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    Destiny

    Game » consists of 25 releases. Released Sep 09, 2014

    Shoot your way across the solar system to level up and collect new loot in this multiplayer-focused first-person shooter from Bungie and Activision.

    A Guide To Level Up [House of Wolves Update]

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    Zevvion

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    #1  Edited By Zevvion

    UPDATE 2: Updated this guide with changes made in House of Wolves. Changes are marked with [II]. The old thread didn't get much traction even though people keep asking how to do this. So I created this new one. Hope it sticks longer.

    UPDATE: I updated this guide since the Dark Below DLC changed some aspects of leveling up for everyone. Changes are marked with [I].

    I hear some people saying they are having trouble leveling up properly to prepare for the Raid. Destiny isn't very clear on how you level up past 20 and where you acquire the gear to do so. Thought I'd take a moment to explain it for those that do not fully understand, step by step. Let's assume you want to do the Raid and reach level 30 afterwards.

    Reach Level 20

    Easy enough. To get to Level 20, you must acquire XP. It is awarded for almost everything you do;

    • Completing story missions, patrol objectives, Strikes and Crucible matches
    • Completing bounties
    • Killing enemies
    • Killing Guardians

    Note that XP is also awarded in equal amount to your gear and subclass. For example, every time you level up you gain a new ability. However, if you switch your subclass mid-leveling, you will notice you no longer acquire a new ability each time you level up, because your subclass is behind on XP compared to your character. The same goes for all your weapons and armor. Everything gets XP in equal amounts by doing the above activities.

    This also means that you can 'power level' gear or a subclass by equipping it just before you turn in a bounty for example. XP will be awarded when you turn it in and all equipped gear will receive the XP in equal amount.

    By merely finishing the game you should have accumulated enough XP to reach Level 20 (completing all the story missions).

    Level 21-28

    Motes of Light

    Level 20 is the soft level cap. XP gained will no longer increase your level (though it will still level your gear and subclass), but instead XP gains will go towards gaining a Mote of Light. Motes of Light are a currency that you can use to purchase cosmetic items off The Speaker. Mainly class items (Titan Marks, Warlock Bonds and Hunter Cloaks) and emblems. These items carry a hefty price considering how long it takes to acquire a Mote of Light by gaining XP. You can also use them to reroll a reforgable weapon to try and get different perks on it [II]. This is definitely not recommended for players that still need to level up. Motes of Light are better spend on Xûr (see below), not to mention the other materials needed for rerolling weapons and the random nature of it, make it more attractive to end-game players looking to perfect their gear.

    Besides receiving one Mote of Light each time you level up after 20, you can also acquire them as follows:

    • Random reward for completing Crucible matches
    • Random reward for completing Strikes
    • Randomly acquired from loot chests
    • Randomly decrypted from rare engrams
    • Random reward from opening the small chests and/or Queen's Chest at the end of Prison of Elders [II]
    • Received two from the Bronze Tier package from the Disciple of Osiris [II]
    • Received multiple from the chest on Mercury after going flawless in Trials of Osiris [II]
    • Obtained after dismantling a Legendary weapon or armor piece (excluding Raid gear) [II]
    • Traded with the Speaker for 2 Radiant Shards or 2 Ascendant Shards [II]
    • Bought from Xûr for 2 Strange Coins [II]

    Xûr

    There is one other merchant in the game that accepts Motes of Light as payment. This would be Xûr. He is a merchant that only appears in the weekend starting friday. His location is different each week. You will have to search for him a bit, though he is often relatively easy to find in the Tower. He can also show up in the Reef instead of the Tower [II].He asks 23 Motes of Light in exchange for an Exotic engram. This is a lot of Motes of Light for an engram that will yield a random piece of gear for a random class (an engram with a helmet thumbnail will become headgear, but which particular helmet it will become and for which class is random). But because all other uses for Motes of Light are cosmetic items (except for weapon reforging [II]), it is still best to use them on buying Exotic engrams. Should you gain an Exotic piece for another class, consider keeping it instead of dismantling it. You might want to level up another class later, and this will make it tremendously easier and quicker.

