If you’re new to Destiny 2, you might be feeling a bit lost. There are so many planets to explore, weapons to collect and loot to chase. You might be wondering: How do I get started? What should I do first? Where can I find the best gear? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. In this article, we’ll give you some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of Destiny 2 in 2023. Whether you’re a free-to-play New Light or a returning Guardian there’s something for everyone in this Destiny 2 beginner’s guide. So, grab your Ghost and hop into your ship. It’s time to join the fight in Destiny 2.
A Beginner’s Journey
In this guide we’ll explain the basics of combat, leveling, and activities, as well as some of the best resources and tools you can use to enhance your experience. We’ll also give you some recommendations on what to do and what to avoid as a beginner. By the time you finish reading this guide, you’ll be ready to take on any challenge that Destiny 2 throws at you.
The Classes
First up is your class. There are three classes in Destiny 2: Titan, Warlock, and Hunter. Each of the classes offers a unique fantasy, from stalwart Titans to fast-moving deadly Hunters. All classes can use all weapons, so there’s nothing stopping you playing a Warlock who specializes in shotguns or a Titan who uses sniper rifles. It’s their abilities which help determine their role on the battlefield, so feel free to try them out and find out what best suits your style of play.
Titans: Titans are your brutes, standing wherever the fighting is thickest, shrugging off damage and engaging the enemy up close and personal. They tend to have shields that can protect teammates and have abilities that deal colossal damage to nearby foes.
Hunters: Hunters are outlaws, scouts, and deadly assassins, Hunters focus on mobility and misdirection to dance through the battlefield leaving corpses in their wake. Able to dodge and weave through enemies whilst dealing massive damage, they are skilled both with the blade and ranged attacks.
Warlocks: Warlocks offer support to their fellow guardians, buffing damage or boosting healing whilst utilizing elemental spells to lay down ranged damage. Think of them as warrior-scholars, using deadly magical arts to level the playing field.
Subclasses
Each class has five flavors of subclasses to choose from. Solar, Void, Arc, Stasis and the newest addition Strand. Each of these subclasses has different ability options to choose from, a couple of different super abilities, different grenade types, and other passive effects you can tweak. Solar, Void and Arc have also been recently revamped and are generally much more powerful than they used to be, making thier mastery key for effective combat. There’s a lot to grapple with, but learning what your skills do and what you prefer is how you’ll really gel with your chosen class and get the most out of the game. Just take it slow, you’ll only start out with one subclass and earn the others as you complete quests. You’ll get the hang of it soon.
Weapon classes
Weapons in Destiny 2 are divided into three classes:
- Primary weapons
- Special weapons
- Heavy weapons
These classes are defined by the type of ammo they require, either the always available Primary ammo, the rarer Special ammo (green boxes), or the hardest-to-obtain Heavy ammo (purple boxes) as you would expect, the harder-to-find Heavy ammo is used by the hardest-hitting guns in the game: Power weapons.
Weapon slots
Your Guardian has three weapon slots. The first 2 can slot both primary or special weapons while the third is reserved for heavy weapons. The type of damage you can have in your primary, secondary and heavy slot will be differnt and is divided into 3 types.
- Kinetic: Either primary or special these weapons deal more damage to enemies without a shield. Stasis and Strand weapons also fall into this slot.
- Energy: Either primary or special these weapons deal elemental damage either Arc, Void, or Solar and deal extra damage to shielded enemies with matching elements.
- Heavy: These weapons can also deal elemental damage and are extremely powerful. However, they require Heavy ammo.
First Mission
When you start Destiny 2, you’ll awake in the Cosmodrome on Earth, coming back to life for the first time. This tutorial mission gives you a few basic weapons and an idea of how to play so it’s definitely recommended to run through it. You’ll cover mobility, abilities, and meet your Ghost. This mission segues into several other story missions which will see you meet a few characters, explore the Cosmodrome, and get your hands on your ship. It’s absolutely essential as a new player to go through these missions as they’ll give you the solid basis on which to rest your entire adventure.
Game Modes
After completing your first mission, you’ll be confronted with an overwhelming menu filled with planets and game modes. Using the main menu, you’ll load into the different core activities the game has to offer.
- Vanguard: This mode features matchmade 3-man or solo “mini-dungeons” in which you basically need to slay everything in your way until you get to a final boss. This mode doesn’t have any complicated mechanics you need to learn. Just get in and shoot everything on sight.
- Crucible: This is the PvP area in Destiny 2 and includes several PvP modes such as Control, Survival, etc. Some are better suited for beginners (such as Control), whereas others are geared toward hardcore players (Trials of Osiris).
- Gambit: A PvPvE mode not recommended for beginners.
Patrols, Bounties, and Public Events
Neomuna, The Throne World, Europa, Cosmodrome and European Dead Zone (both on Earth), Moon, Dreaming City, and Nessus. Each planet is full of activities you can participate in, either solo or in a Fireteam. On a planet, you’ll find Patrol, Public Events and more.
