Destiny 2: Season of Arrivals Leveling Guide – Fast XP and Season Pass Levels

INTRODUCTION

Destiny 2: Shadowkeep and New Light introduced the season pass concept into the world of Destiny. The well-received concept offers a way to gain further special and unique rewards while you are going about your usual business. While your primary goal remains to get to that soft cap power level and beyond, the season pass offers some nice stuff too. Here we bring a simple yet highly effective leveling guide which will show you how to boost your character to max level and get your hands on all season pass rewards in Destiny 2 in no time at all. 

MAKE USE OF UMBRAL FOCUSING

Umbral Focusing will get you to the soft cap insanely fast

Season of Arrivals introduced a new loot obtaining mechanic in the form of Umbral Recaster. It enables you to spend the new Umbral Engrams and Altered element currency you get when doing activities to get specific loot. While it is extremely valuable for obtaining god rolls for some weapons, it can also get to the soft 1050 soft cap in no time at all. If you go to the Umbral Focusing tab, you can focus your materials to make the decoded engrams drop at a higher light level than what they have displayed. It’s like Bungie wanted to make the path to the soft cap less grindy. The path to 1060 is where it once again slows to a crawl.

CHASE THE POWERFUL AND PINNACLE GEAR

From zero to hero in a couple of days

Leveling gear power in Destiny is actually very easy. Starting out, it’s easy to fall into “Wow, that armor looks cool” mindset, but I’m here to tell to not worry about that. At least not yet. If you get a unique or exotic armor or weapon piece – deposit it into your vault and use it for PvP (where power level doesn’t matter) and for later when your gear score nears its absolute max. 

For now, partake in your favorite activities because all of them will reward you with new gear. You can also spend planetary resources at their respective vendors to buy new pieces of gear. This is a great method for players returning for Shadowkeep who have a massive stock of these as they can get very close to max power level in literally 10 minutes using this method.

Still, at some point leveling will slow down to a crawl and you’ll need to participate in activities that award powerful gear which will get you to level 1050 and pinnacle gear which will push you beyond that up to 1060. Here is everything that will net you those powerful and pinnacle drops:

• Vanguard Strike Playlist
• Crucible core and rotator matches
• Completing bounties for each tower and planetary vendor
• Weekly moon story mission
• Flashpoint
• Nightmare hunts
• Gambit playlist
• Clan XP engrams for various activities
• Rasputin Weekly bounties
• Prime and Exotic engrams
• Pit of Heresy dungeon 
• Year 3 Raids
• Nightfall The Ordeal 100k+ score
• Iron Banner

GO BIG WITH BOUNTIES

Doing multiple bounties at once is the way to do it

Bounties are a surefire way of getting tons of experience to level up your season pass and the primary focus of this leveling guide. Destiny 2 has bounties on almost all planets and they come in a couple of flavors. Some are short and sweet, while others can be difficult and/or time-consuming. Depending on those factors, they’ll shell out different sized chunks of XP upon completion.  Each and every activity in the game has a corresponding vendor NPC that will give you bounties. Make sure to visit each one before entering any activity in his or her domain. Each planet has one, Zavala runs Strikes, Shaxx does Crucible and so on.

Additionally, you get easy XP if you combine bounties from several sources and do them at the same time. The Gunsmith has weapon calibration bounties that can be completed across all activities and destinations. Combine these with the bounties for your chosen activity and add destination bounties to get huge XP gains. You’ll easily jump several season pass levels using this method. 

You can also purchase more randomized bounties for 3000 glimmer. While this can seem like much if you are just starting out – don’t worry. It won’t be long until you are literally swimming in the currency so make sure to purchase additional bounties whenever you can. 

GHOST XP BOOST

Guiding Light is the easiest 10% boost to XP you can get

No leveling guide is complete without this quick and easy way to speed up your XP gain for those Shadowkeep season pass levels. On your journey to max power level, you’ll stumble across multiple different Ghost shells. Some of them will grant you an experience boost for different activities on different planets.

Sure, you could get an exotic Ghost shell that will grant you +10% experience from all sources but these are an extremely rare commodity. Instead, when first starting out, it will be important to diversify your shells. Check your stock of Ghost shells before going to a destination and equip an appropriate one that boosts XP for that planet or activity.

FIRETEAM XP BOOST

Teamwork is great for a huge XP boost

Having a full fireteam can bring more than success in the most difficult activities of Destiny 2. The season pass brings a reward that will boost your and your fireteam members XP by 2%. While this doesn’t seem like much, the good thing is that this bonus increases the higher you go up the season pass ladder. In the end, you’ll be getting more than 30% XP from all sources and this easy XP further stacks from all fireteam members. 

This means that you’ll be raking in significant amounts of bonus XP if you have a full fireteam with season pass bonuses. Additionally, if you happen to have the previously mentioned Ghost shell with an XP boost – you’ll get an insane amount of experience and power through your season pass in no time. 

USE ALL  OF YOUR CHARACTERS

You have three characters available – use them

I can’t stress this enough. This is probably the easiest way to get XP in the Season of Arrivals or any season for that matter. If you don’t have 3 characters, create them, finish the introductory mission for vendors and you’ll be set for the upcoming seasons.

Why? Because each character can do their own weekly bounties and challenges. What’s great is that all of them contribute to the season pass XP and levels. This basically means that you can breeze through that season pass in two to four weekly resets – no problem.

REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN

Gunning after the seasonal rewards can make you lose track of the fact that Destiny is supposed to be fun. While our leveling guide brings the most efficient and quickest way to get experience, remember to switch up the things you do so you don’t burn yourself out long before reaching all those sweet seasonal rewards. You still have plenty of time to get them.