You may have seen my write-up on PlanetDestiny. Video is linked. If you’d prefer to read: [b]Audience[/b] Hey everyone, Dukaness here with a write-up about what I’m doing to prepare for the Rise of Iron expansion. Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that there are two kinds of gamers. There are those who like to take things slow, look around, smell the roses and enjoy every facet the expansion has to offer. The other side are those who race to the highest light level possible and zip through the content as fast as they can. These players effectively begin playing the expansion before it is even released by completing tasks and collecting items that will propel them through the expansion after it drops. If you’re the first kind of person, you are not going to get anything out of this write-up, nor are you going to enjoy it. I identify with the second group of players. I absolutely and whole-heartedly respect and understand the first group. You want to get the most out of the content that you paid for with your hard earned money and you don’t want to be bored of Rise of Iron in just a couple of weeks. I get that. For me, this game has never been dry. I’ve been playing consistently since launch and I’ve never gotten bored, so my only request is that you respect my style and don’t litter the comment board by telling me how fast I’ll burn out. I’ve done this with every expansion and it’s how I personally enjoy the game. I know a lot of others feel the same way, and that’s why this write-up is directed towards those people, so let’s get into. First, I’m going to tell you what my objectives are on the day RoI drops. I will then tell you how I am best preparing for that. [b]Specific Gear & Weapons[/b] [i]Objective[/i] My number one objective in RoI is to get a God Roll version of Dead Orbit’s new shotgun, the Last-Ditch 001. It is the same archetype as the beloved Matador 64. There is educated speculation that this weapon will unarguably be the shotgun meta unless there is information the community is missing. I want this shotgun because I normally use a shotgun in Trials of Osiris and need to remain competitive. I’m also considering getting into tournament play. Now, I know a small portion of the player base will be entering tournaments, and you maybe you don’t even play PvP. If that’s your case, you don’t need a Last-Ditch. However, each of you may have a reason to want a different weapon or a different piece of gear. Maybe you’re a fusion rifle guy, or maybe you think the New Monarchy helmet looks super cool. If you have your eyes set on even just one faction item at all, and you want that item as fast as possible, there are things you can do prior to the DLC dropping to increase your chances of getting that item early on, which I’ll explain. [i]Preparation[/i] Without the ability to reroll perks, the only way to get a God Roll on this shotgun or another item you want is to earn and open as many faction packages as possible. The more packages you open, the more opportunities you have to obtain your preferred item, the more opportunities you have to roll a godly version of said item. As most of you know, to get these packages you need to accumulate 2500 reputation with a faction. You can do this by trading in Motes of Light, Armour Parts, Weapon Parts, or Special and Heavy Ammo Syntheses. To get the most packages, you want to stock up on the items that give you the most reputation per cost. Take a look at the screenshot here that I put together (http://imgur.com/a/q6pRh). Two currencies that most players have a surplus of are Glimmer and Strange Coins. I went ahead and calculated the best items to spend your Glimmer and Strange Coins on. If you’re not the best at math, you can just pay attention to the gray column at the end. To get 1 reputation, meaning 1 of the 2500 it takes to level a faction, it would cost you 25 Glimmer buying Weapon Parts, 40 Glimmer buying Special Ammo Syntheses, or 38 Glimmer buying Heavy Ammo Syntheses. Therefore, any excess Glimmer you accumulate should be spent on stacking Weapon Parts to optimize how many packages you can open on September 20th. The other currency is Strange Coins. As far as I know, the only items you can purchase with Strange Coins are Motes of Light and Heavy Ammo Syntheses. Based on my calculations, it would cost you 10 Strange Coins to earn 100 reputation through the Motes of light method, but only 1.33 Strange Coins for the same 100 reputation via Heavy Ammo Syntheses. Therefore, when you have spare Strange Coins, burn them on Heavy Ammo Syntheses to optimize your reputation gains. [b]Higher Light Level[/b] [i]Objective[/i] With the raid being released only 3 days after RoI drops, I’ll be doing everything I can to get my light as high possible from Tuesday to Thursday. As far as I know, Bungie has not confirmed what the light level will be for new vendor gear, so we’ll just have to speculate based on what we’ve seen in the past. I remember in previous expansions that you could immediately purchase higher level gear from vendors using Vanguard/Crucible/Legendary Marks, depending on the era. This leads me to believe it’s at least a possibility we can expect to get some kind of light boost through purchasing gear from vendors and opening faction packages. We already talked about maximizing vendor packages, so let’s talk a little about how you can horde as many Legendary Marks as possible. [i]Preparation[/i] We all know how to get Legendary Marks right now (daily Crucible, strikes, that kind of stuff), so I suggest utilizing those methods to get to the current cap of 200. After that, there are a few things you can do to effectively exceed that cap by saving up beforehand. Had you saved your Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris bounties (completed but not redeemed), you could have banked an additional 125 Marks (I’m genuinely sorry for not submitting this write-up earlier!). Since those are gone and not returning until RoI drops, the only way I’m aware of saving extra Marks is to stock up on legendary gear. I suggest filling your vault with purple gear and weapons. Ideally, if the vendor gear is higher than 335 light, you spend X amount of Marks on a pair of boots, dismantle legendary gear, buy a chest piece, and the repeat for the helmet, gauntlets and whatever else you can get your hands on to immediately increase your light level. Getting an early start is critical, because we know in the past that your current light level has an impact on the light level of your drops (court of Oryx for example). So the higher light you are before you start participating in the new content, the higher drops you will get, the quicker you’ll reach 385 light. [b]Cryptarch Packages[/b] [i]Objective[/i] Historically, when Bungie releases a DLC, the pre-DLC engrams were not capable of returning post-DLC weapons and gear, even if turned in after the DLC dropped. However, in a recent interview, when Bungie developers were asked if we should hang onto Exotic Engrams, the developers smiled and opted to not answer the question. This implies that they may have something up their sleeve. Regardless of whether or not pre-DLC engrams can return new gear after RoI drops, there is still an incentive to stock up on these. On one hand, they might actually give you new exotics at higher light levels. On the other hand, even if they don’t, they’ll rank up your Cryptarch. As you know, when your Cryptarch rank is levelled up, you get new engrams. These engrams, because they are received after the DLC drops, will turn into RoI gear and weapons which could potentially bump your light. Alternatively, they could have new perks, or old perks you are looking for on gear, in which case you can then save them and infuse them to a higher light level later on. [i]Preparation[/i] Earlier on, we discussed saving legendary gear for the purpose of hording Legendary Marks. If you run out of space, prioritize engrams over weapons and gear. This is because engrams will get you post-DLC Cryptarch packages, but also turn into the same Legendary Marks that your already decoded gear will turn into. [b]Summary (TL;DR)[/b] I know this was a pretty technical write-up, so let’s do a quick summary of the main points to take away, if you’re interested in rushing to maximum light before the raid and/or want to maximize chances at getting God Roll gear and weapons. - Extra Glimmer? Buy Weapon Parts from the Gunsmith. - Extra Strange Coins? By Heavy Ammo Synths from Xur. - Make sure you hit the cap of 200 Legendary Marks. - Save all legendary gear to be dismantled post-DLC. - If you run out of space, prioritize engrams. Guys, I hope you found this write-up helpful. Good luck getting your preferred weapons, gear, and light level. - Duke PS. If you'd like to see a video of me opening 100+ packages on Day 1 of RoI, let me know in the comments :)