I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about loot farming in Destiny thanks to the “treasure cave” and have surely witnessed many a guardian taking part in farming it. While standing in front of a cave and shooting constantly into it for hours may have seemed like a great way to pick up rare and legendary loot, what you got was far too random in my opinion to even be worth while. I’ve seen players spend hours and hours at this spot and when Bungie finally took it away, many people were up in arms as now, there was no way for them to get rare loot and level up past 20. The truth is, there is a much simpler and guaranteed way to gain rare and legendary equipment that these farmers just don’t take the time to do by just playing the game the way Bungie intended. I’ll explain the process and how I myself have leveled up to 28.

Step 1 (Play the game and complete bounties)

While playing through the story missions and strikes, it should be quite easy to level up to 20 by just doing these. In fact, you should hit level 20 way before you even finish the story missions. You’ll also want to do your fair share of bounties, public events, and patrol missions. All these extras give you extra experience points which means you’ll be able to level up to 20 much quicker than just playing the story alone.

Bounties can start being earned after level 4. Each bounty completed will yield extra experience points and Vanguard Rep. Vanguard Rep is very important and you’ll see why later.

To get the most out of the game, you’ll want to do the extras that are built into the game. After level 20, leveling up past this requires light. More likely than not, many of the drops you get will not really yield that much light. This goes for the encoded engrams as well. It is far too random or a process to even consider this an option to gain light.

Step 2 (Gain Vanguard Rep)

If you take a break from the story missions, you can Patrol each of the planets you open up. Patrolling allows you do random Patrol missions for Vanguard Rep and there’s also he random chance that you’ll encounter a Public Event. I suggest doing Public Events whenever you encounter one as they will also yield plenty of Vanguard Rep, with the addition Vanguard Marks (More on this later).

All of this should have gained you quite a bit of rep with your associated guardian vanguard and the Vanguard Quartermaster. If you haven’t been doing this, why the heck not? If you’ve been doing all these extra side missions and events, the rep you gain goes towards ranking up your guardian vanguard and Vanguard Quartermaster. Ranking them up is very important because once you hit rank 2, you’ll be able to buy some legendary level gear from your guardian vanguard and rank 3 allows you to buy legendary weapons from the Vanguard Quartermaster. Not only that, public events, patrol missions, and the Daily Heroic Missions also gain Vanguard Marks which is the currency used to buy these items.

Step 3 (Gain Vanguard Marks)

By the time you hit 18, you will have the ability to play the Daily Heroic Story Missions. If you play these at Heroic level 20 and up, they will earn you Vanguard Marks. You can max out your Vanguard Marks weekly and gain 100 marks/week. You can also do Public Events to gain marks and rep as well.

Why would you want to do this? Well, because by the time you hit level 20, most likely, your guardian Vanguard could be at around a rank 2 by then. If this is the case, you’ll be able to immediately buy legendary armor if you’ve saved up the marks. These items have guaranteed +18 light each with the ability to upgrade them up to +27 light. If you maxed out the 100 marks 1 week, you’ll be able to buy 1 piece of armor, either the gauntlets, chest plate, or boots. Each of these is around 65 marks. After 2 weeks, you would have been able to buy 2 pieces of armor. After 3 weeks, 3 pieces of armor. After 4 weeks, you’d have a whole set up legendary level armor. Four pieces of legendary armor will yield about +72 light (no upgrades)  which is enough I believe where you should be level 25 or at least a 24.  If you’ve been slowly upgrading this armor as you play, it’s possible to even be around a level 26-27 after gaining that last piece of legendary armor. This method I outlined is a guaranteed method of leveling up.

