Max Light In Witch Queen

On Feb. 22, 2022, Bungie released Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. This expansion brings a lot of content with it, but it'll also level the playing field by setting all players' Power level to 1350 — the Power level needed to start the new campaign. From there, everyone will have to play to increase their power level and participate in various activities, such as Nightfalls or the new raid.

Leveling your gear and increasing that Power level can be confusing, so in this Destiny ii guide, we're breaking down everything you lot should know virtually increasing your Power level when The Witch Queen drops.

Tabular array of contents

Soft cap
Powerful cap
Pinnacle cap
Legendary Campaign
Powerful rewards breakdown
Pinnacle rewards breakdown
What gild should I play my characters in?
Miscellaneous tips

Soft cap

The soft cap for The Witch Queen expansion is 1500. What does "soft cap" hateful? It ways that upwards until you accomplish 1500 Power level, pretty much annihilation and everything tin can requite you lot a Power level increase. This can be blueish drops from the footing or action rewards; anything that drops for you volition exist a few Power higher up your current Power level.

Powerful cap

The Powerful cap for The Witch Queen expansion is 1550, meaning that between 1500 and 1550, the only mode to increase your Power level is to get a advantage from activities that say they grant Powerful or Tiptop items. If you lot complete the Legendary Entrada, you lot'll get a squeamish head offset towards that Powerful Cap, which nosotros'll talk nearly more below.

If you lot are trying to be as optimal as possible — possibly for a mean solar day 1 raid — you lot'll want to save all of your powerful rewards until after you get to 1500 (or 1520 if yous are doing the Legendary entrada). Powerful boodle drops are limited per week, so you don't desire to waste Powerful or Pinnacle drops when y'all can still go levels from unrestricted rewards.

Pinnacle cap

Destiny 2 Pinnacle Gear drop from Strikes

The Acme cap for The Witch Queen expansion is 1560, meaning that betwixt 1550 and 1560, the but way to increment your Power level is to get Pinnacle rewards. Similar to Powerful rewards, if you are trying to maximize the effectiveness of the Tiptop rewards, yous won't want to collect them until after yous have reached Power 1550, every bit these loot drops are also limited per week.

Still, it's worth mentioning that there'south no point in saving Pinnacles if you're non going to reach 1550 on that graphic symbol by the end of the week. We recommend simply doing all Powerful rewards on a grapheme first and then tackling Pinnacle activities.

Legendary Campaign

The offset place you want to kickoff your leveling journeying in Flavor 16 is The Witch Queen campaign, specifically the Legendary difficulty. The Legendary campaign offers many rewards, but 1 of the virtually important is a full set of gear that is 1520 power. This set includes i piece of armor and ane weapon per slot, meaning 8 pieces in total — enough to replace every character slot and instantly get your Power average to 1520.

Past playing the Legendary campaign, you can skip the soft cap grind entirely and cut twenty levels into the powerful grind. This by far is the almost efficient style to level in The Witch Queen. The Legendary version of the campaign as well gives more drops, reducing the likelihood of needing to become outside of the campaign to become power levels.

Powerful rewards breakdown

Powerful rewards are currently cleaved downwardly into ii tiers and include the post-obit rewards:

Tier 1 (+ane Powerful level)

Completing eight vendor bounties: Gambit, Vanguard, Crucible, and Banshee
Win seven rounds of Competitive Crucible
Weekly Nightfall challenge

Tier 2 (+2 Powerful levels)

Iii Dares of Eternity runs
Vault of Glass

Do note that these might change when The Witch Queen launches, but all activities clearly state the level of reward they offer, so just cheque the tooltip in-game if you're unsure.

Height rewards breakdown

Pinnacle rewards are currently broken down into two tiers and include the following rewards:

Tier 1 (+one Peak level)

Hawthorne rewards and bounties
3 Crucible matches
Three Gambit matches
Three Vanguard Strikes while matching the weekly elemental singe

Tier 2 (+2 Peak levels)

Grasp of Avarice
100,000 Nightfall score
250,000 score on Dares of Eternity

Do annotation that these might change when The Witch Queen launches, simply all activities are labeled if they give Height rewards. If an activity doesn't list it's Powerful or Top tier level, y'all can use a tool similar Bray.tech to discover out.

What order should I play my characters in?

Three Guardians holding their new Exotic Glaives in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen

If you lot have iii Destiny classes, you might desire to level i upward faster than the others. You can actually play in a specific social club to make this easier, equally the last grapheme you play in a calendar week will nearly always end up the highest of your three characters.

If you are aiming to play the raid on solar day one, or just trying to maximize your master character's Power level, the best way to practise this is to use a snaking order. Beginning, rank your characters in an order that y'all feel y'all want to focus on, where your summit character is your main, and the last grapheme is your least played. For example, the order I want to play the new Witch Queen raid for my characters is:

Warlock
Titan
Hunter

In week one, yous'll want to play your characters in that ranked club, getting the grapheme over 1500 (ideally by beating the Legendary campaign three times) and so completing every Powerful and Pinnacle activity before moving onto the adjacent character. So for me, I'd starting time on my main (Warlock), move to my 2nd character (Titan), and and then finally my third (Hunter). In week 2, I'll want to reverse that order, playing on my third character (Hunter) at the showtime of the week earlier ending with my main (Warlock). This should result in my Warlock having the highest power level out of my iii characters.

Miscellaneous tips

If y'all are not looking to min-max your Power level, only play through the game and have fun. But since y'all've stuck with this guide for this long, we're going to assume yous're looking to level up quickly for the raid or Grandmaster Nightfalls after in the season. Hither'southward some extra information to go along in mind while you level:

If yous are going for a day one completion of the new raid, the recommended Ability level is just 1530. You can merely run the Legendary campaign and climb up to those Ability levels over the course of the starting time few weeks. Compared to past raids, the grind for The Witch Queen should exist much easier, and so don't worry as much most perfectly optimizing your grind and stop to smell the flowers.

Until yous hitting the Powerful cap, you should turn in Brilliant Engrams immediately after yous pick them up. These are considered +1 Powerful rewards from when they drib, meaning their Power does not increment as your Ability level does. If y'all keep to level upward without turning the Brilliant Engram in, you'll essentially waste material it. If yous're struggling in the raid and you get a Bright Engram, it'due south always worth taking a Tower break to decrypt it.

Lastly, Destiny two uses a slot leveling organisation, pregnant that gear drops per slot and is based on your current average Power level. A sticking point of this system is that some of your gear slots may fall backside. Your overall level could be 1525 while your Hunter's Cloak could be stuck at 1520 and your helmet is in the stratosphere at 1528.

To make the about of your Powerful and Pinnacle drops, endeavor to keep your items within a few Power levels of each other, which can be done by collecting items that drop "at Ability". "At Power" ways the gear drops at your current average Power level, which tin can help bring up some pieces that fall behind (bringing your Cloak upwardly to 1525 and raising your overall average without using a weekly Powerful or Height reward drop). This can increment your overall Ability level and make those Powerful and Pinnacles more impactful.

If you don't fifty-fifty-out your armor, a Tiptop or Powerful might drop a +two power helmet, which would be a waste matter since it'south already your best slot. Many playlist activities — Strikes, Gambit, Crucible — will drop items "at Power', and so go on an eye out for whatever gear that'south lagging behind.