Welcome to the High Ground Gaming Destiny 2 strategy guide. Here you’ll find everything you need to go from a New Light to a seasoned Guardian in pursuit of Pinnacle prowess. Our writers are playing right alongside you in order to stay on top of which weapons, armor, Exotics, and subclasses you should be paying attention to. 

The Basics

Destiny 2 is a free-to-play online multiplayer first-person shooter developed by Bungie the creators of the Halo franchise. It serves as the sequel to 2014’s Destiny (which was supposed to be a 10-year platform) and was originally published under Activision until Bungie separated from them in 2019. The game acts as somewhat of a blend between MMO and FPS and leverages a game as a service model that introduces large-scale expansions, seasonal content, and weekly adjustments to gameplay.

Sticking with their sci-fi roots, Destiny 2 focuses on the constant battle between Light and Dark across the Universe. You take on the role of a Guardian, a wielder of the Light, and herald of the mysterious Traveller. This grants you special elemental abilities to accompany your ever-expanding inventory of weapons, as well as a companion known as a Ghost that can continuously revive you.

Since its launch in 2017 on PS4, PC, and Xbox One it has since expanded to Stadia and next-gen consoles. Three major expansions have been released, and the 3-month seasonal structure has become a consistent method for injecting new story and gameplay elements that keeps Destiny 2 fresh. Now is a great time to jump in and prepare for the largest expansion in the history of the game—The Witch Queen, which is set to release in February 2022, kicking off the next 3-years of Destiny content.

Getting Started

some basic tips and links out to some of our beginner guides

Being a game as a service title can make Destiny 2 daunting, to say the least. There’s a massive 7-year storyline to dissect, several expansions worth of content to work through, and plenty of gear and weapons to collect. Luckily, the basics are fairly intuitive and in many ways serve as the model that every other GAAS title has tried to adapt since.

To start, kick off the New Light storyline for a quick hit of story content that kicks you out to explore the larger universe. Have our beginners guide handy to help select a Class and get a quick overview of what currency, gear, and systems are worth your time. You’ll also find guidance on the different types of PvE and PvP content that’s available to you and what to expect from each game mode. 

If you have a group you’re trying to play with, the worst part is trying to catch up to their Light Level. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to speed up your leveling process and farm vital resources that assist you early on. That way you and your Fireteam can focus more on pursuing high-level Exotics, trying to tackle Nightfalls, and preparing for Raids rather than waiting on you to catch up.

Weapons & Gear

The hook for Destiny 2 is chasing down the best weapons and armor to optimize your Guardian and increase your ability to play highly difficult game modes. Every expansion, every season, and even secret events bring in new weapons and gear with exclusive stats, Perks, and abilities that keep you wanting to come back. Some of this gear is easy to acquire, others require you to grind out specific types of content, while the most sought after are often locked behind random drops in highly difficult encounters.

Bungie does an admirable job balancing out the hundreds of weapons, abilities, and armor boosts that continue to stack up in the game. This starts with the simple breakdown of weapons into three slots: Kinetic, Energy, and Heavy. Kinetic uses standard ammo and serves as weapon options with lower damage output and little elemental benefits. Energy weapons, on the other hand, are often far more varied with specific elemental burns combined with higher damage and typically less ammo. Heavy weapons are somewhat self-explanatory and serve as your most powerful AOE options with highly limited ammo.

Now, while weapons may be your initial focus, your armor is just as important. These five pieces provide you with overall recovery, speed, regeneration, and ability stats. This is the basis for how you’ll play as a Guardian. Plan to be more aggressive and want to layout a super-charged melee ability? Focus on Recovery and Strength. Looking to play defensively with more chances to unleash your Super? Grab armor with high Resilience and Intellect.

On top of just collecting armor and weapons, you also have Armor and Weapon Mods. Armor Mods offer an expansive and personalized way to augment your base stats, improve weapon stats, or apply additional buffs through specific gameplay. Weapon Mods on the other hand are far more limited and related to specific weapon Perks and base weapon handling boosts. All of this is your template for mixing, matching, and collecting gear to make your ideal Guardian.

Player vs. Environment

PvE serves as the primary focus in Destiny 2. It all starts with the New Light story missions, that expand into expansion and seasonal story content with narratively driven encounters. These will be a mix of standard enemy horde rooms and boss fights, as well as environmental puzzles and secretive quests.

