after awhile i decided to come back to the game and it’s much different then i remember im currently at light level 1545 and i need some tips on increasing my light level quickly
#returning player
wraith lily
quiet saddle
welcome back!
So, there are 2 things that determine your light level now.
One is your gear, the other one is your artifact. For level caps, we will ignore the artifact for now.
After 1530, you will only get gear above your average if you do powerful activities. You can find a list of them online or simply hovering over the activities with a yellow diamond around them. After 1580, you can only get higher gear doing pinnacles.
Until you are 1580, I would say do either pinnacle or powerful, whatever you feel like, until you are close to it. There are tons of activities that give powerful/pinnacle to keep you busy. When you are close to 1580, do powerfuls first, then pinnacles.
Also always remember that it considers your average power. That means that if your average is 1545 but your helmet is 1547, you might get a helmet that is 1546.
If you want to go fast, you can also consider trying to get +0 items to fill in the gaps. As in: let's say you are 1545 average light level, but has a couple of items that are -2, so 1543. You can try to drop those items (be it through engrams, rewards from opening keys at Xur, pulling them from your seasonal pass) to ensure they are also 1545, which may increase your average level and ensure that the following powerful/pinnacle drops are more helpful.
A good way to quickly check your gear average and what is above or below is by checking DIM - image will follow of where to find it.
If you have more than one character, try to play with your highest one until you have weapons that are higher than your second and third, then play a bit with them until they get enough +0s, then do powerful/pinnacle activities with them to get their power level higher with, luckily, some weapons too, which will help with the third character, which will in turn be able to get even higher weapons...
Lastly, you do not need to have your highest gear equipped. Drops consider your highest light level possible.
About artifact: you gain light level through it by getting xp. It does not affect your drops, just your power when doing activities.
TLDR: do activities that drop powerful/pinnacle gear.
