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Ended up dusting off the Hunter for the Iron Banner. I've still not done all the Taken King missions on the Hunter yet but they apparently aren't a requirement for doing Rise of Iron. A buddy still needed some games to hit rank 5 so I did the first 2 story missions to unlock the temple and jumped on. Took maybe an hour to hit rank 5!

I've now got all 3 characters to 385, thanks to all the infusion fodder, and the Warlock can be 386. And I've still not taken a serious crack at the raid yet. At this rate I'll be ready for Hard Mode before even doing Normal.

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4 hours ago, Basara said:

Ended up dusting off the Hunter for the Iron Banner. I've still not done all the Taken King missions on the Hunter yet but they apparently aren't a requirement for doing Rise of Iron. A buddy still needed some games to hit rank 5 so I did the first 2 story missions to unlock the temple and jumped on. Took maybe an hour to hit rank 5!

I've now got all 3 characters to 385, thanks to all the infusion fodder, and the Warlock can be 386. And I've still not taken a serious crack at the raid yet. At this rate I'll be ready for Hard Mode before even doing Normal.

I feel frustrated I'm not easily at least hitting 360. I played for a few hours last night and even ran IB and ranked up to level 3. RNG still only got me up to 347.

Granted, I'm sure part of my frustration is from never maxing out a character in Year One or Year Two.

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35 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I feel frustrated I'm not easily at least hitting 360. I played for a few hours last night and even ran IB and ranked up to level 3. RNG still only got me up to 347.

Granted, I'm sure part of my frustration is from never maxing out a character in Year One or Year Two.

I've gotten quite good at maximising my time spent in this game otherwise you can spend hours playing and not achieve much.

I'm not sure what your load out is but here's a basic idea of what you need to do to hit 365. This might run a bit long, but reading this for 10 mins might save you hours in game.

So, Bungie don't explain too well how light level and progressing it works. Blue Engrams only decode up to 340. Blue Engrams dropped from the heroic strike playlist or the 320 strikes from the director (not the 320 playlist) go up to 365. Legendary Engrams decode up to 365. Exotic Engrams don't seem to have a cap (maybe 390? I've had several 387).

When you decode an engram or pick up a drop from a strike boss it generally decodes between 1 light lower and 3 light higher than your max light that you are wearing, so always have your highest level gear on. The key here is it looks at your max light, not individual items light. So if you are 350 with a 330 ghost but all your other items are 353 that Ghost is bottlenecking your progress. Since all your other items are above your total light, and one is dragging you down, nothing's going to decode any higher until that one item catches up. I hope that made some sense.

The best way to hit 365 is this:

First, if you're low on marks do a public event for 15 and play the daily crucible game for 15. The daily heroic mission will be a bitch at you're current light level so ignor that for now. What you need is enough marks to buy a Ghost from one of the vendors. They are all 350.

Next play the first 2 missions of Rise of Iron if you haven't already. They are light level 320 I think so they won't be too much of an issue. What that does is unlock the RoI quests. You'll want to complete the artifact quest. The artifact you get is also 350 like the Ghost. I forget what the quest involves but I think it's essentially 'kill things in the Plaguelands'

Ghosts and artifacts are everyone's biggest problem. The drop rate for them outside of the Iron Banner is terrible. 

Prioritse those two things first before playing anything else. If you've already got a Ghost and artifact above 350, even better!

Once you're over those two hurdles it gets easier until you hit around 354 and the 350 Ghost and artifact starts holding you back.

Now it's time to run strikes. you're going to want to get the absolute most out of the strikes you play. Put on a class item with vanguard rep boost, and activate a 2 hour vanguard Rev boost consumable. This means as you're completing strikes you're levelling up the vanguard and a faction faster. Each of this will drop 1-2 items per level you go up. This works all the way to end game. I'm still getting drops between 384-386 from them. Pop a 3 of Coin on every boss. Don't decode any exotics you get yet though and save any skeleton keys you get.

