How to get Malfeasance + Catalyst: Darkness in the Light

Darkness In The Light is an Exotic quest obtained through playing Gambit and completing nefarious deeds for the Drifter character, located in the underbelly of the Tower.

Once completed, you’ll gain access to Malfeasance, one of the best hand cannons for end-game content.

Name: Malfeasance

Type: Hand Cannon Archetype: Exotic

Ammo: Primary Element: Kinetic

Craftable: No Released: Season 4

Source: Exotic Quest Requires: Free-to-Play

How To Get Malfeasance: Darkness in the Light Quest

On March 20, 2020, Bungie made the Darkness In The Light quest step available to all guardians, removing the requirement to own the Forsaken Pack. You will, however, need a fair amount of patience and determination to get through some of the tougher quest steps.

Step 1: The Seething Heart

First, you’ll need to collect a Seething Heart, which, when brought to The Drifter, will begin the questline to obtain Malfeasance. This item only drops from the Ascendant Primeval Servitor boss in Gambit, which has a random chance to spawn when summoning a Primeval for your team. Thankfully, its spawn chance has dramatically increased over the last few years, so keep at it!

Ascendant Primeval Servitor, Destiny 2

Step 2: City of Secrets

The Corrupted. For this step, we’ll need to defeat 25 Taken Bosses or Minibosses. Head to the Dreaming City and slay several Taken bosses and/or minibosses. There are a few ways we can go about this, and depending on what the featured boss-of-the-week is for The Blind Well, it can be completed in under half an hour.

Step 3: The Corrupted

Help The Drifter track the thief who stole from him. For the next part of this quest, we’ll have to return to the Dreaming City to complete The Corrupted strike.

Step 4: Depleted Weapon Core

Deliver the depleted Weapon Core you found at Callum’s grave to The Drifter. Simple enough here, just leave the strike and return to The Drifter with the weapon core, and you’ll accept the next section of the quest!

Step 5: Business As Usual

Deposit Motes. Dropped Motes subtract x2 score. Win Gambit Matches. We’ll be heading back into Gambit for this objective, which, on paper, is fairly straightforward. You will need to deposit 400 Motes and win 10 games overall to move on to the next step. Keep in mind, losing motes subtracts twice the amount of motes you lose – so be careful if you’re sitting on 15 motes as death here could lose you 30 score, almost 10% of your completion!

Gambit Activity, Destiny 2

Step 6: Lights Out

Have an ally invader defeat four opposing Guardians in a single invasion three times, OR defeat four opposing Guardians as an invader. As an invader, defeat 25 opposing Guardians in Gambit This is a tricky one, but it’s the last step of the Darkness In The Light exotic quest, so stick with it! You will need to either invade the enemy team within a gambit match and rapidly defeat four Guardians or have one of your teammates do the same, either will count. You will also need to defeat 25 Guardians while invading, which should be completed while attempting to rapidly defeat four Guardians.

Throw on your best multi-kill super and your best Rocket Launcher – preferably with tracking. This will take some time, and not every scenario will allow for an entire team wipe, so be patient. Try to bring some long-range weaponry to pick them off from afar.

Step 7: Dark Weapon Core

Objective: Speak to the Drifter at the Tower

Malfeasance Exotic, Destiny 2

How to get the Malfeasance Catalyst

The Malfeasance Catalyst can drop after completing any ritual activity, including Vanguard Ops, Crucible, or Gambit. In our case, it dropped after an Exotic Mission Rotator completion.  Note that as of Update 7.3.5, Comp matches have an increased Exotic Catalyst drop rate:

Competitive matches will also have an increased chance to drop Exotic weapon catalysts on victories.

The catalyst adds the following Exotic Perks and effects:

• +20 range
• Vorpal Weapon

Note that when paired with the Lucky Pants Hunter Exoptic, Vorpal makes the gun especially good for boss damage.

How to get the Malfeasance Catalyst, Destiny 2

Once you have obtained the catalyst, you’ll need 700 weapon kills to unlock it. Typical farming methods such as the Shuro Chi Wish or the opening section of Grasp of Avarice will speed things along.

Catalyst: Malfeasance

Ammo: Primary Element: Kinetic

Source: Strikes, Crucible, and Gambit Requires: Free-to-Play

How to Unlock: ► 700 kills Released: Season 21

How good is Malfeasance

Malfeasance features the following Exotic Perks:

• Explosive Shadow: Shoot tainted slugs that burrow into combatants. Stacking enough slugs causes them all to explode, stunning surviving combatants. Strong against Unstoppable Champions
• Taken Predator: Bonus damage against Taken enemies and Gambit invaders

Originally released as one of the weakest exotics out at the time, Malfeasance now excels in many PvE activities.

The most obvious pairing for Malfeasance is the same as Warden’s Law: Lucky Pants. While only Hunters can take advantage of the synergy, the damage you can put out with this combination of exotics is absurd.

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Lucky Pants	Hunter	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 1	Free-to-Play	When you ready a fully loaded Hand Cannon that deals kinetic damage or a damage type that matches your subclass energy type, each hit from that Hand Cannon increases the damage of the next shot for a short time against a combatant. Hand Cannons ready faster and are more accurate immediately after swapping to them.

Even so, Malfeasance can hold its ground without Lucky Pants just as well. With high base damage through Explosive Shadow, a boost to damage against Taken enemies with Taken Predator, Vorpal Weapon with its catalyst, and the ability to stun Unstoppable champions, Malfeasance can do just about anything. While deciding to run this over a different exotic is something you’ll rarely see, the intrinsic power of Malfeasance is unparalleled.

Before you go…

Ready to tackle other challenging (but rewarding) Exotic quests? We cover how to get Forerunner by completing The Strange Key Quest here.