Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer — Leveling guide to 1320 power

We’ve started yet another season in Destiny 2. This time around, the Season of the Splicer bumps up the pinnacle cap to 1320 power level (PL). Does that seem surprising? Well, yes it does since that’s just a minor increase. It means that we won’t need to grind so much just to reach endgame-viable thresholds. Then again, some of these activities have gotten difficulty boosts as well. Anyway, here’s our leveling guide to help you reach 1320 power level in Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer.

Note: For more information about Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer, check out our guides and features hub.

Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer – Leveling guide to 1320 PL

During the previous season, the power cap was at 1300 PL and the pinnacle cap was at 1310 PL. With a 10-point increase in Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer, we’ve got the following:

• Soft cap (1260 power level) – You can happily obtain random drops and blues to reach this point. Past this threshold, only powerful gear types will increase your level.
• Powerful cap (1310 power level) – I’ve listed the sources of powerful drops below to help you reach this threshold.
• Pinnacle cap (1320 power level) – From 1310 to 1320 PL, only pinnacle drops will increase your level. Certain drops only give +1 PL, whereas others provide +2 PL.

Note 1: The Paradrome Cube artifact’s power bonus is not taken into consideration when determining your current PL. Likewise, Bungie has removed armor pieces from the season pass. You can still grab legendary and exotic engrams, but the decryption will be randomized. Say goodbye to this reliable method of getting a gear piece for a specific slot if you need the boost. Then again, the Prismatic Recaster is still around and you can use that to focus Umbral Engrams.

Note 2: Assuming that you’ve reached the pinnacle cap last season (1310 PL), then you’re starting the Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer at the power cap already. You only need an extra 10 PL from pinnacle rewards to reach the final cap. That’s not bad at all since we no longer need to worry about the pointless and meandering leveling grind.

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.
• Crow’s Challenge – 5x Wrathborn Hunts completed (not worth it due to how long this process would take).
• Prophecy dungeon – Just the first two encounters.

Powerful Drops (Tier 2 and 3)

• Null Composure ritual weapon
• 3x and 6x Battleground completions (Tier 2)
• 9x Battleground completions (Tier 3)
• 3x Override activity completions (Tier 3)

Note: Deep Stone Crypt raid – All four encounters and weekly raid challenges used to drop pinnacle rewards. Unfortunately, it’s been confirmed that DSC’s drops will be on-level now. The pinnacle drops will come from the Vault of Glass raid.

Pinnacle Rewards

• 3x Vanguard strikes completed; must match weekly elemental burn
• 3x Gambit matches completed
• 3x Crucible Valor playlist matches completed
• Nightfall: Ordeal with 100,000 score
• Hawthorne Clan XP (100% progress) – The tooltip says that you’ll get a tier 2 powerful drop, but this is actually a +1 PL pinnacle reward.
• Complete 1x Master Empire Hunt
• Complete the weekly Exo Challenge
• Prophecy dungeon: Kell Echo final boss
• Harbinger/Hawkmoon mission
• The Presage/Dead Man’s Tale mission
• Flawless in Trials of Osiris
• 4x Iron Banner bounties
• 8x Splicer Servitor bounties completed
• 3x Conflux Chests opened at the end of the Override activity – Go to the quest tab and right-click on the Splicer Gauntlet. Use 50x Ether to create a Key Code so you can open the Conflux chest after defeating the Override boss.

Note 1: Nightfalls and Empire Hunts have had their master difficulty modes increased to 1340 PL.

Note 2: It’s been confirmed that certain activities that should hand out pinnacle rewards (i.e., The Presage) aren’t dropping them as intended. We’re currently uncertain as to whether this is a bug or an intentional change.

Note 3: We’ll eventually see some additional activities in Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer, such as the weekly pinnacle mission and the Vault of Glass raid (which has challenges). We can expect these activities to provide pinnacle loot as well. In fact, VOG will be replacing DSC as the raid with pinnacle drops this season.

Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer is available via Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.