Destiny Basic Overall Guide

Destiny Basic Overall Guide by Leedly

Hello, all! Welcome to my guide. The intended purpose is to cover every area of questions that users may encounter during their playing or potential playing of Bungie’s Destiny. This guide is to remain as factual as possible, but opinions are welcome in the comments section.

Destiny – Description

Destiny is an online persistent world first-person shooter video game in a “mythic science fiction” open world setting. It was developed by Bungie and published by Activision as part of a ten-year publishing deal. The game was released on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 video game consoles on September 9, 2014.

What does this mean? Destiny is an open-world Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter Role Playing Game, or MMOFPSRPG. Combining the elements of the most successful games in recent history, Destiny was sure to be a smash hit – and has proved so with extremely high sales and playtime statistics very early on.

Beginning a new character – Classes & Subclasses

Guardians
You are a Guardian of the last safe city on Earth, able to wield some of the Traveler’s incredible power. You are taking this mantle just as a new day dawns. Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks have finally returned to our long-lost worlds, only to find out we are not alone.

Warlock
Warlocks have long studied the Traveler, mastering some of its arcane energies. Its true purpose still remains a great mystery, but discovering truth has always driven you into the unknown. Now, our enemies are the only thing that stands between you and the lost wonders of our Golden Age.

Titan
The first Titans built the Wall, and gave their lives to defend it. Now, you stand in the same high place, steadfast and sure, protecting all who shelter in your shadow. You hail from a long line of heroes, forged from strength and sacrifice. Our enemies may be deadly and merciless, but so are you.

Hunter Hunters once prowled the wilderness and wastelands, taking big risks for even bigger rewards. You’re no outlaw—at least, not anymore—but making your own luck has always meant bending the rules. Your unique brand of daring and ingenuity is needed now more than ever.

Now, Bungie’s definitions aside, let’s talk about choosing! Choosing a class is a very important decision. There is currently no way to change a class aside from creating a new character. When you create a new character you will lose all Reputation. Thus far, all non-mission items can be transferred between accounts, but note that all armours are class-specific! For more information, visit the “Gear” section later in this guide.

Beginning a new character – Races/Species
The playable races of destiny are currently Human, Awoken and Exo. Your choice of Race is currently purely cosmetic, so we won’t take much time on this subject. There are no race-sensitive items. The dialogue changes minimally, if at all. Choose whichever race you think looks better, or look into the lore for yourself for a more educated decision!
– Note – After you create a new character, be sure to follow this guide in order to use codes for your account gaining unique items and cards!

Leveling from 1-20 – Choosing a playing method
There are a few different ways to play through the main story and until level 20 – where the real adventure will begin.

Lore – Based on time constraints and personal interest, players value Lore at completely different levels. Whether you are interested in the psychology and meanings behind the innerworkings of a fictional science-fiction universe or you just want to shoot things, it doesn’t matter. Lore is completely optional to read, but paying attention may allow you to figure out and follow the story line much easier.

Grimoire Cards – These are very useful, though it doesn’t seem so on first glance. Finding your cards is only possible on [Bungie’s Website](www.bungie.net) after you’ve logged in, or on a synced mobile app. Your total Grimoir Score depends on how many cards you’ve collected as well as the level you’re at. This Score displays on your Playercard along with your Name, Clan and Insignia. Just wait! These cards are not just for Lore purposes, they also help you in-game! Clicking on certain cards will show levels of completion. These levels require killing a certain amount of enemy or collecting a certain amount of ____. You will then notice text under one of the levels indicating you of bonuses for certain achievements and levels of Grimoire Card completion. These range from additional resource gathering to additional glimmer gain from killing enemies under different conditions.

Fastest Method – The fastest method of levelling? First off, I’m not going to discuss PvP. Your gains are very slow. If you wish to play PvP, feel free, but you will not gain as much experience aside from bounties. I will address PvE. Every day that you begin, immediately pick up all bounties that fit your playstyle, but note that PvE bounties are typically much easier to complete. There is usually at least one bounty that takes far too long to complete – just leave it! Spend that time doing something more valuable.
After you have completed your daily bounties, head to Orbit. Completing missions with Xp bonuses is the fastest method of gaining experience. If you wish to skip through as much as possible, run through rooms and complete only what the game forces you to. If you see an objective at the end of a room with 50 enemies, it’s time to make a decision. Remember that with every decision you are gaining and losing something. If you choose to sprint past the mobs to the next area, you will gain time, but lose experience, grimoire progress and possible loot from those enemies.

