A Sword Reforged (Part 2)

A Sword Reforged is an Exotic Quest to get one of three Exotic swords (Raze-Lighter, Dark-Drinker, or Bolt-Caster). This quest can be started by talking to Eris Morn once you have earned your Legendary Sword, infusing it up to 280 attack and unlocking all perks available (these must be fully unlocked). She will give you the quest it

The first step of this quest is to speak to Lord Shaxx, who will give you the task of killing 50 Majors and 25 Guardians in the Crucible with the sword. It has been found the weapon need not have Energy to count the kill, but it has reduced damage, shorter range, and a longer than normal melee cooldown, making it difficult to do. The sword will do around the same damage as a standard melee attack. A way around the recoil animation that accounts for the longer melee cooldown is to jump after your first hit and hitting again upon landing.

After completing this, speak to Lord Shaxx at the tower and he will send you off to the Dreadnaught. Here you are to kill Ecthar, Sword of Oryx. Etchar can be found by heading to The Founts area in Dreadnaught Patrol. (Go through the Cabal ship and then furthest exit on the left). Drop down the first hole in the ground and circle round until you find the entrance to the middle room. Head to the back of this room and you will see 3 Warden knights with different elemental shields, weaken them. Kill all 3 Warden Knights with 1 Super. The massive door will open, allowing you through to the Asylum. Kill all the enemies until Ecthar runs at you. His shield can only be damaged by your sword. Remember to make use of the Swords Guard ability.

Head back to the Tower and speak to Lord Shaxx. He will send you on Patrol once again. This time, you must gather planetary materials from nodes to get 10 legendary materials. These are found by collecting the material that matches your respective sword (relic iron for Void, spinmetal for Arc, helium filaments for Solar) and have a drop rate between 4-10%. You will end up gathering at least 100 of the respective material to gather all 10 quest items. I personally had to gather over 200 spinmetal for my quest. These do NOT drop from chests. In addition to the material farming, you must get 500 ability (Super, grenade, and melee) kills with the element matching your sword. The best way I was able to do this was to kill large groups of enemies near the nodes I was gathering, and finishing up with strikes once the materials were gathered. All in all, this took around 2-3 hours to complete.

Once everything has been gathered, head back to the Tower once again to talk to Lord Shaxx. He will inform you he has ordered some items from Cassoid Foundry and they will arrive on the next Armsday. At this point, just wait till Wednesday after reset. I suggest completing everything you can just before reset so that you can complete everything in one fell swoop.

On Armsday, head back to Tower where Lord Shaxx will tell you that the items have arrived and will "strengthen" your sword. He will now send you on to the final quest.

For this last quest, you must seal the blade of your sword. To do so, you are sent on The Sunless Cell strike. This time, however, it is a special strike with a recommended light of 300. It has the Epic modifier. To make things even more difficult is the actual quest portion of this. You must kill one of three Wardens (specific to your sword) followed by Alak-Hul WITHIN 30 SECONDS. The nice thing is, this strike has Matchmaking. The best thing you can do (to be nice to everyone, which is tough) is to allow all 3 Wardens to spawn. They will spawn with the waves of Thrall as you drop the Darkblade's health. Each Warden can be dropped in around 11 whacks of your sword, assuming you're using the effective element against them. Realistically, with how few have run this already, this will take several runs as the quest is very unclear as to what you must do. The best way to do this is to grab a group of your willing and able friends and run as a Fireteam to ensure this is done properly. I ran this strike 6 times before completion as people did not realize that ALL THREE Wardens can be up at once. This is difficult to handle as the Arc Warden runs around with a sword, while the Void and Solar have Boomers. In addition, the solar can throw Burn spots. To compensate for this, I ended up running the strike with a Fireteam more than once to make things a little easier for everyone. Drop the Darkblade to low health so he can be dropped very quickly, take out the Wardens followed by the Darkblade and you'll be on your way to the final portion of the quest and join the (currently) VERY few that are enjoying their new sword.

Final step is to very simply speak with Lord Shaxx, who will give you your new sword. The sword starts at 310 attack, which is fantastic as a level 30 weapon. The best part is, you get to keep your Legendary sword! For those who don't always want to use their Exotic slot on a sword, you can use your Legendary. After unlock you can also buy the sword as a level 40 version with 280 attack for an Exotic shard and 2500 glimmer. Bolt-Caster allows you to swing the sword and launch an Arc disc with decent range that deals damage over time. Dark-Drinker creates a Void vortex that launches in all directions. Raze-Lighter's special attack is a Solar light uppercut. The Special attack for each costs 5 Energy rather than the normal 1 per swing. In Crucible, it seems this cost is reduced (there were times that it was using 2 energy). Unfortunately, the damage is not instant like a normal swing, so there is time for retaliation.

In total, this quest takes some time, but for a 310 attack sword, it's definitely worth it. Total time to completion for myself, it took around 8-10 hours of actively working on the quest.