Destiny Noob Guide

SpacePrez' quick start guide to DESTINY
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First things first, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHVtZsCZ1TA

Okay Destiny is a shooter game that is also an RPG. This can be kinda confusing and the game doesn't explain a lot of stuff very clearly, so I'm going to break it all down.

I'll section it off so you can kinda skim to the parts you need.

==BEGINNING==
The first 1-20 levels of your character in Destiny are like the "story mode", or an extended tutorial. The game is generally balanced to be pretty easy, and you just kinda do each mission once. As you level up more and more activities will open up for you to do.
The first time you do any story mission or strike you get a huge XP bonus. You get the same amount regardless of which level you are. So you want to do each thing once, ideally in order and at the appropriate level. You have the option to do story missions on "hard" which will increase the difficulty; ONLY do this if you've already overleveled the content and are the level or higher than the hard mode level. If you're level 9 and the normal is 8 and the hard is 10, do normal. You'll still get just as much XP. Do the strikes whenever you get to the level appropriate for them, you're meant to do them as part of the story progression and you'll get some gear for it. Strikes are longer than story missions and will automatically match you with 2 other people if you're not already in a full party. (Story missions are done solo unless you form a party yourself)

When you get to level 5 or so you'll gain the ability to start doing bounties. These are "daily quests" that rotate each day. You have to pick them up before you can start getting credit for them. Turning them in when completed gives you a large XP bonus and a bit of reputation points, more on that later. Ideally pick up any of these that sound like you can do them easily, and then knock them out while you're doing other things you'd be doing anyways, like story missions or strikes.

Do each story mission once and do some bounties along the way and you'll get to level 18-19 by the time you finish Mars. Then do a few more bounties and repeat some strikes or do some PVP until you hit 20.

==SHOOTY MECHANICS==
Hitting enemies in the head is a critical shot and deals increased damage, except for the Vex who take special damage from their glowing bellies. (Some enemies have no weak point)

Many enemies have shields, these shields are color coded to correspond with a damage type. Orange - Solar, Blue - Arc, Purple - Void. Attacking an enemy shield with the damage type indicated by the color will destroy the shield much much faster than using kinetic or the wrong elemental type. Primaries mostly don't have elements while secondaries and special weapons do, but there are exceptions.

Weapons are rated by attack power and will generally average the amount of damage for the number shown. However the damage per-bullet is dependent upon the "impact" bar. A weapon with a high impact and low rate of fire does the same effective damage as a weapon that does low impact but shoots very fast. You'll have to play with different guns to get a feel for which you prefer.

One mean thing Destiny does to fuck up your shootmans with RPG is that levels have a huge direct effect on damage dealt/taken, which is kinda counterintuitive. It makes sense that a higher level player has a better gun that does more damage. But what you don't realize is that even with the same gun, a higher level player will do way more damage to a lower level monster than to a higher level monster. (And in Iron Banner the same applies to players, mostly)

The effect is significant:
Equal/Above: 100%
Minus 1 Level: 68%
Minus 2 Levels: 55%
Minus 3 Levels: 48%
Minus 4 levels: 0% (No Damage)

In general Destiny allows you to participate in events at up to 3 levels below. In practice though this can be a bad idea. If you have friends who are there to carry you and know what they're getting themselves in for, its totally fine, but if you're playing with strangers you're just going to be a massive burden. Try to wait until you're at least 1 level within the recommended before you attempt something, unless you really know what you're doing.

==LEVEL 20+, THE REP GRIND==
Okay so now you're level 20 and you've seen everything once more or less, but you're wondering how to level up to 30+ to hang with the cool kids. So now that you're level 20 XP doesn't level you any more, you'll be permanently 20 in a way. Any further XP instead turns into a 'mote of light' when you would receive enough to gain a level, which is a currency used to buy a few different things. Post level 20 your level is determined by "light", which you get from armor. This effectively turns your character level into an item level, or ilevel like in other RPGs. Each piece of armor with +light on it will contribute to your total, and you just need to have a certain total and you're instantly that corresponding level.

