So, the recent discussion of the "345 to Raid Ready" grind piqued my curiosity and I ran some numbers on people that I play with. I total up the approximate time spent playing destiny since Rise of Iron was released until they first ran the raid or until sometime today (for those of us who have yet to run it). For those who haven't yet run the raid I wrote down your current light level, for those of you who have run the raid, please let me know the light level you were at when you ran it. Also, I hope everyone included in my sample is okay with being a datapoint. Also, if you want to add yourself to the dataset you can total up the # of hours spent since Rise of Iron up until you ran the raid (or until right now) and include the light at which you ran the raid (or your current light if you haven't yet run it).

Guardian     Hours  Light
DogCowMoof   16.65  357
CruelLEGACEY 26.09  ?
Cyber-KN     26.14  ?
D_P_Roberts  41.26  ?
MunKy-058    19.04  ?
PeaksUtah    29.22  366
Slycrel      13.52  353
Vortech      28.47  360

The average (for those whom I have a light level of) is 1.15 light per hour played (assuming you were at 335 light at the start of Rise). This seems a little bit low to me, I'd expect it to be closer to 1.5-2 light per hour.

Edit: formatting.

Guardian     Hours  Light
DogCowMoof   16.65  357
CruelLEGACEY 26.09  ?
Cyber-KN     26.14  ?
D_P_Roberts  41.26  ?
MunKy-058    19.04  ?
PeaksUtah    29.22  366
Slycrel      13.52  353
Vortech      28.47  360

I did not do the raid for the first time until a week after a lot of people here (9/30), and I was 365 the week prior (9/23). I am not sure my particular entry is meaningful, since the week between was spent just having whatever fun I could basically, and not leveling.

For what it is worth, I would consider 370 to be "normal" for the raid. It is certainly possible at lower light levels, but you will be at a level disadvantage against the adds, especially during the final encounter.

For example, at 369 it was taking me 3 shots with my hand cannon to take down shanks during the final level.

At 370, it was taking me 2 shots; same as any other PvE activity where I have achieved level parity with the adds.

*edit* also worth noting: a good 4-6 hours of 26~ hours of playtime was spent playing the raid.

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For example, at 369 it was taking me 3 shots with my hand cannon to take down shanks during the final level.

At 370, it was taking me 2 shots; same as any other PvE activity where I have achieved level parity with the adds.

Once you hit 380 you'll drop them in one (at least if you're using The Palindrome).

Here you go. Might be XBox-only:

https://secret-scrubland-31430.herokuapp.com/

It took me 34 hours to hit 372 light. Note that includes a blind raid run.

Might be XBox-only:

It's not, just click the green switch to make it blue. Yay minimalism and context clues! :v

I'm too lazy to try and give the break down. I played my hunter mainly, feed extra armor pieces to my warlock to up his light level and then ran stuff for a chance at second drops.

Hunter (384), Warlock (382)

Total time = 69 hrs, 21 minutes

I'm using one set of weapons, ghost and artifact for both characters

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*edit* also worth noting: a good 4-6 hours of 26~ hours of playtime was spent playing the raid.

Yeah, I only totaled up hours until I the first raid entry was found.

19.5 hours to hit 359ish, at which point I raided. Mostly doing whatever I felt like.

This seems consistent with what I've seen.

I'll play some more this evening, but today I went from almost exactly 353 LL to halfway thru 354 in 90 minutes of play in the strike playlist, popping 3 of coins. I got 4 pieces upgraded in that time and a lot of same or less LL gear that dropped, even out of the legendaries and 2 exotics. It's a huge time sink, no doubt about it.

269 @ 30 hrs, 26 minutes

19.5 hours to hit 359ish, at which point I raided. Mostly doing whatever I felt like.

Thank you, this is exactly the data which I need. You've been added to my spreadsheet. FYI, you earned about 1.23 light per hour played which is just slightly higher than the current average of 1.15.

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*edit* also worth noting: a good 4-6 hours of 26~ hours of playtime was spent playing the raid.

Yeah, I only totaled up hours until I the first raid entry was found.

Ah, in that case, I was 365 when I started the raid.

*edit* also worth noting: a good 4-6 hours of 26~ hours of playtime was spent playing the raid.

Yeah, I only totaled up hours until I the first raid entry was found.

Ah, in that case, I was 365 when I started the raid.

Alright, yup, you're falling in line w/ the average of 1.15 light per hour.

So, here's an interesting trend that's starting to show itself. Those who've clocked in more hours seem to have a slightly worse light/hour stat than those who've played fewer hours.

I have 2 competing hypotheses:
1- Bungie has a "drop cooldown" to assist those who don't play as often in gaining light quickly. (Didn't WoW have a mechanic like this for gaining XP?)
2- The grind from mid 350s to mid 360s is harder than 335-350ish (I'm looking at you Ghost Shells and Class Items (or artifacts?)).

Edit: I'm leaning toward #2 as the correct guess.
Edit: Also, I don't have much data, it could just be a fluke in my data.

I did not do the raid for the first time until a week after a lot of people here (9/30), and I was 365 the week prior (9/23). I am not sure my particular entry is meaningful, since the week between was spent just having whatever fun I could basically, and not leveling.

Yeah, you're datapoint would be a weird one. If you averaged 1.16 light per hour you'd be at 382 light when you raided... for some reason I don't think you made it all the way there. :) Curious, what was your light when you ended up raiding?

47 hours 8 minutes
Light level increased from 335 to 368

Not super-efficient, I'm sure, but I spent a lot of time just wandering, exploring, and probably a few hours idling in orbit :p

-Disciple

Just got done with nearly 2 hours worth of archon's forge and patrol-type questing mission stuff. Light level remains unchanged. I think it's fair to say that you can really only go up with the 360 Archon's forge keys. I tried it twice, by myself, and didn't complete it. The blue/green ones did not give me any upgrades at 354. Also they don't seem to work with 3 of coins, for obvious reasons.

