After 4 days of doing every single bounty and doing as many patrols as time allowed me to, I'm just barely Rank 1 Vanguard. I need to get to Rank 2 to increase my Light, but it seems to take forever to get there. I need 1800 more Reputation. You get 50 on average for every bounty with 6 or so bounties each day. It'll almost take me a week to get that much. It's a bit insane. Am I missing something? I hope I am.

After turning in 50 spinmetal and getting a miserly 25 Vangard experience yesterday, I'm pretty much fed up with levelling. I've done bounties every day, patrol missions and according to the grimoire - 50 strikes and I'm barely over 1/4 way through level 1.

I'm in this massive rut where I need light to level so I can do the higher level challenges, but the challenges that pay out the rewards that let you build light are the challenges I can't do because I'm on my own, or I'm too low level to even enter. It totally sucks being the only one of my friends to play as I can't even do things like the weekly strike as there is no matchmaking, yet there is matchmaking for literally every other strike.

I heard someone say that the games biggest flaw is that it doesn't respect the players time. I'm inclined to agree. It expects you to either have hours free every day, and a stable of people that also have that time free at the same time as you.

Focus on Assassination patrol missions as they also give you spinmetal which you can turn into more rep.

@nezza: What level are you? I'm in the same boat. It's not even that you just need a stable of friends that also play, my friends that are getting into the game are playing on 360 while the one friend playing on PS4 with me is pretty far behind and not a huge gamer.

Grinding, basically. Do the weekly strike at the highest level you can, do every vanguard bounty every day, do your daily public event, turn in materials at the vender. Beyond that, you can grind out patrol missions. Assassination missions give you 25 rep and some material, anything else gives you 10 rep. If you were leveling a faction instead, you could wear their class item and have all rep converted into rep for that faction. This is the fastest way to get to level 3 in a faction, as you can convert the rep from both the vanguard AND crucible bounties into one single reputation meter. You're not missing anything, it just takes forever.

You know what's dumb? Correct me if I'm wrong about this but why don't the weekly strikes support matchmaking like the vanguard playlist? They're just the same strikes....

@spraynardtatum: Because they are so incredibly hard that there is simply no way a rag-tag group of randoms could possibly manage it!

(I've solo'd it, it's not hard, no idea why they excluded it.)

Depends on the Strike. This weeks is pretty hard to solo due to the ass ton of adds at the end. If it were Sepiks or Phogoth... yeah, it is totally soloable. You have to remember when you go in alone the boss actually has a lot less HP and I think some of the spawns are toned back as well to not have as many mobs.

I will be happy to help people that need to do it on PS4 if you want to add me, I am just not around on weekends :p. PM me if you want.

@karkarov: I solo'd the level 28 weekly on my defender titan (who is 27), and it was definitely harder than the other two weeks. Mostly because there are a SHIT TON of goblins spawning it when you get the boss to 85%, 60%, 30% and 15% health, this weekly has solar damage tripled, and goblins do solar damage. The hobgoblin could one shot me from full health, which resulted in 5 wipes when the boss was at like 20% health. Luckily I have a pocket infinity, a fully auto fusion rifle that does solar damage, so it made it doable. The 26 version would have been a cinch.

Man, they need a higher level strike playlist. They should add a 26 and 28 playlist, giving 50 and 100 reputation per run.

I cannot because of this:

@nezza said:

I'm in this massive rut where I need light to level so I can do the higher level challenges, but the challenges that pay out the rewards that let you build light are the challenges I can't do because I'm on my own, or I'm too low level to even enter.

It is literally that. The stuff that gives the most Reputation by far is the weekly Strike. I have attempted it, but it is just too hard. I'm Level 21 and have all my gear maxed for maximum Light. I just cannot reach 22 with the stuff I got. I need Legendaries to get further, but those never drop (I got one as a reward for leveling the Cryptark to 3, but it turned into an Uncommon) and the ones you can buy are only able to be purchased with Vanguard Rank 2, which I obviously do not have because it takes forever to accumulate enough Reputation.

