Wow, this is how it works. There is no timer cooldown on 3oC. The quote from Bungie is, "The drop chance from 3oC will be nerfed when killing Ultras in rapid succession." Succession doesn't mean time, rather it only refers to the order of occurrence. The only time your 3oC drop chance is nerfed is after you kill an Ultra until you kill about 30 adds then you are good to go. They are never nerfed during Crucible so popping one every match is fine. On the Valus Ta'aurc strike it can get messed up if the Taken Champion spawns instead of the tank as he is an Ultra, just clear out the first room and after hang out in the Valley of the Kings to get enough kills inbetween. When farming the Ultra Knight you want to kill 10 to 15 adds in the first area and kill all the adds on the way to him. There are also 2 Ultras you can summon in the start area with a Wormsingers Rune and a Skyburners Command Beacon, and a Taken Champion if you see a Cleanse the Blight patrol beacon, just make sure you kill 30 adds in between Ultra kills. If you log out or change characters at all the stackable bonus chance from 3oC disappears. This is why you hear people complaining about using 50+ and not getting an engram. From my testing the drop chance seems to start near 15% with 10% added each time you don't get a drop and burn another one, and this seems to max out at around 65%. My average is 8 3oC per drop. Sometimes it takes 12 to 14. Sometimes back to back. I average a drop every 10 to 20 minutes of farming Dreadnought patrol. One time on Earth patrol I got 4 in 10 minutes using Blight Cleanse patrol, VIP Troll patrol, and Taken event Champions just by making sure to kill 30 adds between Ultra kills. I hope this helps everyone fulfill their exotic desires and ease their light level increasing efforts. Thank You.

The amount of effort and dedication you put into your videos never ceases to amaze me. Keep up the great work. Your content is an amazing resource for the Destiny community.

Extremely helpful information. You're the best, thank you. I used to have more frequent exotic engram drops via crucible pre RoI. Since Roi, it at least feels like the drop is half as often. I wondered what method post RoI was the best. I seriously appreciate you taking the 8+ hours to do this research. Really appreciate it.

I'd just like to point something out... the best engram farms are the three end story missions The Black Garden, Regicide, and The Iron Temple this is because the only way bungie knows to make a story mode mission harder is by adding more bosses... so it's more effective because you can kill more without having to reset but I think by far the best of the three is obviously the low level Vanilla one The Black Garden has a super convenient checkpoint for the last boss fight and you can kill each boss absurdly quick it puzzles me how quickly this mission is overlooked and forgotten...

I'd been using Draksis lately, including over the weekend before the LL cap went up - I used about 150 ToC over two days and got 18 exotic engrams. I'm not sure how lucrative farming Draksis used to be, so I can't tell if that's below what it used to be or above, but that fight seems to reset pretty quickly. Granted I've also tried Iron Tomb. For pros vs. cons between the two...Iron Tomb gets you multiple chances before you need to reset and requires no heavy ammo, but each time you go in to do it you have to start fresh. Draksis does give you a checkpoint you can reuse, but if you fail to murder-suicide with rockets, you have to start over again. It also requires rockets for a murder-suicide and can drain your number of heavy ammo synths. Both do have a secondary benefit of giving you plenty of House Banners and Ether Seeds. I had 151 House Banners in my vault (just over 30k worth of glimmer) and 444 Ether Seeds at one point, so you can easily stock up on synths with Variks.

wow, 10 in a hour is insane, honestly might make it a tradition of doing this non stop while listening to the podcast every week

Welp, back to the Iron Tomb!

100% going to be doing this before they release a patch. I need those Exotic Warlock Boots, purely because I've said since day one of Destiny, we need Boots!

Thank god PD helped you out, without them I would probably never have heard about you, and your channel is one of the most helpful Destiny channels out there! Great video btw :D

Thanks so much for making this. I started a character on PS4 and was worried it would take forever to collect all the exotics again. Having this informative will certainly help.

good video. love the content from you recently and the channel has flourished. good shit

Thanks Patrick! Yet another descriptive, informative and incredibly useful video.

