Sword

"There is no grace in their making, but we can change that."

A Warlock wielding a Sword

Swords are a class of heavy weapon introduced in The Taken King expansion.

Overview

Unlike all other player weapon types, Swords are melee weapons. Prior to the addition of Swords, the only melee weapons players could use (excluding the Hunter's knife) were Knight Cleavers and The Aegis relic, which were available temporarily in specific situations.^[1]

Additional unique qualities of Swords include that they have an alternate "Guard" function that can partially deflect damage from incoming enemy attacks, consuming an amount of Heavy Ammo with each attack despite being melee weapons, and they can only be obtained by completing certain Quests instead of from random drops.

There are three Legendary and three Exotic Swords, one for each element. The Exotic swords all feature a special attack as their Exotic perk.

To obtain a sword, the player first has to complete The Taken King quest, and then the mission Dread Patrol. Eris will recover a shard of Oryx's sword Willbreaker for reverse-engineering. Then, A Broken Will quest becomes available. To upgrade their sword into an exotic sword, A Sword Reforged quest becomes available after upgrading every node on the sword's perk tree and infusing it to level 280 light.

In the Rise of Iron the player obtains The Young Wolf's Howl upon completion of The Iron Tomb from Lord Saladin.