Fireteams – Fireteams are groups of players that must be invited to join, either from friends-list or in-game servers. It is better, experience-wise to always have the max number of players with you while completing PvE. Your experience does not differ, every reputation gain, glimmer drop and experience allotment applies to everyone nearby. As well, you are more likely to get through missions and objectives faster with more players, as the damage multiplication factor is not 100% for each person. As long as everyone is helping to deal damage, the enemies will die faster with the more players helping. IMPORTANT NOTE to click this link or head to /r/fireteams to find members looking for the same group!

Endgame – The “endless” options – First off, let me link a great guide for once you reach endgame located here! and another guide for light levels here!

Farming – I would first like to address Farming. Farming is the act of spending time repeating a task as fast as possible in order to obtain gains. These gains are typically related to character progression. Farming for materials, experience, etc leads to what I like to call the “Master Method.”

Note, there is a currently updated guide posted here which includes a good starting list for guides. I’ll try to keep this updates as patches hit.

The “Master Method”
Basically, you should try to maximize your gains:time ratio in every way possible. Say that you could get 20k experience and 10k glimmer per hour doing activity 1. Activity 2 gives 60k experience per hour and no glimmer, while Activity 3 gives no experience and 15k glimmer per hour. Instead of activity 1, you should alternate your time between Activities 1 & 2 to maximize your gains using the Master Method. Downtime, waiting, idling and all time-using activities take away from gains, remember this when making your personal choice. The only factor that the master method does not consider? Fun. Don’t let the “best farming method plz like and subscribe brand new” distract you if you absolutely hate the material. Best farming for Strange Coins is a PvE grind, but you LOVE PvP? Go for it, it’s still a possible drop.

PvP – Player versus Player
PvP is located in the Crucible via Orbit on Destiny.

Tips & Tricks – I will list tips and guides from players here as I see they are commonly upvoted.

Choose a playstyle & gametype – As a lover of wiki’s, I’ll include a very helpful link for disambiguation between gametypes here. You should choose a gametype that reflects the playstyle of yourself and your fireteam. Every type has a different objective, and there are ways to succeed in each of them individually. (Unless you have a bad internet connection, I’m sorry, that’s just going to make life tougher all around.)

PvE
Raids – Raids are long missions, consisting of multiple bosses and requires coordination between teammates to achieve victory. Currently, the Vault of Glass is the only raid in Destiny and has a maximum fireteam of 6. You can find a lengthy guide here.

Patrols – Patrols exist on each planet with repeatable content. You do not have a set mission, instead there are refreshing patrol missions and public events on a cycle. A great video for the differences in missions is here, and is also a great guide for maximizing reputation.

Strikes – Strikes are a repeatable “Boss Battle” type of mission in which your fireteam fights various waves of enemies and/or high health & damage enemies for potentially greater rewards. Currently, completing strikes outside of the story (Vanguard Playlist) is a very slow way to earn anything. See: Master Method above. The only time that strikes heavily benefit is for bounties, or Weekly Heroic and Nightfall strikes which I will continue on below.

Weekly Heroic Strikes – These strikes offer unique rewards, you guessed it, once per week. The higher level you choose to complete this strike determines your rewards, available for view at the Orbit preview. Rewards do not stack and higher tiers subtract previously gained lower-tier rewards. For example, if you complete the guide on the lowest difficulty and receive 3 strange coins and 5 marks, as you complete the same Weekly on a higher difficulty those rewards will be subtracted from your total of the higher difficulty.

Weekly Nightfall Strikes – These strikes are the exact same as the Heroic strikes of the same week, but are more difficult and include the “Nightfall” modifier, meaning that if your entire team dies you are returned to Orbit and lose all progress. While that may seem more difficult, once you complete the Nightfall strike, you are rewarded a buff which increases ALL Reputation, Experience and Mark gains until the weekly reset on Tuesday 9AM PST. If possible, complete this in your first online time after the reset!

Missions – Available for repeat at any time other than certain story-mode cutscene reliant missions, these are scattered among planets and use interweaving zones to guide you to unique objectives and present an XP bonus and other possible bonuses (viewable at the preview from Orbit) the first time you complete them.

Reputation
Well, this section was going to take awhile, but fortunately another member has typed up an awesome guide here which covers everything that one would need to know.

Gear
Gear can be upgraded by using a combination of glimmer, farm-able materials and Ascendant Materials. I’m still working on this section.