The Tiger Vanguard gives +25 Reputation but I obviously cannot do those as they are Level 24. I am having enough trouble on Level 22 Strikes as it is which only yield 14 Reputation. I have done every single bounty that gives Rep, I'm just 1/4 into rank 2 right now. I get the Patrols, but they only yield 10 a piece unless you get lucky enough to get a +25 one, but they seem somewhat rare. And even then, it takes forever to get enough Rep.

Seems to me like there is a gap between Level 21 and 21+ where you are just sinking time into the game with no result for hours upon hours upon hours. Because I need more Rep to buy Legendaries which will get me to 22 and 23 when I level them up. The thing is, Rep is harder to get than the Marks you need to buy the Legendaries with. Of course, they capped it at 100 a week for that reason apparently. But at least I would make progress.

As it stands I have 8 Strange Coins and you only need 13 to buy an Exotic from Xur. I have 11 Motes of Light and you need 23 to buy an Exotic engram. The funny thing is I will probably be able to buy Exotics long before I will be able to buy Legendaries.

I feel this stuff is rather unbalanced.

@zevvion: The loot issues will persist until Tuesday patch. However, you don't need legendaries to level up past 21. You only need 50 light to be level 24, and every level 20 blue piece of armor is capable of 15 light if you fully upgrade it, which is very easy. A full set of blues will have you sitting at halfway to 25, which you can then reach with just one legendary piece. Getting a level 20 blue piece is pretty simple, albeit a bit random. Your best bet would be to simply play the level 20 strike playlist until you get some blue engrams, while doing bounties. Any enemy you kill has the exact same drop rate for engrams, so you are bound to find some by simply doing your dailys and playing strikes. The Crucible is also a good place to get engrams, if you like playing competitive multi-player.

@spraynardtatum: I'm level 21 and have been since the third day of release.

I've had four legendaries drop, each of them turned into either a green or a strange coin. I'm 3 coins away from being able to buy a helmet from Xur. I played for about 6 hours yesterday rotating through the public events hoping to get the extra coins I need. I didn't get a single useful item other than the materials for 1st event of the day.

I have a legendary Pulse Rifle which ironically dropped from a rare and a rare fusion rifle which I got at the end of the story and haven't had anything better drop since.

Right now this feels like all grind, zero reward.

Just do your bounties every day and have some patience. If you're able to be online when the bounties reset you can pick them up, finish them and when you relog/log on later that day they'll be back again. Don't bother too much with grinding or you'll just get burnt out, the game is filled with time gates to prohibit advancement, so playing beyond those will most likely only lead to frustration.

Personally I would suggest checking out the PvP (unless you already have). I wasn't too hot on it myself at first, but after playing it for a while I've been enjoying it more and more. I still only play it to finish bounties though, but having that incentive is enough to make it enjoyable and it makes for some variety as well. And in the end it will give you loot twice as fast.

@zevvion: This really isn't me being a dick, but just do bounties and (when possible) also do the Vanguard playlist strikes. I'm not sure why people think this should be so fast, but if you do the bounties,a little free roam, and also do some of the strikes from the playlist you will get to level 3 in a pretty decent click but its not going to be a week long thing. I hit level 3 in Vanguard either late last week or early this week. I hit level 3 in Crucible morning. The bounties don't give much more than 300-400 rep for completed all 5, and that's if you can even complete them all. Each free roam mission gives about 10 rep a piece and completing some of the strikes give...25 rep, I think. You'll just have to stick with it; its a relatively short amount of time.

I'm also level 1+ in New Monarchy and level 1+ with the Queen, though the Queen's stuff is 100% useless for me since I'm also level 28+ and the gear no longer breaks down for Ascendant material, which is 100% ignorant. If you are more worried about gear then I'd say do Queen's bounty stuff until Tuesday and you will get at least 1 piece of gear every time you run it. That's a pretty good stop gap if you're only worried about gear right now. Crucible matches frequently drop level 20 gear as do high level strikes.

