Note: Destiny 2 can be played and enjoyed in many ways, so this guide is not for everyone.
I couldn't get clear information about how power/levels work with the mechanisms for progression in the game, so after a little bit of testing and reading, this is what I've come to understand:
LEVELS
- Leveling 1-20 requires EXP. Most activities in the game give you EXP - the main story, public events, side story, crucible, patrols, lost sectors, and even aimlessly killing mobs. If you just wish to keep up with the story, you normally wont have to go out of your way to meet its level requirements. There is a small jump in requirement near the end, however - one mission requires level 12, while the one after it requires 15 - so for those levels you might want to look at other sources for EXP, but for the most part the story will give you enough to keep up.
- If you finish the campaign and talk to the final npc at the very end, even if you are level 17/18/19, you will be immediately boosted to level 20.
- Each level 1-20 has a cap in how high Power you can attain in that level; you wont be able to hit 260 Power below level 20. So, there is little to no need to grind for Power in any case before level 20.
- Level 1-20, in the open world, is scaled to the mobs you are fighting and the public events you do, so you can fight next to a leveled 300 Power player with the same potency at level 5 when it comes to open world mobs.
- Spend all your glimmer on gear upgrades. Glimmer is of little use at endgame at the moment, so spending it on gear upgrades early on is a great way to level your light and have an easier time in story missions. Staying within 10 light of the recommended light for your questline is optimal.
- Join a clan early on if possible, clan rewards are another great source of gear.
At level 20, you start focusing on leveling Power. There are a few interesting mechanics around this:
- Since Power is the average of the best gear in all 8 slots, you must always prioritize your weakest slots as you level.
- Blue engrams and blue drops decrypt from anywhere between -2 to +4 Power level from your overall average Power level.
- Legendary engrams often decrypt beyond +4 levels from your average Power level, up to a softcap of 265 Power.
- You may receive legendary gear that is beyond 265 Power from vendors; that will be mostly likely because it has a +5 attack/defense Legendary mod on the gear already installed. So you may receive up to 270 gear from vendors on rare occasions. You may also receive just the legendary mods on their own that you can insert into your gear to boost its power by +5. The gunsmith drops these legendary mods, as well as a few exotics, in his rank-up packages.
- Remember to open your engrams as soon as you get them - their Power is determined by your Power the moment you acquired them, instead of your Power when you decrypt them.
- Spend your glimmer freely: buy 200 Power vendor gear if you aren't there yet, and Scout Reports from Cayde to see all the treasure chests with ease for farming tokens.
Now, for a short guide to efficient power leveling-
- As a fresh level 20 that just beat the campaign, you are free to do any activity to gain more Power. Your best bet at this point is to stow away certain activities that reward gear past the softcap of 260 for later - specifically, do not turn in milestones, nightfall, exotic weapon questlines, or cayde's treasure maps. Instead, focus on activities that reward blue gear. In order of the fastest to the slowest for attaining blue gear, you can do
- Public events: around 1-2 blue pieces, chance of legendary and exotic pieces, glimmer and vendor tokens (20 vendor tokens = 1 or 2 legendary pieces). They are by far the fastest if you hop from event to event. However, they can get tedious fairly quickly. Try your best to activate the "Heroic" version of these events as they are more likely to give 2 blue pieces instead of 1 upon successful completion and a potentially higher chance at an exotic.
- Farming treasure chests, killing yellow bar elite wandering mobs, looting lost sectors, finding regional chests -- all are amazing for getting vendor tokens, but are slower on average than spamming public events when it comes to getting blues. However, when you want to get purples, do these more frequently instead for vendor tokens.
- Side story, vanguard strikes, crucible matches - fun original content but quite slow when it comes to amassing a bunch of blues compared to the methods above.
Most of these activities will provide you enough blues over time to get 260. While doing these, remember to occasionally open up faction packages when your gear plateaus to get guaranteed legendaries that pull your average higher.
At 260, the softcap for blue gear, you can choose to progress by amassing legendaries.
- Legendaries go to 265, but at times drop at 270 from vendors because they come premodded. You can also add your own mods to your gear to push it to 270.
- If your only goal is to get these vendor legendaries, focus more on farming tokens instead of public events. Public events have a chance at dropping exotics, but at 260-270, you're better off progressing via guaranteed vendor legendaries and mods.
- You can also get modded legendaries from crucible/strikes as rare drops that go up to 270.
After 270, the only way to progress is by the methods you patiently saved for yourself this entire time, namely:
- Milestones that reward "Powerful Gear" purple engrams. These are on a weekly lockout.
- Exotic weapon quests that reward various exotics that scale beyond 290 light. Do them when your weapon slot is holding you back.
- Nightfall drops. Weekly lockout.
- Possible Cayde treasure map drops.
- After 270, your blue and purple random drops will break the softcap but will always be 6-9 below your current average Power. The "hardcap" for these blue and random drops will probably always be 6-9 below the max possible light in the game, but we don't have enough info to know that yet.
Once all of those are dried up, you can choose to progress further by
- Using super high Power weapons/armor to pull your average light level ahead, then using the blue/purple drops to fill your lowest slots. i.e. if you're 279 light b/c you have a 289 exotic, a 279 energy weapon, and a 286 power weapon, your blue/purple will decrypt at 272. If you replace all of your armor with the 272 level, you'll hit 280 or above, and can then go on to unlock another super high powered exotic (comes from quest rewards, or high powered legendary that comes from "Powerful Gear" rewards.
- Farming exotic drops from public events, crucible, and strikes. Its slower but its currently the only way to progress outside of weekly lockouts or the raid. If you have two armor or weapon slots that are at max level with two different exotics, you need to infuse one of the exotics into a legendary for it to count in the game's algorithm, as it only takes into account one exotic weapon and one exotic armor when calculating your highest average level. A comment below notes that you should infuse these exotics into legendaries that have a legendary mod on it to end with +5 power above the base infusion.
- Making another character of the same class and transferring gear to take advantage of all the weekly lockouts on that new character. You cannot cross-infuse, so if you make a different class and move over your weapons earlier, you will need to get all of its armor at 270 or so independently grinding it, and then hope to go beyond your previous character's level because you did your weekly lockouts at a higher overall level. This is still slower (but arguably more fun) than making another character of the same class. Your weapons will carry your alt character's light level really well - you can easily get to 265 within an hour or two on a fresh level 20 alt if your weapons are sitting at 280+.
- u/Oniji says "You can trade in multiple rare mods for legendary +5 power mods at 280, at the gunsmith. He currently sells mods for every slot except Hunter cloaks."
- Once you make +5 mods for all of your slots, your drops (that come unmodded most of the time) can be infused to your modded gear to raise your modded gear's level. So if you have a 282 piece that's already modded (base value 277), and you get a 279 drop, you can infuse the 279 drop into the 282 modded piece and it'll go to 284.
- Dump all your extra glimmer into 'random mod' at the gunsmith so you can build a stockpile of blue mods to make purple mods with.
Cheers all, and remember that Destiny is a game designed for fun; if this powerleveling stuff doesn't feel fun to you, there is no need to do it.
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