Destiny Power Level Past 365 Light Guide

Destiny Power Level Past 365 Light Guide by djspinmonkey

Most of these tips have been mentioned elsewhere, but here’s a comprehensive guide to leveling past 365, gathered in one place with a bit of extra advice.

The prime directive is to maximize your expected gains every time you spend a resource. Ideally, every high-LL drop you get should be replacing lower-LL gear. The other prime directive is to exercise self control — save everything until the optimal time to use it, especially exotic engrams! With those guidelines in mind, here are the rules I used to power all my characters to 385 in the first week of RoI. Generally, the higher something is in the list, the more desirable it is to do that thing. (Sometimes a very cheap thing is better to try first, even if it’s unlikely to work, because hey, it’s very cheap!)

If all your weapons or all of your armor are at or below your current LL, get a faction rep package. Here are the best ways to get faction rep, depending on what you have stockpiles of.

• Do bounties!
• Turn glimmer + ether seeds into heavy synths with Variks, and then turn the heavy synths in to your faction for rep.
• Turn glimmer in to weapon parts with Shiro or the Funsmith, and turn those in for faction rep.
• Turn in stockpiled heavy synths, planetary mats, motes of light, etc for faction rep.
• Turn strange coins into heavy synths with Xur, and you know the rest by now.
• Just like run around and shoot stuff however you normally would (strikes, crucible, etc). Try to be earning credit for multiple goals at all times — bounties, quests, planetary mats for your faction this week, etc. These often overlap. IB is extra good for this, since it is rich in high-LL drops in its own right, including artifacts.

If one piece of gear is lagging behind, upgrade that slot specifically. For armor or weapons, try these things.

• Decrypt purples in that slot and hope for an exotic upgrade.
• Decrypt an exotic engram for that slot. Infuse it or use it.
• Run the raid, and use a siva cache key on the boss that drops gear for that slot.
• Use a skeleton key on a strike that drops gear for that slot.
• Grind IB if it’s IB week, especially if IB is dropping gear for that slot.
• Use faction rep packages and hope for the best. Only do this if gains are possible in other slots on the same side.
• Grind archon’s forge.

If the lagging slot is a ghost or class item, do these things.

• Use a faction rep package.
• Grind archon’s forge (especially for class items).
• Grind IB.

If the lagging slot is an artifact… you have my condolences, but know that you are not alone. Try these things.

• Use skeleton keys, especially on strikes that drop other gear you could get a gain out of.
• Do the raid — phase 1 of the final boss can drop artifacts.
• Grind IB if it’s IB week, but the drop rate seems pretty low.
• Grind Eris Morn faction rep by doing Court of Oryx until you get one of those funny dreadnaught bounties that come in a series, and then do those bounties. Sadly, these are only available once per week per character, after which you’re down to just grinding the Court.

Here’s some general advice for maintaining a state of power leveling readiness.

• ALWAYS BE THREE OF COINS-ING! ALWAYS!! Exotic Engrams are solid gold for leveling.
• Similarly, if you’re going to be playing for a while, use a rep booster!
• Always do any applicable bounties while you’re doing the other things! Get credit for multiple things at once!
• Never cap out on glimmer or legendary marks. If you hit the cap, turn glimmer in to heavy synths with Variks if you have ether seeds, otherwise weapon parts from the Funsmith. Turn legendary marks into planetary mats at the Vanguard Quartermaster.
• If you don’t need them to fill in a lagging equipment slot, save two of each type of exotic armor engram (chest, shoes, gloves, hat). When you hit max level, decrypt those and hand them to your alts for infusion. Blammo! You have now maxed your alts. (You may also need to hand them a high-LL class item.)
• Use the RoI artifacts, since they can be swapped between classes. You don’t want to have to find high-LL artifacts for all three of your characters. And hey, they’re new and cool and probably better than the old ones anyway.

Good luck out there, Guardians! See you at the top!