**Sounds like maybe this is old news? If so, ignore this thread, I hadn't seen this anywhere before and I prowl this forum pretty much everyday, was just passing along for those that may have missed it I guess but again I had no idea about this and I'm a Day 1 player***. So, I want to preface this by saying that what I'm about to describe ONLY works for your SECOND and THIRD swords. You will have to do everything legit the first time through for your first sword. I found this by pure accident playing the game and want to state for the record I actually enjoy PvP and didn't personally find the sword kills that hard to get but I know some people REALLY hate PvP and are probably not getting their 2nd and 3rd swords (if they have 2 or 3 characters) figuring going through the quest the first time was enough! If that is you, then this strategy is for you so you can get all 3! Ready? Let's begin: As I stated, you have to do your 1st sword legit. Grit your teeth and get it done if you haven't. Once you have, come back and read this. For those ready for sword 2 and 3, here is how you skip the PvP part. 1 - Collect the Hadium Flakes needed for each sword and put the flakes in the vault (you can collect them and put in vault with any character - easiest on Hunter with its radar perks). 2 - Select the character you want to use for sword 2 or 3 and have that character go to the vault and get the needed Hadium Flakes and turn in to Shaxx for your next sword and pick your element. 3 - After you have picked out your new sword IMMEDIATELY PUT IT IN THE VAULT AND HAVE THE CHARACTER WHO ALREADY COMPLETED SWORD #1 GRAB IT FROM THE VAULT. DO NOT USE THE SWORD ON YOUR SECOND CHARACTER AND DO NOT UPGRADE IT MOST IMPORTANTLY! (I have a friend who screwed up this strategy by playing with sword 2 on character 2 and now he is fuqed, follow my instructions to the letter even if it sounds ridiculous.) 4 - Now that you have sword 2 (or 3) on character 1, go ahead and upgrade it to 290+. Once you do that it will trigger the Exotic quest. 5 - If you did this correctly, it will appear that no quest pops up as Shaxx won't have a symbol over his head that you need to talk to him. Go talk to him anyway and he SHOULD have the Exotic quest for that sword ready to pick up. Because you already did the Crucible kill part with Character 1 for that 1st sword, the quest you pick up from Shaxx should start you right at the part where you just have to do ability kills and gather materials and turn in and wait for Arms Day. So this means you skip the following: PvP Kills Major Kills Killing Ecthar I discovered this as I had done my first sword on my Titan and assigned my 3rd sword to my Titan (once again, you can assign what character will get and run the quest simply by equipping the new sword to that character and then upgrading past 290). Once I ranked it past 290 I fully expected to have to do PvP and all that again (which again I am fine with so please spare me the get good stuff) but turns out I didn't. I don't know if Bungie designed it this way to cut some slack on you if you already did sword once, or what, but unless it was some one off situation where the server shat itself for a split second while I was upgrading my 3rd sword, then this SHOULD work provided you do EXACTLY as I said and how I said it. Pro Tip: Ability kills can be done super quick in the "We've woken the Hive" area on Heroic. Also, Warlock should do this super quick for each element provided you have Praxic and Obsidian for your solar and void kills. I did my Arc sword on my Warlock and was done with ability kills super fast. I did solar kills on Titan which was ok speed. My first sword was void kills on Titan.......not fun lol....avoid that.