Well, if you cannot get drops of better gear with more light, then you are going to have to purchase gear from vendors. Use your vanguard and crucible marks to buy purple gear and equip it. If you are having trouble getting shards to level up your purple gear. Do the same, but break down the gear you buy. Do the daily for a chance for 2 shards, on lvl 28. Also, try doing daily public events. lol.. of course, you need to be a higher level to do 28's lol Good luck, friend.

level 2 for armour, level 3 for weapons....getting vanguard/crucible level 2 is your ticket to getting level 26....once you are there, nightfalls, weeklies, raid, and level 28 dailies will get you to 30 to get you vanguard up quickly, patrols, if i can remember the hardest strike gives you about 25 vanguard reputation, doing bounties can get you 100, and the little missions inside the patrol can give you up to 25, some 10. strikes are over rated for leveling up. The drops are usually rare, the only plus side is that you level up cryptark, which can sometimes give you legendary, but you get drops in patrol anyway........

First, find out if the Queen's Wraith is coming back...2 easy legendary armor pieces. Get to Vanguard rank 3 and you'll have enough marks, and the rank 3 reward to hopefully fill in the other 2. Then a daily PE shard, daily 1st PE postal reward shard, 2 daily mission shard(s) for level 26- 28. Dismantal any unwanted legendary armor pieces for 2-3 shards apiece. Random strike shards. Then the raid if you're up for it, do at 26 with levelede buddies. Of course they'll throw in a bunch of energies when you least want them, that'll put you off a week or two.

You need to be completing bounties, to rank up either Vanguard or faction rep. Get purple gear, then level up purple gear. This will get you up past 26, so you can do the Vault, and try to get Raid armor if you want to go for 30. If you complete bounties without a faction hunter cloak, titan mark, or Warlock armband, you will level up Vanguard rep with pve bounties and Crucible rep with Crucible bounties. If you have a faction item, everything goes towards that faction's rep. They all have purple armor at rep 2 and guns at rep level 3. Find the vendor with armor that benefits your play style, if it's a faction buy one of the items I listed above, and then stack bounties to build up your rep. Once you get purple gear, you'll have to level it up and improve it to get more light. More bounties, and you'll need materials. Don't sell any materials you need for your faction's gear, don't get rid of spirit bloom ever because raid gear requires it, and don't use your ascendent shards until you're sure that's the purple armor you want to invest in. ??? Profit.

1. Rank up vanguard or Crucible or both. 2. Buy pieces and gear and level it up 3. Dismantle extra gear to level up faster if you have 2 of the same legendary piece. 4. Get on a raid to get shards much faster and potentially raid gear. 5. Aim for 30

gotta do the reputation thing, will be faster if you use faction class items. And keep on doing tiger strike list till you get level 20 armors. You can replace em with legendaries later. a full set of legendaries can get you to 29 i think when fully upgraded. get an exotic armor from xur too

My best advice to you is to not count on RNG to get you anything good. Just play strikes, level 20 and up. Grind those for vanguard marks and buy vanguard gear. Guaranteed legendaries...guaranteed light.

Do the dailys. I hit 20 not too long ago and I'm at level 24.