Well, Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen is live. That means we’ve got a few months of grinding just to reach the 1310 cap. Here’s our guide to help you increase your power level (PL).
Note: For more information, check out our Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen guides and features hub.
Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen – Leveling to reach the 1310 PL cap
First things first, make sure you’re familiar with the leveling process in Destiny 2: Beyond Ligh/Season of the Hunt. A vast majority of activities still apply now in the Season of the Chosen.
Here are the basics:
- Soft cap (1250 PL) – You’re likely to be at this mark (or slightly higher) if you’ve been leveling during the Season of the Hunt.
- Powerful cap (1300 PL) – You can only reach this mark via powerful drops (tiers do apply).
- Pinnacle cap (1310 PL) – You can only reach this mark via pinnacle rewards.
Powerful Drops (Tier 1)
- 8x Vanguard bounties
- 8x Crucible bounties
- 8x Gunsmith bounties
- 8x Gambit bounties
- 8x Variks bounties
- 7x Glory playlist wins
- 2x Empire Hunts weekly challenge
- Nightfall: Ordeal runs (100% progress)
- Prime Engrams
- Exotic world drops
- Crucible Valor reset
- Crucible Valor rank-ups
- Crucible Glory rank-ups
- Gambit Infamy rank-ups
- Exo Stranger’s challenge – Defeat 100 enemies with or affected by Stasis
- 8x War Table bounties completed – The number of bounties you’ve completed won’t appear on the destination screen, but you will get a powerful engram from the War Table once you’ve finished eight.
Note 1: Wrathborn Hunts no longer drop powerful gear each completion. There’s basically no point in doing these.
Note 2: Major ranks in the Crucible and Gambit (i.e., Brave, Heroic, Fabled) no longer award you with the powerful drops after the matches are completed. Instead, you’ll need to pick these up from Shaxx and the Drifter. This is actually a welcome change since you can switch to another character that needs the engram.
Powerful Drops (Tier 2 and 3)
- Hawthorne Clan XP (100% progress)
- Salvager’s Salvo ritual weapon – Since the Adored sniper rifle from last season was a tier 2 powerful drop, it’s expected that Salvager’s Salvo is similar.
- 3x and 6x Battleground completions (Tier 2)
- 9x Battleground completions (Tier 3)
Note 1: The Crow’s Challenge simply gives you a legacy powerful drop after finishing five Wrathborn Hunts. It’s a grindy affair that’s not worth it.
Note 2: Battleground tier rewards are unlocked as you complete more of these activities. Expect at least 27 runs in total if you need to get the tier 3 powerful drop on all three characters.
Pinnacle Rewards
- 3x Vanguard strikes completed; must match weekly elemental burn
- Nightfall: Ordeal (100,000 score)
- 3x Gambit matches completed
- 3x Crucible Valor playlist matches completed (i.e., Control, Clash, Rumble, Elimination)
- Deep Stone Crypt raid – All four encounters drop pinnacle rewards.
- Complete 1x Master Empire Hunt
- Complete the weekly heroic Exo Challenge
- Prophecy dungeon final boss
Note: The Iron Banner and Trials Flawless drops are expected to be pinnacle rewards too.
You’ll be doing the same old activities as before in order to reach the 1310 PL cap. The biggest difference is the core gameplay loop involving Battlegrounds, the Hammer of Proving, and the Prismatic Recaster/Umbral Engrams. Although focused Umbral Engrams will be below your current PL, the focusing mechanic does let you obtain an item for a slot you need.
Anyway, for the first week, I would advise you to just slug it out in the Mayhem playlist or Glory/Competitive playlist. Rank-ups are still a good way to increase your power level in Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen. As usual, don’t forget to pick up stuff from the season tab if you need to boost a particular equipment slot. Lastly, try to get high PL weapons before sending them over to your alts (so they can get a quick PL boost).
Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen is available via Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.
