Destiny Hitting Level 26 Reliably Guide

Destiny Hitting Level 26 Reliably Guide by thetorsoboy

First of all, congratulations on level 20! Chances are you’re rocking green gear and hopefully some blue gear. But now you’re probably asking, what next? You’ve probably heard of Vault of Glass, and that’s what we’re going for with this guide.

…Who the heck is thetorsoboy and why am I listening to your advice?

I’m thetorsoboy! I play on Xbox 360. If you ever need help, please add me on Xbox Live. But let me know in the comments if you do. I’ll help you with anything.

I’m a level 25 Warlock. What? Not 26? How do you know what you’re talking about? Well. I have a plan. And you can have this plan too. I know I’ll be 26 on Friday. You’ll get there soon too.

The basics, getting into Vault of Glass and How to Get Your Gear

What is Vault of Glass?

By now you’ve probably done some Strikes. Vault of Glass is essentially a strike “on steroids”, meaning it’s a longer version, much harder, but with much greater rewards.

How do I get into Vault of Glass?

First off, Vault of Glass is on Venus, if you’ve beaten the story it will show up on your map. The level requirement is level 26.

Wait, I thought level cap was 20?

You are correct. The maximum “level” is 20. But beyond 20 we have what is called “Light level”, and as it stands currently in the game the maximum reached (so far) is Light Level 30. Once you hit level 20 you’ll notice content that requires level 22, 24, 26, and even level 28, and that’s what Light Level is for.

How do I increase my Light Level?

Once you hit level 20 you’ll start to notice that rare (blue) gear and higher will have a new stat called light. The only purpose of light being to increase your light level which will allow for higher level content. Each light level requires a certain amount of light, so grabbing gear with the highest light value is your best bet here.

Also, you can further increase light by upgrading the defense stat of gear. Each defensive upgrade gives +1 light for blue gear, and +2 light for Legendary (purple) and Exotic (yellow) gear.

Each light level requires a certain amount of light. Level 26 requires 76 light. Meaning for Head, Chest, Gloves, and Boots, we need an average of 19 light per gear slot.

What about weapons?

While having Legendary and even Exotic weapons is fantastic, they do not increase light levels. In my opinion, I think that going for gear is much more worthwhile, and we can leave the weapons for random drops. I say, go for gear first!

Getting Gear: Guaranteed vs. Random Drops

There are a few methods to actually getting gear, which we’ll dive into a little bit later in this guide. But for simplicity’s sake there are generally three methods. Buying gear from vendors, quest rewards, and random drops. While random drops are exciting, and you will get them, buying gear from vendors and getting quest rewards are a much more reliable way. This guide is purely on getting gear reliably. As you’re getting this gear, hopefully you get some good drops and maybe get to skip some things. But this is the best way to be sure you’re getting what you want. So let’s begin!

Let’s Start With Exotic

Wait a second. Isn’t exotic gear extremely rare? Shouldn’t we try for legendary first?

While Exotic gear is extremely rare, there’s a reason for why I’m talking about it first. I understand that you might just not be able to get Exotics at this point in time. But as I see it, this information needs to be known before you start upgrading gear, so… Let’s delve in.

Avoiding Gear Overlapping

One of the worst feelings in the game is having a great piece of gear and spending a lot of time and resources on it to only have it be replaced with something better. The best example of this is having a Legendary piece that you’ve worked on for a long time and then getting an exotic.

Sure, it’s great that you’ve gotten an exotic, and it’ll be better. But wouldn’t it have been great if you knew about this and avoided it in the first place? Read on!

Tell me, what’s the deal with exotic gear?

Exotic gear and weaponry is the tier above legendary. While most Legendary gear has “Carry more ammunition with [Weapon Type]”, Legendary Gear will have the modifiers you want, such as longer grenade duration, cooldown reduction, and a whole mess of things that you’ll see as you play the game.

This is the gear we want. As it stands, you can only have one Exotic weapon and gear equipped at once. You can have more stored for later or swap them out, but you can only have one exotic weapon and piece of gear equipped at once. That means for all the gear slots, only one can be exotic.

I thought you said it was extremely rare? What’s the deal?

Getting an exotic to drop is extremely rare. But there is one way that we can 100% for sure get a piece of exotic gear…

Xur, your new best friend.

On 9AM PST on Friday mornings, Xur, Agent of the Nine will come to the tower. (His spawn seems to be random, check reddit for his location or just look for him) Xur sells exotic gear.

What gear does Xur have?

There’s two types of gear he sells. Guaranteed, which means he’ll have named Exotics that when you buy them, you get what you’re seeing. Nothing else. Nothing random about it except for his stock will change every weekend. But the gear you see him have is what you’ll get. He’ll have a class-specific item for each class.

The other option is the Exotic Engram. I have to say AVOID THIS. While it seems nice, there’s a chance it will not be for your class. It will always be exotic, yes. But getting an Exotic for another class is frustrating.

How do I buy this gear?