Public Events will appear on your map whilst you’re in an area. If you are in the visinity of these you’ll join in a mini-mission with other nearby players, usually giving you a hefty bit of experience and a chest to loot.
Bounties are usually offered by an NPC and will play a huge part of the game. They will focus around getting kills with specific weapons or achieving certain objectives and will tend to offer greater rewards than patrols.
Patrols are dotted around areas, if you press Tab, you’ll usually be able to see their icons around you. You can take one at a time and they offer bitesize objectives that’ll usually give you a bit of XP and currency as a reward.
Leveling Up
In Destiny 2, your character’s level works differently than in most MMOs. For example, your Guardian will start at 1600 Power Level, which means it’ll be strong enough to tackle most core activities on Day 1. But as you progress towards more difficult content, you’ll need a higher Power Level, which caps at a maximum of 1810. Instead of your character levelling up, your power level is determined by the gear you’re wearing. Simply put, bigger numbers on your gear = higher level, which determines how much damage you can output and how much you can withstand.
Infusing weapons and armor
As you level up, your favorite gear, especially weapons, will quickly have a Power Level that is too low to use. You can use a mechanic called “infusion” to take another item with a higher Power Level and destroy it to increase the Power Level of your preferred item. This means you can use infusion to continuously increase the Power Level of your favorite weapons. Infusion does cost materials, therefore, keep it to a minimum, especially at the beginning. Until the Soft Cap, you’ll level up so fast that infusing is a huge waste of materials.
Exotics
Exotics are the rarest type of gear which you can only equip 2 at a time (one weapon and one armor). Yellow colored icons will let you know when you’ve got an and each Exotic features special effects which have the potential to drastically change how you play. Whilst they’re rare you will still end up swimming in them after a while playing.
Currency
There are three main types of currency. There used to be a fourth but legendary shards have recently been retired.
Glimmer: is the easiest to get. You’ll find it in missions and receive it as rewards for certain quests and bounties. Use Glimmer to buy equipment and resources from merchants, and to acquire bounties.
Bright Dust: can be used for some cosmetic skins, ornaments, or color shaders for your armor. What’s available to buy depends on the rotation of items for the week. In the store menu, there are Bright Dust offerings at the bottom of the Featured screen and in a separate Bright Dust tab. The items available there change weekly. Bright Dust can be acquired in-game, but it’s usually from special activities, like completing story campaigns or ranking up enough in the season pass.
Silver: is Destiny 2s premium currency. You buy it with real-world money and use it to buy weapon and armor skins, extra emotes, and other cosmetics in the Eververse shop. If you’re going to buy something, make sure you know what you’re getting. Each exotic gun and armor ornament can only be used on a specific piece of equipment. So, you will need to find the gun the ornament fits in-game before you can actually apply the visual skin you paid money for.
Endgame Activities: PvE
Most of Destiny 2s endgame content is PvE related so if you’re a PvE player you’ll have plenty to do.
Raids
Raids are considered the best PVE content in Destiny. They are challenging, complex, and take place in some of the most memorable locations in the Destiny 2 universe. Raids are particularly tough to organize as they are 6-man activities requiring coordination, good communication, and skill.
Dungeons
Dungeons are similar to raids but smaller requiring only a 3-person Fireteam or solo if you are good enough. They typically contain encounters that are less complex and take less time to complete as compared to Raids.
Grandmaster Nightfall
Grandmaster Nightfalls are the hardest level of vanguard ops and drop pinnacle gear. Grandmaster Ordeals also reward the Conqueror seal and Adept gear.
Endgame Activities: PvP
Destiny only has one endgame PvP activity which you’ll need the season pass to access.
Trials of Osiris
Trials is the endgame PvP activity in Destiny 2. This is a 3-man activity that will put you in front of the best players in the game. Good communication is mandatory if you want a remote chance of success. If you prefer to experience the competitive scene solo, the Freelance Survival mode is also present.
Season Pass and XP
In Destiny 2, XP is useful for two different things:
- Unlocking your Season Pass rewards
- Upgrading your Seasonal Artifact to unlock Mods and bonus Power Levels
The Season Pass includes two tracks: a free track available to all and a paid track available to owners of the current Season. The Season Pass does include a lot of good things, such as weapons, armor, Exotic engrams, and more. You’ll want to grind XP to get all the rewards. The fastest and most efficient way to earn XP in Destiny 2 revolves around doing bounties which you can pick up from different vendors in the game. If you’re looking to get XP efficiently, you don’t have a choice but to grab the best bounties and work on them simultaneously.
Story Guide
Destiny 2 used to have a great introduction for New Light players in the form of the base campaigns and the two year one DLCs which could be played for free and later on the Forsaken expansion which could be purchased after if you felt like it. This kept all the old players and new players on the same page story wise. But a few years back Bungie decided to sunset these expansions so they can no longer be played (even if you already own them) or even purchased, which has made keeping up with the story a bit of a mess for new players.
Campaign Order
Currently there are 4 DLCs which are playable. It’s not necessary to play them in order but it’s recommended that you do to better keep up with the story.