Just when I thought I was done grinding... Thanks for the vid, Patrick!

The reason why the Iron Tomb mission is pretty efficient is that part of the 3oC cooldown is for killing the same Ultra repeatedly. You can see this most vividly by doing the Eye of a Gate Lord mission over and over again since you can go to orbit immediately after killing him and retain that checkpoint. If you do only that mission, your drop chance is abysmal (~6-7%). The key to the Iron Tomb is killing that second Ultra so that it's not the same Ultra in succession (I even switch up between Jolder and Gheleon as the second kill before wiping). The most efficient method from a purely numbers and not time perspective is to rotate checkpoints where you have quick access to Ultras (Eye of a Gate Lord, Scourge of Winter if you have rockets, Black Garden, etc.) so that you're killing different Ultras in rapid succession while not repeating the same Ultra for 10-15 minutes. The most efficient from a time perspective is the Iron Tomb, given that the different Ultras appear and can be killed more quickly than in the Black Garden mission. Someone like me who has ~200 3oC on each character will care more about the time saved than the couple of extra coins spent per exotic.

I've been using draksis this whole time. this will truly save me much more time. thank you

I'm a long time fan of yours from Planet Destiny. It's nice to see you making videos. I instantly subscribed.

For the Iron Tomb farm, you don't need to keep getting ammo from the fire. Your ax doesn't disappear so if you run out of ammo, hit them once, then do the smash.

HI PATRICK!can i request a video? can you do a comparison between the waltz from future war cult pulse rifle and the clever dragon? would really like to know the difference!

The black garden mission is great for this. I got about 11 exotics in 1 hour just killing the first 2 sol progeny then killing myself and repeating it.

Short, sweet and to the point. Love it.

Patrol is really effective too, cosmosrome works best. The Taken Patrol beacons,Troll Patrol VIP Archon boss in the Divide, and the random Taken events all work well if you want to farm rep and exotics simultaneously. I do agree Patrol is only second most effective to Iron Tomb

perfect timing on this vid mate! loving your channel lately! keep up the good work

And all this time I thought ToCs were only for Strikes. I'm going to try this method right now. Thanks.

Good info. Been farming Ultra Knight on Dreadnaught for yonks; usually works out as 1 exotic / 5-6 3oCoins. Also, it has, every other blue moon, dropped a double exotic engram. Yeh! and dbl-yeh!

Thank you so much for all the work you do for this playerbase. This is beyond helpful.

Ok, I tried it out... Farmed the Iron tomb mission as you said. Drop a 3 of coin, killed one and did it over and over again... I did it with 100 x 3 of coin s, in the end after using 100 of them I ended up with 8 Exotic engrams... that took me around 90 minutes. Looks like you had a good RNG, I'm not complaining to be honest. Thanks for the advise !

According to one KZfaqr I watch a lot, the cool down timer isn't really a cool down timer. Instead when you pop 3oC you have a 1/7 chance of getting an exotic. However if you wait a few minutes after popping one that chance will increase to 1/5. This is just his theory, so I don't know if he's on to something or if he's completely off base.

Mr Casey, you neglected to mention a crucial bit of data. A crucible bit of data. Crucible while it may not be the most prlific of engram hunting spots does also have a chance of dropping up to LL 400 gear. If one's goal is to raise LL past the rep package limit of 390, crucible becomes the best spot outside of heroic raiding.

They actually said in an interview, I think just before rise of iron dropped, that there is, in fact, no cool down, at all, on three of coins.

Thank you for putting in the time to make this video. Very informative!

i usually do Eye of the Gatelord final boss. yeah, you got to back out before it ends and reload the mission, but it's kinda chill

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WHAT YOU DO! HAPPY HALLOWEEN HOLTZMAN!