We have two currencies here. Strange coins, and Motes of Light. Strange coins buy the specific gear, Motes of Light buy the engrams. So, if you’ve been reading, you know which we’ll be wanting to use. Gear costs 13 Strange Coins, Engrams go for 23 Motes of Life.

These coins. So… strange? Where do I find them?

Firstly, strange coins can appear as end of mission rewards randomly. (Crucible and PvE things) They can also spawn rarely in chests and from Legendary Engrams. (and maybe sometimes blue ones)

This guide is all about reliability. While you can farm these random drops, it’s best to go for what you know will actually give you them!

The best way are what we call Weekly Heroic Strikes. These reset at 1AM Pacific Time on Tuesday morning. Each week will have a random strike with Heroic modifies. (random, they just increase difficulty like spawning more enemies, eliminating bullet knockback, etc.)

Each week, you can do a Level 22 version, Level 24, and level 26. Level 22 rewards 3 Strange Coins, level 24 gives you 6, and level 26 gives you 9. I understand you might not be able to get all of these right away. Just keep this in mind, that eventually you WILL be getting exotic gear!

Okay, I know about Exotics. What about legendaries?!

As we now know, there are two ways to get legendaries. Random drops in the forms of engrams (unreliable) and from gear vendors. (Reliable!) So we’ll be talking about the reliable way! Since you can only have one Exotic gear piece at a time, the rest will be legendary, and that’s where most of your time’s going to be.

Who sells legendaries and what do I need to buy them?

As it stands right now, there are FIVE factions that sell legendary gear. The Crucible, The Vanguard, New Monarcy, Dead Orbit, and Future War Cult. All of these vendors are in the tower, just check the map robot (they are red) for their locations.

As for buying them, you need two things. Reputation, and marks, either Crucible or Vanguard. We’ll talk about those soon.

Five factions?!? Which do I choose?

Hm, that is a tough choice. Each faction has different gear, so first I recommend just looking at the vendors. Each faction has different gear, so choose what you think is best. There’s no wrong answer here. But to help you choose…

Strength, Intelect and Discipline?

If you’ve looked at all the vendors, you’ll notice that they seem to have a theme of what kind of stats are on the gear.

Dead Orbit: Discipline and Strength

Future War Cult: Discipline and Intellect

New Monarcy: Strength and Intellect

Vanguard and Crucible: A mix of all of them. Kind of a grab bag of sorts.

What do these stats do?

I’ll keep this simple. Strength reduces cooldown of Melee. Discipline reduces Grenade timer. And Intellect reduces your Super cooldown.

Okay, I’ve chosen the faction I want. How do I get reputation?

Vanguard: Play PvE things. Patrols, Strikes, and Events give reputation.

Crucible: Play in the Crucible! PvP gives you Crucible rep.

What about the other factions?

Each faction vendor sells Warlock Bonds, Titan belts, and Hunter Capes. While wearing one, all of your reputation gains go to that faction. So if you want Vanguard or Crucible, do not wear a faction piece, just wear anything else!

…How much reputation are we talking here?

Well. For weapons you need level 3. For gear you need level 2. It’s 2000 for Level 2 and 3000 for level 3. This might take you a while, but keep at it! It’ll be worth it!

How many marks do I need?

Weapons are 150 marks, helmets are 120, and the rest is 65. This isn’t as hard. You’ll get these before you have the reputation. Also, you can only get 100 marks of Crucible/Vanguard per week, resetting on Tuesday.

Okay, thetorsoboy. I know about Exotics, I’ve chosen my faction, and I know where I’m going. What next?

Play the game! Do PvP, grab bounties, do events, strikes, whatever you want. Along the way you’ll find some better gear (I hope!) and increase reputation along the way. Soon you’ll grab those legendaries and you’ll need to…

UPGRADE!

Once you have a legendary, you’ll notice it’ll level up as you play and you can upgrade it. Once you get past the Glimmer only upgrades, you’ll notice that you need certain materials.

Spinmetal: Grab this on Earth. Blue/Silverish plants.

Helium Filaments: The moon! Glowing groups of tubes.

Spirit Bloom: Venus. Green floating orbs.

Iron Relic: Mars. Looks like brown rocks. (Kinda hard to see…)

You can look up a farming route for these. But I find it much more enjoyable to just pick them up as you go. Every time you see these, grab ’em! You’ll need them later!

Each upgrade of DEFENSE gives +2 additional light for your gear! Yay!

Ascendant Materials…?

Oh yes. Once you get a few upgrades you’ll see you need Ascendant Shards. You get these from: Public Events (Best way), Legendary Engrams (Unreliable), and destroying Legendary gear. Also randomly in PvP and in VoG. Oh yes, Ascendant Energy is used for the same thing and gotten the same way. So keep at it.

That’s it for now!

The best way to play Destiny is doing what you enjoy. I wrote this guide because I find Treasure Cave and generally just farming for hours to be boring. This way you can just play, and then buy what you want. I hope it helped!