Destiny 2: Leveling Guide (Level 280-290)

However, the early game can be quite daunting, understanding how the leveling system work might give you some confusions because Destiny 2’s leveling system is an essential element of its central journey: making your way from a broken, lightless guardian towards a champion of the Leviathan raid. The system is not an easy one;  longer and unclear, it works through experience points and many tiers of gear. Don’t panic though, that’s exactly what we’re going to address in this guide. So buckle up, we’re going to break down all of the basic leveling tips you need to know about Destiny 2 in five easy steps.

It’s as obvious as it sounds, completing the campaign should be your first priority because, in the end, you need to do this any way to unlock mid-game content.  After the completion of the story, you will get various map notifications to check in with certain NPCs as they process. Do that and you will be getting some good experience bumps that should leave you at level twenty if in case you weren’t there already.

By now, you might have noticed that there’s also an attribute called “power” beside your experience level. Once you reach level 20, it’ll be all about your power from there on out. In case you didn’t know, your power is calculated by averaging the attack and defense values of each piece of gear you’ve equipped.

2. The hard part (power 200 – 270)

Go ahead, and gain from blue gear (rare) to enter the 200’s, but until then try focusing on strikes, adventures, lost sectors and almost everything else. Go through the most efficient route through this tier, so here’s what we recommend: first pick your favorite planet, get a scout report for from Cayde 6, go ahead and grab chests while grinding public events.

Start your journey by farming planetary tokens, this should be your ultimate goal as well. You can trade the tokens in at overseers for rep and at least one piece of Legendary gear (often two) at each rank.

You can get up to 265 from Vendor Legendaries, while public events are a great source of loot in themselves. Trigger and complete Heroic versions of good drop to increase their dropping chances as well. If you’ve got any bright dust from Bright Engrams, Go ahead and load up on Fireteam Medallions from eververse and clarify if they are active while you complete the events,  the benefit will be the best possible chance of good loot, and it can also yield Exotics. A banner of level three clan also adds to your loot chances, so try joining an active one.

Scout reports from Cayde-6 will mark nearby chests in your HUD, each of which will drop a token and can also drop both blue and purple gear (though the occurring is rare). Grab as soon as they pop up because it’s always worth it.

Your next goal after setting all of this is to use the map to check for the next public event and fast travel or sparrow from one to the next, if you stop to grab chests or kill High-Value targets it can be a good habit too which is another good source of tokens. Nessus and EDZ are best for this, in our own experience in Destiny 2, although we think Titan is a bit awkward to navigate, and lo generally has fewer events going on at once.

3. Reaching the powerful gear milestone(power + 265)

The power level of 265 is the stage for your “normal” Legendaries.  However, there’s a tier within the Legendary gear called “powerful gear”, which will only drop from certain Milestones, weekly. You will see them marked in the director – If you haven’t unlocked them yet, follow the Milestone quests.

• Milestones of Cayde 6’s unlocks every weekly flashpoint, go out there and grind public events on a specific planet as if you can’t get enough of that.
• Milestones of Lord Shaxx’s Crucible unlocks the weekly Call to Arms PvP quest. Just play crucible games and make your way through them, complete them faster because even losing a game will give you some progress.
• The strike missions of Commander Zavala’s unlocks the weekly Nightfall strike. This one is very profitable because the completion rewards are great in themselves. However, there are also a couple of challenges to complete, each with a nice loot drop if you can manage it.
• Gain Clan XP, this will arise as you complete strikes, crucible and world activities. You don’t need to anything specific. If you are looking for a clan, try joining discord servers of the community of Destiny 2.
• Completing the Raid itself is also a Milestone.

So, the point of this section is to make you pursue every Milestone activity that drops the powerful gear and do them before the weekly reset on Tuesday. Repeat.

4. Exotics (power +265)

To reach the 265+ gear, Exotics can help a lot. Exotics can drop at the highest power level of all, so save it for later use in your grind (265 at the very earliest) for another boost. Only one Exotic weapon can be equipped at a time, so you’ll have to use these to infuse your legendaries. Don’t worry about wasting exotic though, because once unlocked, you can always make another copy at any time you’d like through the “Collections” tab at the Vault.

After you’ve worn out your powerful gear drops and your exotic weapon quests, you should be in a pretty good shape, but you’re lucky if your power needs still haven’t been satisfied: You can farm exotic engram drops. Luckily, you’ve been doing the activity that gives you the best chances of an Exotic drop: heroic public events, with the aid of Fireteam Medallions and, the fortunate level three clan banner. So you better get back on the grind.

5. Modifications (power > 280)

Unlike blue mods, every legendary mod adds around five points of attack or defense attributes to the weapon or armor piece you’ve attached to it. At this stage, you’ve probably got a few already. There’s a chance, a little one that gear will drop with such mods equipped. So, once you hit 280, you can make Legendary mods by mixing blue ones, which you can buy for Glimmer. You must have the mountains of the stuff by now already, so hopefully, you’ll be able to fill out all of your empty mod slots and earn more few points of power in just a couple of minutes.

Tip: If your gear has a Legendary mod equipped, it’s basic power level is five points lower than mentioned, and the mod doesn’t carry over. So you should never infuse gear with mods into gear without them. Technically the infusion will be weaker than you think and you will lose the mod for good, losing five points as well.

This guide specifically points the aspects, a beginner needs to know. However, it might help those who are confused with the leveling system of Destiny 2 as well.

Good luck!