With the launch of Destiny 2’s newest expansion, The Witch Queen, came a new Light level cap of 1560 for Season of the Risen. Starting out at a measly 1350 Light may seem like a daunting task, but if you’re looking to participate in the Contest Mode launch of the new raid, Vow of the Disciple, on March 5, 2022, it’s a lot easier than it seems. Here’s some good general tips on how to quickly level up in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen.
How Light Level Works in Destiny 2
The way your Light level is gauged in Destiny 2 is measured by a few things: What gear you’re wearing, what gear you have in your character’s inventory and Vault, and your Seasonal Artifact level. What gear you’re wearing is pretty self-explanatory as it’s an average level of the gear in total you’re using on your head, arms, chest, legs, class item, primary weapon, secondary weapon, and heavy weapon slots. Along with that, Destiny 2 calculates your Light level by additionally including everything you may have on your character.
On top of that, you also can gain additional Light by gaining XP throughout the current season and leveling up your Seasonal Artifact and the Season Pass in current rotation. Experience is gained through completing Bounties, completing activities like Gambit or Crucible, and just by engaging in combat in the open world. Every few levels you gain, your Seasonal Artifact will grant additional Light levels that can allow you to exceed the Pinnacle Cap level of 1560 for Season 16.
What Are the Leveling Milestones in Year 5 of Destiny 2?
With the launch of The Witch Queen, Bungie has changed the leveling milestones for gear for the expansion going forward. To begin the Witch Queen campaign, you need to be a Light level of 1350 or better. That’s the new floor for all players, which Bungie has made default as of February 22, 2022.
As you level up your Light, you will continuously gain levels until the first breaking point, the Soft Cap. This lasts from Light level 1350 through 1500. All weapon and armor drops will be within this range as you do activities and progress in The Witch Queen’s campaign. When you hit a Light level of 1500, all random drops from anywhere will be capped at 1500 or 10-15 levels under your current Light level if you have achieved the maximum Light level earned via gear drops, whichever is higher.
To earn any gear above 1500 Light, now you must search for Powerful Rewards from activities. On the Director’s menu you will notice marked NPCs and destinations on planets and maps are certain objectives you can complete to earn Powerful Rewards. Completing any of these objectives will reward you with one or more pieces of Powerful gear that will be within the range of Light level 1500-1550. Powerful rewards can be earned once per week and they reset once every Tuesday at 9:00am PST in the United States.
Another source of Powerful Rewards is Prime Engrams. These randomly drop from challenging enemies and activities and are taken to Master Rahool in the Tower for decrypting. Prime Engrams can contain anything in the World loot pool including both guns and armor. Additionally, the paid track of each Season Pass will also contain Powerful rewards such as that season’s armor set and a curated selection of guns.
After reaching 1550, your options for leveling up become much more limited. Activities marked with Pinnacle Rewards are the only way to earn any gear that will grant additional Light levels between 1550 to 1560. The main sources for Pinnacle level gear will include the following:
– Completing a Nightfall: The Ordeal activity with a score of 100,000 or better once per week.
– Completing each encounter of the raid Vow of the Disciple once per week. (Vow of the Disciple will be opening to all players on March 5, 2022)
– Completing each encounter of the Grasp of Avarice dungeon once per week. More dungeons will become available throughout Year 5 that will also grant Pinnacle rewards.
– Completing Iron Banner bounties when it is an Iron Banner week on the calendar.
– Scoring seven consecutive match wins in Trials of Osiris without losing once per week. If you have a Passage of Mercy card from Saint-14, this will allow one free loss on your Trials win streak before a loss will remove you from a Flawless streak.
– Earning XP for your Clan and collecting Clan Engrams from Suraya Hawthorne in the Tower once per week. Please note that these Engrams do not stack and will be reset each week.
– Weekly playlist challenges for Crucible, Gambit, and Vanguard activities.
General Destiny 2 Leveling Tips
Avoid Powerful and Pinnacle drop sources before 1500 Light
It is best to not use any Powerful Rewards source in the game until you have reached 1500 Light. However, you can still participate in the Strikes playlist without progressing the Pinnacle reward objective by equipping the incorrect subclass element. Strikes reward lots of loot in both Rare and Legendary grades and in large quantities.