    Exotics are (more or less) the best gear in the game, unfortunately because of the randomness, Motes of Light cannot realistically be acquired quickly. This has been changed to great extent with House of Wolves, however. Exchanging gear at the Speaker make the process of acquiring them easy and much faster, though the more experienced and higher level you are, the easier and more Motes you will acquire still [II].

    Xûr happens to be the only merchant in the game to sell Exotic gear. Besides the Exotic engrams, he also sells straight up specific Exotic armor and weapons. Each week his stock is different and he only offers 1 piece of armor for each class for a total of 3 and one weapon. Combined with the engram, he sells a total of 5 Exotic items every week.

    [II] Exotics obtained before House of Wolves will have a lower Attack stat, meaning the maximum damage potential is lower, than gear obtained after House of Wolves. This also means that Exotic Bounties that were currently in progress before House of Wolves launched will yield the new and more powerful version of Exotics when turned in after House of Wolves went live. The maximum attack stat in the original game was 300 Attack. It has been increased to 331 Attack in The Dark Below and further increased to 365 Attack in House of Wolves.

    [I]Xûr does allow you to upgrade your weaker Exotics to the stronger ones. This will cost you one Exotic Shard (acquired for 7 Strange Coins at Xûr) and a hefty amount of Glimmer (often between 7000 and 8000). This will also reset your upgrade progress, requiring you to upgrade the weapon once more. However, since this will boost the Attack stat significantly, it is still worth doing. Especially for your favorite Exotics. The same is true for armor. They will increase in defense and their maximum Light will also increase from 30 to 36.

    Strange Coins

    Unlike the engram though, Xûr asks Strange Coins in exchange for the other Exotic gear he sells. Strange Coins are another currency that can only be spend at Xûr. Strange Coins can be obtained by the following:

    • Completing the weekly heroic Strike (awarded 3 Strange Coins for level 26, 6 Strange Coins for level 30 or 9 Strange Coins for level 32)
    • Random reward for completing Crucible matches
    • Random reward for completing the weekly Nightfall Strike
    • Randomly acquired from loot chests
    • Randomly decrypted from Rare or higher engrams
    • Random reward for completing the first Gold Tier public event each day
    • Random reward from opening the small chests and/or Queen's Chest at the end of Prison of Elders [II]

    As you can see, unlike Motes of Light, Strange Coins can actually be obtained with certainty for doing the weekly heroic Strike. It is worth noting that if you complete the Strike as level 26 and obtain your 3 Strange Coins, then complete it again at level 30, you will still gain an additional 3 Strange Coins for doing so. So, do not be discouraged and think you have to complete the highest level immediately (unlike with Daily Story Missions).

    Prices for Exotics are high with a usual asking price of 13 Strange Coins for a piece of armor and 17-23 for a weapon. However, it is likely that you will acquire at least a couple of Strange Coins randomly as a reward in addition to one guaranteed Strange Coin for completing one of the story missions. Even if you only complete the lowest level of weekly Strike, you should be able to buy an Exotic piece of armor in 2-3 weeks. This is great, because Exotic armor yields the highest amount of both starting and final Light in the game (see below). Note that only one Exotic piece of armor and one Exotic weapon can be equipped at any time. It is not possible to equip more.

    Light

    Light is a stat similar to Discipline, Strength and Intellect that can be found on armor. Armor that has the stat yields a certain amount of Light. For example, it might have Light +10. Equipping this armor will give your character +10 Light. Once your character has a certain amount of Light, he will level past 20 to Level 21. So, you will want to equip armor with the highest Light as possible. All four pieces of armor (head, arms, legs, torso) can yield Light. The amount of Light a piece of gear yields is dependent on the level of the armor itself (level 20 gear will yield more Light than level 16 armor) and on the 'grade' or armor.

    Legendary armor yields more Light than Rare armor. But Raid armor from Vault of Glass is also Legendary, yet yields less Light than the armor you can buy from the Vanguard. This has to do with the game's progression.

