My Destiny 2 Season Prep Checklist: Seven Habits I Still Use in 2026

Destiny 2 vault management and Glimmer strategies ensure a smoother seasonal reset for Guardians with these essential habits.

Hey, Guardians. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after years of seasonal resets, it’s that the first week of a new season always feels ten times smoother when I do a little prep beforehand. I used to leave everything until the last minute, and every single time I’d log in on day one with a maxed-out Glimmer wallet, a vault packed with junk, and a stack of vendor engrams that had already vanished. So I started keeping a personal reset checklist. A lot of it comes from the classic pre-Season 19 advice, but I’ve kept updating it as the game evolves into 2026. Here are the seven habits I still run through before every new seasonal drop.

7. Clear Out Your Vault First

This one never changes. I don’t care if the next season brings thirty new weapons or zero, my vault is somehow always nearly full. The problem is that I throw leveling gear, random high-stat armor, and half-finished builds in there “just in case,” and then they sit untouched for months.

My rule now is simple: if I haven’t touched it in a year and it isn’t Exotic or deeply nostalgic, it goes. For armor, I use D2ArmorPicker to map out a few solid builds, then dismantle every non-Exotic piece I’m not actively using. For weapons, I delete duplicates, bad perk combos, and archetypes I know I won’t grab in difficult content. Clearing even two or three pages makes day-one chasing feel way less stressful.

6. Unlock Subclass Features on Every Character

I used to only build out my main character, and then I’d realize halfway through the season that my Hunter or Titan was missing key Aspects and Fragments. That meant an annoying Glimmer sink later.

Glimmer is easy to ignore until you suddenly need hundreds of thousands. My advice: if you’re at the cap, convert extra destination or planetary materials at Rahool to keep the flow going. Go to Ikora and unlock every Aspect, Fragment, grenade, and ability you can across all three classes. If you’ve been putting off the Stasis grind or newer subclass unlocks, now is the moment to catch up.

A fully unlocked subclass means you can pivot instantly when the sandbox shifts, instead of spending your first play session grinding Glimmer.

5. Spend Legacy Materials Before They Rotate Out

I remember when Bungie made nearly every destination material stop dropping. Dusklight Shards, Microphasic Datalattice, Helium Filaments, Baryon Boughs, Spinmetal Leaves, Glacial Starwort—they all became much less useful overnight. At the time, players who ignored the warning ended up with stacks of stuff they couldn’t really spend in meaningful ways.

In 2026, the lesson still applies. Whenever a season transition is coming, check for currency changes or vendor reputation updates. If a material is being sunset or losing purpose, convert it into Glimmer or spend it with vendors before the reset hits. It’s a tiny step that saved me from a lot of inventory clutter.

4. Chase Deepsight Crafting Patterns Early

Weapon crafting changed how I think about god rolls. Instead of praying to RNG for a perfect roll, I’d rather unlock the pattern and shape exactly what I want. If the current season still has craftable weapons—and especially if red-border Deepsight drops are tied to a seasonal vendor or event—now is when I focus on finishing those patterns.

The usual loop hasn’t changed much. Level up the seasonal vendor at the H.E.L.M., complete challenges to unlock weekly Deepsight drops, and run the seasonal activity once a week for guaranteed progress. If you want to go faster, find repeatable chests or donation events that pump out red borders.

Trust me, future-you will thank past-you when the meta shifts and you can craft a weapon with the exact barrel, magazine, and perks you need.

3. Claim Every Vendor Reward Before Reset

I’ve lost too many vendor engrams and upgrade modules because I forgot to press claim before a new season wiped reputation tracks. Ritual vendors like Zavala, Shaxx, Drifter, and Banshee reset their ranks, and unclaimed rewards vanish.

Even if the loot pool isn’t exciting, I still claim everything. Worst case, I dismantle the gear for Legendary Shards and other materials. Best case, I snag a surprise god roll right before the new season adds fresh rewards.

2. Fill Out Your Exotic Collection

Every major season or episode tends to bring sandbox tuning, and some underrated Exotic suddenly becomes top-tier. I want to be able to experiment immediately, not grind out an old Exotic quest after the fact.

I start at the Exotic Kiosk in the Tower and use Exotic Ciphers to grab whatever I’m missing. Then I farm Legend Lost Sectors and Master Nightfalls when they’re in rotation. For raid or dungeon Exotics, I group up with friends to knock out the encounters. Having options is half the buildcrafting game.

1. Participate in the Community Event While It’s Active

If there’s a seasonal community event live right now, don’t sleep on it. Historically, these events have been one of the fastest ways to clean up my remaining red-border Deepsight patterns while also stacking Masterwork materials and cosmetics. The loop is usually straightforward: run seasonal activities, collect the event currency, and donate it for gift boxes.

In the old Plunder days, those donation boxes dropped Deepsight weapons at a surprisingly high rate. Whether the current 2026 event works exactly the same or not, I still treat it as a limited-time pattern farm. Even a short daily session can save me weeks of grinding later.

At the end of the day, none of these habits are mandatory. You can absolutely jump into a new season cold and still have fun. But for me, the pre-reset ritual is part of the enjoyment. It turns that awkward end-of-season lull into productive prep time, so day one feels like the start of a victory lap rather than a scramble.

Clean out your vault, unlock your subclasses, spend old materials, finish those Deepsight patterns, claim vendor rewards, collect Exotics, and hit the community event if there is one. Do that, and the next seasonal drop will feel noticeably smoother.