With over a month still left until Destiny 2: Beyond Light releases, many players are either burnt out of content or don’t know what to do. While we have detailed some tasks you’ll want to complete before this expansion, one of the most important is store experience before this DLC drops in November. If you’ve watched any major Destiny 2 streamer or attempted to participate in day one raids, then you might be familiar with this. Essentially, XP hoarding is exactly what it sounds like. Players find ways to store as much experience as they can in order to get a big bump to their level and artifact. This will let them obtain higher gear, giving users a chance to be at least at the required Power level with Beyond Light’s raid drops.
Here are a few tips for XP hoarding going into Destiny 2: Beyond Light:
Bounties, Bounties, Bounties
These are your primary and only real source of XP that will carry over when Beyond Light releases. Despite being time-limited when you pick them out, completed bounties will remain indefinitely in your inventory until you turn them in. Because of this, you’ll want to finish (but not turn in) as many bounties as possible before November 10. What bounties to farm also matters, as some bounties either don’t award a lot of or any experience at all. I suggest focusing on completing the Weekly Bounties from the Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit first. They’re a terrific source of XP and you can complete them every week so long as they’re not duplicates.
You’ll also want to complete the Daily Bounties offered by these vendors. Each of the three major groups offers four Daily Bounties a day, but you can grab Additional Bounties since these also reward XP. Just remember these give substantially less XP, so always prioritize the non-repeatable bounties first. I recommend avoiding any planetary bounties from Mars, Mercury, Titan, and Io. It’s unclear if these bounties will be turned in automatically when you log in since those planets are getting vaulted. This isn’t ideal since you’ll want to hold onto bounties until you unlock Beyond Light’s artifact. Additionally, I suggest just turning in any Gunsmith bounties you finish, since you’ll want the Enhancement Cores and Mod Components.
Hawthorne’s bounties are also worth completing and holding onto. While you can only hold a total of four bounties per character, these gift both player and clan XP. Thankfully, you can pass on the Weekly Raid Challenges since they award no experience. Remember, you can hoard bounties on all three of your characters, so make sure you’re stocked up before the new expansion!
Get a Ghost with Guiding Light
This tip is a little thicker because Ghosts are changing when Beyond Light releases. Revealed during the September 17th This Week at Bungie post, Ghosts will now have mods that can be collected and slotted into them. Because of this, you’ll want to look for any mod that is similar to Guiding Light. This perk gives players a 10% boost to all XP earned, regardless if it’s from killing enemies or turning in bounties. Bungie has already confirmed this perk is returning, but how one actually earns it is unknown. Because of this, I would hold off on turning in your bounties right away as you may be able to use crafting materials like Mod Components to farm for a Guiding Light mod.
Group Up Before Your Turn In
Another method that gets ignored by a lot of people is joining another player before you turn in your bounties. Joining any player’s fireteam, regardless of it you’re friends with them or not, will award you a nice experience boost when you turn in bounties. Try to always join someone’s game, even if it’s only to turn in your bounties to get that extra XP. This is going to be true whether bounty hoarding goes away or remains in Beyond Light, as you should always try to turn in your rewards when you’re with another player. It’s a good practice to get into and you’ll certainly be able to find people in The Tower to quickly join.
Save Your Main for Last
If you’re serious about raiding on day one, then you’ll want to save your main or favorite class for the last. Even though you cannot transfer armor between classes, weapons are fair game. So if you want to play on your Titan, start Beyond Light with either your Hunter or Warlock. Go through the campaign and complete all the Powerful rewards available. By the end, you will have some higher Power weapons, which can then be transferred to your Titan. This will give them a big Light boost from the start, allowing you to obtain higher Light gear as you then progress through the campaign and activities all over again.
Another method is to use any spent Vanguard or Crucible Tokens to unlock armor pieces until you hit the soft cap. This is a little faster, but it will require you to have quite a lot of Tokens beforehand if you want to make a lot of progress. Unless you’ve been hoarding them or play a lot of Destiny 2, you won’t have a ton of Tokens to freely spend. Honestly, I suggest just saving them until Beyond Light releases unless you are looking for a very specific weapon/armor roll from one of these two vendors.
Keep in mind, it’s completely possible for Bungie to change how farming XP works before Beyond Light. Unless you are really looking to get ahead of everyone else, I suggest just enjoying the game as normal. Pumping yourself full of experience and over leveling can ruin the experience, making the content too easy. Let’s face it anyway, most of us probably aren’t going to be Gladd or Datto when it comes to raid races.
