I know 24 sounds high, but in this game, you're still a toddler

To do the Raid, you really need to be at level 26 at minimum, and 27 helps big time. Getting to these levels also helps you to run the Weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strikes. Beating the Nightfall every week gives you a boost to all of your XP gains for the week.

The best way to upgrade weapons, armor and your abilities is through the bounty board. Bounties are really the lifeblood of the game. There are bounties for both the crucible and for PVE. There are 12 of them up everyday, 6 of each.

Once you complete a bounty, you equip the weapons and armor you want upgraded, then turn them back into the bounty board.

Spinmetal (Earth), Helium Filaments (Moon), Spirit Bloom (Venus) and Relic Iron (Mars) are acquired from farming on the planets. Weapon parts are received by dismantling weapons. Hadronic Essence (Warlocks), Plasteel Plating (Titans) and Sapphire Wire (Hunters) are received by dismantling armor for each class.

The exception to this is ascendent materials. Ascendent Shards and Energy are the upgrade materials for the last part of Legendary and Exotic Armor and Weapons. These are acquired in the Raid and through doing the Daily heroic Mission on the two highest difficulties. You can also get them from doing public events on the planets. You'll also get some when you dismantle Legendary and Exotic guns and armor.

So what do you need to do? Here's a quick list to keep in mind:

1) You need to have all Legendary/Exotic armor. That's the key to getting to Level 27. You can buy this gear from the Vanguard and Crucible shops once you reach Rank 2 in those factions. This is where bounties come into play again.

2) Ranking up requires farming. Patrolling the planets will get you needed materials, XP gains, and will give you chances to complete public events.

3) The Nightfall and Heroic missions and Strikes are usually easier done with a good team. They can be soloed, but having someone there to revive you can be priceless (especially on Nightfall where if everyone dies, you get sent back to orbit and have to restart from scratch). You need a team of 6 for the Raid, and it requires a LOT of communication and teamwork.

A lot of what I said here might still seem foreign to you. It's sometimes hard to explain things outside of the game environment. We do have a pretty good group of people here that play, so if you want to get in on this stuff, I'd suggest adding some of us to your friends list. Destiny really is best played in groups. Just remember that you need a mic

see post 1 of this thread to request to join our clan
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/video-game-...s-destiny.html

Any Xbox one guardians? I'm interested in completing a full raid. I have very little experience with it. Anytime I do see some dvdtalkers online they're already in a full fire team, so I haven't bothered asking for an invite. I have a 28 warlock, and 27 hunter and Titan. Among the three I pass around a suros regime, ice breaker, and gjallahorn.

So anyone else for raid tonight? I am in. Sounds like chase is in.

If so, what time?

Interesting Raid run last night but from the sound of it no-one really came out a winner. It was Shard & Energy Bonanza for everyone. And for me...my 3rd Vision of Confluence rifle in the last three runs. I guess we'll wait till tomorrow for a new set not unless some need to run with another character which I can with my Titan but he has the right armor pcs...anything but another VoC Rifle.

Nothing wrong with a VOC for every character. Great, great gun. I've gotten 5 Praedyth's Revenge sniper rifles, though, so I feel your pain.

The raid was kind of a mess with several people being new to it, and it sucked that Doc glitched out on Mars and then we went to Venus three times in a row. But luckily, it pulled me in all three of those times, so the relic was more or less a lock and it was just a matter of keeping the portal open and shooting Atheon. And yeah, I didn't see anybody get anything too spectacular, but that's the way it goes.

Yea...I know it's a good gun and now with (3) at least all three characters will have their own instead of switching around. And I'm not complaining about the Energy & Shards either. I maxed my Suros last night, another Fusion Rifle (now have Void & Solar ones maxed) and have at least five more that's maxed and ready for energy. I had enough vanguard points last night to buy a Void Swarm Machine Gun...have the Solar Swarm and it's almost maxed out.

got my 3rd guardian (Titan) past the 20 threshold (21) last night

I really wish I had created the Titan second and not the Hunter

my main is still my Warlock (29) that was my go to from the Alpha/Beta and is still my fave

I did the Hunter second because I thought it might be the second best and had a good amount of unusable armor granted to me .... I have stopped investing in him at level 25 ... enough to run a PE, daily (at 24 ... sometimes 28), weekly and nightfall (if switched out) with

I always thought by the looks of it that the Titan would be big/slow/and bulky but actually this is one of the most nimble characters .... didn't even realize when I saw other players with the light streak behind them when running that it was the Titan charging the shoulder block run ... wish I didn't dismantle some stuff like an exotic helm early on because I didn't think I would ever create a Titan

I'm right there with you re: titan vs Hunter. I made the Hunter as my second (my primary is also a 29 Warlock, and I love it), and I'm really not all that impressed with it. I'll probably level him to 20 (at 16 atm) just so I can use it some of the legendary and exotics I've got sitting in the vault. After that I'll run the the weekly/daily/nightfall with him, but that's about it.

Really want to make that Titan sooner rather than later.

Good to hear about the Titan. He is my second character. I will still get a Hunter to 20 but mainly to get the Hunter subclass trophy.

It didn't help that 3 of us were getting nothing from the raid anyway

And yeah, it was a little messy, and I certainly wasn't at my best. But it's gotten to the point with the normal Raid at least that we have enough experience and skill around these parts to pull through on a sloppy run. I think anytime you have me, you and 19K running, we got a good shot there. Hell, K&AJones too, he's run it enough with the rest of us.

Honestly, of the raids I ran this week, the one that took the longest, and had the most issues was the one I ran outside of our circle here. I think we got a pretty damn solid group here!

