Getting Started

Launching into Destiny for the first time can feel like parachuting into a warzone without a map. The game drops you into a rich, lore-heavy universe with minimal hand-holding, leaving many new Guardians wondering what exactly they are supposed to be doing. Before you fire your first weapon, it is crucial to understand the foundational choices you are about to make.

Choosing Your Class

The very first decision you will make is selecting your class. This choice dictates your physical appearance, your starting jump ability, and the foundational identity of your Guardian. There are no wrong choices, but each class caters to a distinctly different playstyle:

Hunter: The agile, stealthy rogue of the Destiny universe. Hunters have a triple-jump ability (giving them immense vertical mobility) and tend to excel at precision damage and single-target elimination. If you enjoy sitting on the backlines, landing critical hits, and feeling like a space-ninja, choose Hunter.
Titan: The immovable object. Titans are heavily armored and feature a lift jump that propels them straight up into the air. They are the masters of area-of-effect (AoE) damage and crowd control. If you want to charge directly into the fray, throw explosive punches, and absorb punishment, choose Titan.
Warlock: The space-mage. Warlocks feature a glide ability that allows them to float gracefully through the air. They bridge the gap between offense and support, utilizing devastating elemental blasts and healing rifts. If you prefer a tactical playstyle that involves managing buffs and dealing massive elemental damage, choose Warlock.

Understanding Races and Subclasses

After picking a class, you will choose a race (Human, Awoken, or Exo). Your race is purely cosmetic. It has absolutely zero impact on your stats or abilities, so pick whichever one you think looks the coolest. You will also choose a gender and customize your facial features, though you will rarely see your face behind your helmet.

During the opening mission, you will unlock your first Subclass—the specific flavor of your class. For example, a Hunter might start as a "Gunslinger" (Solar) or "Arcstrider" (Arc). Subclasses dictate your abilities, your grenade type, your melee attack, and your ultimate "Super" ability. As you play, you will unlock fragments and aspects that allow you to heavily customize how these subclasses function, but do not worry about this complexity right away. Just pick whatever subclass sounds the most fun and start shooting.

Xiangqi board game setup with pieces on an outdoor wooden table, engaging strategy in play. — Photo by Sóc Năng Động / Pexels

Core Mechanics

Destiny is a hybrid game. It blends the precise, sandbox feel of a traditional first-person shooter with the obsessive loot-hunting and stat-mining of a Action-RPG. To survive, you must understand the core mechanics that govern this universe.

Elemental Damage and Shields

This is the single most important combat mechanic in the game. Enemies in Destiny utilize shields, and these shields correspond to specific elements: Arc (Blue), Solar (Orange), and Void (Purple). (Stasis and Strand also exist in later expansions, but let's stick to the basics).

Matching your damage type to an enemy's shield is paramount. If you shoot a Solar shield with a Kinetic (non-elemental) weapon, it will take a very long time to break. If you shoot that same shield with a Solar weapon, it will shatter instantly, often causing a spectacular elemental explosion that damages surrounding enemies. Always check what shield types you are facing and swap to the corresponding elemental weapon.

Kinetic vs. Energy Weapons

Your Guardian equips three weapons at a time: a Primary (usually a hand cannon, auto rifle, or pulse rifle), a Special (shotgun, sniper, fusion rifle), and a Heavy (rocket launcher, machine gun, sword). You also have two types of damage slots:

Kinetic Slot: This weapon does standard, non-elemental damage. It is highly effective against unshielded flesh. Use this to clean up enemies after you strip their shields.
Energy Slot: This weapon does elemental damage (Arc, Solar, Void). This is your primary shield-breaking tool.

Armor Stats (Mobility, Resilience, Recovery)

Unlike weapons, which have raw attack numbers, your armor dictates three core stats. Understanding these will prevent you from building a useless Guardian:

Mobility: Increases your movement speed and the height of your jump. It does not affect your aiming speed or strafe speed. It is generally considered the least valuable stat for endgame PvE content.
Resilience: Increases your overall health and decreases the amount of damage you take from flinching when shot. Pushing this stat to 100 is the first major survival goal for new players.
Recovery: Dictates how quickly your health regenerates after taking damage. This is arguably the most comfortable stat in the game. A high recovery stat keeps you in the fight longer.
Discipline, Intellect, Strength (DIS/INT/STR): These govern the cooldowns of your Grenades, Super abilities, and Melee attacks, respectively. Build these based on what abilities you use most often.

