Although there’s a lot to do when you hit max level, there are some important things you should be aware of when you first start your journey. To keep you informed, this Destiny 2 guides is going to go over a few tips to help you get a head start before you even hit max level.
Complete the Campaign
This one probably seems pretty obvious, but grinding through the campaign is the easiest and best thing you can do if you want to unlock a number of extra features and hit max level as quickly as possible.
You can easily level your character entirely without completing the campaign, and many of the side opportunities you encounter along the way will tempt you to veer off from the main story. But you won’t get the best loot that way.
Many players probably want to hit max level quickly so they can try to get the top-tier loot – but grinding crucibles and public events won’t do that for you. Finishing the campaign will unlock strikes, milestones, patrols, and even special missions that reward legendary and exotic weapons. So you’ll want to complete the it as soon as possible to make sure you’ll be able to access these features that actually give you the best gear.
Do Side Activities Like Adventures and Public Events
Since most of the missions allow you to start them simply by traveling around the planet, you will notice adventures and Public Events pop up along the way.
Adventures are basically smaller side missions, and you can complete them while patrolling the planet. This can give you gear rewards and even upgrade points to unlock subclass abilities.
You don’t need to do all of these activities when they pop up, but they are nice to check out if they’re not too far away from your main story mission and you see something that is useful to you right now.
Keep Any Gear You Like While Leveling
Hoarding gear might seem counter-intuitive, but it’s actually very helpful. If you choose to make other characters, you can load them out with decent gear without having to grind for it again.
This is also good for the late-game in Destiny 2, as you can infuse legendary or exotic gear with these items to make your top-tier stuff even stronger.
You Can Save Upgrade Points
As you level up or complete certain adventures, you’ll get upgrade points that are used to unlock different subclass abilities. But just because you unlock them doesn’t mean you need to use them. If you don’t want a specific grenade or jump ability, you can pass it up and use that upgrade point on something later.
The passive abilities on the right side of your menu are separated into 2 categories. You have to unlock each one separately, for a total of 8 upgrade points. You can only use either the top or bottom, regardless of which passives you unlocked.
Take Sentinel Titan for example. If I unlock 2 skills for Code of the Protector, and 3 for Code of the Aggressor, that’s a total of 5 upgrade points used. When you select any of the Code of the Protector passives, it will change all your passives to Code of the Protector, even though you have more unlocked in Code of the Aggressor. This means you can only use one of these paths at a time. If you want to save upgrade points, pick a preferred path and stick with it for a while.
When you unlock other subclasses later on, you must also use your upgrade points for them. Grenades and Jump abilities automatically unlock for your other subclasses, even if you didn’t buy them for your first subclass.
Kill and Loot Everything on Your Way to Missions
This may seem obvious, but some players like to just get through missions or make their way to a certain location without taking the time to engage in combat along the way. But make no mistake – killing and looting everything in your path from Point A to Point B is a great way to speed up your progress.
The most important reason for doing this is to unlock your other subclasses. You unlock them by getting a relic to drop. These drops are completely random, and they come from simply killing enemies and looting chests.
You will also need to complete whichever subclass quest you are one before another will drop. If you want to unlock your subclasses as quickly as you can, then just farm enemies and public events.
Save Your Faction Turn-Ins for Max Level
Each planet has a vendor where you can redeem tokens and materials you collect on that planet in exchange for rep.
When you level up these planet factions, you get Engrams – which turn into gear. The problem is that the gear you get is set to whatever power level you are when you get the engram – even if you wait to encrypt it at higher levels.
This means that you will get much better gear if you wait until max level. You can still turn in rep tokens, but just don’t accept the engrams until max level.
Those are all the tips I have for getting started in Destiny 2. Check back for more guides and tips to help you through the game!
