How to charge Transcendence in Destiny 2 The Final Shape

Transcendence is essentially a separate, mini-Super in Destiny 2. To activate Transcendence, which is attached exclusively to the Prismatic subclass, you’ll first need to charge up a Light and Darkness meter — something that can be tricky depending on the build you’re going for.

In this Destiny 2 guide, I’ll walk you through how to charge Transcendence, how you can use it to break Bound shields, and how to make the best Prismatic build for recharging Transcendence.

How to charge Transcendence in Destiny 2

A Titan goes Transcendent in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Transcendence manifests as two small bars beneath your Super bar. One bar represents Light, and the other represents Darkness. Here is how to charge Transcendence in Destiny 2:

To fill the Light bar, you need to deal damage with weapons or abilities that deal Void, Arc, or Solar damage.
To fill the Darkness bar, you need to deal damage with Stasis or Strand weapons and abilities.
Dealing damage with Kinetic weapons gives a little energy to both bars, or a decent amount of energy to one if the other is already full.

When you’ve filled both bars, they’ll merge into a single bar that glows pink. This signifies that you’re ready to activate Transcendence, which is another bind on your controller or keyboard. Unlike most Supers, you’ll remain in first-person when activating Transcendence.

While Transcendent, you gain several benefits:

Increase to all weapon damage
Damage resistance
Increased ability recharge rate
A unique Prismatic-only grenade based on your class

The ability recharge on Prismatic is intense, and you can essentially spam all of your abilities while you have it active. When you kill targets while in Transcendence, you’ll also refund some Transcendent energy for yourself, meaning you can stay in it even longer if you play well.

How to defeat Bound weapons with Transcendence

A Guardian takes down the shield of a Bound enemy in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

In The Pale Heart of the Traveler, you’ll occasionally encounter enemies who are “Bound,” and have pink shields that are completely immune to damage. To make them vulnerable, you need to become Transcendent and deal any damage to them — including just shooting them with your gun.

This sounds far more annoying than it actually is.

A Guardian approaches a Prismatic puddle in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

Every time one of these enemies shows up, a puddle of Prismatic essence, like the image shown above, will appear somewhere in the arena. If you stand in that puddle, you’ll charge up your Prismatic energy very quickly. If you can’t make your way to the puddle, shooting Bound enemies charges your meter much quicker than shooting normal enemies.

How to make the best Prismatic build for Transcendence

Transcendence is extremely powerful in both PvE and PvP. It is the reason to play with a Prismatic build instead of a normal subclass. Any time you put together a Prismatic build, you should focus on increasing the speed at which your Transcendence meter charges.

First and foremost, you want to make sure you have at least some abilities of each type in your build. Instead of running all Stasis and Strand to lock down the battlefield, try replacing your melee with an Arc ability, or add a Void grenade into the mix.

Even if you try to balance yourself out in terms of abilities, you’ll still probably end up lopsided — as in you easily fill one bar but struggle to fill the other. Once you identify where you’re lagging behind, you can and should use Prismatic Fragments and your weapons to even things out.

A Guardian leans about how Transcendence works in Destiny 2: The Final Shape

You want to make sure your primary weapon matches the damage type you’re struggling to fill, as you’ll never run out of ammo and can contribute toward the bar constantly. Primaries are a bit slower to build your meter, but they’re reliable, which is what counts here. If you want to play a little riskier, Special or Heavy weapons will give you a ton of progress on your Transcendence bars. Fusion rifles, for example, will grant you a big chunk of Transcendent energy each shot.

The real trick to Prismatic is to use a Kinetic weapon — especially a Kinetic Exotic primary, like Khvostov. If you’re able to slay out with a Kinetic weapon, you can ensure that you’ll always be gaining Transcendence meter, meaning you’ll be able to pop it that much more often.

You can help this process along even further with a few Prismatic Fragments, which you can unlock by finishing the campaign and exploring The Pale Heart:

Facet of Devotion: Killing targets afflicted with a Darkness debuff grants bonus Light Transcendence energy.
Facet of Grace: Kinetic weapon damage grants you bonus Transcendence energy. Super kills grant you and nearby allies bonus Transcendence energy.
Facet of Honor: Collecting an Elemental Pickup or destroying a Tangle grants Transcendence energy of the same type.
Facet of Sacrifice: While you have a Light buff, ability kills grant bonus Darkness Transcendence energy.

The best way to remain Transcendent is to remain flexible. When you swap out a weapon, consider fiddling with a Fragment to help you fill the gap. Whatever you need to do to stay balanced — or make up for an imbalance — do it and you’ll be able to wipe the floor with your enemies.