You just make sure you have one gold and three purple pieces of armor then keep feeding them ascendant shards until they are all upgraded. That should get you to 29. Collecting the shards is what constitutes the "fun" once you are beyond lvl 20. ;-) If you play the daily on the top level each day you should get two ascendant somethings though they might be energy (to upgrade legendary/exotic) weapons rather than the shards you need to move up the light levels. Another good way to get ascendant stuff is to visit www.destinypublicevents.com and chase the events. If you get gold tier you often get something ascendant. Of course the new stuff that appeared today (because of DLC) may change that and you may be able to "buy yourself" beyond 30 anyway. EDIT: having looked at your profile I see you have one gold and three purple but it's all in serious need of upgrading - in fact how have you managed to avoid getting it upgraded as it is? Every time you get XP or hand in bounties or do anything else to gain XP while wearing the items the upgrade grid should slowly fill. Oh and the gold helmet now needs an exotic shard for total upgrade in the new scheme of things. You buy that for 7 strange coins from Xur on Friday.