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With The Final Shape rapidly approaching in Destiny 2, Bungie has been putting out some pretty extensive TWID posts about the upcoming changes to Power Level. While these are all changes that we would have loved to see years ago, it’s always better late than never, which Bungie seems to grasp the concept of quite well. Within these changes, we’ll see overhauls to the Power Level system that will make gameplay for fireteams much better overall, make progression systems seem more important, lower certain Power Level barriers for content, and make it easier to understand. Let’s take a look at all the Power Level changes coming in The Final Shape.
Destiny 2: Fireteam Power Changes
Playing with a fireteam of Guardians with greatly varied Power Levels can be pretty irritating sometimes, especially if you’re playing an activity that drops your Power Level for the duration of it. However, when it comes to The Final Shape, this won’t be nearly as big of an issue, and Bungie intends to make it much easier to play with your friends.
Starting with the release of The Final Shape, the Guardian with the highest Power Level in each Fireteam will set the stage for the others. They will become the Power Leader, and every other player in the Fireteam will not have a Power Level that has been raised up to only 5 Power below the Power Leader. This mechanic will affect the difficulty of each activity, but it won’t change the Power of your rewards.
Power Limits Will No Longer Affect Legacy Gear
Yep, you read that right. Having a limit on Legacy gear doesn’t really resonate with the new Fireteam Power changes, so Power Limits will be removed from them altogether. While this might be relatively problematic for some Guardians who go on regular Vault cleaning spurts, for those who kept around some of their older gear, it can be great.
The primary goal here is to really give everyone the opportunity to battle it out with the Witness when The Final Shape comes around, and the best way to give everyone a fighting chance is to make Power Levels more balanced across the board. Because of this, though, Bungie found that upping the Power Level of gear clashes with Power-locked legacy items, and the best course of action was to just remove the limit entirely.
Destiny 2: Improvements to Power Bands
With improvements to Power Bands, the barrier to enter certain activities will be lower. The main idea here, like with some of the other changes, is to make it possible for everyone to get a chance at taking on the Witness in The Final Shape’s story. Therefore, the Soft Cap for entry will only require 40 Power rather than the typical 150. That said, within The Final Shape, the Power Bands will be:
- Power Floor – 1900
- Soft Cap – 1940
- Powerful Cap – 1990
- Hard Cap/Pinnacle Cap – 2000
Activity Power Changes
If you haven’t been playing Destiny 2 for too long, it can be kind of difficult to approach an activity and understand how the Power for it really works. Bungie’s making steps to make Power levels in activities much easier to understand for everybody. From now on, activities will either have Power Enabled, or Power Disabled.
When you enter an activity with Power Disabled, it will be the same difficulty for everybody, no matter what their Power level is. Though, when you enter Power Enabled activities, you can expect to have more strength when your Power Level is higher. Below, you can find the Difficulty Tiers for Power Enabled activities:
| Difficulty Tier | Activity Power Cap | Mastery | Activities |
| Standard | 1945 | Grow your Power Level to the Powerful and Pinnacle caps | Vanguard Ops, Seasonal Activities, Exotic missions, Raids, Dungeons |
| Advanced | 1995 | Optimize buildcrafting for Nightfall-style gameplay | Nightfalls |
| Expert | 2005 | Optimize Fireteam composition and focus on working together | Nightfalls, Lost Sectors, Seasonal activities, Exotic missions |
| Master | 2010 | Leverage skills built by practicing other tiers of difficulty | Nightfalls, Lost Sectors, Raids, and Dungeons |
| Grand Master | 2020 | Demonstrate skills learned in all other tiers of difficulty | Nightfalls |
| Contest Mode | 1965 | Fireteam Power doesn’t apply, used in Raids | Raids during the first 48 hours |
Destiny 2 is now available on PC,
