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Destiny 2 |OT2| Leviathan Wakes (Spoiler Tag ALL Raid Discussion)

LordofPwn

Member
Duplicates from exotic engrams and raid seem extraordinarily high. I got 3 mob justices in 2 raids, 2 of which were back to back. As for exotics I'm missing quite a few but keep getting skyburners oath or risk runners. my warlock is the only one where I've gotten close to having every exotic armor piece, just missing boots.
I'm missing 18 known exotics overall though and i'd happily trade of of my 6 risk runners for one I'm missing.
 
Totally scored the Skull of Dire Ahamkara for my warlock last night and im soooo happy

Been chasin this guy for awhile and now im back in business slinging nova bombs in PVE for kicks

Love it
 

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
Is this week's Nightfall a little more reasonable than last week?

Been out of town for a few days so I'm out of the loop.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
This is simply a list of all the avenues of progression and a reference if you feel you have hit a roadblock in increasing your power level. It is in no particular order, as there is no real benefit to doing any one before the others, other than the suggested levels in parentheses. I will try to add to it as the details of other activiites that offer progression become available over time.

Notes:
  • All drops are relative to your base Light, not inculding Legendary Mods (which add 5 power apiece).
  • The current hard cap for base Light is 300. With Legendary mods on all slots, you will be 305.
  • For the purposes of this guide when discussing rewards, "Luminous" Engrams refers to those high-level engrams held by vendors upon completing a milestone. "Powerful"/"High-light" engrams refers to standard Legendary engrams that drop on the ground, at a high level, that decrypt at the Cryptarch.
  • Luminous engrams have a high (guaranteed?) chance to drop two Legendaries or a Legendary and Exotic.
  • Engrams that drop and are decrypted by the Cryptarch, including Exotics, should be decrypted ASAP as their level will not change. Luminous engrams at vendors will increase in tandem with your current Light while held by the vendor.
  • It is worth mentioning that given enough time, you can hit the current hard cap without ever entering the raid.

Activities Available per Character:

Planetary Destinations: Public Events, Lost Sectors, Adventures, Vendor Tokens (most useful up to 265)
How to Unlock: Partially available during campaign, and fully available upon campaign completion
Progression Rewards: Rare gear and destination legendaries (up to 265 or 5-10 below your current max, whichever is higher), exotic engrams (higher than your base light, up to a max of 300)
Description: Almost anything you do on a planet will drop loot or tokens that can easily get you up to 265. Once you have progressed past this point, this gear will always drop at a few light below your max which is useful infusion fuel to get new-but-low-power or old saved guns up to endgame status.

Exotic Quests (most useful at or near 265)
How to Unlock: Complete the campaign
Progression Rewards: High level legendaries and exotics
Description: New quests indicated by the blue crown icon will appear on each zone vendor after completing the campaign. Three of these (EDZ, Titan, Nessus) lead to Exotic rewards upon completion. Two of them also award high level legendaries mid-quest. The specific guns are:
  • EDZ (Devrim Kay): MIDA Mini-tool and MIDA Multi-tool
  • Sloane (Titan): Rat King
  • Nessus (Failsafe) Sturm and Drang
Each of these is a great boost to power. MIDA is the easiest to complete. Save up rare scout rifles as a step requires you to delete 5. Rat King requires a fast Nightfall completion and is best done on a week with a Nightfall that is on the easier side.

Flashpoint (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Complete the "Patrol" mission in the EDZ to restore patrol beacons, then return to Cayde. This will unlock the Flashpoint milestone for that character, and it will automatically appear in your milestones each week afterward.
Progression Rewards: Luminous Engram (from Cayde)
Description: Each week, a zone is highlighted as a Flashpoint. Completing Public Events in this destination will advance the Milestone. Heroic Public Events will progress it further. Cayde will have your reward upon completion.

