Destiny 2: Forsaken – Leveling, Secrets, Exotics Guide – Everything you need to know

Milestones and Powerful Gear

If you’ve noticed once you’ve hit Level 50 and 500 Power, every item you get from drops and vendors is around 500 Power as well. That’s because this is the soft cap. The only way you can get to a higher Power is via the completion of Milestones and obtaining Powerful Gear.

Powerful Gear — Drops vs. NPC Collection

In Destiny 2: Forsaken certain powerful gear no longer require you to go back to the Tower to collect and decrypt. They automatically get placed in the appropriate slot. For instance, if you noticed a 500+ Power gloves in your inventory that’s probably the reward that you got from a certain activity.

There are, however, certain Milestones that require you to complete activities a certain way. Doing so will prompt you to return to an NPC to collect the reward. Destiny 2 players know that this is one way to boost the Power Level of an item — by delaying picking up that item until you’re at a higher PL so as to increase it as well.

Milestone pursuits/bounties — Drops

These will reward Powerful Gear that drop the moment you complete the requirement:

• Daily Heroic Story — complete three (Weekly)
• Vanguard Strikes — complete a Strike (Daily)
• Vanguard Strikes — complete a Strike with the same subclass as another teammate (Weekly)
• Nightfall — complete a Nightfall (Weekly)
• Nightfall — complete a Nightfall with a score above 100,000 points (Weekly)
• Gambit — complete a Gambit match (Daily)
• Gambit — complete three Gambit matches (Weekly)
• Crucible — complete a Crucible match (Daily)
• Crucible — complete five Crucible matches (Weekly)
• The Spider — defeat Blood Cleaver Wanted Bounty (Weekly)
• The Dreaming City — complete an Ascendant Challenge (Weekly)

Milestone pursuits/bounties — NPC

These will reward Powerful Gear but you can wait until you’re at a higher PL before picking them up from the NPC:

• Zavala — complete a Strike while wearing full Season 4 Vanguard armor
• Shaxx — win a Crucible match while wearing full Season 4 Crucible armor
• The Drifter — win a Gambit match while wearing full Gambit armor
• Ikora — complete challenges; complete a number of bounties
• Hawthrone — earn 5,000 Clan XP
• The Spider — open the chests in the four Tangled Shore Lost Sectors that are listed
• Petra — complete three Weekly Bounties in The Dreaming City
• World NPC — complete the Flashpoint for that planet

Weekly Clan Engrams — Hawthorne

It looks like Weekly Clan Engrams all drop at a Power Level that’s equal to or higher than your current standing. Here they are:

• Crucible
• Nightfall
• Raid — will also work if you complete Year 1 raids/lairs
• Gambit

Prime Engrams

Each daily reset, you’ll have the Attunement buff which gives you a chance to get Prime Engrams (at a higher PL than your current standing) from various major enemies, bosses, or from Crucible matches. Check out the sample video above from YouTuber Arkangelofkaos.