To add a few more informations for this. I've experienced double exotic drops from 1 single 3oC as well, both for killing an Ultra/Boss and for completing a PvP match. Even other players in my and the enemy team managed to get double drops. It is rare, but it can happen. In general I would say the best methods to farm Light level would be PvP content. Regular crucible has a high chance to drop weapons on a regular basis all the way up to 400 light, even class items drop there. Trials of Osiris is great to farm armor. It's not as frequent as the weapon drops from the regular crucible, but you can still farm armor drops that go all the way to 400 light. Also, Trials of Osiris matches can be rather short compared to most other game modes. with a good team or a particular bad team you can finish off matches pretty quickly compared once again to the regular crucible content. This is just anectodal, but from personal experience it seems like exotic drops are more frequent in Trials, getting drops every third and fourth match feels like a pretty high drop rate. But then again. Its RNG. would love to hear from others if they experienced higher drop rates as well in Trials or if it is just me and my friends that think of that.

Thanks dude! This video really helped me, as I mainly tried to farm strikes.

I've averaged one exotic engram for every eight 3oC's in the Iron Tomb, but I had a bad habit of killing the two final bosses at the same time if they are both next to me. In that case, I need to die quick before the "Finish this young wolf" indicating the last checkpoint of the mission. Iron Tomb is a fun mission, but it gets grindy when you're just repeating the same phase ad nauseum.

My favourite is eye of a gatelord, make sure all 3 chars have the checkpoint. Keep killing until you get a drop, then switch to your other characters and repeat indefinitely.

I conducted an experiment prior to the release of the Rise of Iron DLC - the original intent was to see how many exotic engrams I could save up prior to the release (I ended up with 194 in a 2.5 month period). I started on or near July 4th through the release of Rise of Iron. The numbers in my data closely match the drop rate of 1 in 7 coins you noted in the Tomb mission. My data came up with 1 drop in 6.1 coins - you can look at that also as 1 drop in 6 or 7 "events". I'll email you my data if interest.

black garden is pretty efficient as well, you can reload it after you kill the third one as well. I don't know if it is faster, but some testing would be necessary.

Love you ya, Holtz. You're the reason I can still enjoy destiny outside of crucible

I'd like to add. Years later I think the drop chance of a TOC exotic changes based off of the enemy, When killing Skolas I averaged 1 exotic every 3 three of coins, same with elders. But this method is FS faster and the faster you get exotics the better regardless of how many extra it takes, however if you dont have many strange coins this could be something to consider. Of course its not proven because we dont know the exact drop rates unlike other MMO's like Runescape, but from my personal exxperience I can tell you the drop rate increases based off of the difficulty of said strike.

Thanks, I used 20 of these things yesterday while running strikes... got 1 exotic special engram (along with 2 skelly keys & candlelight)

Thanks Patrick, and I absolutely love how DCP is going

alternate characters, play different strikes, play a crucible match occasionally....that's how I "farm" exotics. switch characters after each exotic engram, change missions/game type, play until I get an exotic engram and repeat.

Try Challenge of the Elders. Those three bosses are super easy to kill now, especially if you have a gjallarhorn or sleeper. You can complete it under 5 minutes. But this is probably a better route if you're soloing it.

Once I popped 20 Three of Coins and never got an exotic engram

Hi Patrick, did you compare the iron tomb farm to the black garden farm? Would to know decisively if one is better

I've used the Black Garden mission on normal mode. Pop a 3ofC before each ultra vex boss and then go right to orbit as soon as you kill the last vex boss. I've averaged 1 3xotic per 3-4 boss kills, that is each boss not 3-4 mission runs. Going back to orbit after killing the last boss saves your check point also. Easy exotic farming.

BUNGIE DEV: During strikes, do 2 strikes WITHOUT POPPING A 3OC. On the 3rd strike, pop the 3 of coins and you will have 90% chance to get an exotic engram. Also, do not leave the fireteam during this process. If on the 3rd strike you don't get the exotic engram, do the next strike WITHOUT POPPING ANOTHER 3OC. Also, do not double up 3oc, it's a waste. I tried it as mentioned above and got 2 exotic engrams after doing this method twice (meaning a total of 6 strikes).

