Support NeoGAF

[DerpHause]

Did people like the

Spoiler

time to explain

throwback lines?

I lol'd at Cayde's.

 

[Wallach]

What chest piece is that?

Devastation Complex chest, pretty sure it was a random Legendary Engram decode or a reputation reward. One of the two.

 

[TheTurboFD]

Anyone find any good exotic hand cannon primaries?

 

[Strider]

Linear fusion rifles

 

[CaptainCook]

I beat the story and bought a sparrow and a ship but how do I equip them? Also, what is bright dust and where can I spend it?

Just open up your character screen and press down on the D-pad to equip sparrows and ships. And bright dust is a currency you use with Tess the silver and bright engram seller. The bottom row of here screen is stuff you buy me with dust

 

[Tovarisc]

Let me get this straight. You can upgrade exotics by infusing with blue gear higher than your current exotic level.

Why do you want to wait ? its beyond absurd to me.

When you loot an exotic, you can dismantle it if its not good for ya and you ll find it in your vault anyway, so you can buy it back at some point for just a couple of legendary shards.

Say, if you have an awesome exotic chest lvl 230 you can just use blue chest lvl 234 to infuse it, and your exotic will now be 237 or 239

There's just about zero good reason to not turn in powerful gear milestones since these are the rewards which will most likely give you a boost in either light level to unlock stuff OR for your gameplay

If you want to maximize your PL gains at very grind end of spectrum, 265+, then you want hold off on turning in / completing weekly stuff. Those are likely to be something very strong and can give very much needed boosts at grindy end.

 

[xviper]

Finally got the Rat King, we ended it with 6:40 left

it's like a speed run

 

[Sygma]

If you want to maximize your PL gains at very grind end of spectrum, 265+, then you want hold off on turning in / completing weekly stuff. Those are likely to be something very strong and can give very much needed boosts at grindy end.

A friend is beyond that and didn't need to wait at all. Everything scales when you re doing events which always give boosts when you re infusing, its exactly the same thing than waiting except you get to have better stuff earlier. As of yesterday the highest light level was 274 or 284 I don't remember exactly, these people didn't wait either

Tons of reports that if you do a second toon, level it up to 20, transfer your gear on it and then do the quests all over again... magic happens. Its the BEST way to increase your light until raid comes out.

 

[Nephtes]

I beat the story and bought a sparrow and a ship but how do I equip them? Also, what is bright dust and where can I spend it?

From the character screen, press down on the D-pad. That should bring you to where you can equip a sparrow and ship.

Bright dust can be spent at the Eververse dealer at the Farm. Far left side from arrival point.

 

[ObsidianG]

Some tips: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=248289269&postcount=9963

That's a super nice summary, thanks! Any chance we could add it to the first page of the OT?

 

[Huntersknoll]

Man.. I need to play more. I only just hit level 7. I keep enjoying the scenery too much

 

[badboy78660]

I feel they don't drop enough lol

Haha agreed.

Anyone else think exotics are dropping a tad too often? I'm probably in the minority, but I feel like they're just a bit too common, which makes them feel a little less special.

My only real complaint thus far.

So what exactly are you doing to have them drop so often? I'm thinking about grinding heroic public events.

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

Just finished the campaign....watching the credits right now. Holy shit a lot of people worked on this game, this has to be some sort of record.

Have you beaten any recent Assassin's Creed games?

 

[JohnOfMars]

That's a super nice summary, thanks! Any chance we could add it to the first page of the OT?

Already there.

 

[DerpHause]

Haha agreed.



So what exactly are you doing to have them drop so often? I'm thinking about grinding heroic public events.

Only exotic drop I've gotten so far was from a public event, not sure how prevalent that is.

On a side note, what separates a heroic from a regular public event? Do they all have side triggers to become heroics?

Edit: NvM that question, just saw it clarified in the op.

 

[Smiley90]

That's a super nice summary, thanks! Any chance we could add it to the first page of the OT?

Reddit has a pretty good power leveling guide on the destiny subreddit atm too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/6ytybz/power_leveling_guide/

Note: Destiny 2 can be played and enjoyed in many ways, so this guide is not for everyone.
I couldn't get clear information about how power/levels work with the mechanisms for progression in the game, so after a little bit of testing and reading, this is what I've come to understand:

LEVELS
Leveling 1-20 requires EXP. Most activities in the game give you EXP - the main story, public events, side story, crucible, patrols, lost sectors, and even aimlessly killing mobs. If you just wish to keep up with the story, you normally wont have to go out of your way to meet its level requirements. There is a small jump in requirement near the end, however - one mission requires level 12, while the one after it requires 15 - so for those levels you might want to look at other sources for EXP, but for the most part the story will give you enough to keep up.

