With a little over a week until Destiny 2: Beyond Light launches, players of Bungie's popular looter shooter are getting ready for a deluge of new content. Some are hoarding bounties, some are collecting the weapons that will be unobtainable in Year 4, and others are putting the finishing touches on their builds. But one thing that Destiny 2 players shouldn't be doing is leveling gear.
As confirmed by Bungie this past week, Destiny 2: Beyond Light will feature another power level bump like in Shadowkeep. Every piece of armor will jump up to power level 1050, which is the current powerful cap for Destiny 2.
For Destiny 2 players, this means that they shouldn't waste Enhancement Cores in order to infuse gear any piece up to 1050. If it's necessary to complete relatively new content like the Prophecy dungeon, then players shouldn't avoid power leveling their gear altogether. But if, for example, a second character is still under the 1050 power level, then don't worry about bringing it up to 1050.
The only situation where it will be worth leveling gear is if players want to hit 1060 power level, which is the pinnacle cap for Season of Arrivals. Still, it's probably best just to hold on to those armor pieces rather than infuse them.
For the last few expansion releases, Bungie has made the smart move of bumping up the power level “floor” to ensure that all players start at relatively the same point. Since new expansion releases like Shadowkeep and Beyond Light are geared towards bringing lapsed players back, it would be harder to entice them if those players were at a disadvantage. If they needed to work longer in order to raise their power level and compete in a World First raid race, then they might not even give Beyond Light a try at all.
As soon as Beyond Light goes live with the Season of the Hunt, the three-tiered power level cap will increase for all players. The soft cap for gear, which determines how high rare (blue level) gear can be from any drop, will be 1200. The hard cap for gear, which determines how high powerful rewards can drop, will be 1250. And the pinnacle cap for gear, which determines how high pinnacle rewards can drop, will be 1260.
Bungie has said that it plans to add more ways to gain powerful rewards with Year 4, but the developer has not fully detailed how that will work. Currently, players have a limited source of powerful rewards per week (and Prime Engrams per day), but it sounds as if Bungie will give players new paths towards increasing their power level should they want to invest more time in Destiny 2. For right now, though, players shouldn't be worrying about leveling if they don't want to.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light releases November 10, 2020.