Level	Required Amount of Light
21	20
22	32
23	43
24	54
25	65
26	76
27	87
28	98
29	109
30	120
31	132
32	144
33	156
34	168

Equipping armor with less +light on it will instantly drop your light level, potentially back down to 20. Your first goal is to collect a set of armor with enough +light on it that you won't get destroyed by the level damage rules described above and then you can start doing higher and higher level endgame activities. Once you have a decent set of armor, then you can worry more about getting better guns.

You can just play the game and engage in any activity you want now and there will be a small chance you'll get some loot at the end, depending upon what you do. But you don't want to be stuck hoping RNGeesus blesses you, he's gonna give you 3 pairs of Hunter boots when you really need a Warlock helm. So how do you get gear reliably?

What you're going to want to do is run Crucible Playlists or Vanguard Playlists, or play Raids or Prison of Elders, or the Weekly Heroic Strike or Weekly Nightfall. These are the "endgame" activities of Destiny. Doing these will earn you marks and reputation as well as chances to get gear outright. For an explanation of those activities read the following sections.


==REPUTATION==
There are many factions in Destiny. Certain activities, mostly bounties, will reward amounts of reputation. Gaining enough reputation points in a faction will get you a promotion and you'll increase in rank. Faction rewards require you to be a certain rank to purchase them. The major factions all sell guns and armor, but require rank 2 for armor and rank 3 for guns. When you hit max rank (3 for most factions) and any ranks above the "max", you receive a package in the mail with random gear in it. The first time is always a random gun from that faction, and from then on it could be a gun or armor or some items. Increasing in ranks continually from faction points is a good way to get free purples, but if there's a specific piece of armor or weapon you want, you should purchase it outright. That requires marks. Marks are a currency you get for engaging in PvE or PvP activities, which give crucible (pvp) or vanguard (pve) marks respectively as you do them. You're capped at 100 of each per week, and 200 of each total. Once you've earned 100 in a week, even if you spend them you won't earn any more until the next Tuesday. Armor costs 65 marks except for helms which are 120, and weapons cost 150. This means you can get 1 piece of armor per week or one weapon every other week, of each type, which means one weapon every week or two pieces of armor in a week. In addition to the base Crucible and Vanguard reputations, there are 3 other major factions. Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, and Future War Cult. Each offers armor and weapons, but not all have the same weapons; one might have a hand cannon while the other has a sniper. Also one offers +INT/+DIS gear while the other has +INT/+STR and the other still +STR/+DIS. Check their inventory in the tower vendors to see which you want to rank up. The 3 independent vendors all sell class items (bonds, capes, towels) which if you wear them will convert all reputation gains (both pve and pvp) into that faction's. However those 3 factions all trade in pvp marks; if you do mostly pve activities you won't be able to buy them. You still get the gear in the mail from ranking up to max and levels after that, but you need pvp marks to buy the things you want specifically. Eventually you should rank up all the factions to 3 so you can buy whatever things you want with your marks. There are also special reputations like Eris Morn and Petra Venj, these cannot be converted into the 3 faction reps even if you wear a class item from them while turning in quests.

The good news to catching up is that each expansion that increases the maximum level also increases the level of gear all vendors sell. While other players who were at the previous maximum have to upgrade their previously purchased gear, the new gear you purchase will already be fairly upgraded. This is one of Destiny's catch up mechanics.

Equipping a full set of blue gear from activities at level 20 will allow you to get as high as level 28, but no higher. This will allow you to play PoE and start doing the VoG raid, however, which lets you get better gear.

A full set of vendor legendaries or a set of 3 vendor legendaries and one exotic piece of armor (more on that later) will allow you to get all the way to level 32. At level 32 you can do almost every endgame activity in the game.

==LEVEL 30+, THE UPGRADES==
With the release of House of Wolves, the upgrade process to the new level cap has been simplified. Any legendary (purple) gear can be upgraded to the new maximum. For purples you need 'etheric light' which drops rarely from endgame activities (34 & 35 PoE, ToO at higher wins, IB at rank 3 and 5, and sometimes rarely from nightfall) in order to reach the 34 light level or maximum attack power.

PoE and ToO also both reward armor that is already at the +42 light level, so they do not require etheric light to get you to 34. For exotics you need 'exotic shards' from Xur or from breaking down exotics. In this way, you can use an exotic and pieces of ToO or PoE gear to reach level 34 without getting any etheric light at all.

