A huge Destiny patch has gone live, previewing a bunch of content that will lead in to The Taken King next week, as well as the larger “Year Two” initiative. Best of all? It’s free to everyone, even if you don’t own TTK or any of the previous expansions.
So what’s new?
Basically, ahead of The Taken King on Tuesday, a bunch of Year Two updates have gone live “early.”
Here’s the short version:
- The level cap is now 34.
- Light and Character Level are now separate, so you can level up beyond 20 with just XP.
- All of your gear will be translated to the new Year Two systems, but their power levels won’t change.
- Your Grimoire Score now displays on the Character Screen.
- You’ve got a ton of new Vault Space: 72 weapons, 72 armors, and 36 general items.
- All of your Year One activities are now “quests.”
- A new Quest Screen will let you view all of your active quests, while a new kiosk in the Hall of Guardians will let you pick up and continue abandoned quests.
- You can now carry 16 bounties but any pre-2.0 bounties you had active have been auto-abandoned. The exception are exotic bounties, which have been auto-completed (hurray).
- Additionally, you don’t need to go back to the Tower to turn bounties in anymore. Whew.
- You can now “field test” guns for the Gunsmith to earn reputation. Leveling up your rep with the Gunsmith will let you order Year Two legendary guns.
- You can buy new emblems and shaders from Eva Levante, new ships from Amanda Holliday, and Ghost shells from the Speaker.
- The Vanguard in the Hall of Guardians now stores blueprints for any exotics you currently own.
- Motes of Light are way more useful now, and can be used to give XP to weapons and armor.
- No more class-specific armor materials! It’s all just one unified Armor Material now.
- You can try out the new Rift and Mayhem Clash modes in the Crucible.
- Nolan North has replaced Peter Dinklage’s voiceover.
What level will I be after the update?
Your new level will be whatever your highest possible one was before the patch. So if you were 20+ because of Light, you won’t you lose any of that progress.
How about for Light?
Your new Light Level will be calculated from the highest possible Light Level from all gear in both your inventory and vault. That means you don’t necessarily have to have an item equipped for it to add to your total Light. It also means your Light level now includes armor, weapons, class items, artifacts, and Ghost shells.
So what should I try out before next week?
You should definitely check out Rift mode in the Crucible, as it’s a ton of fun. You can also try to get to level 34 before TTK bumps it up even higher to 40. Pretty much everything contributes to your level now, so it goes pretty quickly. I’d recommend heading over to the Gunsmith and giving his new field tests a try. That way you’ll be closer to nabbing some Year Two legendary weapons next week.
You should also re-balance your loadout, as things have shifted around a bit, and consider purchasing a new Ghost from the Speaker to bump up your total Light.
Finally, there’s a cool little “secret” hidden away in the update that will give you a legendary version of the Stranger’s Rifle. To get it, you’ll want to head over to the Abandoned Quests kiosk in the Vanguard area of the Tower, and re-run the Stranger questline. It shouldn’t take long, as they’re really low-level. Upon completion, you’ll have a brand new purple Stranger’s Rifle.
It’s pretty much useless, but still kind of cool to have.