You only get rewards once per character per difficulty level, correct? From both the chests and defeating the mini-bosses/Atheon?

We were talking about this in the Raid yesterday. I think 19K is one of the few around here that prefers the Hunter to the Titan.

I've learned to appreciate some of what the Hunter has to offer. Obviously the bladedancer is overpowered in PvP. But I think where the Hunter falls short is it's inability to protect itself against dying. Warlocks can self revive, and Titans have the shield bubble.

When things get really hairy in the raid, or nightfall, those things really come in handy. The Hunter has to go on offense, as it has no real defense. I mean I guess if you use the bladedancer and get a kill you can get your health back, but you need a kill. The only other defense would be to go invisible.

That, and the jumping mechanics are so different from the other two characters, it can be tough to get used to it. I did run the daily today and was able to triple jump over most of the fighting, so that did help

Correct. But some of the chests are one time only as well. And if you run the Hard raid first, you wouldn't get anything on normal, but would get double drops instead. And just to be clear, that's once a week. On Tuesday, you're free to try again.

A conversation with the Hunter:

Hunter: Hi, I'm the Hunter, one of character classes in Destiny!

Gamer: It's nice to meet you Hunter, what's your special power?

Hunter: Well, I have one subclass called Bladedancer that goes all berzerker with knives.

Gamer: That sounds great! What happens when you run into high level enemies with lots of HP?

Hunter: Well, I die mostly. But I also have another subclass called Gunslinger!

Gamer: That sounds cool. What's the super power on that one?

Hunter: Well, I have a powerful gun with 3-4 shots!

Gamer: A gun? Really? Is it more powerful than the normal guns in the game?

Hunter: ....

Thanks. Yeah, I remember that about the chests as we didn't get anything when we did the limited Hard mode run on Saturday.

I was just curious if there are incentives for those who already ran the raid for the week to run it again. Basically, it sounds like the only incentive is to help out your fellow clan members who haven't yet run it for the week on their character(s). Luckily, we are all totally awesome and would help each other when needed. Oh, another incentive is to gain experience running the raid too.

And the raiding party trophy was a nice drop for us on Saturday too

But yeah, I'd say the biggest reason to run it is to gain experience. And truth be told, it's fun! For me personally, my experience with online games hasn't been all that much. Before GTA V, I really never had much of a regular running crew for playing online.

But on GTA, I had a really good group of people to play with, including a couple from here. But I've had a hell of a time running the raids or nightfalls or whatever with the crew here. This game can be tedious, but when you share in that tedium, it can be awesome.

I would like to get the Flawless Raider trophy at some point, and I know I need to train for it. I'll give it a serious run once I hit 30 with my Warlock (c'mon boots!).

So I was looking at my 28 Hunter and lamenting that I couldn't finish the hard raid with her this week for lack of raid gear, and I noticed/remembered that I had maxed out a legendary helmet and exotic chest (Lupi Crest) for an earlier build. By moving a few pieces around and putting one level on my boots for the price of six shards and 16 helium, I was able to get her to 29.

I grabbed a couple of my normal raid crew, and we beat the gate keeper on the second try and smoked Atheon on the first try. But that's not the best part. I got the raid boots and helmet and will get her to 30 tomorrow.

All three classes at 30. Boom.

Wow chess, that's pretty fortunate!

A buddy of mine had the raid saved at Atheon, so I grabbed his checkpoint on normal and hard for all 3 of my characters. So I have that for the week.

The Nightfall this week is Winter's Run, with Arc Burn. So Patience And Time is your friend. The Heroic version does not have Arc Burn, but Lightswitch is on both, so be wary of melees, they will mess you up.

I completed Nightfall with my Warlock and got my third Armamentarium (ugh). One of my buddies got the MIDA Multi-Tool Exotic Scout Rifle, while the other got 7 Strange Coins.

Thanks for the feedback. I had gathered some of what you said, but not all of it. This game does a terrible job of outlining the game environment to players. I couldn't even "find" multiplayer until level 4. I thought I was missing something only to find out it wasn't supported or unlocked until you hit a level limit.

I'll keep plugging away and try to get an additional level or 2. I think I'm going to have to invest in Vanguard gear beacause im getting less and less gear with higher ratings.

Not sure what's on the agenda for tonight...Raid, Nightfall or Weekly but I'm in especially a Raid but I'll take any runs. It's about the only way I have any chance at getting anything anymore.

My Titan leveled up the Cryptarch and Vanguard last night at the same time....Vanguard gave (2) Motes of Light and Craptarch gave me (2) Rare Engrams and one Energy. That's about how it is with both among all three characters. I mentioned something about needing lots of Energy and Chess said breakdown the Legendary Guns...I told him I don't have any anything to break down because I'm not getting anything to break down.

...so yea...a Nightfall, Weekly or even a Raid is needed.

OK, I guess I just wasn't meant to beat the Nightfall with my Titan right now. 6 failures in a row. And then on this last run with Bus, I get kicked off, get back in, we're heading to the final battle, and I get kicked off again as I now have to install PS4 software version 2.02.

Ugh.

I'll run it with you tonight. Will bring my Thunderlord.

Chase and I ran the daily, some patrols, and farmed relic iron/spirit bloom. Bring a buddy when you farm, it makes it go by so much faster and we had fun doing it. Thanks Chase!

Next time anyone wants to do some spirit bloom farming let me know. I can never find a good area to do it in and it takes me forever. I think I spent about 45 mins yesterday to find the 11 I needed.

Ember Caves. Go to patrol, then head left, it is the first area you come to. There are around 7-8 caves with chests plus the random spirit blooms outside.