This is a wall of text. There is no TL:DR. You've been warned. Right, there's obviously a lot of anger, frustration sadness and misunderstanding around the "value" of all our hard earned year one weapons and armour pieces come TTK. But after looking at the numbers, I think the term "useless" is a little strong. [b]Let's break it down[/b] A weapon or armour piece's intrinsic "Value" in the current game revolves around two numbers. The magical white and yellow numbers that pop up when your bullets/rockets/energy beams find their target, and the big yellow number at the top right of your inventory window. Let's look at how we get there currently. Weapons: The amount of damage a weapon does per bullet currently is determined by three things: The impact stat, the attack rating and your light level. In a nutshell, provided you are at or above the level of the enemy you're hitting and your weapon has an appropriate attack rating for said enemy, you will be inflicting maximum damage. More attack does not always equate to more damage. For a complete breakdown of how the complex attack rating works, see this thread from reddit: http://tinyurl.com/q4774je Armour: Armour has two properties that makes it viable, Light level and perks. Your armour pieces currently provide light that adds up to provide your overall level, which dictates how much damage you take and dish out in various game modes. Armour perks on the other hand, provide sometimes unique situational benefits, especially on exotics. There is also a defence rating, which is negligible. It cannot be adjusted with different armour at the max level, so everyone who is fully leveled has identical defence. [b]How that's changing come TTK:[/b] A weapons attack rating no longer determines the level of enemies it can damage. Likewise, an armour piece's defense rating does not solely determine how much damage you can take. These ratings now contribute to your overall light level, which is now the [b]sole[/b] indicator of how much damage you can dish out/receive, and is also determined by the ghost and class item you have equipped. [b]So what does that mean moving forward?[/b] We saw that Deej had current DO gear equipped on his Warlock in the first twitch stream. The watermark had been removed from the icon in the inventory view, but a Taken King watermark existed on what I am assuming is the new and improved gear. This gear that Deej had equipped also had a level requirement of 20, so lets go ahead and assume that this is what our current year one gear will look like come TTK. His gear had identical attack and defense ratings of 190. This means that with full year one gear equipped our light level will be 190. Deej's was dropped to 186 thanks to his ghost and DO bond having defense ratings of 170. This means that for any content requiring a light level of 186 or less, Deej will be dishing out max damage regardless of his weapon's attack rating. We also saw that the new gear he had on hand that required level 40 had a defense rating of 280, and the new redesigned exotics had an attack rating of 280. So let's go and assume that the max light level attainable for TTK is 280. If we try and compare new light level to current light level, then level 34 = 190 light and level 40 = 280 light, or 90 light over 6 levels, or 15 light per level in the current system. [b]Now comes the fun part. [/b] The exotics we saw staying at year one were completely un-upgraded including all the attack nodes, and had a value of 160 attack. Let's assume they have the same value as the legendary year one gear and when maxed ran at an attack rating of 190. (The spanner in the works of this theory is that Necro was at 172 and we all know it ships fully upgraded, but I can't see year one exotics being worse than year one legendaries so for the sake of the exercise lets compare apples with apples). So lets say you get through the game, are running end game gear and you wanna keep using you Gjallarhorn or Fatebringer or Ice Breaker or Vex or whatever. [i]Your Taken King gear can bring up the "power" of your year one gear[/i]. Lets say you have full gear at 280 attack/defense and you Gjallarhorn at 190. That gives you a total light level of 270, or 10 below max which is less than one level currently (remember one current level + 15 TTK light level approx). So running one year one weapon is the equivalent of being level 33 currently. This is true for any gear you equip along the way. Given how big a number light level is now, and that it is an average across nine seperate items, having one slot occupied at 190 or even 160 will not be as significant as running a weapon in the current game that has say 248 attack. This also provides some context around the claim that "TTK uncommons are more powerful than year one legendaries" They have a higher attack rating, great, they can be used along the way to bring up the year one content you want to use until you get better legendary/exotic gear. IMHO this system makes more sense. It better defines common/uncommon/rare/legendary/exotic. Instead of uncommons being useless, they are now differentiated by the number and quality of perks available. It also makes uncommon and rare drops worth more than just parts. [b]If you've made it this far congrats. [/b] This is all hypothetical based on currently observed details obviously and has the potential to be turned on its head come september 15, but if this stops just one guardian from dismantling their entire inventory, and helps another stop hyperventilating into a paper bag over their Gjallarhorn, then my work here is done. Edit: After the stream today, a few points of interest. Uncommons ran an attack of 197, while rares and legendaries ran attack of 200. The legendaries however had the option to infuse with higher powered weapons (assumingly all the way to 290). This means they're only 10 attack more than our year ones, so hardly more powerful. This also means equipping uncommons or rares won't be as big of a hinderance in TTK as it is currently, which I think is a good thing. Also, the only requirement on the strike was level 36, which I interpret as light level not being as critically important as it is currently, also an indicator that we'll still get good use from our current weapons!