With the upcoming heroic version of Destiny: Rise of Iron’s Wrath of the Machine raid, Guardians all over the world are looking to increase their power enough to push back the darkness. Thankfully, in order to help all of you who have been blessed with the Traveler’s Gift, Bungie is upping the maximum Light Level cap to 400. Now you may be thinking there’s no way in hell you’re going to be able to approach this lofty goal, but you’d actually be a bit wrong.
While it does require some work – after all, Bungie isn’t just handing out extraordinary power – it’s definitely doable if you approach your grind the right way. To help you out, we’ve put together some ways for you to reach the new Light cap with or without the raid. Let’s get started, Guardians.
Get to 385 First Using Activities and Engrams
One helpful addition included in the Destiny: Rise of Iron patch is that activities that capped base rewards at 365 will now offer rewards up to the previous Light Level cap of 385. These activities include:
- Heroic SIVA Strike Playlist
- Archon’s forge
- Crucible
- Regular SIVA Strike Playlist will no drop rewards up to 365
Rare and Legendary Engrams (blue and purple respectively) will also provide higher light gear as well. Rare Engrams will decrypt up to 365 and Legendary will decrypt up to 385. Reaching the previous cap will definitely help make your quest to the 400 much easier, as your Light Level helps to dictate what rewards you can get for playing other activities. This is because drops are related to your current level, so if you’re under 385, it will slow down your progress of reaching the new cap.
Make Sure to Save Exotic Engrams For After You’re 385
Exotic Engrams can decrypt past 385 Light, making them a valuable tool when it comes to increasing your current power level in Destiny: Rise of Iron. Of course, this is dependent on your current Light. If you decrypt while low, then the weapons and armor you obtain will be low as well. For this reason alone, you’ll definitely want to make sure you’re above the previous cap.
Exotics seem to be the most volatile in terms of granting you much larger Light Levels. You can easily obtain something five points higher than your current gear, a level that isn’t very likely with any other tier of item, so certainly do your best to make the most of it.
Not Ready for Raid? Skeleton Keys and Nightfall
As you may already know, there is a way to get even more powerful rewards from strikes that only drop base rewards up to 385 in Destiny: Rise of Iron. Whenever you beat a boss, you have a chance at obtaining an item called a Skeleton Key. These keys are used to open chests that appear after defeating a Strike’s boss while running in any of the SIVA Strike Playlists. When you open one, you’ll find raid specific loot drops as well as the chance for other goodies such as an exotic weapon. Any of these drops can be up to 400 Light. Your weekly Nightfall reward can also drop at up to 400, but you can only get that once a week per character.
That means you can grind Strikes and potentially reach the new Light Level cap without ever setting foot inside of the Wrath of the Machine raid on Heroic, or even on normal. Of course, this can be pretty time consuming. One thing I’ve noticed is that keys seem to drop more often when playing on the normal SIVA playlist as opposed to the Heroic one. If you have any three of coins while running strikes, make sure to pop them as Exotic Engrams can decrypt up to max Light.
Crucible Gets Some Love Too
Of course, PvE players aren’t the only ones trying to reach the new level cap. If you’re not into raiding or grinding countless Strikes, you still have a chance for something worthwhile. Every weekend, starting on Friday, there is the Trials of Osiris activity which puts players’ skills to the test as they vie for PvP supremacy against their peers. Destiny: Rise of Iron came with not only a loot table update, but also a Light Level update to all of the rewards. You can expect to get gear up to 400 light by participating. Naturally, your chances at top-tier gear are much better if you make it to the Lighthouse by going flawless.
There’s also the Iron Banner event which can drop some sweet loot for players as you participate in matches and increase your rank. Players may have noticed that it seems to be a lot easier to earn rewards this time around, so even if you’re not really into PvP you may want to give it a shot. I managed to get a 387 machine gun while the cap was 385, so you definitely will want to try your luck.
Heroic Wrath of the Machine
Okay, you may be thinking that you don’t have what it takes to beat Destiny: Rise of Iron’s raid on heroic difficulty, and you may be right. But you don’t have to beat it, just part of it. After each section is a guaranteed loot drop, and there are optional chests you can find after every section except for in the final boss encounters. Like all other loot in the game, these drop according to your current light level, hence why we suggested reaching as high as you can first. Utilizing some Strike or Crucible drops to help get you past 385 won’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll get higher drops, but it does significantly raise the odds.
There are six drops you can obtain before even reaching the Siege Machine, which isn’t too bad at all. These include two guaranteed drops for both Vosik encounters, one SIVA cache chest after the SIVA Room fight, and three hidden chests that each have a chance at providing an exotic weapon. Even if you aren’t the greatest Guardian to ever build a legend, you should be able to get to these chests with a decent team, and that will certainly help boost that light level of yours. If you can beat it, even better, but if you can’t, just grab what you can and repeat each week until you’re ready.
What About Ghosts and Artifacts?
One of the biggest hurdles to reaching the Light Level cap in Destiny: Rise of Iron has been the fact that Ghosts and Artifacts seem to be extra rare for many players. Since your Light Level is an aggregate of every piece of gear you have on, you can have maxed out weapons and armor, only to find that you’re being held back by a single 365 Ghost, and nobody likes to see that. Of course, there were more ways to obtain Ghosts than there were to obtain Artifacts in the game.
Many players were left grinding the Court of Oryx just to level up Eris Morn in the hopes that she would grant them an Artifact. It was disheartening to grind for hours only to get motes of light or useless items. Thankfully, Bungie has heard the cries from the Tower and drop rates for both Ghosts and Artifacts have been increased. You can get Ghosts in higher frequency from faction packages as well as from Strike chests, the crucible, and Archon’s Forge now. While Artifact’s are still of a rarer breed, you can now get them from Archon’s Forge as well, and Eris has a higher chance of giving them, too.
Safe travels, Guardians.
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