Ok so I finally went ahead and chased an exotic bounty rather than get it from Xur because I wanted to see just how hard it could be... Oops. Let's just say it took me a while to rack up void damage in Crucible with a titan and nothing but Trolley, Valedictorian and some grenades....annnd I still need to run Phogoth to kill Xylor (sp?) to get Thorn. Which is still better than the exotic bounty I have that wants 25 strikes and I can only imagine how many more steps are left. I hate to be the one to take shortcuts, but Xur is definitely the easiest way to go.