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Level is important if you want your life to be easier. Like you said, the raid opens up and the Level 28 missions aren't as nearly as impossible. My thoughts might be a bit jumbled but let me see what it comes up with. Some "facts": * Level 30 is only possible, at the moment, with all raid gear OR exotic and rest raid gear * Raid helmet is only obtained from raid on hard mode. * Therefore, exotic helmet is equivalent to the raid helmet in that you can get to level 30. Which leads to the recommendation to have your exotic piece be the helmet. If you want to progress beyond 27/28, you'll end up with some raid gear. Now here's the problem right, you invest your shards in your legendary but then you get raid gear which now needs shards. When I got some of my raid gear, I dropped from 28 to 27 since the raid piece needed leveling up. Then sadly, these legendaries have perks that can be useful but you hungrily swap them out for the raid gear and light. In the end, saving as many shards as you can for your raid gear while spending some as necessary on your legendaries to get to level 28, seems to make the most sense. Then when you acquire the raid gear, you can focus on that. The things that happen when you reach high enough is: * bounties are easy since you can do the vanguard ones on minimal heroic and roll through it. This leads to leveling it up for the "freebie." * you end up with lots to turn into cryptarch which also leads to leveling up for the "freebie." * the daily heroic on max becomes readily available which is 2 ascendent materials (of same type) guaranteed. This is 14 pieces a week which definitely helps. * legendaries drop a bit more frequently which you can scrap for the ascendent materials * raid becomes a touch easier which also leads to armor or materials Which leads to: keep it up, it does get a bit easier-- all from the guy who has been at level 28 for like 10 days now. :) But I am close to 29.. any day now if the shards drop!