    Vault of Glass was the first Raid and the hard level cap was 30. The Vault of Glass armor will thus get you to 30 with a fully upgraded set. The Crota's End Raid gear will get you to 32 with a fully upgraded set. The newest armor is that of Prison of Elders and Trials of Osiris; both will get you to 34 with a full set. You can still get other Legendary armor to 34, though they need to be upgraded with Etheric Light (see below).

    Assuming the highest level of armor, this is the amount it can give when fully upgraded:

    RarityLight
    Rare+25 [II] (+20 [I]; +15)
    Legendary (Vanguard, Crucible)+36 [II] (+33 [I]; +27)
    Legendary (Vault of Glass)+30
    Legendary (Crota's End) [I]+36
    Legendary (Iron Banner)+36 [II] (+33 [I]; +27)
    Legendary (Prison of Elders) [II]+42
    Legendary (Trials of Osiris, Watcher) [II]+36
    Legendary (Trials of Osiris, Exile) [II]+42
    Exotic+42 [II] (+36 [I] +30)

    Armor needs to be fully upgraded to gain this amount of Light. That means you need to equip the armor, gain experience on it, and each time you can increase its defense, the amount of Light will also go up. This does not apply to any of the new armors introduced in House of Wolves which are at max Light level when you obtain them. Upgrading them only opens up the perks [II]. Eventually, if you have 4 pieces of Rare armor fully upgraded, you can have a total of 25 * 4 = 100 Light. The amount of Light you need to reach a certain level is as follows:

    LevelLight
    2120
    2232
    2343
    2454
    2565
    2676
    2787
    2898
    29109
    30120
    31 [I]132
    32 [I]144
    33 [II]156
    34 [II]168

    So, with your 100 Light gained from 4 pieces of fully upgraded Rare armor, you will be Level 28. This means that the maximum Level you can reach without Legendary armor is 28. Rare armor is infinitely easier to obtain than Legendary armor however, and being Level 28 will allow you to complete higher level Strikes, which award more Vanguard Reputation as well as Marks, in addition to completing the weekly heroic at 26 or 30 to obtain more Strange Coins to put towards Exotics.

    You can gain Level 20 Rare gear from:

    • Random reward for completing Crucible matches
    • Random reward for completing Strikes
    • Randomly decrypted from engrams
    • Randomly found in loot chests

    Therefor, once you have reached Level 20, start playing either Crucible or doing the Vanguard Playlist to acquire this gear. In my experience, it is easier to obtain Level 20 gear from the Crucible, as the Vanguard Playlist kept giving me lower level gear (16-18). I wish I had known this sooner, because being unable to acquire max level Rare gear kept me at Level 21 for weeks. Update:a patch has updated the Vanguard Strikes at Level 22 or higher to always yield a Cryptarch engram now, making acquiring this gear a lot easier and more reliable.[I] The Cryptarch engram rewards for completing Strikes seems to now only be awarded for doing the Vanguard Roc playlist, which is now the highest playlist above Tiger at Level 26. This playlist is only available to those who own the Dark Below.

    Theoretically, Rare armor does not matter, because you will need Legendary gear to level past 28 anyway. However, being stuck at lower levels keeps you from doing higher level Strikes that offer better rewards, not to mention are more fun to play. Additionally, it keeps you from doing the weekly heroic Strike on higher levels which gains you Strange Coins to buy Exotics, as well as keep you from doing the Daily on higher levels to gain more upgrade materials.

    Therefor, it is important to get to Level 28 using Rare gear. When you do, you will probably be able to buy an Exotic piece of armor quicker than you can actually buy Legendary armor. Do note that it is possible and completely viable to just keep grinding Reputation (discussed below) and going for Legendary gear immediately. Additionally, you might get unlucky and never get Rare drops that you need. Regardless, your goal is to go for Legendary armor in the long run and you will be able to get it just as fast as someone who got very lucky on Rare drops.

    Level 28-32

    Reputation

    Something what you should do as soon as possible, is gaining Reputation for either the Vanguard, Crucible, both or a faction. I cannot stress enough how gaining Reputation to level up these vendors is the absolute most important thing to do in order to level up fast, effectively and efficiently. The Vanguard are basically single player/cooperative focused challenges, while the Crucible is PvP focused. Pick whichever you prefer (or, ideally, both of course). You need to build Reputation with the Vanguard and Crucible to be allowed to buy items. Rank 1 Reputation will allow you to buy cosmetic items like emblems. Rank 2 Reputation will allow you to buy Legendary armor, while Rank 3 will allow you to buy weapons.

