Destiny 2: Leveling Guide (Level 280-290)

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)

• Focus on strikes, adventures, lost sectors, and activities until you reach the 200s in Power Level.
• Use Cayde-6’s scout reports to find chests during public events on your favorite planet.
• Farm planetary tokens for reputation and Legendary gear from overseers.
• Vendor Legendaries provide gear up to 265 Power Level.
• Participate in public events, and trigger Heroic versions for better loot chances.
• Use Fireteam Medallions from Eververse for increased loot chances during events.
• Join an active level three clan for additional loot opportunities.
• Scout reports mark nearby chests, and providing tokens and gear.
• Fast travel between public events, considering chests and High-Value targets for extra tokens.
• Focus on Nessus and EDZ for efficient public event farming

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.

• Cayde-6’s Milestones unlock weekly flashpoints, encouraging public event grinding on a specific planet.
• Lord Shaxx’s Crucible Milestones unlock the weekly Call to Arms PvP quest, encouraging participation in Crucible games.
• Commander Zavala’s Strike Milestones unlock the weekly Nightfall strike, offering great completion rewards and additional challenges.
• Gain Clan XP by completing strikes, Crucible matches, and world activities, contributing to the clan’s progression.
• Completing the Raid serves as a significant Milestone in itself.

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 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 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 points of power in just a couple of minutes.

Tip: If your gear has a Legendary mod equipped, its 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 out 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!