Destiny 2 Tips: Fastest way to increase your light

Destiny 2 Tips

Are you struggling to increase your light in Destiny 2? Don’t worry, you’re not alone in that one. For those who don’t have a great deal of time to invest into the game, or don’t have a regular team of people to game with, your light increase can prove to be a rather slow and painful process.

To give you a bit of a hand I have listed below tips to help you get your light up so that you can start to participate in some of Destiny’s more challenging and fun activities such as the Nightfall and Raid.

We will start by covering off the basics and then I will add some of my personal tips that I believe really help speed the process up.

Section 1: Tips for first time Guardians

  • Order of Completion
  • Infusing Weapons
  • Reaching Level 20
  • Crucible Load-outs
  • Additional Guardians

 

Section 2: Daily and weekly activities for all Guardians

  • Daily Activities
  • Weekly Milestones and Activities

 

Section 3: Additional tips for all Guardians

  • Exotic Quests
  • Weapon and Armor Modifications
  • Crucible Tips
  • Nightfall Tip
  • Raid Tips
  • Aesthetic Gear – The Eververse

 

SECTION 1: TIPS FOR FIRST TIME GUARDIANS
Order of Completion:

If this is your first time in Destiny 2 then there are a couple of things that you need to keep in mind as you play through the campaign aspect.

The first and most important is to make sure that you are at level 20 BEFORE completing the storyline.

The reason for this is that your rewards for completion will be much better and will put you at a higher light than you would have been.

Destiny 2 Tips

As you travel around the different planets you will collect tokens which can be handed into the ‘vendors’ for engram rewards. Hold onto these until you have finished the storyline, then travel around the planets again handing them in. Put on your highest-level equipment (doesn’t matter if you will be using it or not, just the highest of everything that you have) and THEN collect your rewards for completion.

Following this process will see you easily hit around 250 + light.

Infusing Weapons:

Don’t worry about infusing your weapons just yet as most of your equipment will become redundant very quickly. Hold off until you are over 280 + light and then start deciding what you really want to keep.

Reaching Level 20:Destiny 2 Tips

You will need to complete various activities whilst working your way through the story to get up to level 20 as generally you will hit a couple of barriers which require you to be a certain light level to continue. The fastest and most lucrative way to level up is to grind out Public Events (PE). If you have a friend that has completed the story get them to help you out as they can quickly return you to orbit and bring you back down to the next PE so you don’t have to spend a lot of time legging it around the planet in the absence of a sparrow. Whilst that is quite repetitive you end up with a heap of rewards, glimmer, and XP very quickly for your efforts. I also recommend that you and your friend pop a Fireteam Medallion each (purchasableable from the Eververse) which increases your gains and chances of exotic drops (you can only stack two medallions).

Crucible Load-outs:

Playing matches in the Crucible is also a very viable option for levelling up. Your light doesn’t come into play so it doesn’t matter what your level is. This is the same when it comes to your weapons, their level has no impact on your efficiency. What does come into play though is your mobility, resilience and recovery (MRR). You can adjust these stats by putting on different pieces of armor, so don’t just take your prettiest armor set with you.Destiny 2 Tips

Additional Guardians:

If this is your second or third Guardian, be sure to put your highest-level weapons from your other character straight onto your new one as soon as you hit level 20, and then hand everything in. This will result in you getting much higher-level rewards. Put a sparrow in your vault too, you’ll thank me later.

 

Now that you have finished the story, handed in all your tokens, and collected your rewards, it’s time to start your daily and weekly grinds.

 

SECTION 2: DAILY AND WEEKLY ACTIVITIES FOR ALL GUARDIANS
Daily Activities:Destiny 2 Tips

Each day you will have a variety of activities that you can choose to complete which provide you with the chance of legendary and exotic drops.

These are:

  • Replayable Adventures (these are the orange markers on the planets with a white sword in them)
  • Activity Challenges (such as completing different requirements in Crucible or on each planet)
Weekly Milestones and Activities:

The weekly milestones roll over on Tuesday’s at 0500 ET/2000 AEST and are high reward objectives.

The weekly milestones and activities comprise of:

  • Flashpoint Milestone (completing various Public Events on a designated planet)
  • Call to Arms Milestone (completing matches in any type of Crucible)
  • Weekly Challenges (these are similar to the planet challenges and provide you with a reputation bundle reward)
  • Mediations (acquired through Ikora, you replay different sections of the campaign, however you will only receive three per Guardian)Destiny 2 Tips
  • Clan XP Milestone (gained through competing in the Crucible, playing public events, and Nightfall)
  • Tails of the Nine Milestone (this is the prestigious Crucible matches that have replaced Trials of Osiris and run from Friday through to Monday)
  • The Iron Banner Milestone (only active for one week once a month and requires you to earn enough token rewards to receive 10 engram rewards)
  • Nightfall Milestone (requires a team of 3, can be completed on normal (240 + light) or prestige (300 + light) and is basically a strike on steroids with different restrictions such as a time limit)
  • The Leviathan Raid Milestone (typically requires a team of 6 Guardians at over 280 light)

If you follow the above advice for levelling up you will find yourself at over 250 light within roughly 8 – 12 hours of gameplay depending on your efficiency. Continuing the weekly milestones will also see you reach 305 light without having to complete the raid.

Completing the Milestones will provide you with a drop that is guaranteed to be higher than your current light (unless you are at 300 + then your items drop at 300 giving you the ability to put a mod on them which will make them 305 light, or if you are really lucky they will drop with a mod already equipped).