A close-up of a hand playing Chinese chess on a traditional board indoors. — Photo by Sóc Năng Động / Pexels

Early Game Tips

The first few hours in Destiny are a whirlwind of alien terminology and flashing lights. If you want to maximize your time and avoid feeling overwhelmed, follow these actionable priorities.

Focus on the Campaign

The original Destiny campaign (often referred to as the "Vanilla" campaign or "Red War" if you are playing Destiny 2) is your primary breadcrumb trail. Do not wander aimlessly. Play through the story missions. The campaign is carefully paced to introduce you to different enemy types, weapon archetypes, and planets gradually. Completing it will naturally boost your Light level (power level) and unlock essential planetary vendors.

Bounties Are Your Best Friend

As soon as you reach a social space (like The Tower), find the vendors. Vendors offer Bounties—small, objective-based tasks like "Defeat 20 Cabal with Auto Rifles" or "Complete 3 Public Events." Bounties are the most consistent source of early-game experience points (XP). Grab them before you head out into the world, complete them passively while doing other activities, and turn them in to level up fast.

Do Not Worry About "God Rolls" Yet

In Destiny community parlance, a "God Roll" is a weapon with the absolute perfect combination of perks. As a beginner, ignore the perks on your guns. In the early game, the only thing that matters is the number in the top right corner: the Power Level. If a shotgun drops that is 10 power levels higher than your current shotgun, equip it immediately. You will outgrow these guns in a few hours, so do not stress about optimization. Just use whatever hits the hardest.

Learn to Love the "Ghost"

Your little floating robot companion, the Ghost, is your most vital tool. You can summon your Ghost at almost any time to scan your environment. Scanning will highlight interactable items, point you toward your current objective, and often provide crucial lore snippets. If you are lost, call your Ghost.

A detailed shot of a hand moving a piece on a Chinese chessboard. — Photo by Sóc Năng Động / Pexels

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Every veteran Guardian has a laundry list of regrets from their first playthrough. Here are the top mistakes you should actively avoid making.

Dismantling Everything: New players often dismantle (delete) weapons to clear inventory space, assuming they will get useful upgrade materials back. Do not do this indiscriminately. Keep one of every weapon type (at least one Scout Rifle, one Hand Cannon, one Shotgun, etc.) so you have a versatile arsenal to deal with different combat scenarios. You never know when you will need a specific range profile.
Ignoring Armor Stats: It is incredibly tempting to equip armor simply because it makes your Power Level go up. While Power Level matters for reaching endgame activities, wearing armor with terrible stats (like all Mobility and no Recovery) will make the game feel clunky and difficult. Find a middle ground: equip high-power gear, but if a piece has absolutely abysmal stats, consider keeping a lower-power piece with better stats until you find a high-power replacement.
Hording Resources: Destin y players love to hoard Glimmer (the basic currency), Legendary Shards, and Enhancement Cores. These resources are meant to be spent. If your inventory is full, you are playing wrong. Upgrade your gear, infuse your favorite weapons, and buy items from vendors. The game will constantly shower you with more resources.
Soloing Everything: While Destiny can be played entirely solo, it is not always meant to be. If you hit a wall in a difficult mission or strike, use the "Guided Games" feature or head to an LFG (Looking For Group) site to find teammates. The game's difficulty scales dynamically, and having even one other player makes a massive difference.

Skippping the Subclass Quests: When a vendor gives you a quest to unlock a new Subclass element (like unlocking Void for your Titan), do it immediately. Unlocking multiple subclasses gives you access to different elemental damage types, which allows you to match enemy shields much more easily.

Blindly Following the Highest Power Level: Sometimes, the game will give you a massive Power Level boost for an activity you are not ready for. If you skip straight to a high-level area without understanding the game's mechanics, you will get stomped. Progress linearly through the campaign before attempting side activities that vastly out-level you.

Not Using Cover: Destiny feels like a power fantasy, but it is not DOOM. Your shields will break, and when they do, your health will melt incredibly fast. You must actively use cover, peek-shoot, and retreat to let your Recovery stat kick in. Standing in the open will get you killed, even against low-level enemies.

Photo by Sóc Năng Động / Pexels

Essential Controls & Settings

The default controller and keyboard settings in Destiny are notoriously sub-optimal. Taking five minutes to adjust your settings will dramatically improve your gameplay.

