This might sound dumb, but this line of thinking does not come to my brain as intuitively as it does for others. Same with re-rolling weapons. I don't know how to work the system in my favor. I'm not good at playing the game inside the game. I've never re-rolled, I've never ascended anything. I know this sounds rediculous, but back when there were all different types of energies and shards for upgrading I rarely had the necessary materials, coupled with my limited play time, I avoided using them on weapons altogether. I knew the DLC weapons that were coming were mostly already better than anything I could waste my time and materials upgrading.
I tried using some materials on armor but quickly realized the futility of wasting these materials when none of my armor was raid acquired. I would never get to a high enough level, and I probably never will. I've got a handful of these old materials from the past in the vault still.

The situation at hand is:
I have an original Pocket Infinity that is fully upgraded, short of ascending it. 300 Attack
I just finished the exotic bounty for the Pocket Infinity that I've been toting around for months. It has no upgrades yet but Attack 334/365.

What is the best strategy to take here?
I have *A* Exotic shard on hand and could ascend the original. Won't I have to just upgrade everything again?
Do I start slowly upgrading the newer Pocket Infinity since it is "ascended" already and Shard out the old one? Will I get 2 Exotic Shards for the fully upgraded old one?

"Ascending" no longer resets your progress like it did in "the dark below".

The situation at hand is:
I have an original Pocket Infinity that is fully upgraded, short of ascending it. 300 Attack
I just finished the exotic bounty for the Pocket Infinity that I've been toting around for months. It has no upgrades yet but Attack 334/365.

What is the best strategy to take here?
I have *A* Exotic shard on hand and could ascend the original. Won't I have to just upgrade everything again?
Do I start slowly upgrading the newer Pocket Infinity since it is "ascended" already and Shard out the old one? Will I get 2 Exotic Shards for the fully upgraded old one?

I always shard the new one and put into the old one because you do NOT have to reupgrade everything now. All the perks you already unlocked will be unlocked after you ascend it.

Ascending your old one costs 1 Exotic Shard and a little bit of glimmer/materials. With the new one, you'll need to go through the process of unlocking all the upgrade nodes, spending glimmer and materials for each perk as you unlock them, AND you'll still need to spend an Exotic shard to buy the final upgrade.

So as Cyber said, shard your new one (which will also give you another Exotic shard), and upgrade your old one. Quick and painless :)

- No text -

- No text -

- No text -

If you have an old one that you never leveled up in any way, obviously shard that and keep the new one.

- No text -

Right, because that's what Destiny needs. Another thing to grind XP towards.

;)