Once you’ve made it through the introductory story and finished up any remaining story content, it’s time to explore what other PvE content is available. You can explore different planets taking on Patrols, participate in Public Events, and venture into more challenging Lost Sectors. For those that love teamwork-based content, you can always explore the Strike playlist, which adds various difficulty levels and modifiers as you take on a rotating list of story-based challenges. If you want to mix it up, check out the other playlists for seasonal content like Astral Alignment, Shattered Realm, or Battlegrounds for a different flavor of PvE fun.

Then of course there’s the Pinnacle content—Grandmaster Nightfalls, Dungeons, and Raids. These are highly difficult encounters that are typically above your max Light Level, have excruciating modifiers, and require tight-knit teamwork. They represent the ultimate pursuit in Destiny 2 and typically lead to some of the best gear you can find in-game. Basically, there’s a bit of something for everyone from low-key grinding to highly difficult collaborative content.

Player vs. Player

PvP content in Destiny 2 has always taken the backseat. It’s never quite hit the heights of Bungie’s classic Halo multiplayer, but it’s making a comeback. Like PvE, there are different tiers of PvP content based on your skill level, desire to play, and willingness to play with a team.

At its most basic you have the Crucible and Gambit. Crucible serves as your standard PvP matchmade combat where two teams battle it out in an arena-styled map that reflects environments from PvE areas. There are a handful of standard modes combined with a rotating pool of specialized options that include zone capturing, ability supercharging, rockets, and much more. Gambit on the other hand is a PvP and PvP mode, where you and a team have to take on ADS to fill up your bank before the opposing team. 

Then there is the Pinnacle PvP content—Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris. Iron Banner serves as a specialized zone capture mode with exclusive armor sets and weapons as rewards. Trials of Osiris, on the other hand, is truly the place to test how good you and two other Guardians can play together. The goal is simple, outlast your opponents with a single life and try to win five rounds. And for a real challenge, you can try to stack wins and go Flawless to collect some Adept weapons. 

Optimizing Builds

Those Pinnacle game modes we mentioned are incredibly difficult and require you to customize your Guardian to perform in specific ways. This is where optimizing builds comes into the picture. You have the opportunity to fine-tune your Guardian with Power level increases, Subclass choice, Masterworking, Mod selection, and general armor and weapon stats to perform for specific encounters.

What’s the best tends to change every few months. However, there are specific builds for Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks that bring together everything you can adjust to excel in either PvE or PvP. You have the ability to create builds that are more defensive, boost health regeneration, increase damage output, supercharge abilities, and so much more. Be sure to explore what armor, mods, and Exotics you should be going after first to start personalizing your own go-to PvE and PvP setups.

Cosmetics

When grinding for gear and weapons, you got to look good. Thankfully, there are tons of cosmetic items available to make your Guardian look, act, and travel in style. Some of these cosmetics are unlocked by playing, others can only be purchased in the Eververse shop, and even more, require specific Triumphs to unlock.

For your Guardian, you have Shaders, Ornaments, Finishers, and Emotes. Shaders change the coloration of your Armor and Weapons while Ornaments fully alter the visual style. You can unlock Ornaments by purchasing in the shop or creating them by completing quests and converting armor. Finishers and Emotes are a bit more interactive, fully altering animations for killing enemies or selecting specific Emotes from your d-pad.

Then there’s your Sparrow, Ship, and Ghost. These are somewhat non-essential and are just additional ways to build out your full look for your Guardian. You may end up needing to collect some Bright Dust to get any of the items here that you want. Save up, and check out which cosmetics to unlock first with our ranking guides. 

Community

The Destiny 2 community is possibly one of the most engaged and welcoming groups in gaming. While the game has been active for almost 7-years now, it’s relatively well-balanced for both new and long-standing players. There’s very little toxicity, plenty of game modes to jump into, and players ready to assist.

This is all supported by the Clan system. Destiny 2 Clans allow groups of players to earn exclusive rewards, easily group up with other players, and share strategies. You can check out how to make your own Clan or explore some of the best Clans currently accepting new members. 

Don’t have friends on the same platform to play with? No worries! Destiny 2 now supports Cross Play and even has several apps to help you connect with players, manage your inventory, and track challenges. All of this is community-supported and given the seal of approval by the team at Bungie. Jump on in, start playing, and welcome to one of the most fun and welcoming gaming communities around.