Complete The Witch Queen’s campaign on Legendary difficulty if you can
If you’re up for a bit of a challenge, The Witch Queen’s campaign introduces a bit of a shortcut to getting close to the Pinnacle Cap of season 16 with Legendary campaign missions. This slightly modified campaign will have more numerous and aggressive enemies and slightly more restrictive checkpoints for fights, but it is worth trying to solo or complete with a team of 3. Rewards during the chapters of The Witch Queen’s campaign are doubled with two chests appearing after major encounters instead of one. In addition at the very end, Ikora at the Enclave will reward players with a full batch of Rare grade gear at Light level 1520 and a pack of Infusion Cores to infuse your best gear along with the choice of one of two brand new Exotic armor pieces for your respective class.
Equalize your gear past 1500 Light
At times you may notice that your gear in different slots may vary at times very wildly in Light level. This can and will affect how many points Powerful and Pinnacle drops will appear at. If you hunt for Legendary grade drops from World pool sources, such as chests at the end of Strikes, those drops will appear at or only 2-3 points below your current Light level (not accounting for bonus Light gained from Seasonal Artifact levels). For example, if you have an average Light level of 1525 but one piece of gear is at 1510, any non-Powerful or Pinnacle drop source of a Legendary piece of gear will drop at a range of 1522-1525, so your Light level average will go up if you fill that slot with something of a higher Light level. This way, Powerful and Pinnacle drops will be much more efficient at raising your overall Light level.
Quickly boost the Light level of other characters on your account by transferring high-level weapons
If you’re using more than one character at a time, an easy way to boost their Light level is by transferring over your highest Light level guns from your main character and equipping them. While your armor level will still remain low, the average Light level you will obtain just by equipping higher-level weapons will be significantly boosted. All you have to do is transfer whichever items you want to move to each new character to the Vault from your main character, and then pick them up and equip them on your alternate character.
Destiny 2’s “Boomerang Technique”
What is the “Boomerang Technique” in Destiny 2, you may ask? It’s a slightly advanced method to sort of exploit the leveling system to give you maximum rewards at all times. The way that this technique works is that it will guarantee every possible drop earned after a certain point will most likely give a gain to your Light level until you hit the maximum Pinnacle Rewards cap.
Start off by leveling your primary, or most-used, character to as high a Light level as possible. It is best to level the first character to 1550 and save your first character’s Pinnacle Rewards for last to achieve this effect at its maximum potential.
When you have reached as close to or are at 1550 Light level, take your highest level weapons and transfer them to a second character via the Vault and equipping them to significantly boost your average Light level. Repeat leveling this second character up using the typical reward paths and you will notice gains towards each break point of Powerful and Pinnacle rewards will come much faster due to drops acknowledging your average Light level. Level your second character into the Pinnacle cap range by using Pinnacle sources to achieve somewhere between 1550 to 1560 Light. At this point, if you are wholly efficient, you should land around 1553-1555 Light.
Now, transfer your highest Light level guns again to your third character and repeat the process one more time. As you do Pinnacle Rewards on this third character, weapons earned from the second character within the 1550-1560 range will further boost Pinnacle drops to be closer to 1560 than 1550.
Lastly, transfer your best Light level weapons back to the first character. As you do Pinnacle Reward activities for a third time, these drops will get you as close to or to the maximum Pinnacle cap quickly and efficiently due to how the averaging works with Destiny 2’s calculations of Light level. This is not wholly necessary, as Destiny 2’s reward drops can be quite generous and sometimes just using Pinnacle rewards is enough.
Using all of these tips, you can easily get to the Pinnacle cap and be prepared for any raid’s Contest Mode when it launches on the first day. Or if you just want to quickly get as high a level as you possibly can without much of a headache. It’s all up to you. Good luck taking down The Witch Queen for good.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X & S and Xbox One.
READ NEXT: Destiny 2: Where Is Xur Today? (Xur Location February 17th, 2023)
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
