https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/46880

• On May 29th, Heroic strikes will be able to drop better rewards. Every three to five Heroic strikes will drop a Legendary that can carry you up to 360 Power (before mods).
  
• Iron Banner next week with new gear

The further progression discussion is interesting. Obviously in conflict with some folks desires. I guess we will see the pendulum swing again.

I wish Bungie would add a news bulletin option to Destiny 2's startup.

Just imagine how many people are losing out on improved gear because they didn't know about the workarounds.

The further progression discussion is interesting. Obviously in conflict with some folks desires. I guess we will see the pendulum swing again.

Just a note - the powerful rewards I was getting as a 377, 378, and 379 this week were all capped at 380. I'm 379.4 now and drops appear to be locked at 380. Either every piece of gear must be 380 before you can progress, or there's something else preventing >380 drops. Or I'm just very unlucky.

Extra note related to "Spire of Stars" Lair power level:
The enemies at the final encounter appear to be 380.

(all values above are with modded gear)

Isn’t 380 the actual cap?

Isn’t 380 the actual cap?

I thought it was supposed to be 385 with mods.

Oh, maybe you’re right. I just remember 380 being mentioned as the cap, but that’s probably for unmodded gear.

- No text -

I agree that's the theory, but I'm saying I haven't seen a powerful engram without mods drop over 375, and I've got 380 in every slot except one. Sure, I might just be unlucky, but if you've gotten a drop over 375 without mods I'd like to see it and know what you were doing when it dropped.

I agree that's the theory, but I'm saying I haven't seen a powerful engram without mods drop over 375, and I've got 380 in every slot except one. Sure, I might just be unlucky, but if you've gotten a drop over 375 without mods I'd like to see it and know what you were doing when it dropped.

I believe you. In fact, the slog from 370 to 380 was made known back in April. So yes, there is a soft cap, but what I'm saying you can (and will) get gear to drop above 375.

"Additionally, the final 10 points from 370 to 380 will be significantly slower than 340 to 370; we expect it to take players roughly equal time to go from 340 to 370 as from 370 to 380. We decided to make this change because climbing to 370 allows you to tackle endgame content without suffering a severe under level penalty, but creates a significant accomplishment in achieving 380."
Source

Yay!

You have one character at 379 and another at 374… how the hell did you pull that off? I've done absolutely everything I can to get Powerful Rewards (Milestones + raids) to boost my Light level for the last two weeks, and I'm currently sitting at 367. I got a little unlucky because a couple of my high-level drops were duplicative last week, but that's a difference of ~2 Light.

- No text -

- No text -

You can only get one Powerful engram per week for Trials, when completing at Flawless card, right? Or are the drops at 3, 5, and 7 wins all Powerful gear (i.e., they land at at least your current max Light)?

Even still, that doesn't account for a 12-Light differential…

Ah, I don't really know then. That was just the thing I knew Chappy did that you probably didn't. I know he did three Prestige raids and 3 lairs too.

Ah, I don't really know then. That was just the thing I knew Chappy did that you probably didn't. I know he did three Prestige raids and 3 lairs too.

You know, I forgot about the Prestige raid... but that’d be a decent boost. Doing multiple runs has diminishing returns because class gear is limited to once per week, but weapons would be viable.

Raiding is the key to fast leveling right now. The regular weekly milestones only provide 5 powerful engrams a week (Flashpoint, Nightfall, Heroics, Call to Arms, and Clan XP if left with Hawthorne). Trials of the Nine can get you an extra 4 per week (Win 3, 5, 7 and Flawless). Resetting your Crucible valor gives another 4. If you run a Prestige Leviathan and a Lair, however, you get *15* powerful engrams.

You can leverage second and third characters to amplify these gains, because weapon power is calculated regardless of power.

Power leveling from DLC release:

On an alternate character:

• Complete public events on the flashpoint until reaching level 30. Use a Fire team medallion and the cosmos shell for speed
  
• Turn in vanguard tokens to get 340 level gear, and infuse rewards into existing gear until 345 in every slot.
  
• Complete the first two DLC story missions (granting a powerful weapon selection after the second mission)
  
• Run the nightfall (granting a powerful drop), then turn in the milestone (granting 1 or 2 more powerful drops from Zavala)
  
• Turn in the Flashpoint milestone (granting 1 or 2 more powerful drops from Cayde)
  
• Run 3 Heroic Strikes, then turn in the milestone (granting 1 or 2 more powerful drops Zavala)
  
• Complete Call to Arms and turn it in (granting 1 or 2 more powerful drops from Shaxx)
  
• Complete the first encounter of the "Eater of Worlds" Raid Lair, go to the tower and decode the powerful engram
  
• Complete the remainder of the "Eater of Worlds" Raid Lair (granting 1 powerful engram, 1 exotic chance, and 2 powerful gear drops)
  
• Complete the first encounter of the Prestige Leviathan Raid, go to the tower and decode the 2 powerful engrams
  
• Complete the remainder of the Prestige Leviathan Raid with Challenge (granting 1 exotic, and 8 powerful gear drops)
  
• If any gear slot starts to fall behind after any of these steps, do public events until you get a blue or purple drop to catch it back up.
  
• Complete a Flawless card in Trials for 4 powerful gear drops from the Emissary.
  
• Continue in Quicklplay until you can reset your rank for 4 powerful gear drops.

If you have the time, repeat all of the above on your second alternate character.

Finally, do all of the above on your main character, with a couple of exceptions:

• You might want to actually finish the story and adventures.
  
• Note that the normal Leviathan raid can drop weapons, while the prestige raid seems to only drop armor. To truly optimize things, complete the raid once on normal difficulty to get your weapons as high as possible, and then complete the raid again on prestige difficulty to get your armor just a bit higher.

I did NOT do all those steps, and I hit 376 by the end of week one. I did do all the weekly milestones, 1 normal raid, 3 prestige raids, 3 raid Lairs, and one trials card.

See my other post for power-leveling tips, but if you have 3 characters that are each a different class, the raids alone pay out 45 powerful gear items. Lair completions should take about 45 minutes, and Prestige runs should take a couple hours - that comes out to be a powerful drop every 20 minutes or so.

I know the raid gear locks out per-class each week. But if I run a second Warlock, would it still get weapon drops, or not?

I know the raid gear locks out per-class each week. But if I run a second Warlock, would it still get weapon drops, or not?

I'm afraid I don't know - has anyone read up on what the actual new behavior is?

- No text -