A lot of this is information prior to 10/18. Look at the bottom for current Advice, but browse this as it will be referenced there.
First and foremost, I want to admit. I made a ton of mistakes yesterday. Therefor I am only sitting at around 354 Light Level right now (9/22), update 387 on all 3 characters (10/17). This is primarily due to me not understanding the major changes they made to the Light Leveling System for Rise of Iron. So in an attempt to prevent others here from making those same mistakes I wanted to create a Guide per say of what I learned, through Trial and Error, mostly Error, yesterday, and how not to make the same mistakes that I did. Another huge thing to note, before going into this guide, is that 370 is the recommended Light Level for Wrath of The Machine Normal, even if you can currently get to 388 (only 11 players at 388 in Destiny right now 10/17), so keep this in mind. The final encounter of WotM is 380 on Normal Mode. Without further ado, here goes.
For the purposes of this guide, I'm going to assume you came into Rise of Iron at 335 with 200 Legendary Marks and a fair amount of normal Destiny materials. If you didn't, all of these same principle's apply, they just might take you longer. One of the first things to note, if you have multiple characters, is to focus first on the character you play the most often as boosting a 2nd and 3rd character is easy due to the 1 to 1 infusion system, so waiting until at least hitting 365 is more beneficial. So grind that character as high as possible first. Throughout this entire process, while it should be obvious, keep any Legendary/Exotic Engrams (up to 365 and 356+ for Exotic) for a slot that is relatively close to your current Light Level. You can use those later when that slot "falls behind" to make larger gains to that slot using a method I call the Rule of 5.
1. Go through the story missions per normal. Once finished with those go directly to The Tower. It is likely you have been getting Rare's throughout the story, you should have been putting those on to upgrade your light as you went forward, since gear didn't really matter, especially before decrypting anything (ALWAYS have max Light when you know you are about to obtain loot). It is likely that you are at 340, or close to, since 340 is the highest light Rare Engrams can decrypt to.
2. Now, use your Legendary Marks to purchase Vendor gear at 350. Keep in mind that if you have a Legendary Class Engram, you can trade it to Shiro for a 350 Class item for only 5,000 Glimmer, otherwise you will have to spend 20 Motes and 60 Marks to the Speaker. Ghost, Class Item, Boots, Chest, and Arms are 75 Marks each from a Vendor. Buy whatever is your lowest in slot gear first, thereby increasing your Light by the most. The goal would be to buy all 350 gear from Vendors, but that would take 935 Legendary Marks. It's highly unlikely you have access to that. So Do Not buy Weapons or a Helmet, just use 340 Rares in those slots. Doing this should still let you hit the 345ish range for only 300-360 Legendary Marks, which is much more obtainable via Public Events (15 first time each day on each character if you have 3, plus a Legendary Engram), Daily Story/Crucible (15 each), Weekly Heroic (3x10), Weekly Crucible (3x10), and Quest Rewards. You have a Weekly potential of at least 585 Legendary Marks plus any you brought into the DLC to begin with and a few extra's from one time Quest completions. So this should be easy to do for anyone within the week, or those with 200 on Day 1, in a few days. Update: Xur sells his gear at 350 Light Level. These items can easily be purchased to save Legendary Marks for Strange Coins and then infused into existing gear. On September 23rd he has brought a Helmet, Chest, Boots, and Primary Weapon. That drops the Legendary Mark total to Infuse down from 425 to only 12 Marks and 62 Strange Coins. It's a pretty fantastic deal and upgrades 4 of your 10 slots to 350. For reference I gained about 200 Strange Coins just this past week since Xur left last week, so those should be easy to come by.Also, now that Xur comes, my recommendations for what to spend Legendary Marks on at the Vendor changes a bit. Ghost and Class Items are of utmost priority now, simply because Xur can bring Helmets, Chests, Gloves, Boots, and all Weapon types. So buy those items first, it order to not waste Legendary Marks.
3. After the tower go finish the Quest Champion of Light. Finishing this unlocks the Iron Lords Legacy Token, and will allow you to get your hands on one of the new Artifacts at 350 Light. I'm trying to be as vague as possible, as to not spoil anything other than the Quest name, but getting a 350 Artifact is tough, and these are the easiest guaranteed way to hit 350 in that slot. Another thing to note is that this Artifact can be switched between characters as well, so it will allow you to only need 1 Artifact rather than 3, or 1 on each character. I currently use Skorri, as it is ok for PvP but amazing in PvE. When your Super is charged, it charges the other players Super 50% faster.
