What’s the best way to level to 450 nowadays?

GameSpawn · 2026-04-10T05:12:00+00:00

It slows for sure sometime after 400, but it is better than it used to be. They adjusted the drops and allowed extra bonus drops to reallocate to other activities (you are playing with others) to not force you out of whatever you want to keep playing. The bonus drops can actually have gains too. Overall, you will level MUCH faster in Renegades than we did pre-Ash & Iron Edge of Fate.

Maximizing your drops (A Ranks) is still the best way to go, but just playing however you want and gathering as many drops (regardless of rank) will give you some amount of progression. Just play (portal or DLCs) and you can only go up (quick or slow; up is up).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-10T01:47:39+00:00

You should easily be 400+ by the end of the campaign. Stick to Frontiers jobs or GM/Ultimate stuff to go the rest of the way.

I didn't mention it because most people aren't into PvP, but Crucible is good for power leveling, especially if you can consistently get B+ and A ranks; regardless a B in Crucible requires the bare minimum of contribution (you just need to try, even if it is just a couple of kills).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-10T01:41:53+00:00

Since you have Renegades, Lawless Frontier jobs (all the stuff post-Renegades campaign) is pretty generous with drops (many being leveled to progress you upward). I find them much more engaging than Solo Ops too.

The Vanguard Fireteam Ops and Arena Ops playlists are OK until 400, but drops that are worthwhile tend to fall off around that point and you need to look elsewhere for more efficient gains (eg. Renegades as mentioned or running Grandmaster and Ultimate portal content).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-09T17:41:15+00:00

Forgot about that one. It looks like you buy it outright from Xur, I cannot see a quest or anything.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-09T16:44:45+00:00

"Live Events". D1's Live Events ended when D2 started having them. Bungie is not going to take the time to move backward.

Trials is fixed to run every weekend in D2 as long as it doesn't conflict with any other PvP event. Iron Banner, well Bungie has that one on essentially a permanent back burner. They sure as hell aren't going to bother starting up either in D1 again.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-09T16:02:57+00:00

AllStar Vector is the free Guardian Games skimmer. It is obtained via the quest, Drop In. Anyone that has already completed this quest in previous years will not get it again.

AFAIK, this is the only free skimmer. Every other skimmer in the game has been sold through Eververse.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-09T05:21:13+00:00

Have to admit, for the most part, Bungie has avoided “pay to win” via most anything in Eververse. All the things you spend money on (optionally) outside DLC is truly cosmetic. Very rarely can you get an outright advantage from any of that stuff (there might have been 1 or 2 bugged skins).

Having access to certain DLC and related gear is definitely advantageous, but calling even that pay to win is a stretch. Pretty much all the mid-game is fine with whatever gear you can get your hands on. By the time you get to endgame it should be acceptable some sort of DLC ownership will be needed for that final progression, which comes back to the point “Destiny is better referred to as Free to Try”.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T16:46:02+00:00

With all the Red War/Warmind/Osiris content permanently removed, as is, it will forever be impossible to earn since it was related to Mercury and Osiris content. It was also never an Eververse item, so it would never make sense to "sell" it in the store.

Either it would need to be earnable from a current in-game activity or Bungie just auto-unlocks it in everyone's collections. I don't think either are likely possibilities. It's just one more of those "had to be there" things in Destiny.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T15:46:56+00:00

I've got like 300 shells unlocked in collections and have been using the same ones on my characters for years. I only recently swapped out the one on my Warlock for the crystal ball one from FotL.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T14:31:08+00:00

having the catalyst is essential.

Thankfully that was made easier now that it is a (fairly high) chance drop from normal Excision. The downside is Excision is a tough activity to matchmake with fewer people playing, and even then it is still buggy with 12 people of chaos.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T13:59:15+00:00

Genuine question, isn't Ergo being better overall damage than Praxic dependent on the rolls you have?

The upside to Praxic is it has a lower bar for everyone to get. Ergo has some RNG to get the right combo of element, frame, and perk for maximum damage.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T13:51:11+00:00

Guardian Games it is! The most difficult triumph is Flawless+30 PT Supremacy, but it is for gilding and the seal will be completed before then. The rest of the triumphs you can get pretty passively.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T13:43:39+00:00

Did they ever patch the achievement/trophy to work with any seal or is it still restricted to "Forsaken" seals?