To do the ultra knight properly you need to switch characters then run it! The ToC cooldown is only on that particular character, not the account. So you have the full chance to drop if you switch to all 3 characters

Iron Tomb has been dropping 1 out of 10 for us, has held true for over 350+ ToC used by our crew. Doesn't seem to be a cool down.

Yeah man. That works very well!! 4 exotics in 20 min. Thank you :-)

Try this on the three bosses at the end of the black garden. I use that pretty effective and I have a CP at the boss encounter. Kill all three while popping ToC in between. Go to orbit after the third boss kill so you don't lose your CP. RINSE and REPEAT.

question; when is the ideal time to pop a 3 of coins??

This mission was patched, I used to get engrams for every boss kill on that mission but now 15 to 20 mins maybe and if you are in a fireteam of 2-3 it drops only 1 for 1 player in the fireteam.

Thanks Patrick for this video, it's really helpful and well done. Keep it up!

patrick, i used the iron lord farming method and used 30-40 3 of coins. I got 2 exotics thats why i neverd believed in that farming method

I don't think Omnigul & Psion Flayers not dropping engrams is an 'issue'. Omnigul farm exploit would've been used for a crazy amount of exotics, and the same method use for the farming that final RoI mission would be used on Flayers, who can be 2/3(?) shotted with a solar sword.

Imo the best way to farm exotics is to play 320 strikes on the side so you get skeleton keys and strange coins aswell to get more 3oc

The ultra knight is my personal best method, I got ten engrams with 15 coins. I personally don't mind waiting a little bit of time.

I don't know about you guys, but it seems like the game is coded in a certain way that it knows which game mode you got the most Exotic Engrams from. I was doing that farming technique two weekends ago, and this weekend I got a lot less engrams from doing it than the other weekend. For the heck of it, I never really tried using 3oC in the Crucible, but decided to try it out last night and believe it or not, 3 games out of 3 I got an Exotic Engram! It might have been pure luck, or maybe there is a trick to it? I'd rather not think too much about it, as Destiny is RNG in general, but it's still interesting to note nonetheless! Varying things up seems to have a little impact on things.

Pro tip: you can spam the big axe attack and when your out hit the boss with a normal hit it'll recharge then rise and repeat

this weekend I used 35 3oC farming Draksis. Somehow I got 7 exotic engrams in that session. I know this is pretty much unheard of considering that's a 20% drop rate instead of the usual 5 - 10%. So I guess I just used all of my year 3 RNG luck that day. :(

Popular movement to have Xur accept bulk orders of heavy synths. After pressing and holding (x) for about 700 times since ROI dropped, I have slowly learned how to buy heavy synths from Xur while doing other things like tying my shoes, brushing my teeth, reading an article, watching a video. Now I have toothpaste on my shoelaces. #BungiemakeXurfaster #Freethumb #Ibuybulk #IwastemytimethewayIwantnotthewayyouwant #buffthrowingknives #nerfstormsnipermelee

try the black garden mission you can check point at the 3 ultras. ive used this since 3oc were brought to destiny

Wonder what if Patrick and Datto had a baby. Ultimate Destiny content reviewer will be born!

Just do crusibale if u are good because if u get first and win u will always get a exotic

One tip for making the most of your 3OC's is to wait 5 minute's or so when you get an exotic. Try not to keep popping them one after another without waiting, they don't last long and you will get minimum exotics.

Hey! Awesome analysis! Thanks for the tip and manhours spent.

think you can make a video on the heavy weapon meta? proximity rockets seem a little underwhelming and machine guns are feeling really nice (especially nemesis star)

I actually got a two for one 3oC last week, it was awesome. From a crucible match at that

The Iron Tomb is a good way of getting exotics but the problem I have found is when you get over 390, the engrams seem to start opening at your current light level, so to advance in light level, this is not the best way.

Hi Patrick I just wanted to ask a few questions. 1. have you tried to do this same strategy for farming on The Black Garden mission. And if you havn't could you please try it all you have to do is at the end of killing an minotaur ultra you pop a three of coins. Then once you do that with all three you leave the mission then come back and repeat. You spawn at the very end with the three minotaurs instead of having to do the hole mission again. 2. If you have done this farming method how does it compare to your method that you explained in this video

Patrick could you make a video on how farm strange coins in year 3? Great video!

