Destiny 2 Distortions Quest Guide: How To Track And Trigger Strange Signals
Bungie is sending us back to the patrol zones one last time, but their waypoint system is as broken as ever.
The Monument of Triumph update is the end of the line. There is no secret sequel waiting in the wings, so the development team is squeezing every last drop of life out of the existing solar system. The new Distortions quest forces you to hunt down reality-warping anomalies for high-tier loot, but it does an abysmal job of explaining how its tracking signals actually function. I banged my head against the Director screen so you do not have to. Here is the optimal path to clearing the quest and farming those elusive Strange Signals.
Kicking Things Off In The Tower
Before you go flying off to random planets, you need to pick up the actual paperwork.
Your first stop is Ikora Rey in the Tower, followed immediately by a trip to the far end of the Bazaar to meet Lodi. He hits you with some lore about The Nine tearing reality apart to escape the system. That is a cool narrative hook, but my only real concern is stripping these anomalies for top-tier weapons. If you are also currently trying to hunt down the local robotic pet for separate seasonal achievements, you'll find Archie sitting right next to Lodi in this exact market alley.
Hunting Fractured Destinations
The entire Distortions loop relies on a rotating hourly schedule. Open your Director and look for the destination glowing with a red circle icon. Hover over it to check the countdown timer. If there are only five minutes left, do not bother landing. Wait for the hourly reset so you do not get booted to a different planet mid-run.
Triggering The Distortion Breach
Once you land on the active corrupted planet, find a normal Public Event. You don’t even need to make it Heroic, just get it done. After the chest drops, stick around the immediate area. A giant red glowing pillar will slowly build in the center of the arena, kicking off the actual Distortion Breach.
Surviving The Wave Defense
The Breach is a frantic wave defense mode that throws nine consecutive groups of corrupted combatants directly at your face. Every few waves, the game tells you to destroy concentrations of corruption. Stop shooting the minor enemies and look around the arena for three glowing red crystals. Shoot them to drop the enemy shields. Even if the timer runs out and you technically fail the event, it still counts for the quest. Loot the resulting Distortion Breach chest to grab your first batch of Strange Matter.
The Strange Matter Grind
You need exactly 50 pieces of Strange Matter to advance the objective. This red crystalline resource drips out of destination chests, resource nodes, and corrupted enemies. I organized the general reward drops below so you can plan your farming loops efficiently.
Tracking The Signal And Killing The Boss
The exact second you hit 50 Strange Matter, it automatically converts into a Strange Signal in your inventory. This is where the game gets incredibly vague.
Decoding The Waypoint
Open your destination map. You are looking for a small circular bubble marker labeled Strange Signal. It spawns dynamically based on which planet you were on when the crystal formed. Stop looking for fixed coordinates online because your marker is unique to your instance (my personal tracker dragged me all the way down to The Breach area in the southern tip of the Cosmodrome). Click the circle to track it, and follow the white directional arrow on your HUD.
The Shield of Distorted Boss
Follow the signal to its coordinate to face the Shield of the Distorted boss. Melt their health bar down to unlock a final reward cache resting right next to their spawn point. My personal drop handed over an Ascendant Alloy alongside a Tier-5 Legendary weapon, making it an incredibly lucrative stop for reshaping your loadout.
These drops regularly feature the new event weapons equipped with the Carrion Munitions origin trait. That specific trait spawns explosive insectoid robots that chase enemies when you kill a powerful combatant, which is as chaotic as it sounds. Remember to hit your inventory menus and use the Distortions attunement to focus your drops before you run the loop again.
