Because of the ever-changing nature of Destiny 2, every new event and update seems to come with a confusing jumble of new currencies, items, and buffs. No event is more representative of this than 2025’s Guardian Games, featuring a mess of mechanics from focus activities to contender cards to score thresholds.
The most confusing of these seems to be a character buff that isn’t even mentioned in-game until you earn it: Gold Empowerment.
Gold Empowerment & Empowered Weapons/Abilities
Gold Empowerment (or Gold Contender’s Boon) is a character buff available during Guardian Games. After earning it, the effect enhances your weapons and abilities in the Guardian Games Rushdown playlists and lasts until Tuesday’s weekly reset.
Gold Empowerment Boon, Destiny 2
How do you get the Gold Contender’s Boon
The Gold Contender’s Boon automatically applies to your character after surpassing the Gold score threshold (seen in the Shoot to Score quest description) in the Expert version of Rushdown. This buff is visible on your character screen and lasts until the next weekly reset.
Compared to previous years, obtaining a Gold score is relatively easy; plus, the Expert version is matchmade! Just queue for the activity with some damage-heavy options, and you should be good to go.
Shoot to Score Quest, Destiny 2
Gold Ability & Gold Weapon Empowerment
Gold Empowerment provides a host of buffs to your Guardian’s kit in Rushdown. It will apply automatically during the activity and does not require you to be wearing a Guardian Games class item.
Gold Weapon Empowerment, Destiny 2
The buff is composed of two types of empowerment: Gold Ability Empowerment and Gold Weapon Empowerment. Any weapon kill will grant a stack of Gold Ability Empowerment (significantly decreasing ability recharge rates), while any ability kill will grant a stack of Weapon Empowerment (increasing weapon damage). Both types stack up to five and can be utilized simultaneously.
At max empowerment (from our testing, this simply means at least one of the two buffs is at five stacks), defeating enemies also boosts mobility, accuracy, handling, and reload speed, in addition to everything above.
Before you go…
Don’t forget that Guardian Games has a lot of loot to offer, including exclusive Guardian Games armor, the Heir Apparent’s Competitive Catalyst, and more!
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