Destiny 2 question

[Man_Over_Game]

So I've reached power level 900 on my first character.

Two questions:

Now that I've hit this "pinnacle", how should I be getting better gear? It seems doing stuff randomly like before isn't going to cut it any more, as most items I'm getting now are generally stuck at power level 900.

I started playing a second character on the same account, and I seem to be dramatically jumping in level. That is, I went from having 750 gear to getting 800's from a single mission, to the point where I'm at 850 on my second character with just a few hours of playing. Is it because my first character is level 900?

[NeoVid]

900 is essentially the default power for this season, all the gear you get before then will be trying to jump you up to 900. To get from 900 to 960, you need to do whatever rewards Powerful gear, which is guaranteed to be a rank or three higher than your current max, depending on the Tier of powerful reward. At 960, the only thing that can increase your Power farther is Pinnacle rewards. There's no actual cap on how high you can go with Pinnacle power rewards, but continuing to go higher basically requires getting every Pinnacle drop available.

To speed up Power gain on alts, bank the highest power weapons you can spare from your main and pass them to your alts. It's a real time saver, especially if you like playing all three classes.

[Geno9999]

So I've reached power level 900 on my first character.

Two questions:

Now that I've hit this "pinnacle", how should I be getting better gear? It seems doing stuff randomly like before isn't going to cut it any more, as most items I'm getting now are generally stuck at power level 900.

I started playing a second character on the same account, and I seem to be dramatically jumping in level. That is, I went from having 750 gear to getting 800's from a single mission, to the point where I'm at 850 on my second character with just a few hours of playing. Is it because my first character is level 900?

First question: for the most part, the biggest source of getting higher level gear is doing the weekly challenges (such as Zavala, Shaxx, and Drifter each has a "Complete 8 X activity Bounties", then there's also a powerful gear reward for doing 3 or 4 Strikes, Nightfall: the Ordeal, Crucible, and Gambit matches.) Generally you're looking for anything that shows a Powerful Engram as a reward. Don't forget that Zavala, Shaxx, and Drifter each have 2 weekly bounties available that also reward you with Powerful Engrams.

Along the way, you'll probably also start picking up what's called Prime Engrams, which look like Purple/Legendary Engrams, but they have a orange-yellow glow in the center. You'll want to pick these up and have them decrypted at Master Rahool (the blue guy in the yellow hood and robes on your right when you spawn in the main Tower area), because each Prime Engram is about equal to a Weekly Challenge/Bounty reward.

The Second question: Yes, because it takes into account weapons and gear in your vault, since it's shared between characters. And because there's no more level restrictions, you can easily just hand off a 900+ Power Level weapon to a level 750 to speed up the grinding process. In fact, the fastest way to grind your power level to the max is to do all of one character's weeklies, dump their highest level weapons into the vault, swap to the next character, and repeat.

Amusingly, if the level disparity is enough, you can powerlevel by repeatedly crafting a set of White or Green rarity armor from your collections, so that you don't waste a Weekly reward by having it roll above your average level but still below your highest level piece of gear.

[NeoVid]

And another point I overlooked: You really want to be in a decent clan in D2, as clan rewards can give you up to 5 extra legendary engrams a week.

[Man_Over_Game]

Thanks, all.

Another question:

What is so special about Nightfall strikes? They are stated to be "the most difficult" of the strikes from their description, yet their recommend power level is the minimum in the game (at 750)

So are they really hard, or not?

[NeoVid]

Honestly, I'm not sure why the old non-scaling Nightfalls are still in the game. The new version, Nightfall: The Ordeal, scales up in difficulty and rewards to the point that on Master difficulty, Exotic gear is one of the common rewards for completion.

Speaking of Exotics, one of the many things the game never tells you is that there's a hidden Exotic vendor who shows up in a random location each weekend. Today, he's on the Emperor's barge on Nessus.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

I suspect the Old Nightfalls are there to give players the customizable team strike experience a few players might like, and allow the farming of certain Nightfall exclusive weapons that some may still want (especially if the Ordeal continues to follow a two enemy species per season as it has). It is, for example, the only way to enter a strike solo without the difficulty of higher tier Ordeal.

_{#eliksniguardianswhen #sandeatersbestlegion}

[Geno9999]

Speaking of Exotics, one of the many things the game never tells you is that there's a hidden Exotic vendor who shows up in a random location each weekend. Today, he's on the Emperor's barge on Nessus.

Thing to keep in mind about Xur, and Exotics in general, is that Exotic engrams are weighted towards giving you one that you don't have in your collection yet. As such, when you do go to Xur, buy the Exotic Weapon if you don't have it (especially since those stop dropping when you have them in your collection), and then any of the Armor Exotics that you don't already have, THEN you should buy the random Exotic Engram. That Engram will have Random Rolls, while Xur basically sells rolls that are the same as what you can pull from collections (i.e. stat total just below 50, level 1, and a preselected armor elemental affinity (though that will be a non-issue in the upcoming season with the planned change of allowing you to change any armor's element for a upgrade module + whatever material you've spent to level its capacity.))

