In this article, we’ve collected useful tips for new Destiny 2 players. We’ll tell you about the game mechanics, specifics of choosing weapons for certain activities, where to get the best ammo fast and easy, how to improve your daily routine in Destiny 2, and the most important – how to quickly level up to Hard cap and Pinnacle cap.
5.0Try to do bonus damage
If you’ve played first-person shooters before, you probably know that a headshot does a lot more damage than a body shot. Well, that’s mostly true in Destiny 2. In most types of enemies, the head is a vulnerable spot, but not all. Some enemies, such as the Vex (teleporting white and gold robots), are a bit more difficult.
Not all headshots are equally useful
Vex won’t take extra damage when you hit its head. Instead, you have to shoot the glowing spot on the hull (lovingly called the “juice box”). Other enemies, such as hoverballs and drones, take extra damage when you hit the big central eye or visor, respectively. In general, if you see that an enemy has a glowing part, then shoot at it. When you hit the enemy’s critical point, the damage numbers will be yellow (exact damage), but on normal hits they will be white.
Use energy weapons against shields
If enemies have shields (usually indicated by a small white bar above their health), they won’t take accurate damage at all. You can get rid of a shield with any type of damage, but energy weapons (weapons in your extra or heavy slot) deal increased damage to shields. If you can match an item with your opponent’s shield (Void/Purple weapon icon vs. Void/Purple shield), the shield will explode and deal extra damage to your opponent and his closest allies.
Always use special weapons
There are three levels of ammo in Destiny 2: main/white ammo (one white bullet near their icon), special/green ammo (two green bullets near their icon), and the rarest purple ammo (three purple bullets).
Special weapons and main weapons can go into the first two slots, depending on whether they are “energy” or “kinetic”. This allows you to use two main weapons or two special weapons if you want. You can make some interesting builds out of both, but each has its own problems. If you go with the two standard ones, you’ll always have ammo, but you won’t be able to do as much damage. Special weapons offer a big bonus to damage. So if you have two special weapons in your slots at once, you will always have little ammo, but you will do a lot of damage. In most scenarios, take one main and one special. That way, you’ll always have special weapons to take care of bosses and big enemies, as well as the main weapon when you run out of ammo. Think twice before disassembling your items.
In Destiny 2, you don’t have to use your most powerful weapons to get the best gear. Until you disassemble it, the game will always drop loot based on your maximum possible light level – including items in your vault. Your light level grows according to how powerful your gear is. If you want access to more complex content in Destiny 2, you’ll need a higher light level accordingly. When you’re just starting out, don’t remove the items you’ve obtained (weapons with white, green or blue icons are safe to disassemble, but the purple and especially yellow ones should be kept). Even then, make sure they’re no better than what you’re currently using. You can access the vault in the Tower (near the armorer). The vault has 500 slots for inventory. If you find something you really like and are afraid to delete it by mistake, you can lock the item by pressing shift on your PC or by pressing the analog stick on your gamepad. After that, you can’t unlock the locked weapon until you unlock it.
Exotic equipment can be bought from Xur every week
Xur is a merchant who appears at a random location every week in the world of Destiny 2. He sells exotic weapons and armor. Xur is a guaranteed way to get new items to add to your arsenal. Find it every week and spend a few Legendary Shards, a ubiquitous currency you get for almost everything, especially the purple legendary weapons you get as rewards from most activities or from merchants.
Look for groups to play together in Discord.
Now that you’re familiar with the basics of Destiny, you’re ready to tackle more challenging content. But if you don’t have many friends, you won’t be able to raid or complete the most difficult missions. If you’re looking for partners for something very challenging, there are several Discord servers dedicated to finding Destiny 2 groups. No matter where you play or what platform you’re on, you can always find a few Guardians to go raiding with.
Use an app to manage your inventory
When you have a lot of weapons in Destiny 2-especially if you’re going to play multiple characters-you’ll need help managing your inventory and storage. You don’t have to go back to the Tower every time you want to put something in storage or put it in your inventory. Instead, there are several apps to use. Bungie offers a decent smartphone app. But there are some great third-party apps as well. We recommend Destiny Item Manager (DIM). If you want to use an alternative to DIM or use your smartphone, check out the Ishtar Commander app.