4. This is when you need to focus of upgrading specific weapons. Week 1's Weekly Heroic was Arc Burn. That means you want to pick a weapon selection of Arc Weapons to focus on Upgrading at this point. Zhalo Supercell, if you have it, is the ideal Exotic here, especially with the Arc Burn. The next step should be obvious, grind Weekly Heroics until you hit the 365 mark. At 365, you will no longer be obtaining a benefit from Grinding the Weekly Heroic. One major thing of note, Omnigul can be farmed if you see that strike in the Heroic playlist. Ominigul Farm was patched on 9/29. This is no longer a viable strategy, after more than a year. Just knock out those Heroics. This is where you want to start using your Legendary Engrams and the Rule of 5. Basically you just wait to pop an Engram of a certain type, say Boots, until that slot falls behind your current Light Level by 5+ Levels. This will allow you to slingshot your level up whenever popping an Engram. Do this whenever you notice any 1 slot behind the others by a significant amount. Another thing to note is Bungie purposefully slowed progression in this level range, 350-365. You will only get a 50% chance at a 1-2 Light Level increase here. It's the worst part of the grind you will go through. Light Level increases normalizes past 365 again. It's a frustrating thing Bungie decided to do, but it is what it is.
5. This is the huge mistake I made. Save materials until after you hit 365 for buying Faction Packages. Using Heavy Ammo, Motes of Light, Armor/Weapon Parts, Destinations Materials, etc to level up Factions prior to 365 is an absolute waste of them since Weekly Heroics cap at 365 and Faction Packages cap at 385. Go through as much Materials spending as your heart desires at this point (don't spend all of your Motes of Light though, those are incredibly useful for both Exotic Shard buying and leveling gear by burning them). Equip the upgrades immediately no matter the stats, as each one will help your get your Light Level up. Keep in mind Exotic Class Items increase Reputation gains from Factions like Dead Orbit, thus using less of your materials per Faction Package. You can look at this from two perspectives now. You are close to Raid ready already at 365, you can either push for Light Level, or go for gear that helps your character long term. If going for Light Level buy the package that corresponds to what you need most. If going for long term, like myself, buy packages from a Vendor with great Base stat weapons. All factions have a few good base stat weapons, so this has more to do with preference. I choose Dead Orbit looking for a perfect Shotgun and Scout Rifle. Future War Cult has a great Pulse Rifle and Fusion Rifle, and New Monarchy has a great Sniper Rifle and Auto Rifle. Another thing to remember, is like I mentioned at the top, 370 is the Recommended Light Level for Wrath of the Machine on Normal, so at 365 you are almost there.
6. After you have exhausted all of the materials you are willing to spend, this is when it's time to start breaking out those Exotic Engrams. These should be used just like Legendary Engrams were, only for your lowest in slot gear first. In other words, if your boots are 361, and you are pushing 368, it's time to upgrade your boots, but if you already have 369 boots, using the Exotic Boot engram now is nothing short of wasting it entirely. Be smart about when to utilize your Exotic Engrams. Do Not go and blow all of them on this step. Save some for later if you can, it will save you a lot of time. By using the Rule of 5 you will generally use your Exotics quite effectively as well, as each one will net you at least half of a full Light Level.
7. After 365, the amount of activities that grant you 385 gear starts to get slimmer. Skeleton keys are one way, but they are very rare. You may also want to keep at least 1 as the Thorn bounty requires at least 1. But if you've been playing Heroic Strikes, you've probably obtained one or two of these. They reward boss specific rewards from a Chest at the end of a strike. You can hold up to 5 Skeleton keys per character, and 5 stored in the Vault, or at max 20 Skeleton Keys. Put your first 5 keys in the Vault, then move them to a secondary character, and tertiary character for the next set of 5. If you have that many, using some earlier before 365 wouldn't hurt anything as doing an extra 20 strikes would be very time consuming, but this allows you to always burn one after this point when you are doing any strike. But lets be real here, I've found 2 in probably 100 Heroics strikes, you likely won't even get close to 20.
8. Nightfalls. They are listed as 360 but I recommend waiting until late in the week, or once you've hit past 365 so that you get the most from your rewards as they go to the full 385. But whatever you do, Do Not let the week skip you by without doing it. It's a great place to get Exotics and a Light Level increase from drops. Unless you have luck like me and get 18 Strange coins or 11 3 of Coins from it. I did get a fancy dance from it this week though, yippee. Prior to 10-18, the Nightfall is 1 of only 4 places to get 385+ gear as well, so keep that in mind. The other two places are Trials of Osiris, Iron Banner, and Exotic Engrams. Though Exotic Engrams turn into 385+ the least so just save those until after the 10-18 update. This information will be irrelevant tomorrow.