Patrick, run The Black Garden mission on easy. Pop 3oC after defeating each giant Pretorian. Go to orbit after defeating the final Pretorian. Your checkpoint will save automatically at tye Pretorian boss battle. I think this method is better, but that's just my opinion.

thanks for telling me the "stackable" effect is really stackable I've been using 2 or 3 every crucible match

definitely worth trying. I've been trying to get shadestep helmet and the superpower golden gun helmet for a long time now. definitely worth trying.

I'm surprised you don't mention the black garden mission. I think it's the final mission of vanilla. Each of the minotaurs is eligible for 3oC. You can kill all three then quickly jump to orbit and then re-enter the mission and it will start you at the bosses. I even rotate between characters to get around any cool down that may or may not exist.

thank god there are people out there like you that go through all this so we don't have to!! lol thanks patrick

I think this got either fixed, or an internal cooldown was added to the drop....

I hate that they say to use them one at a time, but can still accidentally activate another one. I once thought I didn't have on eon when a boss was about to die, then remembered that I did and wasted one. Either let stacking actually work or make them unusable until the previous buff is deactivated.

I use the black garden mission and it works fine

Challenge of the Elders is alright for farming engrams. The bosses can be defeated so easily if you're a high light.

I just tried this and got two in three cycles. Nice tip. Except I accidentally killed the last two bosses at the same time with the axe because they kept bunching up.

When you do Regicide for 3 of Coins, do you do the 3-boss, 4-boss, or 5-boss method? When I farm Regicide I load it up on Heroic, and I kill the Ultra Knight, the Heroic-only Tortured Knight, as well as the usual 3 ultras in the mission. Would you say that's still a less efficient method than farming the Iron Tomb?

I feel like the games more fun actually getting your hopes up for getting an exotic to drop

I popped 30 plus three of coins and only got a single exotic drop from the Iron Tomb. I'm pretty sure it's almost entirely luck for the drop rate.

So does Draksis have a reduced chance of dropping them? Because Draksis can be farmed a lot quicker than these bosses if you are really efficient.

I nearly went through a whole week with out an exotic engram and I popped a 3oc for every ultra I killed and I farmed strikes 3 times that week with a booster using each 2 hour period. I wanna say about 70 3oc, and I didn't pop multiple for one ultra. My RNG has diminished drastically recently

Winter's run mission boss is way faster 3 exotic engrams every 7 minutes or so the boss I level 14so you can basically give him two shots to the head with a sniper then run up and kill both you and the boss with a rocket launcher you reset at the entrance of the room and you can go pick up your possible engram

I've been farming the three ultras on the Black Garden mission....not bad.

How does the Iron Tomb compare to grinding the first Minotaur statue at the end of The Black Garden?

Has this been patched? Because I tried it today and I normally get like an engram roughly every 10 3oC but it's now more like an engrams every 20 3oC?

I appreciate all the PD and your personal work, as well as other youtubers, but I hope AT LEAST in Destiny 2 they will just release the numbers for everything! from gun stats to drop rates and 3oC data. Just give us the numbers Bungo!!!

So i tried this tonight, first went to the black garden mission and used 12 3oc and got one exotic then went to the iron tomb mission and got 8 exotics from 30 3oc and its so easy and quick to farm, shame I ran out of 3oc.

Could you please make a video about sniper ballistics please? Most notably on the but not forgotten and winged word.

Kill all 3 bosses, pop a three of coins at each boss in the iron tomb and make sure you rocket yourself within 3 seconds of the final boss kill.

the first phobos mission is the best farm. it takes 1 min 30 secs to kill that ultra. taking 2 mins between each coin pop. I get 10 engrams in under 2 hours.

I used to use 3-10 at a time, depending on how many I had, and twice I've gotten two from one boss.

i've been thinking of doing this. thanks for testing it

There is only a cool down for three of coins on the same boss that's why iron tomb is so popular