Back to the strikes. The 350 heroic playlist will be tough at your current light level, you'll get one shotted by whatever burn is on. But like I mentioned in the other post, if you select a strike from the director and change its difficulty to 320, the boss will still drop gear up to 365. The Devils Lair/Sepiks Perfected works best because there's still lots of people running that strike for gear so matchmaking is pretty quick. But any 320 strike should work.

Doing strikes for a couple of hours should hopefully get you to that 353-355 soft cap.

Now you need a better ghost and artifact. And this is going to suck. And you'll need to do it about every 5-7 light levels you go up so they don't hold you back.

So, Ghosts: 320/350 strike bosses can drop them up to 365. They seem rarer than other gear but they do drop eventually. Vanguard/crucible/faction packages drop them up to 385. Doesn't matter if you choose an armour or weapons package, they both drop them. This is why you want all of the rep boosters on, to burn through ranks because the drop rate is crap.

Artifacts: This is why you hold on to your skeleton keys. The strike boss chests all seem to have a reasonable chance at dropping an artifact up to 385. You tend to get either an artifact or a class item. Legendary armour engrams have a chance to decode into an artifact up to 365. Eris is the only vendor who's packages drop artifacts (up to 385) so if you're really hurting for one go run some Court of Oryx to rank her up.

And that's basically it until 365. Buy a ghost/get an artifact at 350. Run strikes with all boasts on until your around 354. Follow the steps to grind out a higher light ghost and artifact (the worst part, damn RNG) every time you get to around 354/359/364 etc. 

Any exotics you get keep until you hit 365 because they will decode at 365+ once the strikes are useless to you.

Feel free to decode legendaries when ever you like. Remember, you get a guaranteed legendary, along with 15 marks, once a day from a public event.

Be smart about decoding legendaries and exotics though. Decode the engram for your lowest light item first to get the highest light item from it.

I wouldn't infuse every blue you get into your favourite gear until your at that 365 cap. If you infuse stuff every time it goes up a couple of light you'll run out of marks and materials real fast.

That was probably all rather wordy and difficult to understand so hit me up with any questions.

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Thanks. I started to kind of guess that the engram decode was looking at your light level to get you where you wanted. I also kind of discovered that grinding out Legendary Marks and hitting that cap isn't terribly difficult. At the moment, the things that seem to be holding me back from hitting the 350 threshold are small. I also haven't focused too much on Perks because I figured Perks or Intellect/Strength/Discipline would matter more once I get my light level to where I want it. My Ghost is currently at 345 and my Legs are at 348.  I seem to be having a rougher go with weapons drops. My primary is the MIDA Multi-Tool that I bought off Xur at 350, but my highest special is 349, and my best heavy is at 347. Using the vendors to get the needed gear to 350 isn't going to be much of a hassle. It's the fact that the weapons deplete your Marks, and even running that grind can be frustrating. Also, I have done some 320 strikes and have not had much luck on the rollout, but I also have not hunted down the Skeleton Key drops.

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The 320 strikes need to be manually selected from the director, not going into the 320 strike playlist.  Just click on the devils lair strike on earth and change difficulty to 320 to do sepiks perfected.  It's an extremely short strike that will matchmake you with two other people and the boss will drop two blue items up to 365.  Just run that strike for a couple of hours and it should drastically increase your light level.  Every time you get a blue item that's higher than what you're using, equip it.  Don't bother with infusing unless it's a significant light difference.  And don't bother with looking at stats of the armor at this point.  Once you get up to around 360, run the raid.  Shame you weren't able to do more iron banner.  The bounties all gave legendary gear and the drop rate from the post game rewards screen was pretty ridiculous. 