If you finish the campaign and talk to the final npc at the very end, even if you are level 17/18/19, you will be immediately boosted to level 20.

Each level 1-20 has a cap in how high Power you can attain in that level; you wont be able to hit 260 Power below level 20. So, there is little to no need to grind for Power in any case before level 20.

Level 1-20, in the open world, is scaled to the mobs you are fighting and the public events you do, so you can fight next to a leveled 300 Power player with the same potency at level 5 when it comes to open world mobs.

At level 20, you start focusing on leveling Power. There are a few interesting mechanics around this:

Since Power is the average of the best gear in all 8 slots, you must always prioritize your weakest slots as you level.

Blue engrams and blue drops decrypt from anywhere between -2 to +4 Power level from your overall average Power level.

Legendary engrams often decrypt beyond +4 levels from your average Power level, up to a softcap of 265 Power.

You may receive legendary gear that is beyond 265 Power from vendors; that will be mostly likely because it has a +5 attack/defense Legendary mod on the gear already installed. So you may receive up to 270 gear from vendors on rare occasions. You may also receive just the legendary mods on their own that you can insert into your gear to boost its power by +5. The gunsmith drops these legendary mods, as well as a few exotics, in his rank-up packages.

Remember to open your engrams as soon as you get them - their Power is determined by your Power the moment you acquired them, instead of your Power when you decrypt them.

Spend your glimmer freely: buy 200 Power vendor gear if you aren't there yet, and Scout Reports from Cayde to see all the treasure chests with ease for farming tokens.


Now, for a short guide to efficient power leveling-

As a fresh level 20 that just beat the campaign, you are free to do any activity to gain more Power. Your best bet at this point is to stow away certain activities that reward gear past the softcap of 260 for later - specifically, do not turn in milestones, nightfall, exotic weapon questlines, or cayde's treasure maps. Instead, focus on activities that reward blue gear. In order of the fastest to the slowest for attaining blue gear, you can do
Public events: around 1-2 blue pieces, chance of legendary and exotic pieces, glimmer and vendor tokens (20 vendor tokens = 1 or 2 legendary pieces). They are by far the fastest if you hop from event to event. However, they can get tedious fairly quickly. Try your best to activate the "Heroic" version of these events as they are more likely to give 2 blue pieces instead of 1 upon successful completion and a potentially higher chance at an exotic.

Farming treasure chests, killing yellow bar elite wandering mobs, looting lost sectors -- all are amazing for getting vendor tokens, but are slower on average than spamming public events when it comes to getting blues. However, when you want to get purples, do these more frequently instead for vendor tokens.

Side story, vanguard strikes, crucible matches - fun original content but quite slow when it comes to amassing a bunch of blues compared to the methods above.

Most of these activities will provide you enough blues over time to get 260. While doing these, remember to occasionally open up faction packages when your gear plateaus to get guaranteed legendaries that pull your average higher.

At 260, the softcap for blue gear, you can choose to progress by amassing legendaries.
Legendaries go to 265, but at times drop at 270 from vendors because they come premodded. You can also add your own mods to your gear to push it to 270.

If your only goal is to get these vendor legendaries, focus more on farming tokens instead of public events. Public events have a chance at dropping exotics, but at 260-270, you're better off progressing via guaranteed vendor legendaries and mods.
You can also get modded legendaries from crucible/strikes as rare drops that go up to 270.


After 270, the only way to progress is by the methods you patiently saved for yourself this entire time, namely:

Milestones that reward "Powerful Gear" purple engrams. These are on a weekly lockout.
Exotic weapon quests that reward various exotics that scale beyond 290 light. Do them when your weapon slot is holding you back.
Nightfall drops. Weekly lockout.
Possible Cayde treasure map drops.


Once all of those are dried up, you can choose to progress further by

Farming exotic drops from public events, crucible, and strikes. Its slower but its currently the only way to progress outside of weekly lockouts or the raid. If you have two armor or weapon slots that are at max level with two different exotics, you need to infuse one of the exotics into a legendary for it to count in the game's algorithm, as it only takes into account one exotic weapon and one exotic armor when calculating your highest average level. A comment below notes that you should infuse these exotics into legendaries that have a legendary mod on it to end with +5 power above the base infusion.

