The new expansion Shadowkeep for Destiny 2 has just launched and players are eagerly diving into this new wealth of content. A lot of changes have been made such as the raising of the level cap to a soft 900, tweaks to how armor works, the economy, and some of the old content.
As a result there are some things you need to keep in mind as you go forward into the new quests and areas to explore the secrets of the Nightmare and the Shadowkeep. Whatever challenges you face these tips will help you get through them without too much hassle.
10 Be Patient
Probably the most important thing to remember with this new expansion is that all these changes are going to come with some bugs and other issues. There are a lot of new players coming back to enjoy the new content so servers will get overloaded and queues will be long.
PC users will likely have some hiccups now that they’re on Steam, some players have reported power level conversions going awry, and some players have even had to restart entirely with new characters. Be patient, know that Bungie is aware of the problems and working diligently to smooth them out and don’t be afraid to wait a day or two for things to settle.
9 Clean Out The Stash
The first thing you should do upon entering the game is some spring cleaning. All items have now been upgraded to power level 750 and you’re going to quickly find items that outpace all the old stuff in your inventory.
So go through and ditch all but the most powerful of your items to make way for the new inventory and start amassing useful materials to upgrade them. It’s a hard pill to swallow but you’ll soon find items that appeal to you so much more and it’ll dramatically speed up how fast you power level, so start KonMari-ing those old things.
8 Start Using Resources
Now that you have a wealth of resources make sure you start using them. One of the new changes is that resources now have a cap on how many you can have in your possession. For instance you can only ever have 10 Ascendant Shards, if you find an 11th one while questing you wont be able to pick it up.
This can be annoying, but it also gets you in the habit of routinely upgrading your most powerful gear which can lead to you recouping that expense sooner rather than later. So get in the habit of upgrading and infusing items when you notice your inventory starting to reach it’s cap.
7 Cash In Tokens
Another thing you need to start using are all those tokens you might have stashed from Crucible and Vanguard. If you’re a new player this won't mean much, but veterans will likely be lousy with these and its time to start cashing in.
Head to the Tower and go on a shopping spree. These purchases can often net you some powerful items that’ll raise your power level instantly or be scrapped for useful materials that will also raise your power level. It might take a while, but it’s worth the effort.
6 10 Is An Important Number
Another big change is that stat boosts from items will only take affect if it activates a tier in intervals of 10. To put it more simply if you have 16 strength the game will act as if you only have 10 strength, it isn’t until you raise your strength to 20 that you’ll see the boost.
It’ll take some finagling of items and careful attention to builds in order to ensure that your stats aren’t being wasted, but once you get the hang of things it isn’t too big of a deal. Just remember to raise things in intervals of 10 and you shouldn’t have too many problems.
5 Rituals Are The New Pinnacles
Before, Destiny 2 had a cache of powerful weapons known as Pinnacles that were completely overpowered and extremely hard to acquire. Bungie has ditched Pinnacles and replaced them with Rituals.
Ritual weapons aren’t as powerful, but they’re also much, much easier to obtain. There are three so far and you get them via Shaxx, Zavala, and the Drifter. It’s strongly recommended you grab these missions as quickly as possible because they take a long, long time to finish. But when you do complete these missions you’ll have powerful ritual weapons to help you through the dangers of Shadowkeep.
4 Ada-1 Quests
If you find yourself struggling with the new content or there are some old items from Black Armory that you missed out on, then definitely go back and talk to Ada-1. The game has been tweaked so that instead of grinding Forges over and over again in the hopes of obtaining extremely rare weapons you can now do a quest by Ada-1.
Granted there’s still a ton of grind, but instead of relying on RNG to get Le Monarque you just have to finish the requisite quest. Not to mention old weapons are now automatically level 750 and Le Monarque, in particular, has seen some buffs to its power so grab some strong old weapons to tackle the Nightmares.
3 Activate Your Season Pass
If you bought Shadowkeep you were given a free Season Pass by Bungie. These function more as Battle Passes in that they provide you with access to unique rewards and experience gains only available to pass owners.
You do have to manually accept and activate it, but the sooner you do the sooner you can start reaping the rewards. Future Passes will require money out of your pocket, but you might as well enjoy the freebies while you can.
2 Bounty Hunting
Bounties have also seen some tweaks with the new expansion. This time around Bounties can be collected and done in mass and there’s theoretically no limit to how many you can do or have active in a day.
The trade-off is that you have to spend Glimmer to acquire them. If you don’t like the ones available to you then you can replace the bounties with an NPC vendor. If you find yourself low on Glimmer than make sure to pay Spider a visit, that shady character always has a stash he’s willing to sell you.
1 Become Heroic
The last major thing to keep in mind is to always try and trigger Heroic Public Events. It may be tedious and players are still figuring out how to do the new ones, but if you can trigger one it can lead you to untold riches and put some powerful gear in your hands.
If you see someone trying to trigger one be patient and respectful but do make sure to join in once activated for some mutually beneficial rewards. These are some of the best quests for you to complete and often make for fun gameplay, after they’ve been activated.