I really dislike the pvp so for the most part, so I'm going the pve route & grinding vanguard marks and rep. Basically just doing strikes, patrols, daily heroics and so on. Rank 2 by tomorrow hopefully and rank 3 in another week or so after that. The vanguard path might be a little slower, but the vanguard selection has everything I'm interested in as far as purple gear. Also grinding it that way means I don't have to rely on RNG as much for the necessities. It helps to know the breakpoints if you use that kind of strategy. If you haven't seen any purple armor, you will level out at rank 24 with blues. If you are fortunate enough to get a piece or two of purple armor, that gets you to 25, having all four gets you to 26. Beyond that I assume its upgrading the purples and perhaps having an exotic. So knowing that at least makes for an informed decision on how to move forward. I'm not sure I would think of 26 as endgame. I'm thinking of 26 as a good level for doing level 24 strikes and level 22 weeklies. It seems that if you're "over-leveled" a bit, things are much smoother, less tedious, and more fun. Its partially the bullet-sponge nature of some of the bosses but it also seems that firepower lags defense a bit - I feel distinctly underpowered at level 24 with basic blue weapons. Being a little over will hopefully bring the arsenal into line a bit. I'm not bent on doing the raid, necessarily, at level 26. I may "over-level" a bit for the same reasons - we'll see.