In 2023 these would be:
- Shadowkeep
- Beyond Light
- The Witch Queen
- Lightfall
Summary of the Sunset Campaigns
As you can no longer experience these stories, we thought it would be a good idea to have a short summary of the 4 sunset campaigns so you are not too confused starting out in Destiny in 2023
The Red War
The base campaign of Destiny 2 starts with the Cabal, a warlike species of aliens who conquered myriad systems in their quest for glory. Led by the fearsome Dominus Ghaul, they managed to take the Last City and depower all Guardians by caging the Traveler, sealing it off from its Ghosts. Ghaul didn’t account for our Gaurdian, however, as they managed to use a shard of the Traveler to regain their powers. A desperate assassination mission led by our Gaurdian, Titan Commander Zavala, Warlock Ikora Rey, and Cayde-6 saw Ghaul empower himself with Light stolen from the Traveler, becoming a colossal ephemeral monster that threatened the entire solar system. Thankfully the Traveler awoke and repaired itself after years dormant, taking back its Light from Dominus Ghaul and becoming whole once more. Though in doing so a flash of Light spread through the galaxy, letting the Darkness know that the Traveler had survived their prior battles.
Curse of Osiris
The Curse of Osiris expansion saw the player head to Mercury to help fabled Warlock Osiris take the battle to the Vex. Their simulation known as the Infinite Forest was being used to calculate a means by which they could take over the universe. So, Osiris, their Ghost Sagira, our Guardian, and Ikora Rey defeat the Vex Mind Panoptes to put an end to this once and for all, leaving Osiris to guard the Infinite Forest.
Warmind
Heading to Mars the player encountered the long-missing Guardian Ana Bray on Mars looking for a powerful golden age defensive AI known as Rasputin. Here our Guardian was able to defeat the Hive worm god Xol and unleash Rasputin back into the solar system where the AI seeded satellites known as Warsats. These Warsats are tasked with defending humanity against encroaching threats, putting Rasputin back in their historical position as defender of the solar system.
Forsaken
Considered to be the best Destiny expansion by many. Instead of focusing on planet-shattering events this was a smaller in scope expansion that focused on character narratives.
Within The Prison of Elders, a breakout and riot drew the attention of Cayde-6, the player, and Petra Venj who had helped a few times in previous expansions. This riot was caused by a new faction The Scorn, resurrected Fallen who served a new master: Uldren Sov. Uldren appeared a few times throughout the game, the brother of the queen of the Awoken, Mara Sov. Now, twisted by madness by a creature known as Riven, he had turned on the Awoken, seeking to destroy them. In the depths of the prison the Scorn ambush Cayde-6, destroying his Ghost, leaving him vulnerable to death. In one of the most memorable moments in Destiny 2 Uldren Sov murdered Cayde-6, killing him with his own gun.
What followed was a hunt by the player to take down each of the Scorn leaders one by one to draw out Uldren Sov and take revenge once and for all. Eventually the player learns of Riven’s existence, killing both it and Uldren Sov though it’s not known to this day if it was the player or Petra Venj who finally pulled the trigger on Uldren. This storyline ends with a solitary Ghost locating the corpse of Uldren Sov, scanning it much as the player was once scanned at the start of their journey.
Beginner Tips
- Do the Campaigns: If you’re on a free-to-play version of Destiny, you’ll only have access to the New Light campaign. Destiny’s free-to-play model is more of a demo than anything else. If you’re fond of the game after finishing it, consider picking up the rest of the expansions. Doing all of these in order will sort of catch you up on the story. It’ll also give you a ton of rewards and experience with the game’s mechanics.
- Focus on Guardian Ranks: Bungie introduced the Guardian Rank system to Destiny 2 with Lightfall – so new players have a specific framework that they can follow to progress with the game. If you’re brand new, you’ll start at level one. Make getting to rank six a priority. Returning players will already start at rank six, at which point you’ll have to complete harder activities to rank up.
- Weapon Perks: Weapons in Destiny 2 work very differently than in most games. Every Legendary weapon in Destiny 2 has four perks, or perk columns. There’s a slot for a barrel perk, an ammo perk, and two slots for special perks that enhance your weapon’s stats or functionality. Every weapon in Destiny has a set pool of perks that can show up in each slot. So, every weapon you find will have four perks that have been randomly selected from each slot’s pool.
- Do Your Weeklies: Once you start settling into the game, this will become your primary gameplay loop as it’s the only reliable way to increase your Power Level. Once you’re past the Powerful cap, you’re on what’s called the “Pinnacle Grind”. There are only a handful of activities in the game that reward Pinnacles, so getting them all done every single week is critical to your progression.
- Destiny Item Manager (DIM): With DIM, you can easily move items between characters and vault, create loadouts, and so much more. It’s free and works on any browser.
- Destiny 2 Companion App: Somehow, Destiny 2 doesn’t have an in-game Fireteam finder (one should come later this year). Luckily, this companion app has a good LFG system, plus it lets you collect bounties on the go.
- Light.gg: The biggest D2 database around, use it to check stats and rolls for weapons.
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