Reward
Wish-KeeperExotic Strand combat bow · craftable
A solo-or-fireteam exotic mission into the Pinnacle Ops that sends you deep into the Black Garden to recover one of Riven's stolen Ahamkara eggs from the Sol Divisive Vex — rewarding Wish-Keeper, the Strand combat bow that traps and suspends entire packs, now fully craftable through repeat clears.
The paired buffs and symbol-locks aren't arbitrary — they're an Ahamkara's protective legacy, and you're here to guard a wish. Here's the story behind the boons.
At Mara Sov’s behest you enter the Black Garden to recover a stolen Riven Ahamkara egg from the Sol Divisive Vex, who are trying to harness wish-magic. The paired buffs you carry — the Sire’s Obligation and the Dam’s Gift — are the protective legacy of Riven ("the Dam") and her mate ("the Sire").
Your reward is the office made into a weapon. Wish-Keeper, the Strand bow that traps and suspends, is the tool of one entrusted to guard a wish — exactly the role the egg asks of you.
Take up the dragons’ boons, speak the Taken’s wish-lock in its proper order, and carry a wish safely out of the Garden.
The Strand control bow. Wish-Keeper is built around traps and suspends — nocked arrows can lay Strand snares that catch and hold targets, turning a wave of adds into a frozen line you clear at leisure. It anchors a Strand control loadout rather than a pure damage one.
Craft it: your first completion (any difficulty) awards the bow as an Exotic Deepsight weapon — extract or dismantle it to unlock the craftable pattern, then shape it at the Relic in the Enclave on Mars. Every clear awards an intrinsic crafting upgrade, and the four hidden chests inside the mission drop more (alongside reprised "Undying" Legendaries with a Deepsight chance). The chests are the weekly-gated piece: one new chest unlocks each week until all four are available, and their rewards pay out once per week per character — so early on you won't loot all four on a single run.
Catalysts: the four are unlocked through Constellation quests (Lock, Wish, Tower, and Pair) from Mara Sov at the H.E.L.M. Each quest's final step is a higher-difficulty Starcrossed clear (the Director’s reward preview shows the tier), and multiple catalysts can be completed in a single run if their quest steps are all at that stage — you do not need four separate weekly clears: Multi-Threaded Snare Refit (Lock — suspend more targets), Hatchling Refit (Wish — spawns Threadlings), Enduring Snare Refit (Tower — longer trap duration), and Vorpal Weapon Refit (Pair — boss, vehicle, and Guardian damage).
Open the Director, go to Vanguard Ops → Pinnacle Ops, pick Starcrossed, and choose a difficulty plus any optional modifiers. Starcrossed lives permanently in Pinnacle Ops.
You drop straight into the Black Garden underbelly. It can be run solo or in a fireteam.
A traversal opener into a pair of buff-gated symbol puzzles, ending on a shield-gated Vex Mind. The buffs are the mission — keep them refreshed and the rest is add-clear.
A Sol Divisive Vex Mind protected by Ahamkara bioenergetics, fought in the Black Garden arena under a constant blanket of orange fog — stay Crowned by Dragons or you die outright.
Akardon holds a damage-reducing shield propped up by the two flanking Pitiless Attendants. Kill both to strip the shield, clear the Sol Divisive adds (especially the detaining Seekers), then burn the boss during the open window. Repeat the shield-break, add-clear, DPS cycle until he falls, then claim the egg and chest behind him.
The Sire’s Obligation, Dam’s Gift, and Crowned by Dragons are Ahamkara boons — they let you wound the egg’s Taken guardians, shield you from the killing fog, and mark you as its chosen keeper. The symbol-lock puzzles are the Taken speaking a wish-combination, so you kill in order to say it. Akardon grafts stolen Ahamkara bioenergetics, so cutting off the two Attendants feeding him that wish-power is what drops his shield.
Wish-Keeper is a Strand control bow built on traps and suspends, so pair it with the artifact that amplifies Strand crowd control. The Artifact 2.0 layer accelerates the build — it doesn't gate it.
Why: its Strand support is exactly what Wish-Keeper's suspends want — Improved Unraveling, Strand Soldier, and Squad Goals Woven Mail feed the control loop, turning every trapped pack into unravel and suspend uptime that keeps you and your fireteam alive through the fog phases.
Alternative: Implement of Curiosity — Threaded Blast and Tangled Web extend the Strand-Tangle control, chaining detonations off the suspends to clear the symbol-lock and boss-arena adds faster.
Where Wish-Keeper fits in a Strand control build, plus the supports to pair with it.
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