Gotta put in work. Step 1 is rank up in vanguard. They're the easiest/fastest. And have a solid variety of guns and armor to help create a good load out to compliment your style. Work them bounties and the vanguard playlist for marks and rep. If rep is where you're coming up short, grind patrol missions and especially bounties. Next step is to get your crucible rank up to 3, again for the variety and large selection. Do the daily every day for strange coins so you have the option to get an exotic from xur that better compliments your style. Do every public event you see, you will get some kind of legendary at the postmaster(ascendant materials are just as important). You're much more likely to find legendary items from story, but every now and then you will completely randomly get an exotic as a reward in crucible. Its really important to grind bounties because you will randomly get exotic bounties. Treasure these lvl 25 days. Its a very tedious and slow grind afterwards. I was lvl 27 for probably a month. Friend a lot of random people you can find on destiny's Facebook because someone will need help and someone will help you.