Nightfall (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Talk to Zavala to get a "Strikes" milestone to complete 2 Strikes. Return to talk to Zavala. You may then need to go to orbit to trigger Zavala and go speak to him again. This will unlock the Nightfall milestone, which will then automatically appear on your Milestones for that character each week.
Progression Rewards: Powerful engram/drop from chest, Luminous Engram (from Zavala)
Description: This is a tough, timed version of a regular strike. Typically each week there are two modifiers applied: one that changes a gameplay mechanic somehow, and one that provides a method of reclaiming some time throughout the strike. This requires a fireteam of 3 or a Guided Games session.

Prestige Nightfall (most useful at or after 290)
How to Unlock: Automatically unlocked at high enough level. Selectable difficulty from Director.
Progression Rewards: Powerful engram/drop from chest
Description: This is a tougher version of the regular NF that week, with less starting time on the clock. Requires a premade team.

Call to Arms (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Talk to Shaxx to get a Milestone to complete 4 Crucible matches (2 on each playlist). Return to him to unlock the Call to Arms milestone on that character, which will automatically then appear each week.
Progression Rewards: Luminous Engram (from Shaxx)
Description: This is a performance based Milestone for competing in Crucible matches. Wins advance it much faster.

Personal Clan XP (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Join a clan. Talk to Hawthorne and acquire your clan banner. If you are level 20, you will automatically unlock the Milestone for personal clan XP which will automatically appear each week for that character.
Progression Rewards: Luminous Engram (from Hawthorne)
Description: Completing almost any activity (PEs, Adventures, Story Missions/Meditations, Lost Sectors, Strikes, Crucible matches) contributes to your overall Clan progression, and awards you personal Clan XP for that character. When you hit 5000 XP for the week on that character, Hawthorne will have an engram for you.

Castellum (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Reach 260 to unlock the Leviathan Raid.
From the entrance, go up two stories to find the room with the orange air jets which will shoot you through the air to the entrance lined with Colossi. Enter the main door here and progress forward into the Castellum.
Progression Rewards: Powerful engram from chest
Description: Your first weekly Castellum per character awards a high-light engram from the chest upon completion. This is a very simplistic raid encounter which introduces a number of recurrent mechanics/enemies within the raid itself. It can be completed easily with 5 people, a coordinated team of 4, or even fewer with preparation and skill. Even if you do not progress any further into the raid this is easily worth doing and takes less time than a Flashpoint. More on the mechanics/encounter and its role in the raid can be found in my raid guide.

Trials of the NIne (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Complete the Call to Arms quest. Each weekend, the Trials of the Nine will automatically be available to you on that character from the Director. The social space associated with Trials is unlocked after one win.
Progression Rewards: High level gear (awarded at 3, 5, 7 wins and an additional reward for a Flawless completion, from the Spire social space)
Description: Each weekend, this highly competitive PvP mode is available with the goal of "going Flawless" i.e. reaching 7 wins without a loss. Progression-worthy gear is available at each win checkpoint.

Raid (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Reach 260 to unlock the Leviathan Raid.
Progression Rewards: High level gear (random drops from encounter completion)
Description: This is a challenging, communication-heavy encounter for a team of 6. Requires a premade team or a Guided Games session. The order of the encounters within rotates each week save for the final boss fight. More information about how to best take advantage of the raid for progression can be found in my raid guide.

Legendary Mods (accessible at 280)
Upon hitting level 280, you can take part in "the mod game" via Banshee-44 (the Gunsmith).

Rare mods can be purchase en masse from the Gunsmith, and when you have a stack of 3 of the same type of Rare mod, they can be converted into a Legendary mod. Any Legendary mod adds +5 power to the piece of gear it is applied to.

If you dismantle a Legendary mod, you receive a mod component. For two mod components, you can choose either an Armor or Weapon mod from Banshee, which offers you more of a chance to get the mod you want.

