The Drifter is a rogue Light-bearer who hosts the Gambit activity and acts as a vendor for Gambit-related items. Aboard his Derelict ship, he has explored the far reaches of the Solar System and beyond, collecting machines, gadgets, and trinkets along the way.
The Drifter, for the most part, is a mystery to many. He has gone by many names, has travelled across the system and embraces both light and dark.
In recent times, the Drifter has helped us establish a better connection with the Nine, especially through his complicated relationship with the Emissary of the Nine. During the rise of the Kell of Darkness, the Drifter and Eris Morn assisted Guardians with wielding Stasis, a form of Darkness.
Information extracted from Destinypedia & Ishtar Collective.
The Drifter invites two teams of four to partake in his Gambit arena, a matchmade PvEvP activity that requires Guardians to eliminate enemies, collect and bank motes, summon a boss and defeat it before the opposing team does!
The Drifter is your point of contact for the Gambit activity and is located in the Tower Annex. The Drifter offers a seasonal weapon ornament, bounties, and a Triumph Seal for each season. Rank-up packages are also available which provide additional rewards, such as materials and a new shader, for specific Infamy ranks.
When the Drifter transmats you to the Gambit arena, hostiles will begin to flood a corner of the arena. Your objective is to clear out each wave, collect and bank the motes that drop from the combatants that you defeat.
Once your team has banked 100 motes, you will summon a Primeval, a Taken Boss, that you will need to defeat. Defeat your Primeval before the opposing team defeats theirs to win the match.
Taken Wizards called “Primeval Envoys” will spawn at certain health points for the boss. Eliminating them will provide a damage buff for your team. Be sure to clear them out as quickly as possible!
Banking motes will also send blockers to the opposing team’s bank, preventing them from banking further motes until they clear their bank. All blockers are Taken Majors. There are three different types of blockers that you can spawn:
If two or more blockers are summoned, they will begin to drain the bank. If your bank is being blocked, work as a team to clear them out as quickly as possible, or your team may run the risk of losing a good chunk of motes!
Three times during the initial collecting round, a portal to the opposing team will become available. One Guardian can use the portal and invade the other side. The invader’s objective is to eliminate or disrupt the opposing team. Unless defeated, the invader has 15 seconds to do what they can to wreak havoc before being sent back to their side. When your team has summoned a Primeval, the enemy team can periodically send over their invader!
Use long-range weaponry, like a Scout or Sniper Rifle! Gjallarhorn and Eyes of Tomorrow also work great, but your opposing Guardians may judge you for using those…
Like Crucible, Gambit has its own Rank-up System. When completing matches, you will earn reputation that contributes toward your rank. Each rank will provide a world-engram. When you rank up to certain tiers, you will unlock rewards that can be claimed at the Drifter. Expect to earn Materials, an Emblem/Shader and Exotics when ranking up each Season.
Once your Gambit Rank is maxed out at Rank 17, you can reset it. This will allow you to gain additional tiered rewards while ranking up again!
Keep an eye out for reputation boosts! A notification will be posted in-game. Our Destiny 2 Dashboard will also provide a banner notification when reputations boosts are in effect!
The following updates have been made to Gambit in Season 16 (February 22, 2022). Information was from a Bungie.net TWAB article: This Week At Bungie – 2/17/2022 > News | Bungie.net
Core Activity ChangesThese changes are all about enhancing teamwork or making the mode easier to play and understand.
Blockers, Draining, and the BankWhile Bungie didn’t do any drastic adjustments here, they have a few tweaks that they think will increase interesting decisions both when sending and battling Blockers, and hopefully remove the feeling of helplessness as you pour ammo into three Knights as all of your Motes drain away.
Ammo EconomyBungie’s goal for these changes are to make a more predictable and equal baseline of Special and Heavy ammo among all players. They will be watching both feedback and analytics around ammo gain and usage rates, and they will continue to make tweaks if these aren’t enough to make fair matches.
The Primeval FightThe Primeval fight is the ultimate challenge of Gambit. It should feel like an epic boss fight and be long enough for the opposing team to get off some invades to counter strong DPS. It should have more to do than simply burning the boss as quickly as possible (and turn in place to kill Envoys every once in a while). Its mechanics shouldn’t be complex but should require about as much tactical play as a high-end strike boss.
With the tuning changes above, the Motes phase is significantly quicker, and the Primeval phase longer. You should expect matches to be just about as long as they are now, but Bungie will be watching to make sure they aren’t too short or too long.InvasionsAs Bungie said above, a good invader should be able to turn the tide of a match, but a good invader should be no more important than any other equally-skilled team member. They don’t want a single good invader to completely dominate match outcome — and they certainly can right now. However, they still want a good invader to be able to delay a strong PvE team from finishing off the Primeval.
RewardsGambit is the second of the core rituals (after Trials of Osiris) to get comprehensive engram focusing options.
Gambit Labs: Invasion EditionThere will also be a couple of Gambit Labs that play with some of the core invasion concepts. These will run for one week each and will take over the base Gambit nodes.
Damaging the Invader with this weapon marks them for allies.
Found on any new Gambit weapon obtained after Season 16.
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