I should've ground strikes instead I guess. Levelling only via strike until I do a raid is kind of off-putting. :/ Hopefully I'll get a couple of drops from trials tonight, but I'm now vastly under-levelled, so that will be painful at best.

I should note that week 1 that I ran 5-6 matches of PvP and did not see a single LL upgrade.

I did not do the raid for the first time until a week after a lot of people here (9/30), and I was 365 the week prior (9/23). I am not sure my particular entry is meaningful, since the week between was spent just having whatever fun I could basically, and not leveling.

Yeah, you're datapoint would be a weird one. If you averaged 1.16 light per hour you'd be at 382 light when you raided... for some reason I don't think you made it all the way there. :) Curious, what was your light when you ended up raiding?

Started the raid at 368. I'm pretty sure I played for only 2 or three days that week though. I'm sure the stats will indicate when and for how long I played.

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I was 369 at the start of the raid, mostly thanks to some last-minute burning of faction packages and exotic engrams.

Isn't that including the god foresaken amount of time we spent doing the dumb exotic pulse rifle quest?

I was 364 on Saturday before I ran the raid for the first time. The calculator says I played for 23ish hours up until that point.

I don't trust the times given, as it says I only played 6.5 hours Saturday doing the 390 primary quest, when we clearly played for 8. So, I dunno.

I'm shocked it says I only played for 23 hours, as it felt like much longer.

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I hit 386 on my Hunter last night.
385 on my Warlock.
382 on my Titan (without playing anything except for the first two missions to unlock the iron temple and a trials card last night)

Total time: 74 hours 13 minutes.

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That was absolutely legendary. I would have loved it if you guys got boned out of that quest by him turning it in.

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Guardian       Hours   Light   Light/Hour
------------   -----   -----   -----------
CruelLEGACEY   26.09   365     1.149865849
Cyber-KN       26.14   369     1.3006886
DiscipleN2k*   47.13   368     0.700190961
DogCowMoof     16.65   357     1.321321321
Funkmon        17      364     1.705882353
PeaksUtah      29.22   366     1.06091718
ProbablyLast   23      364     1.260869565
Slycrel        13.52   353     1.331360947
squidnh3+      19.5    359     1.230769231
unoudid        30.43   369     1.117318436
Vortech        28.47   360     0.878117316

Average Light/Hour: 1.187027433

I had to remove Cody & MunKy as I didn't have good data on them.
* Disciple spent a lot of time just wandering & exploring.
+ Squid burned a lot of faction packages & exotic engrams to level up just before raiding.

Nothing really interesting came of this other than finding the average light per hour (up until the raid) is somewhere around 1.1-1.2 LPH.

Awards:
Funkmon - Mario Andretti's Red-Lining Progression Award.
Disciple - Flash the Sloth's Award for smelling the roses.
Cruel - Gold 5's "Stay on Target" Award for hitting closest to the average.

I was taking all necessary measures to delete him from my life. both digitally and as real life friends.

Disciple - Flash the Sloth's Award for smelling the roses.

Heh - I did the raid at 366, and I think I had MORE hours played than Disciple. I was definitely smelling roses the first time around. :)

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Guardian       Hours   Light   Light/Hour
------------   -----   -----   -----------
CruelLEGACEY   26.09   365     1.149865849
Cyber-KN       26.14   369     1.3006886
DiscipleN2k*   47.13   368     0.700190961
DogCowMoof     16.65   357     1.321321321
Funkmon        17      364     1.705882353
PeaksUtah      29.22   366     1.06091718
ProbablyLast   23      364     1.260869565
Slycrel        13.52   353     1.331360947
squidnh3+      19.5    359     1.230769231
unoudid        30.43   369     1.117318436
Vortech        28.47   360     0.878117316

Average Light/Hour: 1.187027433

I had to remove Cody & MunKy as I didn't have good data on them.
* Disciple spent a lot of time just wandering & exploring.
+ Squid burned a lot of faction packages & exotic engrams to level up just before raiding.

Nothing really interesting came of this other than finding the average light per hour (up until the raid) is somewhere around 1.1-1.2 LPH.

Awards:
Funkmon - Mario Andretti's Red-Lining Progression Award.
Disciple - Flash the Sloth's Award for smelling the roses.
Cruel - Gold 5's "Stay on Target" Award for hitting closest to the average.

Ah poop. Could have sworn that I replied. I was 365 Light at the beginning of the raid (Note that almost an hour of my playtime was spent watching Sammy struggle to climb Felwinter Peak, so results may be skewed a bit)...

+ Squid burned a lot of faction packages & exotic engrams to level up just before raiding.

That sounds like something I might have done, but how did you figure it out?

Cruel - Gold 5's "Stay on Target" Award for hitting closest to the average.

Heh, they call me Nevin "closest to the average" Douglas ;p

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Ah poop. Could have sworn that I replied. I was 365 Light at the beginning of the raid (Note that almost an hour of my playtime was spent watching Sammy struggle to climb Felwinter Peak, so results may be skewed a bit)...

Sorry, must have missed it. :(

So, I wonder how much climbing Felwinter Peak factors into the light/hour. I've certainly taken the time to climb it at least twice.

+ Squid burned a lot of faction packages & exotic engrams to level up just before raiding.

That sounds like something I might have done, but how did you figure it out?

lol. looks like I made a mistake. Someone else mentioned doing that.

16 hours 55 minutes to 359, 17 hours to 364.