Early on, it is typically best to just create whatever Legendary mods you can and apply them to your highest gear that does not have them, for the boost to your overall level. In the later endgame, you can craft and recycle mods ad infinitum to create your ideal loadout, or multiple armor sets with different perk combinations for different loadouts. Be ward, this consumes tons and tons of glimmer and the return on investment is not huge- this should be considered a "I have conquered literally everything else I can"-type activity.

Exotic Engrams (most useful at or after 265)
Exotic engrams will always drop higher than your base Light. They are random drops from a number of activities, including:
  • Heroic Public Events
  • Lost Sectors
  • Strikes
  • Crucible matches
  • Raid Key chests
While these are RNG drops, many of these activities can be completed solo/low-stress/no mic, etc. which may make them preferable for a given play session and it is worth noting that they still carry the chance of progression at any level via Exotic engrams.

Activities Available per Account:

Cayde's Treasure Stashes (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Upon reaching level 20, Cayde will sell treasure maps for the zone in which the Flashpoint is present that week.
Progression Rewards: random chance of Exotic engrams
Description: Each week, Cayde sells 5 treasure maps containing a random reward, ranging from nothing at all to Faction legendaries to Exotic engrams. These treasure maps do not ever expire (i.e., you can still open last week's after reset if you didn't get to them) and can be opened on any character once purchased.

Clan Reward Engrams (most useful at or after 265)
How to Unlock: Join a clan. Completing activities with at least half of the team comprised of clan members will unlock a weekly engram for the account of every player in the clan. If you do this yourself you will immediately unlock it for yourself as well of course.
Progression Rewards: Luminous Engrams (from Hawthorne) for Crucible and Nightfall
Description: Simply winning a Crucible match of any kind, and completing a Nightfall with two or more clan members in the fireteam will unlcok these two Luminous engrams per account per week for all clan members. (The Raid and Trials engrams drop gear from those activities, but at 10 Light so this is not useful for progression).

A Note on Alts (additional Characters)

Working up additional characters provides a massive boost to progression for both. Because upon hitting level 20, the game will detect your alt can equip your highest possible weapons, progression is enormously accelerated for your alts up to endgame-ready status. Tokens earned from any activity can also be redeemed on any character for quick, viable Legendary armor acquisition. Then, your extra Exotic quests, and weekly Milestones are additional chances for possible progression for both characters.

If progressing through the campaign again on an additional character is unappealing to you, consider doing one story mission per day or every other day, and you'll still have an endgame-ready alt within a couple of weeks.

Note that unlike Destiny 1 there is no major progression benefit to maintaining multiple characters of the same class.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Is this week's Nightfall a little more reasonable than last week?

Been out of town for a few days so I'm out of the loop.

its a lot of fun thanks to the near instant grenade recharge. just equip a class that gives you two grenades and throw grenades around like a mad man. i dont think i fired my primary once during the 240 version.

300 maybe a few times but its very doable if you dont mess up the laser beam jumps.
 
SMH at the people who want more grind. I do not miss getting 1 legendary drop per day if I'm lucky and spending the rest of the week levelling up the gun until the perks are usable.
I'd much rather have D2's superfluous content that doesn't really help me level-up, rather than D1's very little content that I need to re-run dozens of times to reach a 'raid-worthy' level.

I really think there's a happy medium but bungie doesn't understand loot game mechanics. They're too extreme on both sides of the spectrum.
 
Wow, after hoping for a Better Devils since launch I got about FIVE in the span of a 3 hour session yesterday.

It’s not that great tbh. At least not in this scout rifle/auto rifle meta. It’s fun to use yeah but your handicapping yourself by using it.

Kinda related, man the exotics in this game are wet noodles, Jesus.

Got the Lucky Pants exotic and I used it with Better Devils thinking ok maybe this will make this kinda feel like the purple HCs from D1, nopeeeee. I thought the perk would proc as soon as you stop sprinting but apparently it’s a Plan C type of thing and it only works when you SWITCH to a HC.

