Once you finish the campaign in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, it’s time to get on the Power level grind. Power is determined by three things – your weapons, armor and Seasonal Artifact. The average of Power on your weapons and armor is calculated first, and then the unlocked Power levels from the Artifact are added on top. So how do you go about increasing Power?
As you complete activities, random drops will provide significant Power gains until hitting the soft cap of 1200. Past this point, random drops will be roughly the same as your current Power – it’s at this point that you’ll want to seek out sources of Powerful rewards to hit the hard cap of 1250. Powerful rewards are divided into the following tiers:
- Tier 1 – Drops at +3 of your current Power. Sources include completing eight Vanguard bounties, eight Crucible bounties, eight Gunsmith bounties, eight Gambit bounties and eight bounties from Variks per week. Winning seven rounds in the Crucible Glory playlist or gaining 100 percent progress in Nightfall: The Ordeal will also count. As you progress through Beyond Light’s post-campaign activities, you’ll earn Tier 1 Powerful rewards from The Exo Stranger’s challenge and completing two Empire Hunts. Exotic drops will also be a few levels higher than your current Power and you can earn two Prime Engrams each day.
- Tier 2 – Drops gear at +4 of your current Power. Earned from Hawthorne’s weekly clan rewards. Simply earn 5,000 XP for your clan to receive it.
- Tier 3 – Drops gear at +5 of your current Power. Earned from The Crow’s challenge.
Powerful Rewards also have a chance to drop when grinding out Vanguard, Gambit and Crucible playlists. Upon hitting the hard cap of 1250, you’ll need to rely on the Artifact to increase your Power further or earn Pinnacle rewards.
Pinnacle rewards can be drop from completing three Strikes in the Vanguard playlist (with your subclass having to match the current elemental singe); hitting 100,000 score or higher in a single run of Nightfall: The Ordeal; completing three Gambit matches; and completing three Crucible matches in the Valor playlist. You can also earn Pinnacle rewards from the weekly Empire Hunt challenge, weekly Exo Challenge and by completing five Wrathborn Hunts for Crow after acquiring the Power Hunter upgrade (which requires being at rank 4 of the vendor’s reputation). With the Deep Stone Crypt raid available, it’s also possible to earn Pinnacle drops each week from there.
A good way to maximize rewards is to have three characters, each being a different class. Complete the campaign and earn Powerful and Pinnacle rewards with the first character. Then transfer all of your most powerful weapons (but not armor) to the second and repeat this process. Do the same with the third character. This allows for gaining more Powerful and Pinnacle drops. Don’t infuse anything just yet – wait until you’ve maximized your Power gains and decided on some favourite gear before doing so.
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