Engram power levels work differently in D2 than they did in D1. So what changed?

- First, the power level of an engram is determined when it drops, not when you decrypt it.

- Second, the power level of an engram is based on the gear you character has available, be it actually equipped, in your inventory, in the vault, or even on another character (in the case of weapons or same-class armor).

- Third, the power level of reputation turn ins is determined at the time you earn them.

- Fourth, the power level of quest rewards is determined at the time you turn in the quest.

We can use this information to come up with "best practices" for maximizing power level gains.

- Pick up any blue or green engrams as soon as possible. They automatically decrypt, which means that if they are a power level boost for your character, that will immediately factor in to any other future engram drops. Here's an example of what I mean: If you are power level 10, and a green engram drops, it is based on power level 10. If you pick it up right away and it contains an item strong enough to raise your overall power level to 11, then any future drops will be based on power level 11. If you leave the green engram there, and do not pick it up, then any future drops will still be based on power level 10, until you collect them. You need not equip the items at all, but be sure to collect any engrams you see on the ground immediately.

- When returning to the Farm, the ideal order for visiting vendors is this: Collect anything from the postmaster first. Then decrypt any engrams you have at the cryptarch. Then turn in your rep items, and finally turn in any quests you have completed.

There are also LOTS of activities to partake in within D2. So is there an optimal order? Well, sort of. Finishing the main story unlocks a LOT of reward items, which will boost your power level quite a bit. I personally jumped from 145 to 220. So that boost is huge and well worth it. You also get a sparrow if you weren't lucky enough to have one drop through random gameplay, and having transport is hugely helpful as well. So I recommend finishing the campaign as your top priority.

After that, Adventures and lost sectors and public events all drop basically the same quality gear, so go for those. And then the many quests which unlock after finishing the main story all drop "powerful" reward level gear, so I'd say to hit those last, or if you feel like you've hit a power level plateau, as those will certainly get you over the hump.

Speaking of plateaus... At light 200 green engrams stop dropping, and you can't buy vendor greens above this level. I strongly encourage you to spend some glimmer as you level up on vendor greens as they are often 10-15 power higher than you are until they hit the 200 plateau. Blues and Purples generally cap at 265 power, at which point you need to rely on quests and rewards which feature 'powerful rewards'. Because of this, some players are postponing turning in any powerful reward missions until they hit 265 via other means. Just note that many missions are on a weekly reset, so don't wait too long or everything will reset!

Good luck, guardians!

I always find posts like this disheartening. You turn a fun game into a checklist of chores to optimize a numbers game.
"Don't do these quests until you're Light Level x." "Make sure that before you have fun, you've purchased this, this, and that!" "God roll!" "Hold on to these engrams until x".

I dunno. Sucks the fun out of everything, I feel. Sorry if this seems like I'm going MacAddict on you, Kahz. Nothing against ya...

I just saw on Reddit that if you get a Powerful Reward, you can just let that engram stay at the reward giver and it will continually get better as you level up until you finally decrypt it. Not sure if there's much benefit to that versus just getting it immediately and taking the immediate level boost.

I'm with you. I like reading these things, but I pretty much never follow the advice, and I definitely don't at this stage. I'm having too much fun just being out there and doing stuff to care much about my power level number yet.

I always find posts like this disheartening. You turn a fun game into a checklist of chores to optimize a numbers game.
"Don't do these quests until you're Light Level x." "Make sure that before you have fun, you've purchased this, this, and that!" "God roll!" "Hold on to these engrams until x".

I dunno. Sucks the fun out of everything, I feel. Sorry if this seems like I'm going MacAddict on you, Kahz. Nothing against ya...

I see it more as, "there are ton of fun things to do in the game. Here's the best way to do all the fun things to end up the most ready for the next fun thing (the raid)." Knowing the optimal order to do all of the things you want to do anyway just minimizes any grinding you might have to do after you've done all of the things.

I'm actually glad I read this. I knew to hit the Postmaster and Cryptarch before turning in quests, but I didn't realize blue and purple engrams were capped at 265 and that "powerful rewards" and exotics were the only way to go beyond 265. I'll still do all of the same things I was going to do before, but now, instead of doing every activity on a planet until there's nothing left on the map before moving on to the next planet (or "destination," I guess), I'll make sure to do all of the lower level stuff first and save anything with "powerful rewards" until after the other stuff is done.

Oh, and bonus info that may have been mentioned, but I haven't seen it here: Infusing a higher power level item into an exotic now slingshots the new power level a bit beyond the item you used for infusion.

-Disciple

Oh, and bonus info that may have been mentioned, but I haven't seen it here: Infusing a higher power level item into an exotic now slingshots the new power level a bit beyond the item you used for infusion.

I haven't kept up, but I saw some stuff that maybe this depends on the mods applied.

I just saw on Reddit that if you get a Powerful Reward, you can just let that engram stay at the reward giver and it will continually get better as you level up until you finally decrypt it. Not sure if there's much benefit to that versus just getting it immediately and taking the immediate level boost.

Yup. The rewards from quests aren't rolled until you pick them up. Same with reputation rewards.

I always find posts like this disheartening. You turn a fun game into a checklist of chores to optimize a numbers game.
"Don't do these quests until you're Light Level x." "Make sure that before you have fun, you've purchased this, this, and that!" "God roll!" "Hold on to these engrams until x".

I dunno. Sucks the fun out of everything, I feel. Sorry if this seems like I'm going MacAddict on you, Kahz. Nothing against ya...

Aww, sorry buddy. Unfortunately, the way my brain works, I'm very good at optimization and efficiency and I like to share my observations.