Weapon and armor perks are no longer reset when you upgrade your gear. You just need the etheric light or exotic shards and then you select the upgrade using the weapon upgrade UI. Xur is not needed to ascend legendaries, only to purchase exotic shards for ascending exotics.

Re-rolling the randomly selected perks on weapons is allowed if they're from the Iron Banner or the House of Wolves expansion. If you talk to the Gunsmith with one of these equipped, you'll get the option to re-roll at the cost of a mote of light and some other materials. This process WILL reset both any upgrade / ascension as well as any perk unlock progress. Re-rolling weapons is random and the odds of getting a specific set of perks can be extremely low, but you can re-roll the same weapon as many times as you like. Once you re-roll though, there's no going back. Each weapon type has different potential perks and you'll have to look up which are available and figure out which you prefer.

==EXOTICS==
Items with gold backgrounds instead of blue or purple are exotic and usually have unique attributes other weapons or armor won't have. You can only equip one weapon and one armor that are exotic at a time to balance things. Exotics drop extremely rarely from some activities, but the guaranteed way to get them is to purchase them from Xur. Xur only shows up in-game from Friday morning to Sunday morning, and deals in Strange Coins and Motes of Light. Strange Coins can be obtained from the weekly heroic strike as well as the Prison of Elders. If you have multiple characters you can run the heroic strike up to 3 times a week, and higher difficulties give more coins. The Prison of Elders now allows you to earn unlimited strange coins per week as long as you play enough, so you can feasibly buy the armor and weapons that Xur has on offer each week.

==WEEKLY HEROIC STRIKE / NIGHTFALL ==
These are activities you can do once a week, using the left screen on the deploy menu. The little circles to the left. If you do them more than once you'll get no rewards, but the first time each week you do the Heroic Strike you get 3, 6 or 9 strange coins depending upon the difficulty you select, and the nightfall gives the best chance at legendary and exotic loot. The heroic and nightfall both have 'modifiers' which work like Halo's skulls, making the game harder in fun and odd ways, like having enemies throw more grenades. The most important of these are the 'burn' modifiers; they cause certain elemental damage to increase. So if 'arc burn' is active, enemies using arc damage do more damage, but if you use arc weapons you do tons more damage too. For this reason it is imperative at endgame that you start to collect one weapon of each element for each slot, secondary and special weapons. Primary weapons do not have elements by default; however the weapons dropped in raids and in high level PoE and ToO can have elements; obviously these primary weapons are invaluable in PvE. Elements are completely worthless in PvP, however.

The difference is that a Nightfall is even harder than a heroic, usually has more modifiers, and if the entire party dies at the same time (a "wipe") you have to start the entire nightfall strike over again, while normal strikes and heroic strikes have checkpoints. It pays to be cautious in a Nightfall; if your teammates are both dead you should adopt a defensive stance and play very carefully until you can get somebody back to life, lest all your progress be wasted.\

==PRISON OF ELDERS==
Requires you to own House of Wolves expansion. Opens after you complete the House of Wolves story missions. This is a special new mode kinda like a raid but for 3 people and easier to get into. You have to right the Fallen, Hive, Vex and Cabal all in a wave mode. There are level 28, 32, 34 and 35 difficulty variations of the Prison of Elders, or PoE. The level 28 has random modifiers and you face your enemies in a random order, while the higher difficulties are set to specific modifiers each week by Bungie. After completing 4 waves you have to fight a boss, and at higher levels there can be multiple bosses. The last 2 enemies you fight will include objectives like disarming mines, shooting mines, or killing a target before he reaches a point. Failure to complete the objective wipes the party. If the party ever wipes, they have to start over the current section / enemy waves, but after completing each enemy you won't have to start that part over again. Levels 32 and above reward guaranteed armor and weapon cores once per week but no more. All difficulties end in a treasure room which has two small chests which can contain items and one big chest which is guaranteed to reward an exotic and legendary the first time, (otherwise a legendary with a shot at an exotic in the future) but requires treasure keys. The level 35 big chest also can award a ship and a shader, and a chance at an elemental primary weapon. Killing the 34 or 35 boss will sometimes award you an exotic bounty IF your bounty inventory is not full at the time. Treasure keys come from hunting Petra Venj's queen's bounty targets sometimes, or for increasing her reputation, or sometimes from the small chests. You get one free key from completing the HoW story missions.