I pretty much just grinded off Strikes to get my Vanguard level where it is now. I actually just hit level 3 and it wasn't all that painful, though it was time consuming. If anything, I'm more dreading having to play a bunch of Crucible in order to fulfill my exotic weapon bounty...

i almost did the same thing (level 26 though) but the last time they booted me from the servers...smh...all i needed was one more person and nobody was online. Game needs fucking matchmaking

and i got to vanguard 3 just by playing the game, doing bounties a lot. Hit level 3 sometime this week, too bad i can't get enough marks to buy a weapon since they cap you at 100 a week. I guess it's to keep you playing, did the opposite for me though.

@doctordonkey: Just as an aside you understand that if you didn't have pocket infinity and weren't a defender capable of shielding yourself from all damage as needed that strike would be a crap ton harder right? Try doing it as a hunter with no pocket infinity with solar damage when you are dealing with one shotting hobgoblins and your only option to beat the encounter is to not get hit period. It is pretty hard. Defender is definitely the easiest class to solo with by far.

@doctordonkey: I have all rare gear equipped and fully upgraded. They vary from +6 to +12 Light a piece. They are all Level 20 gear. Apparently not every piece is capable of attaining +15 Light unless I am missing some other upgrade opportunity? I'm pretty sure the tech tree on the armor is the only way to upgrade it, which is to say you can do it only once, and I have. I have been playing a lot of the Strike playlist to stock up on Marks. I have enough Marks to buy equipment, just don't have the Rank 2 yet. I didn't get any better armor (by which I mean more Light stat) than I already have, taking upgrade potential into account. I have 31 Light right now and it seems 32 is what you need to hit Level 22. I just don't find any gear anywhere that gives me an additional point.

Maybe you are right that some rares can give +15 Light, but they seem... well... rare. I haven't found a single one of them. If you were so lucky that is great for you, but it definitely isn't working for me.

@sammo21 I didn't read anything to think you were a dick. That said, I strongly disagree. I finished Destiny in just over 15 hours and that got me to Level 20. I currently have 31 hours on record for the game which means I have been playing post-endgame for 16 hours and it got me to Level 21. It was a long ass grind with pretty much no reward whatsoever. The best weapon I have is the weapon I got for finishing the game 16 hours ago. The best armor I have I obtained in the first hour after I finished it, so about 15 hours ago. Right now it is grind, grind, grind in the hope of getting some drops that apparently some of you got, but I simply didn't get. I wouldn't call 16 hours of grinding and still not being anywhere closer to breaking the leveling plateau 'a relatively short amount of time' as you put it.

I got to level 2 in New Monarchy pretty fast just by doing bounties in the crucible... I did one one weekly heroic strike which gives you, I think, 250 rep.

Doing Queen's Wrath missions has a very high chance of giving you a legendary item (helm or chest).

There are patrol missions that are kill target missions, kill a VIP. Basically go kill a major. Those give you 25 rep and are super easy and quick. Go to a planet, run all the areas and look for that icon, the one with the star (image below). Do them all in each area of the planet. You can generally find 2-4 each patrol. Then go to the next planet and repeat. Also as stated, make sure you do the daily bounties every day. They made this like everything else a bitch to grind. And they expect it to take you weeks to complete. Also public events give you rep and marks.

You can also find a full list of every patrol mission that is possible in the article here. And keep in mind, once you get 50 VIP kills (which also gives you 1250 rep) you then get better drops from public events. Meaning you gain the ability to get rare upgrade ascendent shards and energy for legendary and exotic weapon upgrades. You are not guaranteed them. But I've gotten them a couple times now since getting over 50 VIP kills.

@sterling: That's actually helpful, I thought the missions were completely random. Never looked into the different icons. Will go do that now.