 

SECTION 3: ADDITIONAL TIPS FOR ALL GUARDIANS

Here are a few little tips to help you on through your journey in Destiny 2.

Exotic Quests:

Once you have completed the main story you will have access to three exotic quests which reward you with, yep you guessed it, exotic weapons. The three weapons you can obtain are the Rat King, Mida Multi-Tool and the Sturm. These can all be completed for each new Guardian you start.

Each of these weapons drop at a higher light level than what you are at when you cash them in so my recommendation is if you are below level 280 wait until you are close to that then hand them in as you will find getting over the 280 ceiling can be quite painful and this will really help.Destiny 2 Tips

If you are above 280 light (usually that will mean you are playing with your second or third character) wait until you are close to 300 light so you are likely to get them to drop at over 300.

Note 1: One of the exotic quests requires you to break down five blue or better scout rifles so make sure you store a few in your vault otherwise you will have a pain of a time waiting to collect them when you get up to that point.

Note 2: One of the exotic quests requires you to open three legendary and one exotic engram, so once you start getting to the stage that you are donig these quests start saving your engrams so you have them to open when needed.

Weapon and Armor Modifications:

After you reach level 280 light you can buy and create legendary (purple) mods. These enable you to take items from their base level and add 5 light (300 now becomes 305).  DO NOT BREAK DOWN your purple mods unless you need to do so to create a muchly needed mod for a 300 light piece of equipment. The purple mods can become a real pain to get th

e exact one you are after, particularly if you are after a kinetic mod, so this is why I say to not break them down. Get your equipment sorted, work out how many sets of weapons and armor you are going to run for each character and if you need void, ark or solar mods, etc.

Destiny 2 Tips

I have three Guardians at 305 light, each with a PvP and PvE set up, plus an addition al two sets of PvE equipment so I can switch between void, ark, and solar as needs be, along with the ability to compliment certain sub-classes and various requirements in the Nightfall and Raid. If you are planning on getting that serious about your load-outs you should heed my advice and save your mods.

If you find you have a duplication of a weapon check to see if it has a purple mod on it before breaking it down as the base for one might actually be 5 lower than the other if a mod is applied to the one that doesn’t have one.

Example:

Uriel’s Gift at 300 light with a purple mod already equipped means the base level for that gun is actually 295.

Uriel’s Gift at 300 light with no mod equipped means the base level is 300 and can be made 305 with a purple mod equipped.

Crucible Tips:Destiny 2 Tips

Tip 1: Team Shoot, Team Shoot, Team Shoot! Regardless of if you are running with a team of mates or with three randoms, you can rarely fail if you all stick together and team shoot the opposition. You will have much more success if you have four people shooting at a member of the opposite team than if you are all running around like headless chickens. This is really important given the fact that Crucible uses a peer-to-peer connection. You will quite often have someone on your team that is having a real issue with lag, however if you are team shooting you elevate that problem.

Tip 2: Remember to check your mobility, resilience, and recovery (MRR) on your armor. Whilst your level and light doesn’t affect your gameplay in crucible, the MRR does come into play. It’s not a huge difference but notable enough that I recommend you spend some time pulling together an armor set that is heavily focused on recovery.

Nightfall Tip:Destiny 2 Tips

Each week the nightfall rolls over to a different strike. This also brings with it changes to the restrictions/perks available. These can range from things such as time restrictions, faster regen on your abilities, and anomalies that need to be shot to add time to the counter. As you go to enter the Nightfall you can check what these restrictions/perks will be and you can then change your weapons, armor and sub-class to not only compliment that week’s Nightfall but also that of your team mates.

Be sure to check this each week and this can really make a big difference particularly if you are taking a lower light level in with you.

Raid Tips:Destiny 2 Tips

The Leviathan Raid……………………so easy yet apparently still so hard. Many are struggling with elements of this raid. Whilst I find this raid mechanically to be much easier than that of let’s say Orix, the focus on team communication and clear understanding of your role (and being responsible for this as opposed to relying on others to pick up the slack for you) is proving to be a tad too much for some.

The concept for each room is relatively easy to get the hang of however, the Gauntlet seems to be where many come undone. Above you can see a diagram that I have created which will help you get an understanding of how the stationary method works in the Gauntlet.

For more information on how to complete the Leviathan Raid please see our guide here.

Aesthetic Gear – The Eververse:

Aesthetic items are available for sale from Tess at the Eververse. These items range from cosmetic improvements to weapons and armor sets, to sparrows and ships. Other items are available such as Fireteam Medallions, at a cost 50 bright Dust each, and are one of the most valuable items you can purchase from Tess. These medallions increase the chances of better gains and legendary/exotic drops for you and your fireteam.Destiny 2 Tips

You gain bright dust through ‘gifts’ Tess gives you from Bright Engrams which you receive from level 20 onwards each time you fill your XP bar. If you run out of bright dust and need more medallions, or there is an item that you simply must have, you can find yourself in a bit of a pickle as Tess’ stock rotates each week. There is a way to generate more bright dust though without having to spend actual dollars to buy silver (the currency you need to purchase Bright Engrams).

Your blue, purple and yellow ships, sparrows and shaders will provide you with a small amount (usually 15) of bright dust when you dismantle them. With some of your more common shaders you will easily build up 50 or so of these making for a very nice supply of dust once dismantled. Whilst it can be a slow slog as they have to be dismantled one at a time, this is a good way to get around having to purchase silver.

 

So there you have it, all the advice I have to offer. If I think of anything else that you might find helpful I will be sure to update this guide so be sure to check back in next week or as new content is added to the game.

For more information about Destiny 2 please check out our full review here.

May the light be with you all Guardians.