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2 hours ago, glfpunk said:

The 320 strikes need to be manually selected from the director, not going into the 320 strike playlist.  Just click on the devils lair strike on earth and change difficulty to 320 to do sepiks perfected.  It's an extremely short strike that will matchmake you with two other people and the boss will drop two blue items up to 365.  Just run that strike for a couple of hours and it should drastically increase your light level.  Every time you get a blue item that's higher than what you're using, equip it.  Don't bother with infusing unless it's a significant light difference.  And don't bother with looking at stats of the armor at this point.  Once you get up to around 360, run the raid.  Shame you weren't able to do more iron banner.  The bounties all gave legendary gear and the drop rate from the post game rewards screen was pretty ridiculous. 

Yeah, that's what I had been doing. I think part of the problem is I don't think to use 3 of coins on the Walker or Septiks in Perfected, which I probably should for one run-through.

Also, I noticed that about this IB that hitting Rank 5 was pretty easy. If I had logged about another two hours into it, it probably would have been accomplished. The Medallians stacking up into IB reputation proves to be useful too. Plus, IB is just a much more visceral version of PVP than normal Crucible. I feel like I go on semi-competent runs in there, and every kill feels very earned. Plus, most of the maps used on that playlist for this iteration were very close quarters. 

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How did your raid go Misanthrope? 

Thorn quest finally popped for me yesterday while knocking out Shiros bounties in the Forge. I know it's not the instrument of death it used to be but time for some Year 1 nostalgia! I didn't have it as bad as Hunters in Year 1 since I did the original on my Warlock but I was using Atheons Epilogue fresh off a auto rifle nurf. I've got a bit more choice this time thanks to the Word of Crota and Skolas dropping a void pulse and scout last year which I kept hold of.

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The only issue we had was my connectivity.  Between the random from Europe (who had never completed it), it being Destiny, and streaming it to twitch...my shitty connection just couldn't handle the triumvirate of fucked.  I ended up having to kill the stream on phase 2 of Aksis.  

 

I'll try again when we run a full clan fireteam for the raid.

 

Other than that, we had one wipe on the 2nd phase of the first boss, and I can't even remember what the hell that was over.

 

The clan I've assembled (M4ST3R B3T4S) *   are seasoned raiders, and pretty good PvP'ers.  

 

(* - Nobody from the board is on the XB1 anymore aside from myself, the only people still actively playing in the DVDR on xb1 were Damien, Inline, and myself...so I created a new clan and three clans became one)

 

I got an exoctic helm to drop from the 1st boss that decrypted @ 387

 

I didn't play much banner last week, maybe an hour and a half on tuesday or wednesday....just wasnt feeling pvp... Had I played, I'd probably be 387 light overall tbh

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So I just turned this on or the first time in about six months. Haven't picked up rise of Iron or anything yet, but I noticed going to my menu that I had upgrades/level ups for nearly everything. I always use mine before I turn it off so I know it wasn't that way before so what is up with that?

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More than ever am I disliking the Light Level system.  The crawl to get to 360 or higher is excruciating.  It's just that at least in The Witcher 3, you are given interesting things to do in order to raise your stats. 

I much preferred the old stats system.  I mean, I like the quests.  But even the weekly quests are just the same thing over and over.  Same patrols.  Same bounties.  Same public events.   Pretty much same everything.  I do all of them, and I still only at 354.  This is keeping me from doing the Raids and the Weekly Nightfalls. 

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5 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

More than ever am I disliking the Light Level system.  The crawl to get to 360 or higher is excruciating.  It's just that at least in The Witcher 3, you are given interesting things to do in order to raise your stats. 

I much preferred the old stats system.  I mean, I like the quests.  But even the weekly quests are just the same thing over and over.  Same patrols.  Same bounties.  Same public events.   Pretty much same everything.  I do all of them, and I still only at 354.  This is keeping me from doing the Raids and the Weekly Nightfalls. 

There seems to be a big divide in the levelling system this time. It's either working well for you or not at all. I hit 386 on my main and had enough infusion fodder to hit 385 on all my alts before playing on them and I haven't even finished the raid yet. Other people I play with have been stuck between 360-370 for a few weeks now. I'm sure RNG can't be that harsh this time around, there must be something different in the activities the two sides of this choose to play.