==RAIDS==
Raids are 6 man activities. The base game only comes with the Vault of Glass, a level 28 raid (or 30 for hard mode) on Venus. There are many difficult encounters that require lots of teamwork unlike anything else in Destiny, that can be a challenge and also very very fun. On normal you have a 30 second delay after dying before other players are allowed to resurrect you. On Hard mode there are no resurrections at all. The walkthrough of the raids is beyond the scope of this guide, but you can find them all over the net. Lots of friendly players will do runs to help show newbies how to get through. If you own The Dark Below, you can play the second raid, Crota's End, which is level 30 (or 33 for hard mode) and located on the Moon. Each raid can only be completed once per week per difficulty, any further attempts will get no treasure. Resets on Tuesday.

==CRUCIBLE==
The Crucible is the name for the general PvP mode. There are many, ranging from 3v3 deathmatch to 6v6 capture points or free for all. Participating in any for a full round guarantees some pvp rep (or faction if wearing a representation item) and marks, and a fairly small chance at loot. Even if you lose the round you still get rep and marks, but winning a round gives you a few more. In the crucible level does not matter and gear is normalized. Perks and the general stats of weapons do still apply (weapons with high impact still hit harder) but the overall level, light, defense or attack power aren't important. You do want to be at least high enough level to unlock most of your class abilities or you'll be at a large disadvantage. Even then, players with exotic weapons will have a leg up on you until you're max level, but at least when you're around level 18 you can attempt to take people down with green and blue weapons.

==TRIALS OF OSIRIS==
New PvP tournament mode. Requires you to have a team of 3 people premade. You buy a ticket from Brother Vance in the reef and you  compete in 3v3 battles to the last man standing. Players who die stay dead unless resurrected by teammates. First to win 5 rounds wins the match. If you lose 3 matches you are kicked out of the tournament and have to buy back in again, but it only costs 100 glimmer. The more wins you get before you get kicked out, the more rewards you can purchase from Brother Vance. Getting 8 wins allows you to purchase them all at once, you don't have to pick a single reward. Going 9 wins without any losses gets you a bonus treasure. Boosts can be purchased using coins gained in normal crucible PVP to help turn the odds in your favor. Runs from Friday to Tuesday. In Trials weapon power, defense, and light level do matter, although the light level disadvantage isn't as strict as in PvE. (If you're 4 levels below someone you do ~ 5% less damage, not 0 damage) So you want to be at least level 30, most people competing will already be 34.

==IRON BANNER==
Special PvP crucible mode where higher level armor and gear makes a huge difference. Only available limited times as an event. Rewards extremely good armor and weapons which can be re-rolled. Level advantages and attack power do matter like in ToO, however losses do not count against you so it is more casual than ToO. You can slowly grind out Iron Banner reputation during the week by completing special bounty quests or you can simply grind it out by playing lots of matches in the IB playlist. A boon can be purchased from Lord Shaxx that increases your rep gains, and the boon increases in effectiveness each day to the end of the week-long tournament. Wearing the shader, emblem and class item also increases rep gains (and stacks).

==TLDR==
1-18, focus on doing each story and strike once for the xp bonus. Don't do things on hard mode unless you're much higher level than the story mission; it isn't worth it.

18-20 if you've finished all the story missions, go do strikes and pvp. Try doing bounties for bonus XP. Work on getting your rep up a little bit. You'll hit 20 fast.

20 - 28, do strikes and crucible pvp and try to get blue gear that drops randomly to get up to as high as ~28. Hope you get lucky with engrams. Work on building up one of your reputations first, then the others. Do your daily bounties for marks and rep.

28-32, do strike playlists and Prison of Elders and Crucible to get marks to buy vendor gear. When you have a full set you should be 32. Also do Raids for some sweet, sweet raid gear. Do your daily bounties for marks and rep.

32-34, do PoE, nightfall, weekly heroic, crucible, raids, IB and trials of osiris. Try to get precious etheric light. Use Etheric Light to upgrade to 34, which is the new cap. Try to get primary weapons of all elements.

34, Try to collect all the guns, ascend all your favorites, re-roll guns to get the ideal perks, etc.