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I can't play any more Basic PvP unless I want to get a Pinnacle, because dumb game design is dumb.

It's not like you are going to get to 1250 before the weekly reset, so why not just grab it?

Eh. It was bad enough using up one so early. That said, come Monday reset... it's gone.

Personal experience and some online guides; Gambit usually drops 2-3 blues and a purple after each ~10 minute match, with a chance that one of those drops at level. Most strikes (other than lake of shadows) take longer. Crucible is about the same a gambit, but the rank ups add powerful drops that you may not want to receive at that moment - you could waste one.

I don’t know the best math, but I let the bounty challenge engrams cook as long as possible. The UI still says they’re only Tier 1 Powerfuls, but they’ve all been just as large a jump as any Pinnacle. So I get the Pinnacle from doing the three activities and let the bounty one cook, then I just play and try to get all my gaps filled in. Then I pick up one of those cooked engrams, then play and fill in any gaps as close as possible, then repeat.

Just playing to fill in gaps is far more beneficial now than it was before (since you can’t use tokens anymore). My Warlock ended at 1212. My Hunter then ended at 1218. I only have the 100K nightfall available on both. After I finished my Hunter, I went back to my Warlock to do post campaign stuff and some Crucible, and she’s now back in the lead at 1220 or 1221

I approached it from a "powerful drops" are what I need and powered through all of them this past week not bothering to play to fill them in. In retrospect that really hampered me.

Like I get not completing weekly challenges too early since that drop just hits you directly.

And right now I'm waiting on finishing up my Bounty based challenges by holding onto the completed bounty. But it's weird since they result in an engram that I have to turn in?

Also I finished up the new chaperone quest yesterday and left it with Amanda, will it go up if I leave it?

As a general rule of thumb, powerful drops are most likely to be useful when all your gear is approximately the same level. In that sense it doesn't really matter whether you use the powerful drops "late" or "early" in the week, what you want is for them to occur at the right times with your gear distribution.

The most important thing to avoid when leveling is getting a powerful drop in your "leading" slot, because that's when it's least effective, especially if your leading slot is well ahead of your other slots. If you have that situation, you want to fill in your other slots with normal drops prior to activating a powerful. For example, if your gear average is 1212-6/8 on DIM, and you have a class item that's 1210, that's a great time to consider pulling a class item out of your season pass. It will drop at 1212, and push your average up to 1213, which is essentially giving you +1 on your next powerful drop.

This happened to me. I had a high cloak relative to everything else. What are the odds? I got a cloak one higher. I thought I would cry.

Like I get not completing weekly challenges too early since that drop just hits you directly.

And right now I'm waiting on finishing up my Bounty based challenges by holding onto the completed bounty. But it's weird since they result in an engram that I have to turn in?

Also I finished up the new chaperone quest yesterday and left it with Amanda, will it go up if I leave it?

As a general rule of thumb, powerful drops are most likely to be useful when all your gear is approximately the same level. In that sense it doesn't really matter whether you use the powerful drops "late" or "early" in the week, what you want is for them to occur at the right times with your gear distribution.

The most important thing to avoid when leveling is getting a powerful drop in your "leading" slot, because that's when it's least effective, especially if your leading slot is well ahead of your other slots. If you have that situation, you want to fill in your other slots with normal drops prior to activating a powerful. For example, if your gear average is 1212-6/8 on DIM, and you have a class item that's 1210, that's a great time to consider pulling a class item out of your season pass. It will drop at 1212, and push your average up to 1213, which is essentially giving you +1 on your next powerful drop.

In this way, having a dedicated slot powerful drop is extremely effective (if it does go up as you wait, which I can't confirm but seems highly likely). To get the most use out of it, you should wait until your primary weapon slot is the lowest value of your gear, and then grab it, giving you the most bang for your buck in terms of power increase.

Last night if I picked it up would have been 2017, got a new level, and now it's 2018... so keep that in mind!

Lots of them.

Doing 8 Bounties for Zavala, Shaxx, Drifter, Banshee, and Variks will all give you a Powerful. You can hold off on picking up the rewards until you have a roughly equal power level in every slot for maximum growth.

Stuff like the Empire Hunts, weapon quests from Variks, and Wrathborn hunts are especially helpful for bringing up low slots, as you can see exactly which reward you will get from those activities.

If you are trying to level up, and want to keep track of what gear comes from what activities (and what you have left to do this week that will maximize your growth), this website is invaluable:

https://www.d2checklist.com/

Hit the Sign In button in the top right to authenticate with Bungie, then click 'My Info' (just below the sign in button). The first tab (Milestones) lists every powerful+ reward available each week, in descending order of power, along with an indication of how far along you are in completing it.

Along with Braytech, DIM, and Destiny Power Bars, it's in the pantheon of websites that make Destiny considerably better than it is alone.

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