How to get Essence of Dawning fast in Destiny 2


Essence of Dawning is by far the most important resource in The Dawning 2024, with it being required to make cookies in the annual Destiny 2 event.

You are going to need a lot of it, as collecting the ingredients alone isn’t enough. Every cookie requires 15 Essence of Dawning, and you’ll have to make a lot of them to progress through and complete the event before it is removed on December 31, 2024.

There are a lot of ways to get Essence of Dawning, but most of them are inefficient and a waste of your time. To help you avoid using these subpar methods, we’ve put together this guide outlining the best Essence of Dawning farms in the game.

How to get Essence of Dawning

Essence of Dawning is very easy to get, as it drops from every activity in Destiny 2. If you complete a campaign mission, raid, dungeon, Lost Sector, or anything else, you will receive Essence of Dawning as a drop.

We’ve broken down the best methods below, detailing exactly how you can get Essence of Dawning as fast as possible regardless of whether you are in a fireteam, playing solo, or consider yourself a more casual player.

Best Essence of Dawning farms

First Contact campaign mission – Best farm for fireteams

A Guardian riding a Sparrow in the opening section of the First Contact mission in Destiny 2's Lightfall campaign.

The absolute fastest way to get Essence of Dawning involves the First Contact mission from the Lightfall campaign. By following these instructions, you’ll be able to farm hundreds of Essence of Dawning per hour:

  1. Play through First Contact until after you have defeated the final Tormentor and reached the last room.
  2. After activating the checkpoint, leave the mission and rejoin your teammate on a different character.
  3. Enter the drop pods together to end the mission. This will give everyone on your fireteam 17 Essence of Dawning.
  4. Swap back to the original character you got the checkpoint on and repeat the above steps.

Unfortunately, this method requires at least two people to preserve the checkpoint on your original character. Otherwise, the checkpoint will expire as soon as you finish the mission, preventing you from loading back in and loading in right next to the drop pods.

Expert Lost Sectors – Best farm for solo players

The entrance to an Expert Lost Sector in Destiny 2.

Completing Legend difficulty Lost Sectors rewards 20 Essence of Dawning. A skilled player with a suitable loadout will be able to clear these within 5 minutes, making this the most efficient solo farm in Destiny 2.

This method will be better on some days than others, depending on the active Lost Sector rotation. Some Lost Sectors are very easy and can be completed in under two minutes, while others are far trickier and require practice to master. Regardless, this is still a great option if you are looking to make as many cookies as possible, as you’ll also get plenty of ingredients and Exotics as you play.

EDZ Public Events – Best farm for casual players

An active Cabal Excavation public event on the EDZ in Destiny 2.

The above methods are effective but difficult for your average player. If you want a more casual method that is still decent, try farming Public Events on the EDZ instead. Each completion rewards 5 Dawning Essence, and these only take a few minutes, making this a good option if you want to sit back and take things easy.

Making a Public Event heroic does not increase the amount of Dawning Essence it rewards. As such, it is not worth doing unless you are also farming Glimmer, with Public Events being among the best Glimmer farms in the game.

Ritual activities – Best passive farm

The UI to search for a Nightfall in Destiny 2, one of the game's many ritual activities.

You don’t necessarily have to go out of your way to get Dawning Essence. While the fastest methods are listed above, simply completing ritual activities works too. By working your way through Crucible matches, Nightfall strikes, and Gambit games, you’ll rack up plenty of Dawning Essence overtime while working on other grinds.

It’s not like there’s a lack of good weapons to farm from Ritual Activities either. Be it Wicked Sister from Vanguard, Anonymous Autumn from Crucible, or Bygones from Gambit, all three have something to offer. Working towards getting god rolls of weapons like these is a great way to passively earn Dawning Essence and use it to make cookies later on.

Masterwork Eva’s Holiday Oven 2.4

Eva's Holiday Oven in Destiny 2, which is used to make cookies.

While using the best Dawning of Essence farms is all well and good, it’s equally as important to Masterwork your Eva’s Holiday Oven 2.4 as soon as possible.

You can masterwork Eva’s Holiday Oven 2.4 by discovering all 20 recipes that are available in The Dawning 2024 event. Once these are all discovered, select the oven and apply Masterwork to it, just like you would with a weapon or piece of armor.

Once Masterworked, you can make cookies in this upgraded oven for just 10 Dawning Essence compared to the 15 Dawning Essence normally required. That’s a big save on resources that will quickly add up, making this a priority to obtain.

That’s everything you need to know about how to get Essence of Dawning in Destiny 2. For more ideas on how to optimize your time playing The Dawning 2024, check out this simple trick to earn more Dawning Spirit with next to no effort.

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