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 21-24

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.

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 engrams

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. 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 one and for which class is random). But because all other uses for Motes of Light are cosmetic items, it is still best to use them on buying Exotic engrams.

Exotics are (more or less) the best gear in the game, unfortunately because of the randomness, Motes of Light cannot realistically be acquired quickly. 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.

[I] Exotics obtained before the Dark Below will have a lower Attack stat, meaning the maximum damage potential is lower, than gear obtained after the Dark Below. This also means that Exotic Bounties that were currently in progress before the Dark Below launched will yield the new and more powerful version of Exotics when turned in after the Dark Below went live. Xur 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 Xur) 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 24, 6 Strange Coins for level 28 or 9 Strange Coins for level 30)
• 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

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 24 and obtain your 3 Strange Coins, then complete it again at level 28, 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.

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 two basic things:

1. The Level of the armor. For example, Level 20 armor will yield more Light than Level 16 armor.
2. The rarity of the armor (with only one exception).

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

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. Eventually, if you have 4 pieces of Rare armor fully upgraded, you can have a total of 15 * 4 = 60 Light. The amount of Light you need to reach a certain level is as follows:

So, with your 60 Light gained from 4 pieces of fully upgraded Rare armor, you will be Level 24. This means that the maximum Level you can reach without Legendary armor is 24. Rare armor is infinitely easier to obtain than Legendary armor however, and being Level 24 will allow you to complete higher level Strikes, which award more Vanguard Reputation as well as Marks.

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, it does not matter, because you will need Legendary gear to level past 24 anyway. However, being stuck at 21 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 24 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.

Level 25-27

Reputation

Something what you should do as soon as possible, is gaining Reputation for either the Vanguard, Crucible, both or a faction. The Vanguard are basically single player/cooperative focused challenges, while the Crucible is PvP focused. Pick whichever you prefer (or 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. 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 instead of spreading it across two different ones. It doesn't really matter which faction you join. Gear looks different, but is mostly the same stat wise. Join the one that has the best looking gear, I would say.

There are many progress barriers in the game, but the Reputation is easily the worst one, if you ask me. You need Legendary gear to level past 24, and buying it is realistically the only means of obtaining it (unless you got extremely lucky on drops. Even a loot cave doesn't help much here).

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.

Vanguard Marks are obtained by:

• Completing Strikes in the Playlist (2 Marks for Level 18 Strike, 3 Marks for Level 20 Strike, 4 Marks for Level 22 Strike and 6 Marks for Level 24 Strike)
• Completing the daily Story Mission, weekly heroic Strike and Nightfall Strike
• Completing public events
• Trading in 50 materials (don't fucking do this)

Crucible Marks are obtained by:

• Completing Crucible matches (2 Marks for losing, 3 Marks for winning)
• 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 16 materials for one upgrade. That's roughly 30 Marks to fully upgrade a piece of gear. Those Marks are probably better spend acquiring weapons or just acquiring new armor. Even if just to dismantle it for more Ascendant Shards.

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.

[I] Commendations

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.

Level 28-32

Ascendant Materials

Legendary armor starts with +24 Light. In order to upgrade that further 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 dissembling Legendary armor (assuming you cannot do the Vault of Glass yet). Note that you can also acquire Ascendant Energy instead of Shards, which are used to fully upgrade Legendary 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 Xur for 7 Strange Coins, to be fully upgraded. They no longer require Ascendant Energy or Shards.

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. Therefor, Ascendant Shards and 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.

Wow, I don't even know what to say.

Nice guide. I found it, relatively, easy to get to light level 27. I had quite a few marks by the time I hit 20. Then I just played Vanguard and Crucible playlists until I hit 3 and bam, there it was.

I really wish they had some way to convert currencies. You use to be able to purchase Strange Coins with Glimmer, but they almost immediately took that out with Xur's first appearance. They stated "too many people were using it", which is an idiotic thing to say as I'm not sure how they didn't account for people taking advantage of that...same thing with breaking down the legendary items from the Queen's Wrath missions. In terms of marks, Vanguard marks and Motes of Light are fairly useless in the grand scheme of things. I've been stockpiling them just in case they manage to release something worth buying with them.

