotic Tonics become a bit more tricky than Rare or Legendary counterparts.

What are Exotic Tonics?

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Episode: Revenant Tonics come in different rarities. Players start with the ability to create Uncommon, green Tonics and learn new recipes as Fieldwork is completed and more Tonics are brewed. Typically, players create somewhere between four and six Uncommon Tonics to earn a recipe for a Rare Tonic, and the same is true going from Rare to Legendary. However, Exotic Tonics are a bit different, and not just in how players earn them.

Exotic Tonics are only available for one category of Tonics: Resource. As such, each helps players earn a specific Exotic currency. There are three Exotic Tonics in-game: a Tonic of Exotic Ciphers, a Tonic of Ascendant Shards, and a Tonic of Ascendant Alloys. In addition to offering a chance to earn more of the specified resource from activities and kills, each Exotic Tonic lasts for 112 minutes or nearly two hours.

How to earn Exotic Tonic recipes

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With enough time and effort, Guardians can learn all of the Uncommon, Rare, and Legendary Tonic recipes just by continuing to craft Tonics. Exotic Tonics require a specific course of actions to earn, with two taking players into the Kell’s Fall Exotic mission and another being up to lady luck. As players hunt down the Intrinsic Trait upgrades for the Slayer’s Fang Exotic shotgun in Kell’s Fall, they’ll earn two Exotic Tonic recipes, the Tonic of Ascendant Shards and the Tonic of Ascendant Alloys.

It doesn’t matter the order in which players obtain the Intrinsic upgrades, as the Tonic recipes aren’t tied to specific pickups. Instead, players need to locate and collect the Intrinsic upgrades in any order to open up more Exotic Tonic recipes. Alternatively, the final Exotic Tonic has been in the game since the start of Revenant, but it might be the hardest to make. That’s because there’s no recipe; players must get lucky while brewing other Tonics.

The Tonic of Exotic Ciphers can technically be made after players have started creating Legendary Enriching Tonics. There’s a slim chance that while brewing any Legendary Enriching Tonic, a Tonic of Exotic Ciphers will also be created. Guardians can tilt the odds in their favor by earning the Extraordinary Tonics upgrade from Eido through Major Fieldwork from the first Act. It increases players’ chance to create higher-tier Tonics while brewing, which helps but still leaves a lot to chance.

How to create each Exotic Tonic

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After players have earned the recipes for the Tonic of Ascendant Shards and the Tonic of Ascendant Alloys, they can start producing as many beverages as resources allow. Technically, the same is true for the Tonic of Exotic Ciphers, but without a specific recipe, Guardians are at the mercy of whatever reagents are plentiful or trivial to farm. Here are the ingredients required to brew the Exotic Tonics from Episode: Revenant:

Tonic of Ascendant Alloys

• Enriching Nugget (2)
• Enriching Flake (2)
• Tomb Flake (2)
• Reflective Flake (2)
• Enriching Powder (6)
• Reclaimed Vitality (60)

Tonic of Ascendant Shards

• Enriching Nugget (2)
• Enriching Flake (2)
• Tomb Flake (2)
• Reflective Flake (2)
• Enriching Powder (6)
• Reclaimed Vitality (60)

Tonic of Exotic Ciphers

As mentioned previously, the Tonic of Exotic Ciphers can be a bit of an enigma for reliable farming. Ideally, players will luck into a few as they progress Tonic recipes and Fieldwork. If not, some tips and tricks can at least help Guardians spend their ingredients wisely. One important first note is that the Tonic of Exotic Ciphers only appears when brewing Enriching Tonics. Don’t waste your time or resources with Volatile Tonics, at least in the pursuit of a Tonic of Exotic Ciphers. 

Another worthwhile consideration is the cost of each Legendary Tonic in the hunt for Tonics of Exotic Ciphers. Specifically, the World Gear category of Tonics offers the cheapest cost per Legendary Tonic. Each Legendary World Gear Tonic requires Enriching Nugget (2), Enriching Powder (3), and Reclaimed Vitality (20). Each ingredient is readily available when playing almost anything in-game, with even more significant payouts for Episode: Revenant content.

Screenshot by Destructoid

If Guardians want to eek a bit more feasible use out of the Tonics made in pursuit of some Exotic Cipher juice, they can brew from the Onslaught, Tomb of Elders, or Kell’s Fall categories instead. However, those Tonics all require an additional reagent earned from the activity with the same namesake. It costs an additional Enriching Flake for Onslaught Tonics, a Tomb Flake for Tomb of Elders Tonics, and a Reflective Flake for the Kell’s Fall Tonics. 

Going the route of weapon Tonics is a bit more work, as it demands players to frequent the activity from which they’re hunting weapons. That said, there’s no question that the rewards stand to offer a lot more than Glimmer and upgrade materials earned from dismantling set after set of Shadestalker armor.

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