No one is under any obligation to follow these tips (note that they are 'tips' and not 'rules' or even 'instructions'). I, for example, after observing these behaviors, have still thrown caution to the wind and just done whatever I wanted to. So I've already finished the Nessus quest chain (and follow-up weapon checklist), and I'm only missing the weekly crucible mission. And it all got me to 265 just fine.

But don't worry - I'll still be posting "god roll" info etc. as it comes around. I like to get that pvp edge, you know what I mean?

Of note: Copperhead is the largest sniper rifle graphic I've found so far. Good god that gun is huge. Nothing about the roll (it's fine, nothing special), but holy hell the gun is SO BIG.

Optimizes the unfun grind before we are able to play actually fun content.

I did all of the adventures and lost sectors as I did the campaign. I was level 20 by the second level on Nessus. I finished the campaign around 240 and by the time I picked up my rewards I was 260.

I don't think you necessarily have to hold off the other stuff until you finish the campaign, and I actually enjoyed doing it all during the journey. It made the campaign feel more epic.

Oh, and bonus info that may have been mentioned, but I haven't seen it here: Infusing a higher power level item into an exotic now slingshots the new power level a bit beyond the item you used for infusion.

I haven't kept up, but I saw some stuff that maybe this depends on the mods applied.

This is true. If you have a +5 light mod, that still applies, but does not affect the base light level. So if I have a 245 item with a +5 mod, it shows as 250. I can infuse a 251 light item and it will be come 256, meaning it's now a 251 + 5 light item. I was confused about this at first, but figured this out when I had a 253 item that could be infused "up" by a 251 item, which was seemingly below the light level already.

If you have a legendary mod, use it! They typically give 5 power level to the item you're using, meaning not only will it increase the item power level when you install it but if you infuse it with an item that has a power level of 270 it could potential infuse it up to 275!

Do note though, infusion is not always 1 to 1, if you're infusing a 210 with a 270 it will most likely not infuse all the way to 270, though I'm not sure on all the details. It does appear to be more generous than when they first introduced item infusion though.

Yesterday I realized that clan rewards are awarded to all 3 characters. I was about 1/3 of the way through the story with an alt (Thanks to a fireteam event Thursday). I decided to see where I could actually access those rewards.

Short answer is in the new tower area, after the main storyline. They did not seem to be available at all at the farm, even though I could get my clan banner at the farm.

I should note that I plan on playing one main, and dabble occasionally on other characters, like I have the past year plus on D1, which is a much better time balance for me. I did want to get access to the "full rewards", which disappointingly push me to having 3 characters at end-game status.

Also of note is that I finished the campaign just after I hit 18. When I got an exotic from zavala at the end of the main storyline, I was boosted to level 20.

I found something a little disturbing though. My high level weapons held on my warlock, and even my vault, did not count for LL reward increases on this second character. Once I moved a couple weapons from my vault and off my warlock, my LL rewards (hunter cloak from ikora, engram reward from zavala) jumped by 15 light. Now I was lvl 18 at the time, but the moved items were 17+ legendaries, so I don't understand why they did not count towards higher light level -- once equipped, they did indeed boost things. I am unclear why, and that seems to contradict the "anytime anywhere" thing they've been touting. Maybe that only applies to drops? Unclear.

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In this process I also found that infusion has one other wrinkle. I can't cross-class infuse items. So my warlock exotic helm (that I have 2 of) is a useless pile of slag as far as infusing for my other classes. This is a mixed bag -- it means that for armor, only playing one character is fine, I am not missing out. But for weapons, I would still be missing out on 2 extra "free" engram clan rewards, one for each other character, plus any other rewards the other characters could earn. So it still pays to have extra characters, and those rewards will be tied to the other character's LL's, but it won't be as big of an advantage to the super hardcore... unless they go all-in.

It also means I can't much benefit from casually playing other classes, in order to keep up with others I'd have to put in the time and play each of those characters more than I have in the past, which is a bit disappointing. It's not a huge change, but it is an increase to the time system if you're not playing 3 characters heavily. I'm not sure how many are in this situation like I am, it's kind of a mixed bag. I like playing a little less than some, but it sometimes feels like the reward lock-outs hurt that a little. (i.e. running the raid twice on one character vs running it twice on 2 different ones -- it will be harder to keep that second character geared up enough to do this occasionally, requiring more time if you play this way)

So good news! Clan rewards are across all 3 characters! Disappointing that infusion for armor is class specific. (Possible note, I have only tried cross-infusion with exotics, not legendaries, though I would expect this to be the same)

In this process I also found that infusion has one other wrinkle. I can't cross-class infuse items. So my warlock exotic helm (that I have 2 of) is a useless pile of slag as far as infusing for my other classes.

Wow. Yet another part of the infusion system that used to work fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! This is infuriating. It was so great to be able to just get your alt characters up to raid / trials level nearly immediately.

Uggggg.

In this process I also found that infusion has one other wrinkle. I can't cross-class infuse items. So my warlock exotic helm (that I have 2 of) is a useless pile of slag as far as infusing for my other classes.

Wow. Yet another part of the infusion system that used to work fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! This is infuriating. It was so great to be able to just get your alt characters up to raid / trials level nearly immediately.

Uggggg.

It really is a shame. They fixed having to level subclasses individually, but completely killed efficient alt leveling.

It appears tied to your light level, but blues and purples will begin to blanket drop at ~10 light level below your theoretical max. So once I hit 276 light, all of my blue drops were 266. Then I got up to 277, and now all of my blue drops are 267. This is good for infusing lower light guns you were saving, or the one armor piece that you can't get to drop again.