Aside from House of Wolves where you could hit max light on day one this has been the easiest one for me. On the other hand I hated the levelling in TTK. Didn't come close to max light before they released the update. In fact it was so bad I stopped playing for a while.

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It was actually the main reason I stopped playing after The Taken King and didn't pick up again until basically last August.  I think it's got to be my RNG or server or whatever.

Because I'm trying all the tricks.  I even did the trick where I traded materials to faction people to get packages.  But even then, when I choose an armor or gear package, I either get gear that's the current light level of what I already have equipped OR it's maybe one level or two above.  

Now I do the public events.  I do the bounties, etc.  And I do get drops.  But the drops rarely give me things of a much higher light level.  They are just higher by a minuscule, again, making this a slow crawl to 365.

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1 hour ago, TheVileOne said:

It was actually the main reason I stopped playing after The Taken King and didn't pick up again until basically last August.  I think it's got to be my RNG or server or whatever.

Because I'm trying all the tricks.  I even did the trick where I traded materials to faction people to get packages.  But even then, when I choose an armor or gear package, I either get gear that's the current light level of what I already have equipped OR it's maybe one level or two above.  

Now I do the public events.  I do the bounties, etc.  And I do get drops.  But the drops rarely give me things of a much higher light level.  They are just higher by a minuscule, again, making this a slow crawl to 365.

What's the light level of each peice of gear you wear to hit your current max light?

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As per the weekly update, with Hard Mode dropping next Tuesday and the light level increasing to 400 they are upping the light level of gear dropping from various activities and increasing some drop rates.

 

On October 18th, corresponding with the release of Heroic Mode for Wrath of the Machine, your Maximum Light will be increased to 400. With this increase, many reward sources will also increase their maximum Light. Strike Hoards, Nightfall, Exotic Engrams, Trials of Osiris, Crucible, and Iron Banner will now provide rewards up to 400 Light. Archon’s Forge, the Heroic SIVA Strike playlist, and Legendary Engrams will now provide rewards up to 385 Light. Rare Engrams and the SIVA Strike Playlist will now provide rewards up to 365 Light. The recommended Light for these activities will remain the same with the exception of Nightfall, which will be increased to a recommended light of 380. For those striving to reach Heroic Wrath of the Machine or even attempt their first run at Normal Wrath of the Machine, players should find more paths and options available to them to reach the recommended Light.

For players forging their path through Wrath of the Machine, Trials of Osiris, and Iron Banner, these activities will now attempt to reward higher Light on average, compared to your current Light.
 
Artifacts and Ghosts were dropping from fewer sources than intended and have been added as Archon’s Forge completion rewards. These items will now drop up to 400 Light. In Faction Packages, the rate at which Ghosts are rewarded has been increased. Likewise, the rate of artifacts from Eris’ Faction Packages have been increased.

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So, we've got a friend that picked up Destiny a few months into The Taken King, he's never experienced the 'joys' of Year 1 . We took him through a Crota and Skolas before but at this point they are just glorified strikes. He's never set foot in the Vault of Glass. So we changed that tonight. We managed to 3 man the entire Vault, while explaining the mechanics too him, in a little over an hour, with only 3 wipes. We've 3 manned it before but that was with 3 of us who had all done it dozens of times as a full team, not taking someone through it for the first time. Granted we are all insanely over leveled for VoG at this point but most of the encounters you can wipe on from the mechanics alone.

Atheon is surprisingly weak at this point. You can do considerable damage to him now without even using the Relic. While i was waiting for the other 2 who got teleported i was shooting him with Gjallarhorns and taking chunks off his health. We almost got him in 2 rotations even though there were only 3 of us. I actually think that a full team of 6 with Weapons of Light, a tether and Sleeper Simulents might be able to kill him before the first teleport. We managed to do about 10% damage just shooting him with primaries and grenades and generally just messing about.

