How To Hit Max Level 1560 In Destiny 2 The Witch Queen

When The Witch Queen launched today it brought about a lot of content, gear, and changes to Destiny 2. While there is a lot to digest already, there is still a bigger goal to get ready for... The Raid Race. If you are looking to power level quickly so you can be best prepared when the The Raid Race launches March 5th at 10am PT, here is your full guide to get to the highest level you can the fastest.

Before I jump in to the nitty gritty details I want to take a moment to highlight the lingo Bungie uses for Power Level and the levels you can expect to hit with each. .

• Soft Cap: 1500 - Once you hit this cap, blue Rare Engrams and random purple Legendary engrams will stop being automatic upgrades.
• Power Cap: 1550 - This cap will be where "Powerful" rewards stop being upgrades and doing "Pinnacle" labeled activities will be the only way to level up.
• Pinnacle / Hard Cap: 1560 - This will be your highest possible Power Level if you ignore the bonus the Artifact Power provides.

Artifact Power is purely based on XP and when you are playing activities such as Iron Banner, Trials Of Osiris, and doing the Raid Race Artifact Power is disabled. It is important to know the difference between your Power Level and the bonus your Artifact is providing you. Hovering over your Power Level on the Character Inventory Screen will provide you with the separation.

So How Do You Reach Soft Cap?

This is easier now than it ever has been in Destiny 2. All you will need to do is simply play the game, seriously. Bungie has leveled the playing field and set everyone to the Power Floor of 1350. That means that everyone starting out on The Witch Queen campaign all have their Power Level set to 1350.

To increase this and inch towards 1500, you will need to simply play any activity that will award you with gear. Now this is very important, if you are looking to maximize your leveling gains the best way to do this is to play the campaign, and the campaign only.

The campaign will allow you to stay in the campaign and earn rewards to push you closer and closer to 1500. Do this so you don't play any other activity where you could risk earing a Powerful or Pinnacle reward too early. Playing the campaign on Legendary right off the bat is the smartest idea if you are able to handle the tougher fight as it will reward you with double the rewards and bring you up closer to 1500 even faster.

Make sure to leave all the gear you can in your Season Pass, this will be more useful in the next step.

Now for the Power Cap!

Next start moving onto the Powerful Reward activities, you will be able to see these by hovering over activities in the Director marked with a gold box. Make sure to start with Powerful Tier 1, then move to Powerful Tier 2, and finally finish off with Powerful Tier 3.  

During any point if you see one of your equipment pieces is lacking far behind the rest of your equipment check to see if you have a piece in your season pass that you can pull to bring it up to speed. This will help accelerate and even out any equipment imbalances you have.

If you are planning to level multiple characters, move all your weapons to your next character after completing this step and go back to chasing the Soft Cap on your next character. Repeat this process if you have a third character and then move on the the final section.

Pinnacle Cap

We are at the beginning of an expansion and like always there are less Pinnacle opportunities to chase. Of the few that remain, start with your Main Character and chase those Pinnacle Rewards that are available and possible to be done.

This will net you the highest possible Power Level on all three characters but it is not all.

On the next reset, March 2nd, you will want to start with your third character and then move to your second before finishing on your Main Character. This will ensure your Main gets the highest possible rewards and will be your most "Raid Ready" Guardian.

These rewards mentioned are truly all that will help you to prepare for the Raid, though Bounties are nice for XP and unlocking your Artifact's full potential the power the Artifact brings you will not have any effect when Contest Mode arrives with The Witch Queen Raid Race.

Power Leveling can seem monotonous so make sure whatever you are doing you still stop to smell the... boney roses... and enjoy the incredible expansion that comes with The Witch Queen!

Are you Power Leveling for the Raid Race? Let me know in the comments or @Suttledge on Twitter.

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