Making another character of the same class and transferring gear to take advantage of all the weekly lockouts on that new character. You cannot cross-infuse, so if you make a different class and move over your weapons earlier, you will need to get all of its armor at 270 or so independently grinding it, and then hope to go beyond your previous character's level because you did your weekly lockouts at a higher overall level. This is still slower (but arguably more fun) than making another character of the same class.
u/Oniji says "You can trade in multiple rare mods for legendary +5 power mods at 280, at the gunsmith. He currently sells mods for every slot except Hunter cloaks."

Feel free to add in comments anything I missed in this overview, and I'll add it to the list soon as I see it.

Cheers all, and remember that Destiny is a game designed for fun; if this powerleveling stuff doesn't feel fun to you, there is no need to do it. More than most other games, Destiny has insane catchup mechanics that might invalidate the efficiency of many of these methods in just a few weeks, especially the 270+ progression bit when the raid is released this Wednesday.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Devastation Complex chest, pretty sure it was a random Legendary Engram decode or a reputation reward. One of the two.

Thanks, I'll need to get that. Need me a fur cloak.

In other news, I just enrolled into Aperture Science.

 

[Sygma]

You could do this in Destiny 1 as well... But it costs an exotic shard to infuse an exotic.

In Destiny 2 it costs 4 legendary Shards to infuse an exotic.
So doing this often will require quite a few legendary items to be broken down.

I'd take this anyday over RNG by holding off. Legendary gear drops all the time anyway, you have guaranteed ones when upping rep at the npcs too

 

[Dusktildawn48]

Bought this earlier despite not liking the 1st game. Nothing else to play.

 

[Tovarisc]

A friend is beyond that and didn't need to wait at all. Everything scales when you re doing events which always give boosts when you re infusing, its exactly the same thing than waiting except you get to have better stuff earlier. As of yesterday the highest light level was 274 or 284 I don't remember exactly, these people didn't wait either

Tons of reports that if you do a second toon, level it up to 20, transfer your gear on it and then do the quests all over again... magic happens. Its the BEST way to increase your light until raid comes out.

And many of who is at that 285+ end has said they should have held off on turning in weekly content on their main before higher PL. Then they did hold off on their alts until they had exhausted other fast avenues of gains and turned in weeklies for last boosts.

Then turn to exotic quests and hope those roll nice and high as they can.

So holding off can pay off very nicely. No means I'm saying it's only way to high PL, but one way of going about it.

 

[xviper]

if anyone is having a hard time getting the Rat king

this is how we did it

once you start the nightfall, kill the cabal fast and open the door, then kill the guys in the middle and when the Fallen arrive at the left, one person goes there, kill them and get the Ball, then immediately run and ignore everything to install the ball to the next platform, then the Lieutenant arrives, use a Super to kill him and everyone around him, once he's dead immediately run even if there are still enemies left, don't shoot just run until you reach the door before the open field, get your sparrow and go forward, you will see a little cliff, jump on it to get to the ship faster, once you reach the tank area, one person activates the first switch and the other runs to the Red platform below, climb above and activate the second switch, only kill the tank above, kill the dogs with grenades and move, once you reach the fist encounter with the boss, kill pretty much everything and once he leaves immediately turn on the switch above to activate the elevator, then you get to the second encounter, damage the boss as much as you can before he jumps to the first tower, when he does, one person runs to the first Ball and install it in the platform, kill everything and focus on the boss, do with the second Ball the same as the first

do that and hopefully you get the Rat King gun

 

[GreyWind]

Can someone tell me how to view challenges? It says complete 3 challenges but I don't see what I have to do

 

[Digital Savior]

Just woke up from a wonderful sleep. Only hit about 14 hours of D2 yesterday. I'm above 230 power level. Didn't really think I would hit it that fast.

 

[RyanHardy101]

This legitamatley might be my GOTY. Its Destiny, but much better, and its got an art direction that blows most other games out of the water. The environments are just incredible. Some really wild ideas at play.

Also if you dont like Destiny youre probably not going to suddenly like Destiny 2. Also Destiny in general is infintely better with a coop partner to the point I would say dont bother playing unless you have a coop buddy.

For me it's between Destiny 2 and Horizon for GOTY, and RE7 as a runner up.

Just woke up from a wonderful sleep. Only hit about 14 hours of D2 yesterday. I'm above 230 power level. Didn't really think I would hit it that fast.

How do you see time spent in the game? (if tyou're on PS4)

 

[Ruthless_Barbarian]

Crucible and Nightfall engrams unlocked for the Sons of Mithras clan.

Open them at your highest Power level for highest possible rewards.

Enjoy

Courtesy of Galavita, Dhruv_Hanom, Gongstation and Ruthless

 

[MythicReclaimer]

Nightfall down in first go although with only like 10 seconds left. Yeah, the Rat King is going to have to wait as this will take some planning and some practice runs.