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13 hours ago, Basara said:

What's the light level of each peice of gear you wear to hit your current max light?

Okay so here are my light level pieces:

Helmet - 353

Gauntlets - 355

Chest Piece - 353

Greaves - 357

Class Armor - 357

Artifact - 355

Primary Weapon - 355

Secondary Weapon - 355

Heavy Weapon - 355

Ghost Shell - 353

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4 hours ago, Basara said:

As per the weekly update, with Hard Mode dropping next Tuesday and the light level increasing to 400 they are upping the light level of gear dropping from various activities and increasing some drop rates.

 

On October 18th, corresponding with the release of Heroic Mode for Wrath of the Machine, your Maximum Light will be increased to 400. With this increase, many reward sources will also increase their maximum Light. Strike Hoards, Nightfall, Exotic Engrams, Trials of Osiris, Crucible, and Iron Banner will now provide rewards up to 400 Light. Archon’s Forge, the Heroic SIVA Strike playlist, and Legendary Engrams will now provide rewards up to 385 Light. Rare Engrams and the SIVA Strike Playlist will now provide rewards up to 365 Light. The recommended Light for these activities will remain the same with the exception of Nightfall, which will be increased to a recommended light of 380. For those striving to reach Heroic Wrath of the Machine or even attempt their first run at Normal Wrath of the Machine, players should find more paths and options available to them to reach the recommended Light.

For players forging their path through Wrath of the Machine, Trials of Osiris, and Iron Banner, these activities will now attempt to reward higher Light on average, compared to your current Light.
 
Artifacts and Ghosts were dropping from fewer sources than intended and have been added as Archon’s Forge completion rewards. These items will now drop up to 400 Light. In Faction Packages, the rate at which Ghosts are rewarded has been increased. Likewise, the rate of artifacts from Eris’ Faction Packages have been increased.

Will believe it when I see it.

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14 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

Okay so here are my light level pieces:

Helmet - 353

Gauntlets - 355

Chest Piece - 353

Greaves - 357

Class Armor - 357

Artifact - 355

Primary Weapon - 355

Secondary Weapon - 355

Heavy Weapon - 355

Ghost Shell - 353

The problem with 350-365 is there's a sort of soft cap where gear only drops between one level lower and 2 higher. And since the gear drops are based on your total light, not the individual item, it's very easy to get stuck if a few pieces of gear are holding you back. With you being 354 total and your boots and class item being 357 they will never drop any higher gear until the rest catches up. Same with all that 355 gear, you might get lucky at get a 356 from a drop, or a 357 from a legendary or exotic but that wont make much progress. It's your helm and ghost shell that's screwing you over right now. There's nothing there that wont drop from running the heroic strikes or 320 strikes from the director (not the 320 strike playlist, the gears capped at 340).

Best advice i can give is unfortunately grind. Run the Heroic playlist or the 320 Sepiks Perfected strike form the director. It might take a couple of hours of strikes but there's no reason (outside of shitty RNG luck) that you shouldn't start to claw your way to 360+. Do a public event every day for the free legendary item. Any legendary engrams you get for gear that's already 355+ keep. There isn't much chance of them decoding to anything higher until you get a better Ghost and Helm. Basically only decode legendary engrams for gear that's lagging behind. That way they will give you the biggest jump in light.

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5 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

So are you saying I should just dump Engrams for gear I already have that's higher?

If you get legendary engrams for gear that's above your max light don't decode them, keep hold of them as an engram. Same with exotics.

So your boots for example. You said your total light is 354 and your boots are 357. A legendary boot engram won't decode any higher than 3 light over your max. Your current boots are already 3 light higher so you'll just be wasting the engram. Keep hold of it until the rest of your gear has caught up to 357 then decode it so it has a chance to give you an item up to 360.

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I did this with Overwatch, but feel it might be even more useful with Destiny.

I bought this recently (with The Taken King), but it is vast. What SHOULD I be trying to do? What are the best ways to make good progress? What do I need to know?

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