9. Queens Wrath also drop gear at what I'm told is 385 quality. Along those same lines Challenge of Elders drops gear up to 365, so you can knock out an Elder Sigil before 365, and the bounties for Queens Wrath after and hopefully level up that faction for a free Faction Armor package. Varicks packages are at 385 though since it's kind of a Faction.
10. Court of Oryx. This is by far the worst, most tedious, and least likely thing for me to actually do. But Artifacts are by far the hardest thing to come by past 365. Unless you get lucky, it will likely be your worst in class item. Now Court itself Will Not get you an Artifact unlike last week. But leveling up Eris seems to grant Artifacts about 75% of the time. So grind out Court of Orxy until you earn an Eris Package and hope you are lucky enough to earn a Level equivalent Artifact (Keep in mind normal Faction Package frequently drop both Ghosts and Class Items so those shouldn't be an issue). The key here is getting an Eris bounty for Court of Oryx. It should pop within your first few Runes. Finishing those 3-4 bounties in a row will net you most of a level from Eris. Then use charged Antiquated Runes for 100 XP each to finish out your level. It seems worse than it is, just keep in mind you may get screwed by that 25% RNG and get a Class Item instead.
11. Character switching. Now it's time to complete both 8 & 9 on your 2nd and 3rd characters. If you have excess gear near the end of switching characters for every slot, save them up for your other characters. Then use the gear you get there to infuse your next, and your last character back into your main. This is only true for Class Specific items, as Weapons/Ghost/Iron Artifacts should always be upgraded since they can just be transferred to another character straight across. Doing this will drastically improve the speed at which you level, make sure you only do this with the last piece of gear, as not keeping gear up to date so to speak only means you next pieces won't be as high of Light Level and you are losing out on LL for no reason.
12. Since Wrath of the Machine launched, if you find yourself able to complete the Raid, follow the bold strategy on 11 for your next character before he enters the Raid. This will dramatically improve your Light Level for each subsequent completion of the Raid, and if completed 3 times this weekend, will easily net you 3 close to 385 characters, even from a 365 starting point. This ideology holds for whenever you are able to complete the Raid, or parts of it, and are running multiple characters. It piggybacks the gains of one character to the next. Another viable strategy is to save some of your Materials and buy Faction Packages after the Raid for infusion into your other characters. This would allow you to make big gains on that character, plus infuse a 2nd to that level. Or a mixed strategy of equiping the highest light gear temporarily while buying Faction Packages, and then infusing the absolute highest level gear into that 2nd character when done. Hopefully this idea makes sense though, boosting your 2nd character to as high or higher than the one you are working on before doing any content, it allows that character to make much larger gains that would otherwise be possible.
13. Trials of Osiris is easily the best way to improve your Light Level. You can get LL 385+ capable gear as drops for wins randomly, an Armor at 5 wins, a Weapon at 7 wins, and a random reward for completing the Gold tier bounty. For those hardcore players like myself, The Lighthouse grants 1 Armor, 1 Weapon, and a high chance at another Exotic. This is only for going 9-0 on your card though, so expect some extreme top of line PvP competition around games 8 & 9. This is where players like myself, il_Exile_li, AcidBrandon, Veggiesbro, Pyrodactyl, and Zevvion all lose games often. For reference I'm sitting on a 1.83 K/D this week in Trials, going 49-17, most of those losses were around the 8/9 wins on the card. Though I was able to already finish my 3 Lighthouse runs last night and help on 1 more so far. So, like I said, very stiff Crucible competition.
14. For those not wanting to subject themselves to the Lighthouse grind each weekend, Iron Banner is up starting 10/4. This is another great way to get 385+ gear. You get a package at rank 3 & 5. It's also likely you will receive frequent drops of the Auto Rifle, Shotgun, Class Item, and Gauntlets. There are also 4 bounties to complete that also drop 385+ gear. Iron Banner Inventory is 350 gear. Those items are able to be purchased for Legendary Marks, and are much cheaper than Vendor sold items. It is much easier now to level to Rank 5, as they changed the progression mechanics for Rise of Iron. It took me about 15-20 games on my first character to hit Rank 5, then about 10 games for Rank 5 on 2nd and 3rd characters. Your mileage may vary though.
15. Another 385 capable gear drop each week is the Weekly Shaxx bounty. It is based on 1 playlist and requires at least 7 games, many weeks several more games than that. But you have to have completed the Y2 Shaxx questline to start those bounties, as I confirmed with a friend who hadn't completed that yet the other day.
