I know the legendary gear is supposed to cap at a certain point, and stop giving you higher level stuff, but I don't get what exactly decides what that level is.

I just started on Tuesday with the PC release, and I'm at 276. Every legendary piece of gear I get is 268 from every source but powerful milestones. I figured that's just where the game caps the legendary gear, but then two of my clan members, who are 266, and 267 are getting legendary engrams that are 270+

Like I said, I know that when your power level gets to a certain point, the legendary drops are supposed to stop going up, but is my level too high or something? Why do I get 268 stuff, and they get 270? I'm not particularly disappointed, I'm just confused how the legendary drops work. I though I understood it, but now I'm questioning my sanity.

Gear soft caps at 265. This means you will no longer get drops at increasing power values (above your current level).

The exception to this, and where your friends' gear is probably coming from, is "Luminous Engrams" - the reward for any Milestone which rewards "Powerful Gear" upon completion. Although these (confusingly) look like Legendary Engrams, they're not the same - they have a distinct glowing symbol on them.

Regular legendary drops will continue to scale up as your power increases, but they'll constantly be a few levels below. The one exception to this is if a piece of gear drops with a legendary mod pre-installed (which is a rare occurrence). In this case, the item will be 5 power higher than stuff that normally drops for you because of the included mod.

To put it another way: from 265 onwards the only reliable ways to get higher-power gear are Luminous Engrams, Exotic Drops, the Clan Engrams Hawthorne gives you, and rewards from Nightfall and Raid event completion.

@y2ken: What about planet rewards, public events, and Lost Sectors? I've been saving up my tokens to turn in untilvi hit 260 or so.

Nope, all faction/planetary (anything where you turn in tokens) are the same as legendary drops, including the raid vendor.

There is a post in these forums that talks about the best ways to level up from the point where you are.

Here's a link:

https://www.giantbomb.com/destiny-2/3030-52647/forums/leveling-and-information-thread-updated-20th-octob-1810225/#204

@y2ken: I don't think these were from Luminous Engrams. We did a bunch of strikes and then when we turned in the legendary engrams we got, mine were all 268, theirs were 271/272, and as far as I know, they didn't have legendary mods in them. Unless they both happened to also have luminous engrams to turn in, and just didn't tell me. At this point though, I'm just shoving legendary mods into my gear whenever I manage to get one from the gunsmith, that seems to help a little bit. I just wish I could hit 280 so I could just get legendary mods that way.

The only other way they could get normal legendary drops above their power level, is if they're currently not at their max power level. The game is supposed to take into account your max power level even if you don't have the most powerful gear equipped. It's possible they were only 266 with their current loadout, but had gear on them or in the vault that could have boosted them over 270.

But like everyone else said, it's almost always from Luminous engrams.

@hornet: Faction/vendor gear is always 5 points below your max power level. So if the best you can be (with all your best stuff equipped, whether it is or not) is 276, then faction gear will be 271. This is same as drops in the wild. They will always be 5 levels below your max after 265. The only way to increase after that to get things above you is from powerful engrams from the weekly milestones (and clan rewards) or from infusing exotics. Exotics will always drop above your max level until you are level 300, then they will always be 300.

@hornet: Everyone has been pretty much accurate about their advice. The Rare softcap is 260. Legendary softcap is 265. Exotics cap at 305 (because they always include a Legendary Mod). Powerful Gear (ie Luminous Engrams), drop between 5-10 Levels above your Power Level (that is your highest possible Power Level including any possible loadout you could have, including items in your Vault, with the limit of only 1 Exotic Weapon/Armor at a time). Like somebody mentioned, Legendaries can on a rare occasion contain a Legendary Mod already. I also can't confirm this, but I believe Zavala's Strike Quest rewards are also considered Powerful Gear. The Rare/Legendary Softcap does increase as your Power Level increases but it isn't always consistent. It starts at around 10 Power Levels below you at 276 and starts to close that cap to 2-5 once you hit 305. I routinely get 298 and 303 Legendaries on PS4 at 305. But I also on occasion get 297's, so it isn't always consistent. Another weird thing is that it seems like one of the Vendors at random, give higher than softcap gear. It's really hard to keep track of though. Reddit sometimes updates with which Vendor has Legendary Token drops. This may or may not only work once you reach 300 (305 with Mods) on all gear slots though.

