So I am 367 now on all 3 characters. been through the raid up until the final state 2 boss on 2 characters. I have been holding my exotics and faction/vanguard rank ups. What is the best way to rank up now?
Use exotic engrams to selectively rank up my lowest gear, then start using my faction packages?
I jumped from 373 to like 376 just from one Raid (by upgrading all 3 weapons types and my ghost). So that's definitely a good thing to do. Otherwise, mash motes or heavy synth into faction packages, and make sure you do all the Vanguard bounties. The plague patrol missions (where you get a hammer) give a lot of Vanguard rep too. It is mostly those faction packages and exotic engrams that will push you up higher. I've got all 3 of my characters to 382-384 and I've only done the Raid twice.
Skeleton keys are OK, but they don't drop very often. You are most likely to get Vanguard/Crucible/Tower faction packages. And don't forget Crota's Bane, Queen's Rep, House of Judgement, and the Gunsmith. I know for sure the first two give higher level items (with Crota's Bane having a good chance of giving you an artifact which are otherwise hard to get). I kind of forgot about the Gunsmith myself, so I'm working on that now.
If you need class items, hang out in Archon's Forge. They drop pretty frequently there and will drop above your light level. I've even gotten a 386 from it.
Any chance we can do a CAG raid night this week? I would be free Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday night anytime. I could do Friday or Saturdsy night if we started earlier in the evening.
I'm up for it. Saturday is rough if you make it middle of family time (early evening Pacific time), but I can try. I still have two Raid completions to try to get in
this week - I'd at least like to get through the first few parts for possible armor drops. I've only gotten one single armor piece and I've opened 3 SIVA caches in addition to all the normal drops. I've been getting mostly weapons from them (lots of duplicates).
Unless you actually need to win ToO to get the cool looking gear, I'm happy with losing and getting the Activity Reward drops.
I'm not sure how it works this year, but last year you could get gear from the gold tier bounty which you don't really need to win to get. But the regular armor drop was at 5 wins, and the weapon was at 7 wins in the past. So while you didn't need to go flawless, you had to do pretty well. Apparently they have made the Lighthouse exclusive "Pariah" gear from last year part of the normal reward drops now. I'm kind of disappointed my one Lighthouse piece (the Titan mark) won't be so special any more, but it would be nice to get some others (like the Hunter cloak). People who went flawless dozens of times to collect all the gear are justifiably upset about it though. Hell, I didn't
even know there was Lighthouse-exclusive gear (other than the "adept" versions of weapons) until I did it myself that one time and got a piece.
Is it true that the only way to do the exotic raid pulse rifle quest and have it unlock is that you have to go into the raid with two of each class?
This is how I did it, but I'm not sure if you need two of each class, or just a minimum of one of each. It makes it easier to do as a group if you have 2 of each, though, since you can then split into two equal fireteams of 3 to do the subsequent parts. Though to be sure the hardest part is the initial Raid clearance while activating all the monitors. Once you have that done, you could do the rest with a different grouping. The rest of it is just busy work: Nightfall/Crucible/Archon's Forge/public events and entering codes. There is the one part where you need to beat 3 Raid bosses (again) but as I said before, just get the Zamboni checkpoint and beat that 3 times. That was actually one of the fastest parts when we did it that way.
One nice thing about the quest is that they do let people who have already completed it buy some of the intermediate items. So, for example, I could help someone else complete it at certain stages. So if anyone ever needs help there (from a Titan) let me know. I also wouldn't mind doing it again independently on my other characters since each one can get a 390 weapon that way.
It isn't worth starting, though, unless you are sure you can clear the Raid. It is kind of a pain to activate one of the monitors and if you don't then clear the final boss afterward it won't count (as far as I know).
So the first step for everyone here who hasn't done it is to clear the Raid. And it really helps to be 370+ on that final boss. You'll take less damage and do more and it is all about staying alive and getting DPS in the short times you can.
Have yet to finish parts of the raid