NM they were nice when i showed up and the colors

There is actually a lot more to just cool emblems and class items when it comes to choosing your faction. You need to know a few things, and ideally, have a really good idea of how you want your endgame guardian to play. So here we go: 1) what is your favorite/most potent primary weapon class? Different factions have armor that will grant bonus reload speeds and ammo carrying capacities. So obviously, this is a big deal. 2) what games style do you play? Do you favor melee (strength), discipline (grenade), or intellect (super)? Each faction will have gear that will stack 2 of the 3 different character stats. No one faction sells gear that will have stats in all three categories. 2.5) This one is kind of related to the previous - your subclass build. It can have major impacts on how you want to build your character. For example, let's say you are hunter who loves to use blink strike as a bladedancer. At first glance, it would make sense to stack gear with strength as this will reduce the cool down of your melee. But at a certain point there's a skill in the bladedancer subclass that grants the ability for blink strike to have a crazy 5 second (I counted!) cool down. Therefore, buying gear and stacking the strength stat becomes a waste, as you will already be able to use your melee incredibly frequently. See my point? If you have an idea of where you want your guardian to go, you can pick which faction best supports your style of play. This will also avoid the disastrous scenario when later on you sink a ton of valuable ascendent shards into a piece of armor that becomes counterproductive to the way you want your guardian to play. Here's what I did and why: I am a lvl 26 hunter and I went with dead orbit. I fell in love with hand cannons after I hit lvl 20, and dead orbit had gloves and boots that increased hand cannon reload speed and allowed me to carry more hand cannon ammo, respectively. Now, the only problem with decking your gear out from only one faction is that one of your stats (intellect, discipline, or strength) will end up with a 0. For dead orbit my zero is in intellect, so I'm representing vanguard now to get the dustwalker helm. Furthermore, I have been stacking stats on my discipline (grenade) because one of my pieces of armor (I can't remember which one right now) speeds up my super cool down for every kill I get with a grenade. Therefore, more discipline = more grenades = more super without needing to stack intellect. It will obviously take a lot more grinding to build my guardian with gear from 2 and perhaps more factions, but I truly believe that this is the only way to build a balanced and versatile character and will give me my best chance at the VoG. Sorry for the ramble. This is my first night not playing destiny since it's release so I have to stay connected somehow! Oh! And no - you are never "locked in" to a faction. You can represent all three if you like, but of course, never more than one at a time. It just depends on the class item you have equipped and which faction it came from. _Ohuigin

Go for the one with wepons you like

Super / Melee gear. Plus auto / sgun ammo boost. Also red / wjite color scheme.

I joined Dead Orbit for the faction's story. They believe that spending all the Guardians energy fighting for what is basically a destroyed solar system is a waste of resources. Dead orbit's goal is to build world ships and seed the galaxy with humanity so that another disaster like the Dark Age will not threaten the entire species.

I tried to see what stats I want done when it came to intellect strength and discipline. Due to me being a striker titan I valued my melee and super more, so I aligned myself with the new monarchy

New Monarchy, cuz they focus on intellect and strength, and because my Defender and Striker both lean on melee and supers...not worried about my nades cooldown since my melee kills bring my nade cooldown rate up..

I chose FWC. Why? Because this faction provides more focus on itellect (super charge energy) and discipline (grenade charge) which are both very important in a guardian class. Every good thing has a bad side. This faction doesnt offer assult rifles which is something people usually aim for. Also, this opinion varies, the factor gear isnt that fashionable lol.

I'm noticing that a lot of people join various factions because of stats alone, or the pretty colors. Why? You can get very similar (sometimes identical) armor stat wise through vanguard and crucible armor sets (same goes for weapons). Shaders can match amor colors perfectly if you find the right one (I have 3 that resemble dead orbit). It makes me sad that all the lore behind these factions is going to waste. I joins FWC because I agree with how they do things, the gear matching my play style was a nice bonus.

I am a Warlock human female. I chose FWC for the intelligence and discipline boosts which make my nades and nova come back faster. ^^ it's also the faction I agree with most.

FWC for the guns and int/dis.

I haven't and probably won't, all the rewards are tied to PvP which is the only part of Destiny I don't like. I would've probably joined Dead Orbit as they have the coolest sounding name.

I chose all three (I bought the class item from all three factions) Not sure which one i am going to level first though, leaning more toward Dead Orbit for starters.

You need a (All of them). Why choose when you can have all 3

Went Dead Orbit because it had more armor/weapons I would want. Like New Monarchy for their colors and the little bit of the story I found in my Grimoire but figure I want better gear first. Cant get myself to wear a rainbow cape from Future War Cult.

I'm a Hunter, and I sided with New Monarchy because the Vanquisher Auto Rifle and their Scout Rifle are both amazing.

Shroud of The Order.

Dead Orbit. Weapon design and the bonus on the equipment fits for what i was looking for. Just started getting Rep for them though.