[u][i][b]Level 1 to 4:[/b][/i][/u] You have to finish the intro before you can do anything, and really doing the story until at least level 4 is a pretty good idea. After this you can start accepting bounties at the Tower. [u][i][b]Level 4 to 20:[/b][/i][/u] Finish all of the bounties you can... I have found Vanguard Bounties to be easier to complete if you are short on time. I understand that you won't have time to finish ALL of the bounties EVERYDAY, but between level 4 and 20 doing bounties is basically the most important thing you can do. Also if you finish all of your bounties for the day you can do whatever you want to gain experience. You could even farm some Glimmer by farming chests. [i](Bounties are the fastest way to level your Crucible and Vanguard rank, and they give a lot of experience, more info below)[/i] [u][i][b]Level 20 to 24: [/b][/i][/u] "Huh? I thought level 20 was the level cap, what gives?" As you read, you now have to gain "Light" in your gear to level up beyond 20. Another interesting point is that enemies only drop loot (gear, kill rewards, patrol mission items) when "YOU" or "PEOPLE IN YOUR FIRETEAM" kill them, when people outside of your fireteam kill enemies those enemies will not drop loot for you. Also, the only thing that affects what loot is dropped is YOUR level. The higher your level is the higher level your loot will be, and the higher grade. at level 20 you will start seeing a lot of rare (blue) drops. So the level of your enemies and the enemy type does not affect your loot rate, or quality... which leads too... Ocean of Storms mission on the moon (I believe it is the first mission on the moon) is a GREAT place to farm thralls, which are the easiest to kill Hive enemies. If you get a team of three to do this mission and get the part where you find a dead Guardian (A cutscene triggers). Once you are here kill all of the thralls as fast as you can and then let the knight kill all of you. When your entire fireteam dies the level will restart and ALL OF THE THRALLS ARE BACK! YAY. you can get hundreds of kills very rapidly doing this... this means that you can loot gear very rapidly too. Also don't worry about picking up the loot on the floor, it will be there when the mission restarts. Remember, the higher your level, the better your drops. You seem to always get more uncommons (greens) than any other drop, but at level 20+ you wont see any more commons (whites). What you are really looking for between level 20 and 24 is the rare (blue) drops. At level 20 you will likely loot Decoherent Engrams (They blue ones...) that turn into level 16-18 (I can't remember) gear with "light" (weapons don't have light... nor does class armor). Every level you gain will increase your chance of looting higher level gear, and higher level gear has more light. So you are really just farming rare engrams until you have full level 20 rare engrams and you will be level 24! Yay! [i](Bounties are still really important, and should be your number one priority because you are probably getting close to Vanguard and or Crucible Rank 2)[/i] [u][i][b]Level 24 to 27:[/b][/i][/u] Now your goal is to get all Legendary armor (or better! :O). So by this point you should be close to Vanguard and or Crucible rank 2! At rank 2 you can BUY any legendary piece you want... it isn't based on luck! Wowzerz. The helmets are the most expensive, they cost 120 Marks. The other 3 pieces of gear cost 60 marks each. You also have a decent chance of looting Legendary Engrams now so any farming method that you enjoy can net you legendaries if you are lucky. If you aren't Rank 2 in a faction and you want to be then do your bounties... It is the fastest way to level them. Also every crucible match gives you some marks and some crucible reputation. Patrol missions give you Vanguard Reputation. Also you get access to Strikes at level 18 and they give you both marks and reputation for Vanguard. If you are rank 2 with a faction but do not have enough marks to buy your gear you can easily gain marks by farming materials from chests and the planets such as Spinmetal and then selling the materials 50 at a time to either the Vanguard Quartermaster (He's a robot NPC in the hanger of the tower), or the Crucible Quartermaster (On the way to the Vanguard armory, straight ahead when you spawn in the tower). [u][i][b]Level 27 and Beyond:[/b][/i][/u] There is more to be discovered at this point, but the obvious method is to level up your exotic and legendary gear further with ASCENDANT SHARDS! Ascendant material is pretty rare. You can get 2 Ascendant materials a day (per character) by doing the Daily Heroic Strike on the level 28 difficulty, or just 1 by doing it on the level 24 difficulty. You can also get 1 reward a day (per character) by doing a public event, it can be a Mote of Light, Strange Coin, Ascendant Energy, or Ascendant Shard! All of these are amazing. You can get Ascendant Materials other ways too, but we are working out the logistics currently on what works best.