    You can increase your Vanguard Reputation by:

    • Completing Patrol Missions (+10 Rep for standard missions and +25 for Assassination missions)
    • Completing Strikes in the Playlist (higher level Strikes give more Reputation)
    • Completing the daily Story Mission, weekly heroic Strike and Nightfall Strike
    • Completing Vanguard bounties

    You can increase your Crucible Reputation by:

    • Completing Crucible matches
    • Completing Crucible bounties

    You will come to find that it takes a long time to increase your Reputation enough to reach Rank 2. This is why Rare armor is still worth getting, simply because you get it faster by doing things you need to do to try and buy Legendary armor anyway. If you don't have a lot of time, pick the bounties that give +100 Reputation and/or the bounties that require you to do 6 Patrol Missions, since those can be done quickly and give additional Rep for each completed mission. If you do have a lot of time, start doing every single bounty every day and search for Assassination missions specifically. They give as much Rep as completing a Level 24 Strike, but obviously can be done a lot quicker. If you are a PvP guy, then get in there and start completing the bounties. Completing a match doesn't yield that much Rep unfortunately, so it's better to try and get those 15 headshots with a Sniper Rifle than just completing a bunch of matches without a bounty.

    You can consider joining one of the three factions by purchasing their class items and equipping them. This way, you will gain Reputation with them for doing both Vanguard and Crucible Reputation gains. This is the smartest thing to do if you play both cooperatively as well as PvP, since all Rep goes into one vendor instead of spreading it across two different ones. Do note that you will only gain Reputation for that particular faction and you will only be able to buy gear off them when you hit Rank 2. It will go faster if you do both PvP and PvE, but your options will be more limited. Consider removing your faction class item when it hits Rank 2 or 3 so your Reputation gains will go towards Vanguard and Crucible again and you open them up later. Each faction is known for its different stats on armor and weapons. For example, one faction might have high Discipline on their gear whereas others have high Intellect. Dead Orbit is known for very high rate of fire, but very unstable weaponry. Take a look which gear suits you best, then decide.

    Accept that grinding Reputation will take you a while. This is not done in a couple of days. Just keep doing bounties, all the bounties. After you have completed them each day, do the Strikes or Crucible matches.

    Marks

    Once you are allowed to buy Legendary gear at Rank 2, you actually need the currency to buy it. Vanguard requires Vanguard Marks while the Crucible requires Crucible Marks. The factions all require Crucible Marks as well, so Vanguard Marks are useless if you do not have the Vanguard leveled.

    Vanguard Marks are obtained by:

    • Completing Strikes in the Playlist (higher level Strikes yield more Marks)
    • Completing the daily Story Mission, weekly heroic Strike and Nightfall Strike
    • Completing public events
    • Completing the Prison of Elders [II]
    • Trading in 50 materials (don't fucking do this)

    Crucible Marks are obtained by:

    • Completing Crucible matches (2 4 Marks for losing, 3 6 Marks for winning, changed after [II])
    • Trading in 50 materials (don't fucking do this)

    For the Crucible it is easy: play matches and try to win. For the Vanguard there are more choices, though the most efficient is still completing public events. destinypublicevents.com shows when a public event might take place. Green are common, yellow are uncommon and red are rare; in terms of likeliness to happen. Just be in that location and wait for the sky to get dark. Events may be delayed by 2 minutes or so or they might not happen at all. Even the green ones are possible to not happen (though likely to occur). Earth is the best place to do this as events are most frequent there usually. You gain 4 Marks for completing the event, which can be done in a couple of minutes as opposed to the ~20 minutes it takes to complete a Strike. That said, events might be spaced far apart, in which case it is quicker to actually do Strikes. In addition, while there is a small chance you gain upgrade materials for completing an event, you are guaranteed to gain gear from doing Strikes. Therefor, both events and Strikes are decent options to gain Marks.

