The pinnacle is nothing new in Destiny 2. At this point, it is baked into the DNA of the game that it would take something Earth-shattering to change the way we Guardians tackle content. But that’s another topic for another article. In this guide, we’ll tell how you can efficiently grind towards the Pinnacle cap of 1810.
This article is aimed to help New Lights and especially Veterans who are just now coming back to the game.
The first thing we need to recognize is the Floor level and the various caps in Destiny 2. Everyone starts at 1600 and the hard cap is 1810. But knowing how to get there is what we’re going to talk about.
- Floor – 1600
- Soft cap -1750
- Powerful Cap – 1800
- Pinnacle Cap – 1810
From 1600 -1750, everything you pick up is going to raise your Power Level. We’re talking about Blues, Legendaries, Exotics, and anything you pick up. You will rapidly gain levels during this time.
At this point, you’ll want to be doing as many public events or planetary events as possible. The reasoning behind it is that you want to be opening as many chests as possible. And seeing as public events can potentially be done in 5 minutes or less, they are great sources of better gear. You don’t necessarily need to equip the gear to take effect. They can either be on your person or in your vault. Heck, even the Post Master counts.
Once you get to 1750, you’ll want to get started doing activities that reward Powerful and Pinnacle engrams. If you’ve already done them, that’s fine. We’re still early in the season and you can course correct at next week’s reset. Keep doing this until you hit the Powerful cap.
The most important you need to know about Powerful gear is their tier. There are three tiers you should know about:
- Tier 1: +3 current Power Level
- Tier 2: +4 current Power Level
- Tier 3: +5 current Power Level
Note: Starting this season, receiving 20 commendations from your allies per week will earn you Tier 2 Powerful gear. Once you have hit the quota, go see Hawthorn in the Tower to claim your reward.
Once you’ve hit 1800, only Pinnacle engrams will increase your Power Level. This is where the real grind begins. Every week, there will be highlighted activities that will reward you with Pinnacle gear. You can imagine that it’s going to be a slow process. If you want to speed things along, you might want to bring in some friends to help you out in featured Dungeons and Raids.
So let’s say that you’re a New Light wanting to go as high as possible in a small amount of time. Well, completing the Lightfall campaign in Legendary is the way to go. The reason is that you’ll gradually work your way to 1750 while doing the campaign. And once you reach the end of the campaign, you’ll get gear that is no less than 1770 Power Level. That’s a huge jump in terms of grinding.
We’d like to say though that starting the Lightfall campaign on Legendary is going to be an uphill battle, especially for a new player to the game. I cannot overstate how difficult it can be. Expect there to be frequent deaths and loss of progress until you have a solid grasp of the game’s mechanics.
From playing the Lightfall Campaign solo, we can definitely say that the Campaign is somewhat harder than the Witch Queen campaign.
From that on, you can focus on Powerful drops. The best way to grind this is to reset ritual vendors. Every time you reset at either Vanguard Ops, Crucible, or Gambit, you’ll get an Engram that’s 5 levels higher than your overall level. This will work until you reach the Powerful cap of 1800.
The ideal condition where Pinnacle drops are most effective is when your character is at 1795 power. Once your base power is at that mark, then Pinnacles is what you’ll need to effectively push into 1800 power level.
Don’t forget to keep doing your daily ritual bounties from the vendors. They will always have Powerful gear on them, and doing their bounties only speeds up your progress.
To sum things up, keep doing your weekly bounties, and the weekly featured content, and reset your ritual ranks. But most importantly, don’t sweat the grind too much as a new player. Play around with the different weapons, make armor builds, and enjoy the content. That’s it, that’s all. Good luck out there, Guardian.
Check out this video by Youtuber GernaderJake where he goes over the leveling process in Spark Notes style.