Wow, that’s really useful...it bothers me just how boring nearly every exotic in this game is. It doesn’t help that most of them are ugly but on top of that all are virtually useless outside of niche situations?

The only joy I’m getting out of PvP right now is using Does Not Compute to slap annoying MIDA spammers, and the Last Hope for the Uriel Gift users. I wish I could use something a bit more unique than two purples though...
 

_Legacy_

Member
Is this week's Nightfall a little more reasonable than last week?

Been out of town for a few days so I'm out of the loop.

It's the best NF I've done, more so if you have a Striker Titan. I was throwing grenades for the whole strike. Not having to worry about burns also simplify things as well.
 

shermas

Member
I don't miss the 'grind' from D1 (farming public events for shards to level up weapons..... Pls), but I wish the strike specific gear or exotic faction items were back.

Purely cosmetic stuff to chase. Rewards for playing 10 strikes. I love the drop rates now (exotic dupes aside). I also can't believe there's no record book. I can understand Bungie removing the grimoire score (filthy casuals) from our status, but I enjoyed seeing those kill numbers and weapon numbers go up. Keep it private... Let me keep track and we won't have to worry about people getting kicked from groups because they have a 2500 grimoire score.

I'll never forget my first exotic drop in D1 (icebreaker on patrol) or my gally, but I think that ship has sailed. The game is way more loot friendly now.
 

cucuchu

Member
My main gripe right now is the lack of meaningful content once you get up to around 275 PL. I feel like adding some kind of incentive for playing through strikes or adding a heroic strike playlist with those incentives would alleviate this. This could be a % chance at getting a legendary engram that is a slight upgrade for your character (even just very slight). 10% chance for first strike, 20% chance for second strike, 30% chance for third strike with a reset back to 10% chance after you receive the engram. Something like this.

There are nights where I can put on my headset and focus for a raid/nightfall/trials and then there are nights I would like to just throw on some podcasts and play without too much stress. It would be nice to be able to at least marginally progress with the latter once you reach around 275 PL.
 
Well guys... I hate to say it, but I think I’m about to bail on my hunter. I mained hunter throughout D1, but I’m just not feeling it as much. Not sure if it’s just gotten boring to me and/or survivability feels non-existent. That said, I’ve almost beaten the story with my warlock and I think this is gonna have to be my new class.

Sucks my hunter is 281 and I almost have to start over. I’ll probably still run it through some nightfalls and an occassional raid though. I guess I can also pick up guild rewards— are those character or account bound? I.e., can I get rewards for all characters?
 

cakely

Member
Well guys... I hate to say it, but I think I’m about to bail on my hunter. I mained hunter throughout D1, but I’m just not feeling it as much. Not sure if it’s just gotten boring to me and/or survivability feels non-existent. That said, I’ve almost beaten the story with my warlock and I think this is gonna have to be my new class.

Sucks my hunter is 281 and I almost have to start over. I’ll probably still run it through some nightfalls and an occassional raid though. I guess I can also pick up guild rewards— are those character or account bound? I.e., can I get rewards for all characters?

You're eventually going to want one character for each class, so you're in good shape. Some of the weekly awards are account based but some are character based (Call to Arms) so you can run those for each character once you have all three. Your warlock's power level will piggyback off your hunter once he hits level 20 and he'll be the same power level in no time at all.

There's a great guide just a few posts above yours that details the different activities and if they're per account or per character.
 
Bungie seem intent on me using sidearms. I'm on my 40th Mechaneer's Tricksleeve and everything I get from the Gunsmith is a sidearm. Not happening, Bungie.

I'm still trying to get Orpheus Rig boots, but haven't gotten an Exotic in days - other than the Power Gear stuff.
 

void666

Banned
I don't get it. I'm enjoying my hunter more than i did in D1. It's the fun class.
Warlocks on the other hand. Zzzzzzzz...

Bungie seem intent on me using sidearms. I'm on my 40th Mechaneer's Tricksleeve and everything I get from the Gunsmith is a sidearm. Not happening, Bungie.