    Don't ever turn in materials for Marks. It is not worth it. It takes a long time before you have 50 of the same material and the amount of Marks you get for them is low. Also, you need those materials for upgrading Legendary and Exotic pieces or armor and weapons. They require 16 materials per upgrade and can be upgraded 3 times usually, for a total of 48 materials required per piece of gear. The materials requires vary between gear, but throwing 50 away on a minuscule amount of Marks is crazy considering you could have used it to upgrade a weapon or piece of armor. It is easy to get, but takes a lot of time and it a chore. [I] You can no longer turn in materials for Marks. The opposite is now an option: you can pay Marks to obtain materials. Materials are needed to upgrade your Legendary and Exotic gear and farming them is a chore. Buying it is a great option now for veteran players, though newcomers may still want to put in time to farm since 10 Marks for 20 materials is still not that much considering you need 6-16 materials for one upgrade. Those Marks are probably better spend acquiring weapons or just acquiring new armor.

    Both Crucible and Vanguard Marks are capped at 100 per week. Meaning you have to wait for the refresh that happens every Tuesday to have it reset to 0 allowing you to acquire another 100 that week. A piece of armor costs 75 Marks, with head gear costing 120. Weapons cost 150 marks, but are usually not worth it. It is more important to increase your Light which is done by equipping Legendary gear to increase the amount of damage you do anyway, than to buy a weapon that does more base damage. Once you have enough Legendary gear it's best to do the Raid and see if you are awarded some Legendary weapons from that without spending your valuable Marks on it. If not, then you can consider buying some Legendary weapons. But you should start with the armor.

    Commendations [I]

    Each time you rank up to 3 or higher in the Vanguard, Crucible or a faction, you receive a Commendation. For ranking up the Vanguard you receive a Vanguard Commendations, for everything else you receive a Crucible Commendation. Commendations are required to buy Legendary headgear, chest armor or weapons. Note that gauntlets and leg armor does not require a Commendation. This makes doing Bounties important even for seasoned players and further slows the progression of new players since they need to be at least Rank 4 to get a full set of armor and then they are still unable to buy specific weapons since all of them require a Commendation. This is still a much shorter ramp to level up than before however, since you will not have to participate and clear (most likely multiple times) the Vault of Glass to reach Level 30.

    Any Commendations you had acquired can now be dismantled to obtain Reputation towards either the Vanguard or Crucible. Commendations no longer serve any purpose otherwise [II].

    Level 32-34

    Prison of Elders [II]

    Completing the Prison of Elders at various levels yields different rewards. Besides Reputation, Marks and other random materials, the most important items for leveling you gain from PoE are as follows:

    • Level 32 > Armor Core
    • Level 34 > Weapon Core
    • Level 35 > Armor Core and Weapon Core

    The Level 28 PoE is somewhat pointless for veteran players. New players can still do it for the Marks and Reputation, though it doesn't yield a ton of either. The random rewards at the end might still be worth it for newer players, however. The Armor Core is valuable as it can be traded with Variks in the Reef for a piece of armor with Light +42. Variks only offers one piece every week, so it will take 4 weeks to acquire a full set. It will only take 3 weeks to get to Level 34 however, since Exotics yield the same amount of Light and you can equip one in addition to 3 other pieces.

    Note that you can give your Armor Core to an alternate character and buy the piece of armor from Variks with it. This is the easiest thing to do if you want an alternate character to reach Level 34. You literally don't have to play that character at all and just buy the armor from Variks over the course of 3-4 weeks to reach Level 34 with your alternate character.

    Gaining this gear is probably the easiest way to gain new max level gear that has ever been in Destiny, though you need to be Level 30 to even attempt the 32, and even then you're probably not going to have a good time since you'll be underleveled. Get to 32 or 31 using the methods described above before you can/should attempt PoE on 32.

    Note that the first time you complete any Prison of Elders on a character that hasn't done it yet, you have 100% chance to get an Exotic drop from the Queen's Chest. This is a one time thing only. Not every week, just once period. That said, there is a very small chance of getting an Exotic on any subsequent runs, but it is unlikely to happen.

