Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy – Leveling guide to 1,000 power and beyond

Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy brings additional content. Sadly, as mentioned in our official review, things can be quite a slog at times. The power level (PL) cap has also been increased to 1,010, so you’ll want to stay ahead of the curve. This leveling guide should help you throughout the process, as well as when you’re ready to grab pinnacle rewards.

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

Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy – Leveling to 1,000 and the 1,010 power level cap

The same concepts introduced in previous iterations, especially during Shadowkeep and the Season of the Undying, still apply in Season of the Worthy. The major difference, of course, would be the extra power levels. From the 970 hard cap in the previous season, we’ll now need to focus on these two thresholds:

• 1,000 power level soft cap – lots of drops can help you reach this point
• 1,010 power level hard cap – only pinnacle rewards can push you to reach the hard cap

In general, all the powerful drops can be +3 to +8 (maximum) until a certain threshold. I’ve heard that it’s 970 PL for those who weren’t able to hit the cap last season. If you’re already on or above 970 power when you start Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy, you’re subject to the tier system until you reach the 1,000 PL soft cap.

Note: With regards to the tier system, remember that these drops are dependent on your base power level (total power on your character sheet minus the Warmind Khanjali artifact’s bonus).

Tier 1 (base power level +3):

• Most of the weekly challenges from the Tower (Vanguard, Gunsmith, Gambit, Crucible)
• Planetary flashpoint
• Prime engrams
• Completed tallies for Nightfall, Nightmare Hunts, and Crucible (Rotation) games
• Crucible valor, Crucible glory, and Gambit infamy rank-ups
• Lunar Recall, the weekly mission on the Moon
• Seraph Bunkers – rank 1 to rank 6 increases will net you a powerful drop; the first time you hit rank 7 will also provide a pinnacle drop; Season of the Worthy only
• Legendary Lost Sectors – powerful gear per completion (once a week) after Seraph Bunker reaches rank 1; Season of the Worthy only
• Seraph Towers – powerful gear per completion (once a week) after Seraph Bunker reaches rank 4; Season of the Worthy only

Tier 2 (base power level +4 or higher):

• Hawthorne’s weekly clan exp reward
• Trials of Osiris – your third and fifth wins net you powerful drops

Tier 3 (base power level +5 or higher):

• Pit of Heresy dungeon – all encounters except for the final boss which has a pinnacle reward
• Rasputin’s Seraph Bunkers weekly challenge – completing the two weekly bounties will net you powerful gear; Season of the Worthy only; refer to our Seraph Bunkers guide for more info

Note regarding on-level gear: “On-level” means the item is exactly that of your base PL. Rare/blue drops and some vendor NPCs (Devrim Kay, Brother Vance, Benedict 99-40, and Asher Mir) have “on-level” gear when you turn-in tokens. Alternatively, you could just pick up some rewards from your season pass ranks just in case you really need to boost a certain gear slot.

Once you do hit the 1,000 PL soft cap, you can grab on-level gear to use as infusion fodder for the rest of your items:

Pinnacle rewards

Pinnacle rewards are the only way to reach the 1,010 power level hard cap. It will take you a while before you get there, and you’ll need a bit of RNG luck too. Here are the sources of pinnacle drops:

• Pit of Heresy dungeon – only from the final encounter; fully-masterworked armor; 940 PL enemies
• Garden of Salvation raid rewards – four encounters and one weekly raid challenge; 940 PL enemies
• Weekly Nightfall 100,000 score – the power level of enemies has been drastically increased; Master difficulty now has 1,030 PL enemies and Grandmaster difficulty, which releases on April 21, has 1,060 PL enemies; there’s a chance that Grandmaster difficulty will also provide additional pinnacle-level drops
• Master Nightmare Hunt completions – Master difficulty now has 1,030 PL enemies
• Iron Banner bounties – there are four of these throughout the week that the Iron Banner is live; the sole ritual weapon in Season of the Worthy is obtainable during the event as well
• Trials of Osiris – your seventh win and getting Flawless both net you a pinnacle drop; if you have a “Passage of Confidence” active, you’ll earn extra rewards, but these are neither powerful nor pinnacles
• Seraph Bunker – the first time you reach rank 7 with each Seraph Bunker will provide you with a pinnacle drop; Season of the Worthy only

Update: Thanks to Destiny 2‘s patch 2.8.1, the following weekly activities now provide pinnacle drops:

• 3x Weekly Vanguard strikes
• 3x Gambit matches/3x Gambit Prime matches
• 4x Crucible core matches; Rotator playlist matches still give powerful drops only
• Hawthorne’s weekly clan engram – oddly enough, mousing over the icon shows that she gives powerful drops only, so I’m not sure if it’s for the weekly clan tallies (ie. completing a raid or a Crucible match with a clanmate)
• The Guardian Games event (April 21 to May 12) also has the “Master Class” weekly challenge from Eva Levante which lets you get a pinnacle drop from redeeming medals.

Concerning Trials of Osiris, Bungie have announced that artifact power bonuses will still be enabled this weekend. A fix to disable this, ensuring that only power increases via powerful or pinnacle drops, won’t be live until next week. As such, you can still farm bounties and dregs until you’re happy with your artifact exp gains.

Most of the pinnacle rewards sources haven’t changed at all save for the difficulty. Those that you can do now (ie. Pit of Heresy and Garden of Salvation) should be completed to gain power level boosts. The 100K Nightfall score is doable in the 970 PL difficulty, but a lot easier to attain for the 1,000 PL variant. The Master Nightmare Hunt (1,030 PL), meanwhile, is also doable if you’re fighting Zydron since you’re a bit safe at the back area (seen above).

In any case, you’ll see my progress on my Titan for the first week of Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy. I’m already at 1,000 base PL which is the soft cap, and I’ve even skipped some weeklies. Likewise, I barely did the bounties/exp grind for my Warmind Khanjali artifact:

Destiny 2: Season of the Worthy is available on Steam. For more information, you could check out our guides and features hub.