Yeah, I know public events are great for many reasons; they are fun, give Strange Coins relatively often I found, even got Ascendant Shards from them before and whatnot. But they seem to be very, very random. I've had two happen in a 10 minute span and I've had days go by without one ever occurring. They aren't very reliable.

@zevvion: You just need to use this link for that. Helps let you know when they are coming and where. Helps to farm them. I use it a lot.

That's awesome (if it works), thanks.

I have to admit though, even though all of this is a grind, I am really enjoying the game. It plays really well, I like the setting and the art is awesome. Also, I actually like having to put time into achieving something, I just thought this particular Reputation thing was a bit too much.

I am getting closer though after your advice. I feel confident I'll get Rank 2 tomorrow. It's still a boring chore, but at least I'll get there.

Defender is definitely the best class for anything in PvE, yeah. That said, both of the other classes can solo it pretty simply as well (I have also solo'd it on my warlock, also 27). A hunter can cheese a lot of the PvE content by abusing Stalker, Escape Artist and Vanish. Stacking intellect as a Sunsinger allows you to revive yourself pretty much every time you happen to die, as well as being decently tanky with Flame Shield. Soloing the bosses in this game is 80% cheesing and 20% exploiting the AI.

If you're rocking 6-12 light on every piece, that gear is level 18. You are looking for the level 20 blue gear, those have 14 light baseline, 15 upgraded. Far as I've come to notice, when you decrypt a blue engram, it has a 50/50 chance to become either level 18 or level 20 (I've not tested this at all, just an observation).

I'm currently trying to get my Queen rep up so I can reach Rank 2 and buy the AR Her Right Hand.

Only level 20 gear can have light on it, level 18 stuff has zero light. However, blue level 20 armor can range from no light to as high as 15. Basically, as you level up beyond 20 you start finding blue gear with higher light in a way that makes your climb from 20 to 25 pretty much one level at a time. You won't really come across blue armor with a potential of 15 light until your 23 or 24.

@ll_exile_ll: This doesn't seem to be the case. Every time I've ever obtained a level 20 blue piece of armor it has always had between 13-14 light on it. I've got a pair of hunter boots sitting in my vault right now that are level 17 with 6 light on them.

Save those materials, you're gonna need them to level fancy guns and armor.

@zevvion: Super surprised about that. After I hit level 20 I was probably light level 22 by a few hours after. After about a week I had maxed out my marks in both Vanguard and Crucible (100 a piece) and was able to get to Vanguard and Crucible levels 2 by that point as well. This gained me 2 pieces of armor (65 marks a piece) because of my marks from the first week of crucible doing a few events. This gave me legs, arms, and chest.

Before I could get to level 3 in Crucible or Vanguard (and be able to spend 135[?] marks on a helmet) I was able to get the Exotic helmet from the guy who shows up from Fri to Sun morning. This put me at, total, around light level 26+ or so. As you upgrade legendary and exotic armor with light levels you will actually increase the light amount even more, so right now I am sitting at level 28+. Here are a few tips but they will only work as well as you have the time.

1. Here's a ways to get armor and weapons, reliably. Play crucible and get engrams/reward drops Playing crucible will gain you various amounts of rep for Crucible (unless you are wearing a faction's class item) as well as +2 marks for losing a match, or +3 marks for winning. There is no cap on rep gained or drops acquired, but you can only gain 100 marks in a week.

2. Play the Vanguard strike playlist. This playlist puts you in matchmaking for a random strike. There are 5 levels for strikes and completing a strike from this list gains you Vanguard rep (unless you are wearing a faction's class item) as well as varying amounts of marks. I remember the level 24 strike gains +25 Vanguard rep as well as +6 marks. You can also gain completion rewards as well as green to purple drops during the strike.