    Trials of Osiris [II]

    Trials of Osiris is a weekend PvP mode that pits 3 players versus 3 players. The objective is to wipe the enemy team out. You cannot respawn, you can only be revived by teammates. If the other team is wiped, you gain a point and the players will reset. Whoever gets to 5 points first wins the match. When you play this mode, you play with a card or ticket. If you lose 3 matches, you're out and you need to get a new card. You can get to 9 wins total on this card. If you win a certain amount of matches, you can obtain rewards from the Disciple of Osiris in the Reef. He sells an armor piece as a reward which you can obtain if you have won 5 matches. This means, however, that if you won 4 matches and lost 3, you cannot get the armor he sells. You need to get a new card and try to get to 5 again. Should you be good enough, you can also randomly obtain another armor piece as the 8 Wins reward. Though it might be something else. Note that the concept of going 'flawless' - getting to 9 wins without a single loss on your card - opens up Mercury on your Director for the weekend where you can go and open a special chest that yields Trials' best rewards with possible Exotics (high chance), Etheric Light and a random Adept Trials weapon. These weapons are the same as the Trials weapons that are awarded for getting to 7 wins, except they also have elemental damage on them, making them some of the best weapons in the game along with Raid weapons.

    Note that Trials of Osiris is the most competitive PvP mode in Destiny and it has level advantages enabled, meaning you will do less damage as a level 33 against a level 34, in addition to doing less damage based on your weapon and upgrades. It is not recommended to attempt this mode if you aren't at least level 33 and skilled at PvP.

    However, completing Trials matches also has a random chance to drop a random piece of armor of the Watcher variety. These aren't fantastic pieces of armor as they don't do anything special or have high stats, but they do yield Light +36. They can drop randomly, even if you lose.

    You can get the max Level Trials armor (Exile variety) in the following ways:

    • As a reward for getting to 5 Wins on your card
    • A possible random reward for getting to 8 Wins on your card

    Etheric Light [II]

    Any Legendary armor can be upgraded with Etheric Light to attain max Light level. This means you can upgrade your Vault of Glass armor to attain Light +42 instead of only Light +30. This means any Legendary armor in the game can get you to Level 34. However, Etheric Light is very hard to come by for new players. Therefor, Etheric Light should realistically not be considered as a leveling option for newer players. In addition to leveling armor to max, it can also level Legendary weapons to max attack. This includes Raid weapons which are still one of the best weapons in the game. Should you get near the max level, start acquiring as much Etheric Light as you possibly can to upgrade those Raid weapons.

    Etheric Light can be obtained from:

    • Random reward for completing a Nightfall Strike
    • Reward for completing the Level 34 and Level 35 PoE each week
    • Reward for getting to 6 Wins, 8 Wins and going flawless on your Trials card
    • Can be bought by getting to Rank 3 and Rank 5 in the Iron Banner (one at each rank)

    Ascendant Materials

    Note that Ascendant Materials have become far less useful since House of Wolves. The following still applies, but only to Raid gear which won't get you to max level unless you have Etheric Light. You are better of trying one of the methods described above (PoE, Trials).

    In order to upgrade Raid gear you'll need to earn XP on that armor and start upgrading it. The last three upgrades cost Ascendant Shards. They require 6 Ascendant Shards with each upgrade and also further increase Light. Ascendant materials are obtained by:

    • Random reward for completing your first Gold Tier public event each day
    • Random reward for completing a public event (rare)
    • Guaranteed reward for completing the daily Story Mission on higher difficulties
    • Random reward in the Vault of Glass (common, 3 for Normal 6 for Hard)
    • Randomly decrypted from engrams
    • Obtained from dissembling a piece of Legendary or Exotic armor (2 Shards a piece)

    So, Ascendant Shards are best obtained from doing the daily Story Mission, completing one public event or dismantling Legendary Raid armor. Note that you can also acquire Ascendant Energy instead of Shards, which are used to fully upgrade Legendary Raid weapons instead of armor. Once you have a piece of Legendary gear in every slot, you can start using your Marks to buy Legendary armor for the sole purpose of dissembling it for the Ascendant Shards, which you can then put towards fully upgrading another piece of armor. The same can obviously be done with weapons by buying Legendary weapons and dissembling them for Energy. Gaining enough Ascendant Shards takes a lot of time just like gaining Reputation does.