10/18
Maximum light is being increased from 385 (some were able to obtain 388) to 400. Activities Light Level's will be changes as follows
- Rare Engrams in the Siva Strike Playlist will drop at up to 365 Light.
- Archon's Forge, Heroic Siva Strike Playlist, and Legendary Engrams will now go up to 385 Light.
- Strike Hoards (skeleton key rewards), Nightfall, Exotic Engrams, Trials of Osiris, Crucible Legendaries, and Iron Banner now go up to 400 Light.
- Archon's Forge has added Ghosts/Artifacts to it's drops, and they drop up to 400 Light. Faction Package Ghost rewards have been increased and Artifact drops from Eris have been increased as well.
It is unknown whether or not Faction Package rewards will stay at 385 or go up to 400 Light, as Bungie did not specify that they would be altered, only that Ghosts would drop more frequently. Though this change would be meaningless if they don't drop up to 400 Light rewards. Faction Reward go up to 390 Light.It is assumedWrath of the Machine Normal still drops 385 gear and Heroic drops 400 Light gear.We do not know how Heroic drops will work yet though, if it will be double drops of Heroic quality or similar to King's Fall where it gives you the Normal and Heroic drops for completing the Heroic first for the week. I assume the latter. It is also unknown whether or not Fragment Chests will drop Normal or Heroic quality (385/400) gear. I hope for Heroic, but fear Normal, as that is how they handled King's Fall with Moldering Shards.On Heroic you will obtain 1 reward for completion of an event (Vosik, Death Zamboni, and Aksis Phase 1 & 2) on Heroic, but also a Normal drop at 385 if you hadn't completed that yet for the week. Two Chests will spawn, both labeled. The one on the Right will always be the Heroic Chest and give out Heroic Rewards for 1 Key, so do not waste key's on the Normal mode chest from Heroic. It will only drop 385 loot. As a side note, only Vosik works for 3 of Coins, so keep that in mind.- Wrath of the Machine, Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner are said to increase Light more rapidly now when compared how it has been, so since it has seemed to be about 4 Light higher than your LL, expect 5-6 from those activities or a higher chance of a 4 guarantee rather than 1-4 possible like now. (Further experimentation would be needed to test this but it appears to still be a range, yet that range is higher than it previously was, I've seen up to 5 levels higher than LL drop)
All of this information comes from the Weekly Update on 10/13. And now some from actual playtests.
Current Advice 280-385
- Follow Steps 1-4, only adjusting to what the Weekly Heroic modifiers may be. Keep in mind if you are unable to hit 350 to do the Heroic you can just jump in to the regular Siva Strike Playlist now and it will drop up to 365 LL rewards. Specifically though focus on buying Xur's inventory on the weekends and infusing that gear into your Legendaries up to 350, finishing the Champion of Light Quest, ideally for a Skorri Artifact if available, and finishing Daily Public Events, Crucible, and Story so that you can buy your way to 350 quickly with Legendary Marks.
- Use the Heroic Siva Strike Playlist and Archon's Forge together to both break up the boredom of just doing Strikes over and over and to obtain loot you may be lacking in. Played enough, you should be able to quickly enough hit that 385 mark.
- Remember the Rule of 5 is key here, use your Legendary Engrams strategically.
- Try to save up any Exotic Engrams, and the Legendary Engrams that will not help you Level because that slot is already higher than you as they may decrypt into Exotics when you are past 385. Also save as much materials for use to level up factions. Ghosts that give Glimmer for Fallen and Spinmetal for Cosmodrome Engrams are ideal as they will allow you to buy Armor/Weapon Parts and trade in excess Spinmetal to a faction for Rep between 385-390. Strange Coins can be used to buy both 3 of Coins and Heavy Ammo Synthesis. Motes of Light can also be used to level up a Faction, but I Do Not recommend going under 300, as those can be very useful in leveling gear.