3. Take some time and do the bounties in free roam and beyond. Free roam is important because this the time you will more than likely get to do a public event. If I am lucky I will get 2+ public events in the span of 2+ hours, but this varies quite a bit. Completing a public event will do several things: possible give you loot drops, possible chance of gaining strange coins or Ascendant materials, gain Vanguard rep (unless you are wearing a faction's class item), and also getting a reward "mailed" to you at the tower (I think this only happens the first time you get a gold star rating on an event each day). The reward you will be mailed is typically an Ascendant material or Strange coin, but sometimes there can be ships, weapons, or armor.

4. Level up Vanguard and Crucible factions. While already discussed, I noticed that when I hit levels 2 and 3 in both factions I was mailed either engrams or actual items.

5. Do bounties and missions for The Queen. This was a weekly event and while you are still playing the exact same content as before there are new bounties to do and harder versions of missions. Once you complete a bounty for The Queen you gain a quest item called "Queen's Wrath". For each one of these items you can play a random mission with heroic modifiers. Finishing these missions gains you a legendary piece of armor or a legendary weapon. Unfortunately, these purple items can no longer be broken down for Ascendant materials. This is an idiotic decision, but most of Destiny is an idiotic decision in my opinion.

6. The fastest factions to level, in terms of time, are the "sub factions": Dead Orbit, Future War Cult, and New Monarchy. These are faster to level (once you get to level 20, which you are) because as long as you are wearing the class item they sell you will only gain rep for that faction. Example, if you play a Crucible match while wearing the faction item you won't gain Crucible rep but you will gain rep for the faction whose item you are wearing. You will still gain the appropriate marks and these are also used as currency at these other factions.

7. Do the daily/weekly challenges. Specifically, do the ones that give the most Ascendant materials and Strange Coins. This currency is used for upgrading your legendary weapons (thus increasing your level) as well as Strange Coins being used to purchase Exotic items.

___

It does suck you played so long without getting that high, but I'm super confused as to how outside of just having God awful luck. Everyone in my clan (6+ people) got to level 24 super quick. The hardest thing is getting Ascendant Materials to level but as I mentioned above there are ways to, at least slowly, get that done. Also as I mentioned, your availability to play can drastically effect what you are able to do.

@doctordonkey: I actually think Defender is the most useful in high level strikes. I still prefer everything about Striker: grenades, mobility, flexibility, etc.

Ya, I prefer striker too. But I always switch to defender on strikes. And it usually ends up saving someones ass for a re spawn while they are being hailed with bullets from all sides. I even started using it in PvP. Because of the shielding bonus from the punch kills. I cant take 4-6 shotgun blasts to the face with that shield on. If you've ever seen a guy with a white, blue and red heath bar. That is what it is. And you become a pain in the butt to kill for 40 seconds. Its a good counter to the blade dancer and gunslinger one shots. If you can time it just right you can survive them.

@doctordonkey: You were right. I was mistaken. I was under the impression that only level 20 gear can have Light, but it appears I was using some level 16 stuff as well with Light on it. Never the less, I never got any drops with more Light. It always only had +2 or +3.

However, last night I teamed up with two GB dudes and they helped pull me through the Queen's mission. Received a Legendary for it. It was crazy hard, because everything took me down in literally one shot. I was just running around trying not to get killed while they killed everything basically. It took a lot of tries. We almost gave up and then beat it. After that, we did the weekly Strike since that Legendary pushed me over the cap to 23. Took a couple of tries but it was totally doable. I got my first ever Legendary engram drop there. It turned into Legendary body armor. However, after receiving the 3 Strange Coins for that Strike, I was able to buy an Exotic from Xur. He was only selling body armor for the Titan so I got that.

I'm level 25 now. I've been stuck on level 21 for days and I went to level 25 in 20 minutes. Kinda dumb, but at least I'm through that nasty plateau.

The funny thing is, I still don't have enough Rep to buy a Legendary. Yep, I was able to buy an Exotic before I was able to buy a Legendary. Oh well, I will probably get enough Rep today to grow even further.