    [I] Exotic weapons and armor require an Exotic Shard, purchased from Xûr for 7 Strange Coins, to be fully upgraded. They no longer require Ascendant Energy or Shards. Exotic Shards are also obtained from dismantling Exotic weapons and amor. One shard is awarded for each, though dismantling a fully unlocked (not upgraded) Exotic weapon yields 2 instead of 1 Exotic Shard.

    Crota's End Raid gear also does not require any Ascendant materials to upgrade. Instead, it requires Radiant Shards and the weapons require Radiant Energy. These materials are a random reward in completing sections of Crota's End, just how Ascendant materials are a random reward in the Vault of Glass. Ascendant Shards/Energy and Radiant Shards/Energy can be traded with the Speaker for other materials or Glimmer if need be. Otherwise, these materials offer no real value any longer since the Raid gear is sub-optimal (VoG will get you to Level 30 whereas CE will get you to Level 32 unless you have Etheric Light). Thus, both Raids take much longer to attain their respective armors than PoE or Trials do, and they won't even get you to Level 34. Therefor, Ascendant Shards/Energy and Radiant Shards/Energy can be spent freely, without fear of over-investing in sub-optimal gear.

    The only way to reach Level 32 is with at least 3 pieces of Crota's End Raid gear and one upgraded piece of Exotic armor. Reaching Level 32 is thus excluded to those who own the Dark Below. However, Level 32 is only needed to complete Crota's End on Hard; which is Dark Below content.

    There are 3 distinct ways to get to Level 34.

    1. Acquire a full set of Prison of Elders Armor, or 3 pieces and one Exotic piece.
    2. Acquire a full set of Trials of Osiris Armor of the Exile variety, or 3 pieces and one Exotic piece.
    3. Acquire a full set of any Legendary gear and use Etheric Light on it to fully upgrade it, or 3 pieces and one Exotic piece.

    The Short Version

    So, what is the best way to go about this?

    First, play the game. If you do every story mission you should be somewhere around Level 20 when you finish it. Then, start doing Vanguard and Crucible bounties in order to grind Reputation so you may hit Rank 2 and be able to buy Vanguard and Crucible armor. Once able, do the Weekly Heroic to acquire Strange Coins and keep an eye on Xûr every weekend so you may buy a piece of Exotic armor from him. When you are high enough level, start doing the Prison of Elders on Level 32 to obtain those Armor Cores and trade them with Variks to acquire the highest level gear.

    This is all a long process, though it goes faster than some people claim. Destiny is not a loot collecting game. It is all reward based. You cannot expect loot drops to be any good at all. It's all in the rewards for the various activities described above. Find some fun people to play with and you'll be Level 34 before you know it.

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    Jonny_Anonymous

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    This is a great idea. I've been stuck on lvl 30 for months now.

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    ll_Exile_ll

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    Very good guide once again, @zevvion. One minor correction though, the lighthouse chest does not drop Exile armor, it only drops adept primary weapons, some materials and currency (etheric light, passage coins,) and has a chance to drop exotic weapons and armor.

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    Hestilllives19

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    This guide is always good, each time it's updated. I wish we could get it pinned to the top of the page like the Lincoln Foce clan. That way it doesn't get buried after a week or two and we have tons of thread posts about this exact same topic.

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    Zevvion

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    @ll_exile_ll: I could have sworn I got my pants from that chest. But I'm probably mistaken then. Changed it.

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    IBurningStar

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    Thank you for this write up, I have been looking for something like this for a few days and couldn't find anything up to date with current content.

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    Colonel_Pockets

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    I'm gonna go ahead and bump this thread. I think the crazy thing is that I know most of this from the top of my head. Great work.

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    jackburtonme

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    Just wanted to say thanks for this write up. I am getting back in for Taken King but haven't played since vanilla (level 28 hunter). This will help a lot!

    This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:

    Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.

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