As for your friends getting better loot than you, one of several cases or combinations of these could be occurring. They aren't wearing their highest gear (they are actually mid 270's wearing low 270's gear). They could have turned in either Luminous Engrams or Zavala's Quest for weapons such as Nameless Midnight or Origin Story so they were getting higher Power Gear. They could have gottten lucky drops with Legendary Mods on them. Or, they could have been extremely lucky and Zavala could have been the mystery Vendor who had higher power gear (this is also possible to have been the case). But this is how the system works, so one of these things had to have been happening.

Edit: Modified the wording to be a bit less misleading. Also, this site tracks which Vendor it is at any given time.

@hestilllives19: There's no such thing as mysterious luminous vendors. When you are 300 (305 with mods), your drops can be anywhere between 295 and 300, and it's random. Accordingly, vendors also rotate between 295 and 300 when you are max power. If you are not max power, all drops and vendors are 5 levels under your un-modded power level.

Okay, I think I've got a grasp of how things are done now. I feel like this info should be more visible in game in some way. I'm pretty okay with just doing stuff for the sake of doing it, but it would be nice to know whether the stuff I'm doing is going to yield better gear, or if I'm just doing it for more stuff to scrap. Destiny is actually pretty relaxing. It's a nice game to play while listening to a podcast, or watching a movie. Anyway, Thanks for the info everyone, it's all been super helpful.

Hi guys. Sorry to re open the thread. I am at power level 200 but reading these threads to get some idea of what I should be doing. I just have 1 question. What is the point of the game constantly dropping legendarys 5 levels below your current power level? As far as the ingame text goes you can only infuse items of higher power right? Sorry for dumb question.

Legendaries will still be higher than your current level up to 265. You don't have to worry about them dropping lower for quite a while if you're only 200 right now.

@ll_exile_ll: It may only happen once you are 300 (305), but it very much is a thing. Someone on Reddit even setup their own Website to track it, there have been seven instances just today where one of the Vendors was selling 300 items but only for 30 minutes, and for everyone in Destiny that was 300. I'm guessing that if you also went to that Vendor during that same time, you would get higher power gear as well, but that is just speculation that a lot of people of Reddit have had over the past month. It's really hard to confirm. But what I talked about 100% exists for players at 300.

http://destiny-vendor-gear-tracker.com/history

@hestilllives19: I know it happens, I said as much. What I said is they are not luminous engrams. When you are max power your drops sometimes come at 300, and this applies to vendors too. Drops at max power come between 295 and 300 and that's why vendors power levels change to random numbers in that range. It's not some hidden luminous mechanic like you're making it sound.

@ll_exile_ll: All I'm saying is it's not random at all, even if it may seem that way to any single player. Certain Vendors are basically just having short 30 minute firesales on 300 gear for players who are 300 (305), but only ever 1 Vendor at a time. But without using a resource to confirm who has seen it like the above Website, it's pretty much impossible for anyone to know who that Vendor is at any given time. I would definitely call that a hidden mechanic as in the wild I've only personally seen it twice since the game launched, and I've been 305 since like week 3 on all characters. I also have seen several speculation posts on Reddit, and it would make sense, that if you run into one of these Vendors when not 305, he is selling gear that is above your Power Level as well. I haven't seen anyone confirm this yet, but I'd really like to see it tested, would be very useful for those on PC currently leveling up.

Either way, I modified my original post so that it may not be as misleading mentioning Luminous anything. I originally didn't even include that part because I didn't think about it until after I posted because it's such an odd mechanic. It's not going to effect players unless they randomly luck into that Vendor or are constantly checking that site to turn in Tokens. But it could have also explained the weird situation the OP described if he didn't visit the same Vendor as they did and the Vendors do indeed drop higher Power Gear when they are dropping 300 Power drops for players at 305.