That’s not how Destiny’s leveling system works. It calculates your total power(not slot specific) and drops at or a few light higher than your total. Depending on the RNG of the drop and what activity it’s from. Some activities are higher tiers than others. As in you might get a +5to +9 from a powerful engram and only a +3 from a NF drop or a +2 from a Forge drop. It’s not guaranteed to be higher. It’s all RNG within the tier.

Honestly part of me agrees, but have you taken the time to do EVERY activity available for you this week? Spider bounty, forges gambit/prime/reckoning, nightfall, dreaming city etc. There is a ton of ways to power level, and it sucks when that happens for sure it's frustrating, but honestly in the grand scheme it's just rng and sometimes you get hosed. Just keep at it and you'll be there in no time.

You’re leveling the wrong way. [spoiler]Don’t ask me what that means. I’m just repeating the same response I got whenever I brought this up. Seems everyone has an opinion on how to level up “correctly” and they’re all different.[/spoiler]

The power drop will be based on your lowest piece of your "highest power" available. If you have a 665 energy weapon, but your highest pair of boots are 655 (for example), then your "overall" power is lower and any new drops of ANYTHING except boots, will be lower than what you have on. (Prime engrams MAY drop +1 or +2 if you're lucky) If this is the case and a piece of armor is holding you back, you shouldnt do a Forge until either all your weapon and armors are roughly the same light, or weapons are your lowest items, and then you can choose which one to run in the forge and power up. There are so many ways to earn powerful drops per week in forsaken, yet people complain that 1 or 2 didnt go their way and they stop playing. Yr 1 had about 8 power drops per week, per character. Current Yr 2 has around 30 to 40 per week per character. (More when Iron Banner / revelry type events are on) So if one drop doesnt go your way, keep playing but play smart if youre chasing max light.

I tried playing after a four month break 30 minutes and I just turned it off, won't bother till season 7. That's even if I get the urge and ability to stomach it. This game is complete garbage when it comes to gearing up. The fact you will automatically be at a disadvantage in the new additions is reason enough not to bother playing. It's excruciating to play this game over 3 characters.

Honestly the key to this game is there is no key. Leveling is random at the mercy of your luck for the week. I haven’t played for 3 months just lost interest and season of the drifter didn’t entice me at all but I started playing yesterday and I’m at 674 but I haven’t done the 100k NF or the raids.

Bump

Normal powerful drops give an increase of 1-3 power, with weekly rewards being higher than daily ones. Prime engrams give an increase of 3-5 I think, so your highest power weapon probably came from there. Try to do weekly and daily powerful reward activities spread out so you can have almost all of your gear around the same level. When you get a prime engram, open it immediately and then try to get the rest of your gear up to that level through other powerful reward activities. It sucks because of the rng, it's possible to get only powerful drops and prime engrams of a couple different gear slots, and you could be missing a helmet or kinetic weapon for a while. Keep grinding! Don't give up :)

You get +1 over your max average power level - not max over your highest object in that slot. It is working as intended unfortunately.

I didn’t have a problem. Sorry that you did. There should be a system where legendaries or blues drop at your power level to help people with the disparity while leveling.

ok, so you still don't understand how this works. Powerful drops are based on your overall level - doesn't matter if something in that slot is more powerful - it doesn't give it an extra boost. This is why when leveling alt characters, you can have all 700 (or max level depending on when your reading this) weapons, but your powerful engrams while leveling can still drop weapons lower. Levelling isn't as bad anymore, yes a lot of it is RNG, but keep in mind the forges let you mitigate at least weapon drops. For example, if overall your level is suffering because of a certain item, if it is a weapon that's holding you back you can then chose an appropriate weapon type, and you're guaranteed to get a powerful drop in that slot, then powerfrul drops after that will start to redistribute properly again. The past revelry was a good way to catch up as well because it was guaranteed armor slots so you could apply the same tactic here. That said, revelry was a temporary event, so your next best bet is Iron Banner. Get those bounties filled, but HOLD onto them - they don't lock in based on your current level when you complete them. Do remember though, that they cannot go beyond the max level of the season they are in - so don't bother "hoarding" them to get ahead next season. Another tip, if you can avoid it, is don't grab your prime engrams as soon as you see them if you're doing an activity that will grant you a powerful drop @ the end. From my experience, the prime engrams lock into your level on pickup - or whatever your overall level is once activity is complete/orbit when it goes to postmaster. What i mean is, if you're doing your first strike, tier4 blind well, daily heroic etc - that will net you a powerful drop at the end but you see a prime drop before - [i]if you can[/i] (if you're going ape sometimes they pop right into you) don't pick it up. All of this is what i've done to make leveling less painful. That said, with the new season around the corner, and with the introduction of catchup bounties that we saw when season of drifter started - i'm assuming this will be a thing going forward - so don't worry so much about catching up just yet. this is just my $0.02 that i find helps me level.

Yes it’s gets frustrating but in no way is it hard to reach max level in the game. There’s seemingly a million different power drops. If you really want to reach max level, you could do it. All without having to do a raid.

There aren't too many activities that reward specific category items, the forge is one of them. If levelling up you should use the forge to get you a gun in the slot that is your lowest at that time. Say your 670 but have a 665 primary, run the forge for a primary weapon...

the powerful drops take into account your overall level, not the specific level of a particular slot. so, if your overall power level is 663, the power drop is going to be +1 - +5 more than that, not per slot. this is how it's worked since the beginning. if you find this too confusing or not to your liking, perhaps you should just go back to not playing.

Works as intended And with opulence it will be even worst

Totally agree. Leveling power is just a period of time where you can't use the things you want to. Very annoying.

This why I'm waiting for the Power Level inflation to stop before re-installing. It's just a grind, for the sake of the next grind, till then.

There are different tiered Engrams that drop higher for certain activities. Start with those and work your way to lower tiered ones.