While Exotic Armor are used for their perks more than their stats, getting a good stat roll is more or less the main appeal of Nightfall: the Ordeal.

Honestly, I'm not sure why the old non-scaling Nightfalls are still in the game. The new version, Nightfall: The Ordeal, scales up in difficulty and rewards to the point that on Master difficulty, Exotic gear is one of the common rewards for completion.

I suspect the Old Nightfalls are there to give players the customizable team strike experience a few players might like, and allow the farming of certain Nightfall exclusive weapons that some may still want (especially if the Ordeal continues to follow a two enemy species per season as it has). It is, for example, the only way to enter a strike solo without the difficulty of higher tier Ordeal.

_{#eliksniguardianswhen #sandeatersbestlegion}

What Fullbladder said. Though, it seems Bungie is mostly just giving a alien species their Ordeal Champions a season, I could've sworn that Savathun's Song had shown up during Season of Dawn despite the focus being on Cabal and to a lesser extent the Vex.

There are a few notable weapons that are currently Old Nightfall exclusive: Horror's Least Arc Pulse Rifle (from The Corrupted, required for Cursebreaker title), Mindbender's Ambition Solar Shotgun (from Hollowed Lair, has a really good combination of stats and perks for Crucible, and since it's an energy weapon it can be paired with Spare Rations Hand Cannon or your other favorite Kinetic primaries), and Militia's Birthright Kinetic Single-shot Grenade Launcher (from Lake of Shadows, is one of the few Single-shot Grenade Launchers with random rolls.)

Something that's shared between all these Nightfalls is that the Taken and the Scorn do not yet have Ordeal Champions, though that is likely to change with any upcoming season.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

If it was me, I'd hold off on Taken champions until the season where we actually deal directly with Savathun, or at least when her machinations become more direct themselves. Have the champions show up in the midst of a new Taken War.

Actually thinking of that, maybe the Fallen champions in Season of the Worthy mean the Fallen plots are going to get brought up? The big schism between Houses Justice, Devils, and Light that was starting to build up a few seasons ago?

[Man_Over_Game]

Sorry, new player. A lot of what you guys are saying is going way over my head. I think I've gotten a single Exotic, and it became obsolete by 800.

You mention Xul is in a random location for the week, but then state where he is on that day. Is he still there today?

[NeoVid]

When you get an exotic, it's permanently unlocked in your collection. You can upgrade them just by pulling a fresh copy from your Collection tab, no need to even use an Upgrade Module unless you want it to be right at your current max power.

And yeah, Xur doesn't move until he leaves for the week.

[Man_Over_Game]

You can upgrade them just by pulling a fresh copy from your Collection tab, no need to even use an Upgrade Module unless you want it to be right at your current max power.

Thanks for clarifying, although one part still confuses me.

You mention that I can pull a fresh copy from my collections to get them "upgraded" (which I assume means at my current power level), but then you say that I'll need to spend an upgrade module to have them be right at my current max power.

I'm not sure I understand the difference.

That is, I'm reading it as:

"You can recreate a copy of a item you had previously with the copy using your current power level, but you'll need to use an upgrade module to make it your current power level".

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Your Collections tab is in the inventory menu, two tabs to the left. Pulling an Exotic out costs some glimmer and a few legendary shards, and will only be a little lower than your current Power level. If you do go find Xur this weekend, and you can afford the investment (legendary shards), he offers 1 exotic armour per class and 1 weapon, plus a much more expensive Fated Engram which will contain a random exotic you do not have in your Collections.

And sorry about going over your head. Champions are special enemies that are mostly found in Nightfall the Ordeal, and are the biggest difference between them and standard Strikes. They have special gimmicks designed to make you use Barrier, Overload, and Unstoppable mods.

"You can recreate a copy of a item you had previously with the copy using your current power level, but you'll need to use an upgrade module to make it your current power level".

He means you can pull a copy out of your Collections at your current power level, so you don't need to use an upgrade module to use it.

[NeoVid]

Gear pulled out of Collections will be about 20 power lower than your current max, which is plenty high enough for most activities in the game.

Oh right, one other mechanic the game never tells you: If you infuse a piece of gear with another piece of the same name, the only cost is Glimmer, no Module needed. This can save you a lot of modules if you're upgrading by looting gear from an activity that has specific drops, and there's plenty of those.

[Man_Over_Game]

Ah, I see. So rather than constantly using an upgrade mod to keep an exotic being relevant, it may be better to just pull a copy from collections and then upgrade it as needed.

Thanks for all the help, guys.