Up to 273 LL.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

So why does your thumb twitch when walking forward? I couldn't unsee it in the first Destiny, and I can't unsee it here either 😤

 

[Dalek]

Thanks, I'll need to get that. Need me a fur cloak.

In other news, I just enrolled into Aperture Science.

Oh my God that looks awesome...

 

[DNAbro]

Yay just hit 260 power. Now the real grind begins.


Also have completed every Adventure and mission on Titan, Nessus, and Io. Only EDZ left.

 

[Number45]

I'm sure this has been asked a million times already but I'm so early in the game and spoiler paranoid, but is there a reason not to turn in tokens for rep?

 

[F0rneus]

Do Fireteam members share loot or something? Not enemy drops, I mean the weapons that are laying around in the missions. There were two guns to pick up, and when my buddy picked his up, I also received it. And when I picked mine up, it simply disappeared and gave me nothing. Any way to get more than one, in those cases?

 

[X-Frame]

Dang I got a Sparrow that automatically reloads my weapons when I jump on. That's pretty cool.

 

[MechDX]

Dang I got a Sparrow that automatically reloads my weapons when I jump on. That's pretty cool.

When do you finally get a sparrow?

 

[Raven117]

When do you finally get a sparrow?

Cant say I agree with holding out on the sparrows.

While the main quest doesn't require you to run around too much, it does dissuade one from wanting to get out there and explore until you get one. (Which come to think of it, is probably the intention).

 

[hydruxo]

Do Fireteam members share loot or something? Not enemy drops, I mean the weapons that are laying around in the missions. There were two guns to pick up, and when my buddy picked his up, I also received it. And when I picked mine up, it simply disappeared and gave me nothing. Any way to get more than one, in those cases?

If it's the ones in missions then everyone in your fireteam doing the mission gets it regardless. Not sure what happened with yours though.

 

[Blue Ninja]

Oh my God that looks awesome...

I've given it a whirl, but I don't really see much use for it. The novelty factor is cool, but it really just pushes enemies further back.

 

[Poetaster]

Can someone tell me how to view challenges? It says complete 3 challenges but I don't see what I have to do

If my memory is correct they’ll show on the right side of the screen when you have your ghost out.

 

[Tovarisc]

When do you finally get a sparrow?

After completing story or if lucky from bright engram after reaching max level.

Which ever happens first.

 

[Smiley90]

I've given it a whirl, but I don't really see much use for it. The novelty factor is cool, but it really just pushes enemies further back.

will be hilarious for PvP maps with cliffs though, WE OVERWATCH NOW

I eagerly await PvP clips of this now

 

[jviggy43]

Thanks, I'll need to get that. Need me a fur cloak.

In other news, I just enrolled into Aperture Science.

This looks like R2D2 morphed into a shotgun and I love it.

 

[GreyWind]

If my memory is correct they’ll show on the right side of the screen when you have your ghost out.

Oh cool. In any activity or is it only for strikes?

 

[F0rneus]

If it's the ones in missions then everyone in your fireteam doing the mission gets it regardless. Not sure what happened with yours though.

I'm guessing the other weapons laying around, are just for show? I was hoping that every copy picked up could end up being shared multiple times. Like I pick mine, we all get it. Player 2 picks his, we all get it etc. I am sucker for loot.

Unless it was just a glitch lol.

 

[Lizzy]

Thanks, I'll need to get that. Need me a fur cloak.

In other news, I just enrolled into Aperture Science.

How do you get this?!?!?!

 

[MechDX]

Cant say I agree with holding out on the sparrows.

While the main quest doesn't require you to run around too much, it does dissuade one from wanting to get out there and explore until you get one. (Which come to think of it, is probably the intention).

Does make sense except as a warlock I just glide all over the map. You dont own me Bungie!!

After completing story or if lucky from bright engram after reaching max level.

Which ever happens first.

thanks

 

[WonkyPanda]

If you guys don't mind spoilers, these are the known planet vendor sets: https://imgur.com/a/lIQUF

 

[Blue Ninja]

How do you get this?!?!?!

Clan level up, got it from Hawthorne.

 

[Twilight Gap]

best soundtrack this year?

i think so

 

[xviper]

best soundtrack this year?

i think so

sorry but Nier: Automata exist

 

[DNAbro]

best soundtrack this year?

i think so

lol not even close. It's good though.

 

[Sutton Dagger]

I'm getting clan xp but no one from my clan is showing up as being able to join