Question about this point (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Friday, April 01, 2016, 17:21 (3430 days ago) @ marmot 1333

I can bring up a 280 weapon that makes me happy to a reasonable level.

So this is obviously a personal decision, but what is that level for you?

Above 300 keeps my level from dropping more than a point or so.

To make things easier on myself and to save time & space, I have a rule that if I get a blue item below 286, I dismantle it ASAP.

Same here. (My cutoff is 295 or so - in some categories, like boots, it's ALL blues, since I have so much super-high infusion fodder I'll never need a 300, and blues don't come above that - but it's the same concept.)

A few weeks ago I had a streak where three or four exotic engrams decrypted as 290 weapons. I was annoyed--I wanted 310. It made me wonder a few things: Why don't any drop at 300? How much of a difference does 290 vs 310 make, really? Does it only matter at the highest level activities (KF HM?)

I don't remember the breakdowns - but the exact numbers aren't totally relevant, if you assume everything is ABOUT 10% of your total light, the math will mostly work out. So 20 points on a single item works out to 2 light levels.

I don't know why Exotics don't drop at 300. I also don't think I've ever seen a 290 drop (for me) if my light was above 311 when I decrypted it.

Higher light levels help in some activities (Trials, IB, PvE), but Oryx himself, at the end of the KF HM raid, is the only thing that really NEEDS 311+. (I've seen people successfully complete at lower light levels, but I've never seen a TEAM below 311 finish. One or two can be carried, if they're good and careful. 6? Well, I'm sure it's doable. I've just never met the 6. ;) )

In Vanilla Destiny I felt like I had a pretty solid idea of how levels affected my damage output and defense, but the system is much more complicated now and the details are definitely not obvious.

I get beat by folks who are 15 levels below me in IB, regularly. I don't know if I can beat people who are 15 levels above me, because I run IB at 317-319... but it's rare when, say, a grenade stick doesn't kill someone when it should. (I had an incident last night, or maybe 2 nights ago, that pissed me off; I had dropped two tripmines near each other, and a guy beat me in a 1v1, then triggered both mines. He obviously wasn't RIGHT next to them - they do 195 damage each, or so, up close - but I saw indicators of 136 and 124... and he didn't die. Now either he was SERIOUSLY laggy (which he didn't seem to be), or he had some sort of super-armor on - it felt totally wrong. Otherwise, though, fights go as expected, usually, and differences of 10-15 levels aren't as important as skill differences.