Wish-keeper is the Strand Exotic Bow that’s been added into Destiny 2 alongside it’s Exotic Misson called Starcrossed. Today we’re going to have a closer look at Wish-keeper, check out the exotic perks and why this is a great weapon for Strand builds, plus I’m going to walkthrough the Exotic Mission Starcrossed and give you a run down of all the mechanics.

Without further delay, lets get into it.

How to get Wish-keeper

To get this bow you’ll want to complete the exotic mission Starcrossed, which is part of Season of the Wish. It’s part of week 4’s story content and you can access that by speaking to Riven in the HELM, just make sure you’re up to date with the story. Starcrossed will be available via the H.E.L.M. until The Final Shape, which is due for launch in June 2024.

In the future I imagine this will be added to the exotic mission rotator, although at the time of making the guide we don’t have a date on that. I’ll go through the mission in more detail later, but that is a quick guide for how to get the weapon.

Wish-keeper is also a craftable weapon. Once you get your first drop, you can extract the pattern and then craft your very own version from the Enclave on Savathun’s Throne World.

Wish-keeper

Wish-keeper is an Exotic Kinetic Combat Bow and comes with exotic perks

Snareweaver – Precision hits and final blows build energy towards a Snareweaver arrow that can be fired from the hip. On impact, Snareweaver arrows create a pattern of traps that suspend nearby targets.

Silkbound Slayer – This weapon deals bonus damage to suspended targets. Gain faster draw time for a short duration when you suspend a target from any source or damage a suspended target with this weapon.

Looking at the stats we have Impact 76, Accuracy 67, Stability 47, Handling 54, Reload Speed 40, Airborne Effectiveness 14, Recoil 80 and Draw Time 684.

This one comes with a number of catalysts, but they are going to be available in the weeks following the release of Wish-keeper.

• Enduring Snare Refit – Snareweaver traps last longer.
• Multi-threaded Snare Refit – Snareweaver traps can suspend more targets.
• Vorpal Weapon Refit – Increased damage against bosses, vehicles, and Guardians with their Super active.
• Hatchling Refit – Precision final blows or rapidly defeating targets with a non-precision weapon spawns a Threadling at the target’s location.

Starcrossed Exotic Mission

Starcrossed is similar to Operation Seprah Shield, in that you make your way through variosu encounters and bosses, and you’ll get Wish-keeper on your first run. In the following weeks new catalysts are going to be made available for Wish-keeper.

Starcrossed is set in the Black Garden and we venture in there with Riven and Crow on comms. The mission itself is fairly linear, but there are some key mechanics along the way. You’ll learn one mechanic, then another, then put them together before facing off against the final boss.

Traverse the Black Garden

You’ll start in the Black Garden in a large cavernous zone with trees and flowers. You want to make your way over to the opposite side and follow the Vex that attack you. Once you have made it through hear you’ll be in an open area where you have to ‘approach the structure’. Kill the Vex and Taken and then you’ll see a blue glowing patch on the ground, this will give you the buff Sire’s Obligation. This is an important mechanic throughout the exotic mission, as this buff allows you to kill enemies called Obdurate Phalanx. Keep moving forward, you’ll meet one, and you can kill it because you have the buff Sire’s Obligation. Once you’ll killed it, move forward through the gate and it’s onto the next encounter.

Overland

This is our first symbols encounter, where you’ll see 3 symbols above the exit, and you have to kill the 3 Obdurate Phalanxes in the order the symbols are presented in. Each time you load into the encounter the sequence is going to change, but you’ll want to kill them in order of the symbols from the top down, so the highest one first, the middle one second and the bottom one last. Once again you’ll have to step into the blue pools to get Sire’s Obligation buff to kill the Obdurate Phalanx near each symbol.

Traverse the Black Garden (again)

Once you have opened the way, then it’s traversing the Black Garden once again where you have to make your way through tunnels. You’ll appear in an opening and you’ll see another type of pool on the ground, and this one will give you a buff called Dam’s Gift. This allows you to move through the orange mist, or areas that are blocked off to you. If you don’t have Dam’s Gift, or the timer runs out, then you’ll get damaged and eventually will die.

Access the Transit Mechanism

That last buff was to teach you the new mechanic, now we put it into practice while fighting Vex. We have to access the transit mechanism, and this means getting the Dam’s Gift buff, and venturing into the structure and killing Gatekeeper Wyverns. Once we have killed 3 gatekeeper Wyverns, we’ll have to go back to the middle section, where there is a Malignant Wyvern and another Vex boss called Ixion, Covetous Mind. Kill them both, and make your way through the gate.

Traverse the Black Garden (again)

Next up we have another traversal section through the Black Garden caves and tunnels. This is a mild jumping puzzle, not very difficult and you just want to keep pushing forward.

Deactivate the Barrier

Make your way through the caves and tunnels and you’ll find yourself in front of another symbols puzzle. This time we have to put the mechanics together, so we’ll want to get Sire’s Obligation to kill the Obdurate Phalanx, but we also need Dam’s Gift to enter the mist sections. Together these buffs combine to be called Crowned by Dragons. Once more we have to check out the order of the symbols, and defeat the Obdurate Phalanx in order, as defined by the symbols. You’ll likely be running in and out of the middle section. Sire’s Obligation pool is quite easy to see, however, Dam’s Gift is a little trickier, it’s right by the bird symbol near the Taklen enemies. Kill all the enemies in order, then it’s time for the final boss.

Final Boss, Akardon Pitiless Mind

When you activate the barrier, you’ll be able to drop down and get the buffs once again. There’s plenty of Taken in here protecting the Vex Mind, and I would recommend going in with a team. It is possible to cheese this encounter by standing on the ledge above the pools, but I imagine Bungie will patch that pretty soon. The final boss isn’t hard at all, and once defeated you’ll get Wish-keeper.

That’s about it. Overall it’s a solid exotic mission with some good mechanics. I need to play it a few more times before I can compare it to other exotic missions, but hopefully this one will go in the exotic mission rotator in future seasons and we can start building up a nice library of content in there.

Let me know in the comments what you think of Wish-keeper, plus what do you think of the exotic mission Starcrossed, I’d love to hear what you think.