What Is an Exotic Cipher?
An Exotic Cipher is a currency item of Exotic quality in Destiny 2 which can be traded for Exotic items from either one of two sources.
These include trading for Exotics from Xur, Agent of the Nine, or for trading at the Monument to Lost Lights, located at the Tower.
Players may only hold one Exotic Cipher in their inventory and will be unable to obtain more unless they spend their current one.
What to Do with Exotic Cipher?
There are primarily 2 ways for you to spend your Exotic Cipher, you may either purchase from Xur or from the Monument to Lost Lights.
Buy Exotic Engram from Xur
Xur appears weekly during the weekends to sell a random choice of gear along with their roles for Legendary Shards.
Aside from the other items sold by Xur, you may purchase an Exotic Engram with the Exotic Cipher, which will turn into a random Exotic item that you currently do not have.
If there are no more Exotic items that you do not already have, you will be given an Exotic armor item with a random stats roll.
For more information about Xur, Agent of the Nine, and how you can locate, purchase and do more from him, check out our Destiny 2 Xur Guide.
Buy Exotics Items from Exotic Archive
The Monument to Lost Lights, also known as the Exotics Archive, is a shop where you can view several Exotics from Destiny 2 from the previous DLCs.
Here you can trade your Exotic Cipher along with other materials to acquire an Exotic item of your choice from a list of Exotic gear.
To know more about getting Exotics from the Monument to Lost Lights, check out our Destiny 2 Exotic Archive Guide.
How to Get Exotic Ciphers?
There are currently two ways for you to obtain an Exotic Cipher, which are doing the Xenology Quest that you can acquire from Xur or getting it as a season pass reward.
Xur Xenology Quest
The Xur Xenology Quest can be obtained by Xur and may be completed to reward you with an Exotic Cipher.
This quest is shared amongst your characters and means you can only get one per account from Xur’s Quest.
Season Pass Reward
Players who have purchased the season pass will be able to obtain a multitude of rewards, including an Exotic Cipher later on when they reach higher season pass levels.
Tips
Exotic Ciphers are not that easy to come by and should be spent wisely at least once every time you can get one from Xur.
Getting an Exotic Cipher from the season pass is a huge help to players and this should be used right away to make room for Exotic Ciphers from Xur.
Xur will have specific roles for some of the Exotic gear that he sells while the ones from his Exotic Engrams are random.
It is possible to obtain some of the more popular weapons in Destiny 2 by checking the Exotic Archives and their listings.
Verdict
Exotic Ciphers are currency items that can easily be traded to provide players with new Exotic items to use in Destiny 2.
These are not easy to come by and should be used scarcely with specific items players need unless they have obtained the majority of all of the Exotics in the game.
It is possible to get an Exotic Cipher at least once every one or two weeks through Xur’s Quest, making it guaranteed for players to get an Exotic item.
