I’m less sure on powerful. There are multiple tiers of powerful rewards. I’m not sure if it’s better to get the higher tier rewards first and try to use the lower tiers to fill in the gaps or go about it the opposite way.

Armor stats are mostly preference. Do you want your grenade, super, or melee to recharge faster? Anything with a total stat number of over 55 seems to be considered decent. I focused on Discipline initially. I have a bunch of pieces with anywhere between 15 and 19 points in the Discipline stat. Adding a Discipline mod gives a +10 boost to that piece of gear. Maxed out, my grenade recharges every 30 seconds.

You can try and get a balanced set, so that every ability recharges slightly faster, but I prefer to focus on one as much as possible and build around that.

Where it gets difficult is finding a piece of gear with a good stat roll that you want and also in the elemental affinity for the mods you want to use.

In general for the climb to 950 from 900 it doesn’t specifically matter how you do it you will progress. There are a lot of Tier 1 options, a handful of Tier 2, and one Tier 3. Pinnacle drops aren’t super important but do give larger boosts and tend to drop in slots you are lacking in. The only major efficiency advice I have is that gear from your season ranks is leveled so you can bump up trailing armor pieces if you wait to pull them and focus on one character at a time. Getting higher weapon power will make alts jump quickly.

For what armor to keep, the other advice is good advice. Affinity won’t matter until you are trying for specific builds, the average stat rolls are gonna be around 50 and good ones will be 55+ with pinnacle gear and exotics tending toward 60. The highest roll I have seen is a 64. For the Artifact mods affinity doesn’t matter and most of the interesting builds are focused on them. But checking on a guide about mods will probably help you plan. You can either be like me and not care for the most part about maximized build synergy (extreme optimization is not the most important of my game time) or you can chase after optimal builds.

Currently what I have been having the most fun with has nothing to do with my armor mods. Monte Carlo + Hammerstrike + Peregrine Greaves. It operates on its own loop, but I have started tossing on mods to enhance that loop.

1) What are people's strategies for getting the most out of their playtime? On a Tuesday reset, what do you go to do first? What activities seem to be the most worthwhile for getting powerful rewards?

Thanks to the way they've tweaked loot drops, just about any activity in the game will help you climb from 750 up to the soft cap of 900. Even random Blue drops will come in slightly above your current level. If you have any vendor tokens in your inventory, you can spend those and level up quite quickly.

Once you hit 900, a selection of Powerful Reward activities will appear on the director (similar to how they would pre-shadowkeep). You can get a couple from the various crucible playlists, strikes & nightfalls, gambit, the weekly flashpoint, and a few other locations (there are several weekly powerful rewards tied to activities on the moon).
In general, getting up to 900 is pretty smooth. You can just play whatever you want to play. After that, the director makes it crystal clear what you need to do to get powerful drops.

2) I have no idea what I am looking for with the new armor. I have gotten a ton of armor and I've been throwing it in my vault, but I am rapidly running out of space. How do I know which armor is worth keeping?

Armor is tricky at the moment. Every piece of armor you get will have a stat roll (these are the intellect/discipline/strength/etc numbers) as well as an elemental affinity.

For the stat rolls, you can look at how many points a given piece of armor has in the stats that you care about, or you can also look at the total point score (which is displayed just under all the individual stat ratings). Some armor pieces of more total points than others, meaning they effectively have better total properties. I don't know what the highest possible stat total is, but the highest I've found so far is a pair of boots with a stat total of 57. Anything 50 or up seems to be decent. Keep in mind that adding mods to armor increases the stat total by 10, so a piece of gear with a stat total of 58 and no mod is actually a higher roll than a piece of armor with a rating of 65 with a mod installed.

