Light Level Guide (Pre Rise of Iron Normal Raid)

Engrams

• Rare - Up to 340
• Legendary - Up to 365
• Exotics - Up to 385

There has been a lot of debate on the best way to gain levels. Certainly the best thing to do is immediately equip or infuse gear that is higher than your current “best in slot.” It will be a judgement call on infusing, if you have some nice weapons it might be best to infuse them as you go. Leveling Zhalo Supercell this first week is highly recommended. For armor, you can probably get away with simply putting the gear on as you go and not infusing it. A useful trick is to save a lot of Rare Engrams even after you’re above 340 Light. Use them en masse and hope for a Legendary, it will decrypt at an appropriate light level for a Legendary Engram! This is a great way to get some higher level Artifacts as they are hard to come by. Here are some tips and guidelines for reaching some benchmarks:

Achieving 350 Light

• Without a doubt, the fastest way to reach 350 is to buy the Vendor Gear. This gear comes at 350 Light and shortly after completing the story quest Rise of Iron you can obtain the quest Artifacts of the Iron Lords. This will let you obtain a 350 Light Artifact, the only item you cannot buy with Legendary Marks.
  
• If you were diligent in your preparation, you may have a bunch of “worthless” legendary gear ready for dismantling and a bunch of Trials Bounties to turn in for 25 Legendary Marks each. You’ll need quite a large number of marks to buy a complete set of gear, but if you can’t buy everything at least focus on armor. It costs much less than weapons (75 Marks, Helm is 120, Weapons are 150). Fill in the gaps with some Faction Rank Up Packages, choose Weapons to guarantee a light increase. These packages can also give class items and ghosts in addition to armor/weapons, so choose wisely if you’re strapped for Legendary Marks, i.e.; only buy Body, Legs, and Gauntlets with marks then try a faction package to get a Ghost or Class Item.
  
• When decrypting be sure to start with your lowest slot. If you’re Light Level is 348 and you still have a 335 Helm, you need to be decrypting as many Helm engrams as you can to achieve the largest increase possible. Breaking the 350 barrier means you can start completing more challenging and rewarding content with greater ease.
  
• But what if you’re not prepared, what if you’re new? You’ll want to run the level 320 Strikes for better gear and reputation and play some Crucible. Drops here are frequent and should help get you closer to 350. The lower tier Archon Forge battles are beatable and can assist a little bit. You can also have some friends help you out, SIVA War Strikes can be a little hard at 340 Light but can most certainly be completed and definitely raise your light fast.
  

Onward to 365 Light

• Legendary Engrams and SIVA War Strikes are your ticket to success. I quickly gained a lot of levels by putting all engram drops into the vault and checking Rare Gear drops from bosses in the strikes. Gear from the strikes can drop above your level even if it’s a Rare, so don’t just see blue and auto-dismantle it. It’s either infusion fodder or your new helmet because it’s higher light than your current one. It’s easy to gain a level every 2-4 strikes with some lucky drops.
  
• In between strikes just remember to go back to the Cryptarch to exchange your Rare Engrams then your Legendary Engrams. This gives you a small chance at the Rare becoming a Legendary at or above your light and could allow you to save Legendary Engrams. Do not waste the purple! If you only have Legendary Boot Engrams and boots are your highest slot light, hold the engram till later. If boot is your lowest, pop Rare Boot Engrams and then Legendary Boot Engrams until you get an increase.
  

To Infinity and Beyond

• I haven’t gotten this far yet, but the method doesn’t change much. You need to start using Exotic Engrams to level up and eventually the raid. Faction Packages can get you as high as 385, level them up and collect based on slots you need.
  

Grab that Artifact

• Snagging an Artifact to keep up with your other gear, something most of you (and myself) encounter. There are a few ways to get one, some more reliable than others.
  
• Early on I found it best to decrypt a lot of Rare Engrams to fill gaps. Usually during this session of 20 or so engrams a handful become Legendary, sometimes becoming an Artifact. This was usually a nice light increase, but it was few and far between.
  
• Myself and some clanmates found that Eris Morn gives Artifacts often on rank up. You can accomplish that however you want, the Court of Oryx is fast for Crota’s Bane reputation. These are scaled up to 385 as far as I can tell, but it takes a lot of time to get a rank up.
  
• The best method I found is to open a strike chest with a Skeleton Key. I combine this opening with a strike I know has unique gear that would fill a slot I’m low on. Example; I need gloves the other day so I ran the new Phogoth strike and opened the chest to get some awesome gloves and also received a 365 Rare Artifact. Most players that are higher level have been using their Skeleton keys sparingly and wisely.
  

Become Efficient

• No one likes to waste time, so make the most of it and do multiple things at once.
  
• Take advantage of your location, grab collectibles as you play. You often go right by them, look them up beforehand.
  
• Play with a fireteam. Clans and friends are going to be playing, missions go quicker and communication will be much better than going it solo.
  

Quests and Bounties

• After you’ve completed the story you’ll want to start working on grabbing some quests and bounties that you’ll complete simply by playing the game. This optimizes your time and gets you rewards simply for enjoying yourself.
  
• Pick up Kovik’s Sin, a quest that has you do some strikes. They are new to Rise of Iron, so you get a new experience and a quest done.
  
• This Corrupted Land is a simple quest that you need grab as well. You’re going to be patrolling the Plaguelands, you may as well do the Patrol Missions to complete your book and this quest with great rewards.
  
• None are Perfect takes you on a visit to Sepiks Perfected and gives a Skeleton Key for completion, great for some strike unique gear.
  
• Echoes of the Past will get you going on a search for the Gjallarhorn. It ties in with Beauty in Destruction, read up on how to complete this in the Gjallarhorn Quest Thread and acquire a great weapon.
  
• While you’re at it, be sure to start We Found a Rifle, this quest can take some time to complete because you need to kill a lot of enemies to obtain the drops. You should complete it while doing the other quests and nab another exotic, read how to obtain this weapon in the Khvostov Quest Thread.
  
• Shiro and Shaxx have weekly bounties that you should acquire as well, most are simple and have great rewards.
  

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Strike Exclusive Legendary List

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Exotic Guides

Gjallarhorn
Thorn
Khvostov 7G-02