In Destiny 2, there are five reliable activities you can do to blast past Power level 260: Call To Arms, Clan rewards, Flashpoints, Raids, Nightfall Strikes and Trials.

To be clear: These aren’t guarantees, because specific loot guarantees aren’t really a thing in Destiny 2. Instead, these are the most reliable ways to get the items that can produce the best gear and, therefore, increase your Power level. These aren't even the only ways to get loot. But the ways we talk about below will help skew all of Destiny 2’s randomness a little more in your favor. In this guide, we’ll explain leveling, loot and the best ways to level in Destiny 2.

Understanding leveling in Destiny 2

There are two phases to leveling up and becoming more powerful in Destiny 2: reaching the level cap and increasing your Power level. Your level cap couldn’t be easier to understand. Your Power level is obtuse.

Reaching the level cap is easy: Just play through the campaign and do the activities available to you while you’re making your way around the solar system. It’ll happen naturally. You might not even notice it.

The second part is more complicated. In short, you’re not done getting more powerful after you reach the level cap. You just have to switch your focus from your level to your gear. That’s where Destiny 2’s Power level comes in. Because your Power level is tied to the gear you have, that means you’ll need to scour the game to find more and more powerful items to increase your Power.

How do you do that? In this guide, we’ll show you how.

Understanding Destiny 2 loot

To reiterate, there are no guarantees in Destiny 2. We know we just said that, but playing Destiny 2 is about learning to accept that randomness as part of (game) life.

Bungie/Activision

Destiny 2 is a loot-filled game, and the loot you get — and even whether or not you get any loot — is based on chance. That Rare (blue) engram you find might be a lower level than you are. That Legendary (purple) weapon might be a lateral move. You may get an Exotic (yellow) engram and cash it in at the Cryptarch only to get a duplicate item. Nothing is certain except the loot-swap-loot-some-more cycle.

But that cycle and finding better and better gear is core to increasing your Power, so you’re going to have to do it. A lot.

Weekly activities and the ritual reset

Before we explain what you should do, we should explain how Destiny 2 works.

Destiny 2 offers players activities, which are nothing more than a suggested group of things to do to earn rewards. The actives aren’t around forever, though. You need to do them during a certain time period, or they disappear.

Destiny 2 is on a “ritual reset” schedule. Every Tuesday, weekly activities reset. Every day, daily activities reset. Here’s how that works.

Daily resets

The following rituals — including their progression and rewards — reset every day at 5 a.m. ET during daylight savings time and 4 a.m. ET the rest of the year.

• Activity challenges
• Replayable adventures

Weekly resets

The following rituals — including their progression and rewards — reset every Tuesday at 5 a.m. ET during daylight savings time (March to November) and 4 a.m. ET the rest of the year (November to March).

• Call to Arms Crucible Milestone
• Destination Flashpoint Milestone
• Clan XP Milestone
• Weekly Challenges Milestone
• Meditations
• Eververse Bright Dust inventory
• Clan XP rewards

Call to Arms (Crucible)

You can complete Destiny 2’s Call to Arms Milestone in Quickplay and Competitive Crucible playlists. Call to Arms Milestones are just about participating — you don’t even have to win.

Clan rewards

Bungie/Activision

Being a member of a Clan is about more than just a sense of belonging. There’s the Guided Games that allow solo players to experience end-game content, and there’s also just straight-up rewards for playing the game while you’re a member of a Clan.

Flashpoints

Bungie/Activision

Flashpoints are a weekly series of Destination Activities in Destiny 2, courtesy of Cayde-6. Basically, they’re things to do at a certain place. Completing Flashpoints, like so many things in Destiny 2, will get you loot.

In our Destiny 2 Flashpoints guide, we show you how to find Flashpoints, how to complete them, the achievement and trophy you’ll unlock for completing your first Flashpoint — and we’ll give you a sense of the rewards you might get.

Raids

Raids are the culmination of all things Destiny 2. They are six-person, non-matchmaking, high-level, high-difficulty, low-guidance missions. (Destiny 2’s Guided Games gives solo players a way around the lack of matchmaking, though). You’re going to have to put in a lot of work to even get the point where you can tackle a Raid, but you can also expect to get rewarded for that work.

Nightfall Strikes

Bungie/Activision

Nightfall Strikes are a particularly difficult flavor of Strike Destiny 2. You can assemble a team of up to three players, and you can complete Nightfalls once a week to earn high-tier rewards. You can’t use matchmaking for Nightfalls, though you can use Guided Games to team up with a Clan.

To unlock Strikes, you need to play through the campaign. To unlock Nightfall Strikes, you need to complete the Strikes Milestone.

Trials

Trials of the Nine are Destiny 2’s replacement for Destiny’s Trials of Osiris. We still don’t know much about them — we’ll update you with more when Trials start on Friday, Sept. 15. We do know that Trials of the Nine will be weekly, four-on-four Crucible matches that you have to win. The first Trials of the Nine will be a Countdown match on a map called Eternity. Trials will start each week on Friday and run until the Weekly Reset on Tuesday.

Also, the Trials of the Nine start on the same day that Xur of the Nine shows up in Destiny 2 for the first time. COINCIDENCE!? We think not.