I'm still trying to get Orpheus Rig boots, but haven't gotten an Exotic in days - other than the Power Gear stuff.

Try last hope, last dance or dead man walking. I'm also not a fan of sidearms but these are fun. Even in pve.
 
I can't land in the tower. If it's not a crash, it's error code beaver. I feel like getting a refund 😂 Why are you stopping me from playing your game Bungie?
 
It's taking forever for me to level doing lost sectors and public events in EDZ. Do you usually get blues at most 1-2 above your current PL?

Also, is saving speaking to Zavala to finish the campaign a good idea? I want the exotic high level, but I can't do factions without finishing the story.
 
It's taking forever for me to level doing lost sectors and public events in EDZ. Do you usually get blues at most 1-2 above your current PL?

Also, is saving speaking to Zavala to finish the campaign a good idea? I want the exotic high level, but I can't do factions without finishing the story.

I'd suggest to just talk to Zavala and start doing the various activities available. There's no need to try to wait and grow the exotics at this point. It's not going to save you time.
 

Mafro

Member
Duplicates from exotic engrams and raid seem extraordinarily high. I got 3 mob justices in 2 raids, 2 of which were back to back. As for exotics I'm missing quite a few but keep getting skyburners oath or risk runners. my warlock is the only one where I've gotten close to having every exotic armor piece, just missing boots.
I'm missing 18 known exotics overall though and i'd happily trade of of my 6 risk runners for one I'm missing.
Yep the last 6 exotics I've had have all been dupes, three of them were the same Titan arms.
 
Wow, after hoping for a Better Devils since launch I got about FIVE in the span of a 3 hour session yesterday.

It’s not that great tbh. At least not in this scout rifle/auto rifle meta. It’s fun to use yeah but your handicapping yourself by using it.

Kinda related, man the exotics in this game are wet noodles, Jesus.

Got the Lucky Pants exotic and I used it with Better Devils thinking ok maybe this will make this kinda feel like the purple HCs from D1, nopeeeee. I thought the perk would proc as soon as you stop sprinting but apparently it’s a Plan C type of thing and it only works when you SWITCH to a HC.

Wow, that’s really useful...it bothers me just how boring nearly every exotic in this game is. It doesn’t help that most of them are ugly but on top of that all are virtually useless outside of niche situations?

The only joy I’m getting out of PvP right now is using Does Not Compute to slap annoying MIDA spammers, and the Last Hope for the Uriel Gift users. I wish I could use something a bit more unique than two purples though...

Agreed on the boring exotics complaint. Some of the guns are novel but most of the exotic armor I've found boils down to some form of cooldown reduction. Wings of sacred dawn is kind of cool but the weird aim penalties you take in the air makes it useless. Only cool exotics I've found so far at the gauntlets that let you run around meleeing everyone and the gauntlets that heal you for meleeing.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
That was sort of annoying running all over the place. Esp. for D1 veterans who know (more or less) what each factions stands for in D2.



On another note - Did you post your raid-guide you were working on? I still dont understand the checkpoint system and was going to see if you touched on that and if/how the weekly reset works etc. I still need to be Calus but if i have to redo all the other encounters without being able to skip in the underbelly or through doors i'll be bummed.
Still working on it, but all that will be covered.

Your checkpoints do reset at the weekly reset if that's what you meant. The checkpoint of the encounter you're on unlocks all entrances to that encounter. You can grab checkpoints from other players a la D1 loading into their instance and wiping once.
 

Fjordson

Member
I will hash something out quickly over my lunch break.

Fjordson, have you done all the exotic quests?
No, I'm going to start working through those tonight. Already started two, namely the handcannon one on Nessus and MIDA stuff in the EDZ.

I guess I was more confused by how people are getting high level armor since like I said I can't infuse anymore with regular legendary engrams capped at 265 (like from rep vendors and whatnot) but it sounds like there are other weekly sources that will give you higher level engrams.
 