In Addition to Step 3 (Optional)

However, I didn’t exactly take this route as outlined. You see, there are other ways to gain light levels that you can splice into this method. For starters, if you play Crucible, there is a high probability that you will gain rare armor rewards from playing. From my experience, Crucible awarded armor after level 20 yields armor that contains light. In fact, at one point, I had a full set of Crucible armor leveled up completely with +15 light each, which meant a total of +60 light. That should get you up to a level 24. If you have the marks, you can slowly begin to add legendary armor with your blue level gear and you’ll slowly see your levels increase over time. Even with just one legendary piece of armor and 3 rare armor pieces with +15 light each, I was already up to a level 25. Once you start adding in those other pieces buy purchasing them, you’ll be a level 26 and 27 in no time.

If you don’t play Crucible, it’s also possible that you might pick up a few blue and purple engrams while playing. If you’re lucky enough and the Cryptarch likes you, you might gain armor with light. Don’t hold your breath though as the Cryptarch so far has been notorious for screwing players over.

Step 3 (Leveling up your equipment)

This isn’t really the last step. This step should really be done while you play. All armor can be leveled up to a certain point without the need for Ascendent Shards. With all legendary armor, you can level up to +22 light without shards, giving you a total of +88 light. Just enough to be a level 27. This armor though does have the possibility to be leveled up to +27 light each, which would give you a total of 108 light, just 1 shy of level 29. Of course you need a lot of ascendant shards to do this so begin stockpiling these as soon as you can.

Step 4 (When Available)

This week however has also been very fortunate because of the limited time “Queen’s Wrath” bounties. Completing even one of these bounties allows you to play a special Queen’s mission. Each Queen’s missions you complete will reward you with a legendary level item, most likely, another piece of armor. In my case, I’ve already done several of these and have been awarded both a chest plate and a new helmet. This allowed me to save some of my Vanguard Marks since I didn’t have to spend them buying additional legendary gear. All I had to buy to fill in the gaps were a pair of legendary gauntlets and boots.

Step 5 (Buy Stuff from Xur)

This weekend however, I intend too increase this to level 28 buy purchasing my first exotic piece of armor from the elusive Xur, who only shows up on the weekends. Using your time wisely and playing the extras will allow you to buy what he is selling. By just playing the game, you should have gained enough Strange Coins and Motes of Light to at least buy 1 item from him.

How do you even get this? Well, the Cryptarch sometimes decodes Blue and Purple engrams into Strange Coins or Motes of Light and sometimes, it’s just a random reward for doing things while playing. The only real guaranteed way of gaining Strange Coins is to play the Weekly Heroic Strike Missions, but these can be quite difficult at low levels. In fact, I don’t suggest doing these until you at least a level 22 and if you have a full fireteam that is the same. Doing a level 24 Heroic Strike will yield you +3 Strange Coins while doing it at level 26 will yield +6 Strange Coins. If you do it on level 28, it will award you a whopping 9 Strange Coins!

It should be your goal every week to try and gain as many Strange Coins and Motes of Light as you can before the weekend arrives. This is when Xur appears with his exotic gear and is the only method to guarantee this gear without having to rely on the Cryptarch.

Final Thoughts

That’s about it really. For the most part, leveling it up isn’t quite as difficult as many make it out to be. Many complain that they can’t level up because they can no longer farm what they need from random drops or they are getting the upgrade materials necessary to upgrade their armor, but there are ways around this that Destiny has built in if you would just change up your play style a bit. Currency is a big deal in the game and if you haven’t been earning it, you’ll be missing out big time on a guaranteed way to level up your player. You should be concentrating every week on maxing out your Vanguard Marks weekly and if you want, your Crucible Marks as well. Play the Daily Heroic Strike for rep and ascended materials and at least try to play the Weekly Heroic Strike  to gain rep, marks, and Strange Coins. All of this adds up and will allow you to buy the gear you need to level up instead of leaving that to chance.

I’ve been following this since I started playing the game and am already a level 28 Hunter, well on my way to reaching 29 now. That’s not to say that luck won’t play some part in what you get as I’ve seen some people get lucky with gaining legendary armor from the Cryptarch. I just wouldn’t rely on it as much as it’s not guaranteed you’ll get something from him.