Tips for leveling up
General Tips for leveling up
Perform Pinnacle Gear challenges when your items have the same power level. This will greatly increase one slot’s performance, making rewards for powerful gear “level up”. your other slots. Be sure to complete contracts by completing weekly bounties, as the experience they earn can greatly increase your Artifact’s progress. The more experience you earn, the more power levels you will gain.
If you have more than one character, it’s best to level up the character you play/like the least. When you are done leveling them, pass the weapon to the second character. Align that character, pass your weapon once more to your main character, and then perform each weekly milestone. This almost guarantees that you will reach the hard cap in the first week of a given season.
5.0Finally, if you want to reach the hard cap as quickly as possible, try the Crucible Glory playlist. If you win most of your games, you’ll get a unit or division rank upgrade in almost every match, and you’ll be rewarded with Powerful Equipment. A few hours of competitive Crucible is enough to get you almost a dozen power.
Reaching 1320 power quickly
Before you get any powerful gear, make sure you’ve reached the soft cap of 1270 units. If not, play whatever activity you like until you get rare items at 1270. It won’t take more than a few hours to get to the soft cap.
You’ll want to get Powerful Gear rewards, which offer the biggest jump in power level, for a quick level up. If you haven’t played a season at all, completing one or two Pinnacle Gear sources isn’t a bad idea, as it will give you a +5 item. Override is also a good place to get high power level gear.
From there, you’ll want to do weekly quests that give a slight power level boost. These items will almost always drop into other slots in your gear and “even out” of commission. Distribute the power levels on your gear. When getting a +2 item becomes less effective, do another activity that gives a power boost.
The level up process should look something like this:
- Get the Pinnacle Gear reward.
- Complete three or four weekly Powerful Gear activities .
- Receive a Powerful Gear reward (+2 or +4).
- Complete three or four weekly Powerful Gear activities.
- Receive a Powerful Gear reward (+2 or +4).
- Finish the rest of powerful reward activities.
- Play a Crucible Glory ranked PvP to level up your gear till your slots are gonna be the same light lvl.
- Finish pinnacle reward activities.
- If you are really far behind on the power level scale, consider replacing the T2 and T3 Powerful Gear rewards with Pinnacle sources.
You can complete any content you like for the Pinnacle and Powerful awards, but you must complete them in the order specified. Get a reward that gives you a huge power jump, and then level up your Crucible Glory rank to level up your gear quickly. If you do it right, you can reach the hard cap in one or two weeks of the season. You can get an absurd amount of Powerful Rewards in the Vault of Glass raid. You’ll get +4 drops per encounter, which makes VoG a great way to start this strategy. Learn more details in the Overgear article the Master Vault of Glass raid with the loot table in it.
Reaching 1330 power quickly
What does Bungie says:
If you’re lucky enough to get the drops in the slots you want, you can reach maximum Pinnacle in three weeks.
For Season of the Lost, there is no specific order in which you need to fill out these weekly slots. With that said, we have a few suggestions:
- Levels first: Alternate characters should be your priority if you’re rushing to that cap. Level the third, least-playable character before handing weapons to the second character. Complete their weekly Pinnacle, pass the weapon to your main character, and then run all Pinnacle sources again.
- Get +2 rewards first: some Pinnacle sources drop with +2 Pinnacle instead of +1. These are the actions you should perform first, as they will allow you to increase your power level faster.
- Run Vault of Glass: VoG has five encounters, each of which gives +2 Pinnacle Gear. This raid is the best way to quickly increase your power level.
- Complete Seasonal Challenges. Seasonal Challenges bring an incredible amount of experience. This experience directly affects your Artifact power level, allowing you to reach 1330 or higher without grinding for weeks. It won’t help with Trials or Iron Banner, but those pursuing 1330 Power to complete Nightfalls or Master of the Lost Sectors should keep this in mind.