Aside from the stat rolls, there's also the elemental affinity. Each piece of armor will have a solar/arc/void affinity. This plays into damage resistance against each energy type, just as it used to, but it also dictates which mods can be applied to any given piece of armor. Certain mods can only be applied to armor with specific elemental affinities. For example, the Enhanced Hand Cannon loader mod can only be installed in a set of gloves that have Void affinity (I'm pretty sure I'm remembering that specific example correctly, but if not you still get the idea). So if there are specific mods you are interested in equipping, you'll want to look into which elemental affinity those mods require, and then keep your eyes peeled for armor drops that have the elemental type you need, and ideally a high stat roll as well.

This can all potentially add up to needing a boatload of different armor pieces. Personally, I've decided not to pay any attention to what an armor drop looks like... I just look at the stat roll and elemental type, and then I use the decorative ornaments to change how to armor looks. My goal is to have 1 piece or each armor type (helmet, gloves, chest piece, boots, & class item) in each of the 3 elemental affinities, all with good stat rolls.

Everyone gave great advice. To piggy back:

1. Do what's fun (for you). Just make sure you pick up bounties to advance that season rank. I dont touch crucible or gambit and I've leveled up just fine, so dont feel compelled to do everything either. Avoiding burn out > leveling faster in my book.

2. My policy has been to dismantle any armor with a roll below 57-58. Keeping one piece of each element type is a good idea, but I'm only starting to do that now that I'm in the 940's. Shadowkeep is to armor what Oprah gifs are to bees (BEEEEEES!!!). Don't stress too much about it. Be brutal and dismantle anything you havent touched in a while or is generally unremarkable or imperfect. Unless it's the most perfect roll you can get, chances are you'll get a replacement in about 30 minutes.

My strat has been: a) find an exotic weap/armor/spec combo that you like b) after playing it for a while, ask how it might interact with some of the artifact mods that you're unlocking c) finally, round it out with other element affinity mods that complement the build. Approaching builds at a hierarchical level has helped me better understand the new system and better learn what to look out for as my power level increases and I'm building for end game activities.

First and foremost, go to the tower and pick up bounties for any/all activities you're going to do. They reward XP, which will upgrade your seasonal artifact, which will give you more rewards (and mods). If you visit a planet, grab the planetary bounties.

From 750 to 900, just play the game; do what you like. Blues drop everywhere and will raise your power level; just equip (or keep) the highest item you have in each slot until you hit 900.

You can start in on the story right away, but some of the missions will be 860 - you may want to do a little leveling before you jump in.

After 900, you'll see "powerful rewards" from weekly activities on your director. There are "tiers" of powerful rewards, I don't think you need to worry too much about it - just do activities that reward powerful drops and you'll continue to increase power. Note that some vendors reward powerful drops for doing a certain number of bounties a week.

Some new content/activities are revealed at the end of the story, require power over 900, and reward powerful drops. Nightmare hunts, vex offensive, etc. Give them a try and have fun.

If you've plateaued due to a specific piece of gear being under-leveled, you can turn in tokens or materials at a tower vendor for gear. It's still random and it might take a few hundred before you get an item in the slot you need, but it's a way to speed progress.

I think people are still getting the hang of armor. When something drops, you should weigh:

Elemental affinity - this determines what weapons it can slot perks for. When comparing armor, I compare arc pieces to arc pieces, solar to solar, etc. Eventually you'll want at least one geed set in each element (assuming you use a mix of weapons).

Total score: this is a sum of all the stat values of a piece (intellect, recovery, etc.). If a piece has a low score (less than 54 or so), you're probably not going to hang onto it long. Never shard your highest power items, of course.

Stat distribution: This is personal preference, but consider your play style and look at how the stats are split on a given armor piece. My warlock wants intellect, recovery above all else (and resilience and discipline above mobility and strength). Comparing two pieces with similar total values, look at the stat distribution to decide which to keep.

Note that all stats can be increased using mods, but intellect and recovery cost the most energy to slot. You may favor pieces with high intellect and/or high recovery just because the mods to make up the other stats wont have as much of an impact on the perks you can carry.