Well as long as you understand the second you take any action the hunter loses their stealth and taking 1-2 hits from anything results in you dieing and you have no defensive or self rez cool downs yeah I guess it is super easy. Oh wait. No it isn't. Half the ultras/shielded enemies in the game even see through stealth anyway.

@karkarov: I don't recall saying it was ever "super easy". I said the strategy is simple to execute in theory, not that it was easy, things can happen that are out of your hands sometimes, but if you bang your head against it long enough, you get it down and do it. What class/subclass you are using determines how long and how hard you have to bang your head against the encounter. The use of stealth I was implying is not for stealthing, taking a few shots and re-stealthing, it's used for positioning. Instead of having to run to a vantage point and dodge enemy fire, you use stealth to get yourself into position without putting yourself at risk of getting gatted. Hunter is harder to solo bosses than the other two classes, sure, but like I said, if you execute the simple plan of exploiting the AI and cheesing the fight (There is a little pillar with cover you can stand on in this weeks strike that the boss can't hit you from, and you can hit his weakpoint just fine), than any class/subclass combination can do it.

@sammo21: I'm actually the opposite and super surprised it took you, and apparently all your friends so little time to get there. I'm exactly in the same situation as @zevvion and a few others. Was stuck on level 21 for probably over a week. I did the strikes, I did some patrols and I played a lot of the Crucible because I find it to be the most entertaining of all the activities. After a week of moderate play, which is about 2-3 hours a day, I'm MAYBE halfway to rank 1 on anything. I'm not sure how you maxed out all primary factions and gotten levels in secondaries so quickly. Are you and your friends playing for 6-8 hours a day? Doing about 5 games of the crucible and 2-3 strikes takes a while - not to mention it gets a little tiring.

The only way I finally got to level 22 today was through sheer luck. I was attempting to do the level 22 Weekly strike by myself, as I had no one else to do it with and no matchmaking. So I kept constantly failing because the enemies were just too strong for me when before dying I randomly picked up a blue engram. I had zero hopes for it as I haven't gotten anything useful from the cryptarch from at least the last 50 blues I brought him. Lo and behold it was a helmet that actually raised my light just beyond 21 to 22.

That said, all my faction stuff is still way low and it seems to be raising ever so slightly forward each day. Maybe they changed the values since launch day. Who knows. All I know is that it feels like I've played a lot of this week, yet I'm seeing marginal progress. I see everyone who got to level 28 real fast and I just don't get it either.

@humanity: I don't know man. I just decided to work on stuff and went about it the most efficient way possible. I knew that Vanguard bounties give you about 400 rep a day, if you do them all...same for Crucible. I can always get all the Vanguard bounties done in a day in the matter of about 1-2 hours, max. That doesn't count the rep you'd get from completing a Vanguard strike, event, or freeroam mission along the way. Crucible bounties give the same rep, but you can't count on them all being possible. For example, I hate scout rifles or hand cannons so if there is a bounty for one of those I just don't do. You also get +25 rep for a match competition on top of working on bounties.

Working on sub factions is even easier as you can theoretically move through them 2x as fast as either of the other factions since everything you do can go towards that faction if you have the class item on. At max I typically would only play 2-3.5 hours a day and for no more than 4-5 days a week. Most of those days I only played an hour or so, but if I was only playing that little I would focus on just one faction. Not to mention I was earning marks and rep from level 6 on, so I had some marks and rep by the time I hit 20. Armor is fairly cheap, unless you are getting into helmets, and all weapons are 150 marks a piece.

I've been at 24 (or 23?) for over a week. The content isn't interesting enough to grind non-stop. I've been doing PVP (which I'm good at), but only level 1 with Crucible rep, which gets you absolutely nothing. I'm still having some fun with the game, but I haven't got a single legendary armor piece yet due to the random nature of the drops. I'm almost level 1 Vangard (hard to get groups together even with a guild because the guild system is useless in game). The game is fun, but this is the first game that I feel like leveling and getting loot actually makes a game worse. The system is that broken. This upcoming patch better be amazing.