Odd note: This last week's exotic weapon from Xur only cost 21 Strange Coins, which I thought was weird. Went ahead and picked it up since I assumed the Suros Regime (the one of two weapons dominating the lackluster, and falsely advertised, Iron Banner event) wouldn't be back for 2-3 weeks.

@sammo21: I get why they removed buying Strange Coins. I actually was able to buy an Exotic long before I was able to buy a Legendary. That seems weird.

I also bought Ice Breaker, this week's Exotic. It's pretty awesome. Mostly because it regenerates ammo over time at a good pace. That will come in handy in a lot of places. Still sucks you can only equip one Exotic piece of armor and weapon at any given time though.

As someone that is one piece of raid armor away from level 30 I already knew all this, but this is an excellent roadmap for those that had no idea where to begin with the Destiny's post 20 content. Fantastic post.

Great post.

Good guide but at the end of the day you're still beholden to RNG which means grinding out rep is basically the only safe solution past level 25 - and that kinda sucks.

Yeah. Hoping for drops is just not going to happen. It might work for < 1% of the people out there. If that.

Buying it is the way to go. Which unfortunately takes a lot of time. But I found the higher level you are, the more fun you're having. The more people you play with, the more fun you're having. There is no excuse for the grind, but the grind can still be fun.

This is an excellent guide. I don't play the game, but I find it fascinating how convoluted the whole leveling/loot system is. It's like they used a free-to-play time-wall model, added more RNG, then divided it across PvE/PvP. I'd like to dive into Destiny, but it's too cumbersome for the small window of time I have for gaming. Hopefully Bungie will release a "Loot 2.0" patch a la Diablo 3 down the road.

@nevalis: Sadly, just about every single thing about the game is convoluted. While I keep playing the game I honestly have lost a little bit of respect for Bungie after Destiny's release.

Man just a little? Destiny is a really interesting idea that fails in many more ways than it succeeds. This in of itself wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but the PR hype machine prior to release coupled with their defensive/passive-aggressive statements and how they really lean into the "it's our way or the highway" philosophy all work towards putting Destiny in the dimmest of lights that even the traveller couldn't illuminate.

Personally I found it astounding that this game went through rigorous playtesting and no one raised any concerns about the many, many bad design choices present.

@humanity: I really do believe this game had to have had a major setback, or complete rethinking many of the mechanics, at some point late in development; its far too polished to have been just a year ago (especially when the build I played in "pre-alpha" was seen/played at e3 last year all the way to late April). However, I cannot believe the final product is what Bungie actually wanted to put out. Like you said, the hype train, even from Bungie, made this even worse. To scoff at people who were worried about content actually makes me kind of upset.

I can guarantee you they did, but they probably said that's how it's meant to be played/by design/too late to fix.Usually every obvious bug and design flaw the users find will have been raised by QA or playtest but waived by the devs for one reason or another.

If I had to choose one thing about this game that is absolutely inexcusable, it would be how you have to have "special" legendary gear to get to level 30. That is so incredibly stupid, it almost puts me at a loss for words, but I'll try to find some anyway. Forcing everyone to funnel into the vault of glass to get the same gear just to get to level 30 is lazy design. On top of that, you're still at the mercy of the almighty RNG trolls when it comes to the Raid gear actually dropping, as it is not a guaranteed reward.

I can forgive a lot about this game, since it is just so fun to play (by which I mean shoot stuff), but mechanics like this are just idiotic. It already takes enough time to just get enough ascendant shards to upgrade the regular legendary gear. There's no reason to force people to do the vault of glass, especially when it requires 6 people, and there's no matchmaking. I'll never be able to do this unless they add matchmaking. Thanks Bungie, for locking 90% of the player base out of content that is needed to advance in a game with already limited content.

This is a good post, though, with a lot of good information. I just needed to vent for a second. I really hate how you have to get raid gear, and it's still just legendary. They should have made it a different color like in other games that shows it's a set. Anyway, good post.

@tyrrael: Yeah, especially that Raid gear is a random drop. I haven't had any drop in two runs. You can only get Raid rewards once per week, so yet another thing that hampers progress.