Advice 385-400
A lot of people may be wondering how to get from 385 or like me, 387, to 400, before they start the Heroic Wrath of the Machine today. This is what I will be doing, and my advice to you as well. I know that my Ghost/Artifact are holding me back right now at 387 and them being only 385 each. So I'm going to go to Archon's Forge and do that with some friends hopefully before we get a Raid group together. Once I upgrade those slots I'm going back to the tower to open my Faction Packages. It is likely they will no longer be capped at 385. Some on Reddit are suggesting they will go up to 390 now (this was in fact True, faction capped at 390 10/19) since that is what the Armory now suggests. I don't know, but I will be saving the ones I already have until after the patch. Hopefully those will be at least 390. After opening my Faction Packages I am going to open my Legendary Engrams. Some of them may, or may not turn into Exotics. I have a lot saved up so a few might. If you were like me you saved a few Exotic Gauntlets. I will check to see if my Gauntlets have fallen behind on my character, though I think they sit at 387 right now. Next I will turn in any bounties that give 400 quality gear like Trials of Osiris Gold or Shaxx bounties. Then onto Exotic Engrams that have fallen behind by 2 or more levels. Once I've done that I'm moving over to do a Nightfall on that character. Again checking to see where my Gauntlets are in relation to my other gear and burning an Exotic if needed. Then if my Raid Group is ready I'm going to run the Raid. All along the way I will infuse Exotics, and wear any Legendaries when I will receive loot, thereby keeping those Legendaries to infuse into another character (this only applies to Armor, as Weapons, Ghost, and Artifacts can all transfer between characters so those will be infused immediately). This hopefully means that my 2nd character to do these activities this week will start at or around the same Light Level as I achieve with my 1st character, as described back in step 11 in the original guide. If ever my Gauntlets or Ghost/Artifact start falling behind I will use an Exotic or run Archon's Forge. Using this method, and hopefully having access to some Exotic Gauntlets from Xur over the weekend you should be able to hit 400 this week. I also plan to hit up Trials of Osiris on Friday on all 3 characters. At this point that is all speculative, specifically Faction Packages. We will see how that plays out later today. I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about my plans and some advice on what to concentrate on. (I followed this strategy up to finishing the Raid, I hit 393 before the Raid, but we only got to Vosik's and ran out of time before completing the encounter 10/19)
- If your Ghost/Artifact is behind other gear, go do Archon's Forge. Shiro bounty completion grant a lot of Vanguard Rep and can reward Vanguard Items as well. Complete as many of these as possible during this step.
- Open any Faction Packages outstanding. This is also the time to level up Factions with Materials if you have them. Factions go up to 390 so do this until you have all slots at 390, or at least most slots at that point (again only if you have the materials to spare). This also includes turning in any bounties you have saved, like Trials of Osiris or Shaxx Weekly.
- Decrypt Legendary Engrams.
- Start Decrypting Exotic Engrams that have fallen behind other gear as needed.
- Go do a Nightfall. (Always pop 3 of Coins if available, this shouldn't need to be said though)
- Run Heroic Wrath of the Machine.
- Keep Legendary Armor for infusion on 2nd Characters, while infusing Weapons, Ghost, and Artifact. Equip said Legendary gear before obtaining any loot. Freely infuse any 2nd drops of equal or lower quality.
- Run Trials of Osiris this weekend.
- When Iron Banner becomes available again, run that if you still need Light increase up to 400.
- Rinse and repeat any of these activities in any order, checking to see if you need to do Archon's Forge for Ghost/Artifact/Class Item at any time they fall behind. It's the quickest way to obtain these 3 items. Be mindful of time investment opportunity cost though. 1 drop from the Nightfall may not be worth the investment this week (Solar/Grounded/Shield Brothers), since it is rather difficult and can take a lot of time. Likewise the Rift Crucible Weekly Shaxx bounty can probably wait unless you have nothing better to do at the time. But if you do, like always, use 3 of Coins every game to make the time investment worth it more.
I hope these tips help some of you. I know I personally didn't follow these, and have wasted around 20 Exotic Engrams and 1,200 Heavy Ammo Synthesis buying Faction Packages far too early. It's not a huge deal (I'm currently 384 on multiple characters 10/2) but I hope this prevents anyone else from making some of the silly mistakes I made yesterday. All in all I hope you guys enjoy Rise of Iron as much as I have been, whether that's by pushing Light as hard as possible or not caring one flip about it and just doing the Story and Quest stuff. Either way hopefully this Guide gives you some perspective on how to Grind more efficiently when you need to.
Edit: A lot of this information comes from both Bungie's Patch Update for Rise of Iron, GernaderJake's 385 in Day 1 video, and prior knowledge about how to level in Destiny with previous Expansions. Some of the information posted was inaccurate, but that was corrected on 10/3. This now includes almost 2 weeks of my Rise of Iron experience and hitting 384 on multiple characters. It was again updated on 10/17 to even more accurately depict how to level in Rise of Iron and reflect some of the changes being made for 10/18 (See section on 10/18). Then again to address the changes made on 10/18 that hadn't taken effect until I was at home and unable to update this due to, you know, playing Destiny (10/19).
Log in to comment