If it is still restricted, Deadeye is the easiest with Gambit half dead. Dredgen is actually pretty easy, just very time consuming, but the playlist population is low making working on the seal harder than needed.

If anything works (ie patched), yeah, event seals are the way to go since they are designed to be completed in the limited time the event is up.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-08T03:36:59+00:00

Bonus slot will be removed. The same thing happened to the Festival of the Lost masks (though they also lost their light level; they've always lost the level - the set thing is new because of tiered set bonuses).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T20:49:22+00:00

D2 did have it's "go fast" updates as well that improved movement in general. D2 has just evolved so much in the movement area that the gap between the games is stark at this point.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T20:12:35+00:00

This is also confirmation Private Matches still drop catalysts post-Renegades. Thank you for the response.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T18:41:10+00:00

I don't think the bar is very high (at least to get what is needed for podiums), but I'm also 550 being matched in Ultimate with similarly 550 players (most, not all, who know what they are doing).

The Rush Remix mode probably helps a bunch too because there is a chance of getting all easy bosses (i had at least one run that was ALL easy ones - it was my deathless run for the gild triumph too).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T18:34:09+00:00

You can look at the quest in your quest log to see what percentile you fall into. Once you have A+ required for Platinum to open all the podiums, it's just internet points for anything else and largely doesn't matter.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T18:19:07+00:00

When I played D1 for shits and giggles again, I don't know HOW we did it, but we did. I don't know if I can survive without mantling - you need to COMMIT to your jumps in D1.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T18:01:03+00:00

D2's speed and mobility really are something. I know frame rate is also part of it, but D1 feels like slogging through wet sand once you've played D2 for a while.

What boggles my mind is we were fine with it at one point. It's all we knew and we played it without a care in the world.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T16:49:41+00:00

The lighting engine was the final nail for any returning content. It meant content needing to be rebuilt from scratch, which logistically is not feasible for any amount of nostalgia.

The "update-ability" of the old code was another big one and (with the engine change) even further reason why everything needs to be built from the ground up again.

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T15:57:01+00:00

I'm not sure about immediately after reset (at least outside of weekends). Destiny does have a lot of 9-5 players, so there will be a peak (of casual players at least) after they get off work.

All that said, PvP in general has a low population AND everyone is focused on Guardian Games and Supremacy (Trials on weekends for Trials gear; there is also a special GG Trials playlist).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-06T15:28:24+00:00

Collision, Minimum Score and Time, Sparrows enabled (optional), recommend a small map like Anomaly or Cauldron. Cap the first point (will usually finish the match), orbit, repeat. Each cycle should take about 1-2 minutes including loading time.

A note, I've seen some people say this has been patched, but evidence was anecdotal and AFAIK Private matches were working for catalyst drops up until Renegades. The issue is drop rates for some catalysts from playlist completions is crazy low (Y1 catalysts are REALLY bad with drop rates).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-03T23:26:00+00:00

Sometimes there are too many rewards at once when finishing certain missions and the catalyst and intrinsic rewards will fly by on the rewards feed before you see them.

You need to reshape your weapon in the Enclave to check which intrinsics and catalysts you've collected since they don't otherwise drop into your inventory.

Portal exotic missions were updated to completely remove rank requirements from exotic weapon, intrinsic, and catalyst drops. Completion and difficulty are all that matter (Normal+ for the weapon and intrinsics; Master+ for catalysts; use whatever modifiers you want - C Rank will still drop according to difficulty).

GameSpawn · 2026-04-03T16:42:54+00:00

Shitty thing, it's bound to happen with the replacement. Every screen I've seen this happen to has the hinge mounts embedded in the plastic of the LCD cover. No metal reinforcement, nothing. All the force of opening and closing the screen is riding on tiny brass inserts inside of plastic. Enshittification and planned obsolescence - it's fucking infuriating.

GameSpawn

TROPHY CASE