I think I would mention that completing weekly heroics on harder difficulties result in huge amounts of vanguard marks, like 250+ for example. Very helpful for ranking up in Vanguard rep.

@zevvion: Great guide. I wish I had been able to read it a few weeks ago, but a friend of mine has just started playing so it will be super useful for him. Talking with someone who has just started playing really makes you realise what an obtuse game this is.

Very informative. Thank you! Answered many questions that I've been asking myself.

You mean Reputation. Not Marks. But yeah, the Nightfall gives +400 Rep. It is a great source, though you can only do it once a week.

The only thing I would add is that the amount of both Vanguard and Crucible Marks you can hold is 200. Any more you gain above that is wasted and counts towards your weekly limit.

Awesome post!

I'd like to hear a bit more about the materials. I have two purple armors that need helium to upgrade. Meanwhile I have a crapload of spinmetal, and almost none of the other two things. Is the material needed random, based on item level/rarity, or what?

Seems lame there is no way to buy or exchange materials.

The most important part is that the helmet only drops on VoG hard mode. Buy an exotic. Hard mode is a soul crushing nighmare even with everyone at lvl 29.

I'm sure there are plenty of Giant Bomb duders that would be glad to run the vault with you. If you give your PSN name I'd be happy to send you an invite next time I'm setting up a raid.

I didn't even know that you couldn't get Raid rewards more than once a week. That is ridiculous. It's like Bungie knew that there wasn't a lot of content, so they put these nonsensical limitations on player advancement in hopes of padding out the game for as long as possible.

One of the best guides written about this game, fantastic work.

Also, I learned from this that there is "special" legendary gear in the Vault to get to 30...what a bunch of bullshit.

You did great work on the guide, but I have to say that this is the reason I stopped playing Destiny. When they said it was a loot game, for some strange reason I thought there would be loot involved.

Fantastic guide. I'm glad I beat my head against the wall for a while to figure this game out on my own, but this guide really explains a lot that people seem to not understand.

Bravo!

A question about VoG. Earlier in the week I got invited into a raid in progress. I joined during the Gate phase at the end, followed by Atheon right after. Am I still able to go and join a raid to complete the first 75% of the raid before reset tomorrow or am I completely locked out? And if I am able, will it kick me out at Atheon or will I be able to down him another time?

@feels: Yes you will get the rewards for the beginning parts that you haven't completed yet. And you can still beat the Atheon again, but you will not get the rewards for it since you already got them this week. You can also use Bungie.net and click "Legend" on the left and hit "advisors" to check your progress on the raid and what rewards you already have for it.

@lego_my_eggo: Excellent -- thank you!

Great guide.

Unfortunately for me, it highlights so many things I have grown to really dislike about the game and why I simply refuse to continue the grind (currently lvl 26 Titan); but the guide has got the potential to help a lot of people.

done the raid 3 times

no gear

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Is the raid gear like one set or is it just that any legendary you get from the raid can go to 30? To think that the clearest path to 30 is one that results in you looking exactly like every other 30 in your class sounds just insane.

I'm just about to hit 20, and I do plan on getting to 30, but I've really got no idea how I'm going to have the patience to grind the rep. It's so fucking slow.

Yeah, Destiny has a ton of grinding involved, but I feel getting Reputation to Rank 2 is one of the worst. That, and collecting upgrade materials (Spinmetal, Helium, Spirit Bloom and Relic Iron).

You get +150 for the weekly Heroic and +400 for the Nightfall. That's +550 Reputation for two activities, which yield excellent rewards themselves. You should get people to pull you through them. There is always some sort of exploit so you can. Also, just keep doing all the bounties and keep an eye out for Assassination Missions. That's the best you can do. It'll probably still take you 3 days if not more.

Yes, it is one set for each class. Apart from the one Exotic you will most likely equip, yeah, every Level 30 of each class will look the same. It is indeed pretty dumb. I only hope they won't force you to farm for another set of armor in the expansion to reach beyond 30, because that process is pretty frustrating as they aren't guaranteed drops (in 3 Raids I only obtained 1 piece of armor. I've heard of people who did it 5 times and received no armor).

Wow. This is everything I was looking for. <3