Woetyler

Member
It's taking forever for me to level doing lost sectors and public events in EDZ. Do you usually get blues at most 1-2 above your current PL?

Also, is saving speaking to Zavala to finish the campaign a good idea? I want the exotic high level, but I can't do factions without finishing the story.

Yes, no reason not to unless you want the exotic to drop once you're near max light. Talking to him will allow you to do loads more. Factions are good for patrolling and doing public events as well, you'll get about 3 faction tokens per lost sector, and 8 per heroic public event. It takes 20 faction tokens to get an engram from the faction leader.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
No, I'm going to start working through those tonight. Already started two, namely the handcannon one on Nessus and MIDA stuff in the EDZ.

I guess I was more confused by how people are getting high level armor since like I said I can't infuse anymore with regular legendary engrams capped at 265 (like from rep vendors and whatnot) but it sounds like there are other weekly sources that will give you higher level engrams.
When you get higher in total, vendor legendaries and even blues will scale up as well. They are not permanently capped, so are always a source of "catching up" slots that you have lower stuff in, even if they are not a source of overall progression.

Save blue scout rifles for the MIDA quest.
For the Sturm quest, when you get to the tough mission you can solo it and just kill the Servitor near the end, then go to orbit. You do not have to complete the mission.
 

Fjordson

Member
When you get higher in total, vendor legendaries and even blues will scale up as well. They are not permanently capped, so are always a source of "catching up" slots that you have lower stuff in, even if they are not a source of overall progression.

Save blue scout rifles for the MIDA quest.
For the Sturm quest, when you get to the tough mission you can solo it and just kill the Servitor near the end, then go to orbit. You do not have to complete the mission.
Thanks for the tips man. Will do.

I love scout rifles, so am hyped to get that MIDA.
 

ev0

Member
I have the MIDA exotic quest going and I swear for the last 5-6 hours of play time the game has stopped giving me Scout Rifles to dismantle? Is this on purpose? I was getting them all the time before...of course I didn't save any.
 

JWiLL

Banned
I don't understand why people are acting as though some are asking for the worst parts of Destiny 1's grind back. I haven't seen that at all.

I just want more interesting loot to chase.
 
You're eventually going to want one character for each class, so you're in good shape. Some of the weekly awards are account based but some are character based (Call to Arms) so you can run those for each character once you have all three. Your warlock's power level will piggyback off your hunter once he hits level 20 and he'll be the same power level in no time at all.

There's a great guide just a few posts above yours that details the different activities and if they're per account or per character.

Wow, that really is helpful. Thanks!
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Constant crashing.

Why.
Yeah something done gone wrong. I think we experienced like a 75% crash rate on flying to the tower after Raid last night.

I have the MIDA exotic quest going and I swear for the last 5-6 hours of play time the game has stopped giving me Scout Rifles to dismantle? Is this on purpose? I was getting them all the time before...of course I didn't save any.
Sucks. Do note legendaries count if you are flush with those, and it can be either energy or kinetic.
 
I don't understand why people are acting as though some are asking for the worst parts of Destiny 1's grind back. I haven't seen that at all.

I just want more interesting loot to chase.

I say randomize just ONE perk slot or expand the MOD system to be more robust

We dont need weapons to lose their personality but rather spice them up a bit and encourage experimentation

As of now the new base of Destiny 2 seems to be about very fervently restricting power and I feel very handcuffed compared to how I played D1 outside of a few stand out combinations
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
I wish there was more space for Shaders.

There really needs to be more space for everything. the amount of time wasted going back and forth between vault and mailbox is ridiculous. At least make the vault and mailbox the same interface. Jesus.
 

f@luS

More than a member.
Sorry fellas I got to leave after few tries on Calus and the whole raid. Gotta go work. Calus is more glitched than ever. How many times did we need to go to orbit as respawn was bugged
 
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