Key Bindings and Button Layouts

If you are on a controller, immediately switch your button layout from the default to "Button Puncher" or "Ninja". The default scheme ties your crouch, slide, and melee abilities to the same thumb stick click (or B/Circle). This means if you are aiming down sights and try to slide, you will often accidentally perform a melee attack, which cancels your slide and gets you killed. Button Puncher separates these inputs, mapping crouch/slide to a click, and melee to a dedicated face button.

For mouse and keyboard players, ensure your push-to-talk key (if using external voice chat) does not conflict with essential movement keys like Ctrl (crouch) or Shift (sprint). Rebind your grenade and melee keys to easily accessible side mouse buttons if your mouse has them, freeing up your keyboard hand for movement.

Recommended Graphics and Visual Settings

Field of View (FOV): On PC or current-gen consoles, crank this up to at least 90, or even 105. The default FOV is incredibly narrow and gives you tunnel vision. A higher FOV lets you see enemies flanking you from the sides.

Reticle: Change your crosshair shape. The default dot is fine, but switching to a cross or circle can help with aligning precision shots on distant targets.

Motion Blur: Turn this off. Motion blur obscures fast-moving targets and causes eye strain during frantic firefights.

Shadow Quality: If you are struggling with frame rates, shadows are the first thing you should lower. They eat up a massive amount of processing power but offer zero competitive advantage.

Accessibility Settings

Do not ignore the Accessibility menu. If you struggle with recoil, increase the "Screen Shake" reduction and turn off "Camera Bob." If you have trouble distinguishing enemies from the environment, adjust the colorblind filters—Destiny has some of the best colorblind support in the industry, allowing you to manually assign specific colors to enemy shields.

Progression System

The progression system in Destiny is famously two-fold: you have your actual character level (1-20, or up to the expansion cap), and your Power Level (the gear score that dictates your raw damage output).

Soft Caps, Hard Caps, and Pinnacle Caps

Understanding the Power Level grind is the key to avoiding frustration. The game divides your progression into three distinct phases:

The Soft Cap: Early in the game, almost anything you do will drop higher-power gear. Playing the campaign, doing public events, and opening random chests will easily push you to the soft cap. Do not stress over *how* you level during this phase; just play.

The Hard Cap: Once you hit the soft cap, standard activities (like opening regular chests or grinding basic strikes) will no longer drop powerful gear. To progress past this point, you must complete "Powerful Gear" bounties and milestones. These are usually awarded for completing weekly challenges, finishing a strike playlist, or ranking up a vendor. Do not waste these milestones while you are still below the soft cap, as the reward will scale to your current level anyway.

The Pinnacle Cap: The absolute maximum Power Level. To reach this, you must complete "Pinnacle" activities. These are the hardest challenges in the game: completing a Raid, finishing a Grandmaster Nightfall, or reaching the top of the competitive Crucible ladder. Each Pinnacle reward gives you a massive, guaranteed Power Level bump.

Armor and Weapon Upgrading

As you progress, you will accumulate Enhancement Cores, Enhancement Prisms, and Ascendant Shards. These are used to "Masterwork" your gear—upgrading a weapon or armor piece to its maximum potential, giving it improved stats and a cool glowing effect. Do not waste these materials on low-level gear. Wait until you reach the endgame and find armor with the stats you actually want before you invest heavily in upgrading it.

Furthermore, you will eventually unlock the "Infusion" system. Infusion allows you to take the Power Level from a powerful, ugly gun and transfer it into a weaker, beautiful gun. This costs Glimmer and Legendary Shards. Use infusion sparingly to keep your favorite-looking weapons viable as you climb the Power Level ladder.

Resources & Where to Find Help

Destiny is a massively complex game that does a terrible job of explaining itself internally. If you try to figure everything out solely through trial and error, you will likely burn out. Lean on the community. The Destiny player base is famously dedicated to helping newcomers.

Essential Third-Party Tools

Destiny Item Manager (DIM): This is not an exaggeration: DIM is mandatory. It is a free, officially sanctioned web app and mobile app that lets you manage your inventory across all your characters without having to go to the Tower. You can move items, equip loadouts, and check your stats instantly. If you play on console, you can even use the mobile app to move items from your phone while the game is running on your TV.

Light.gg: The definitive database for all things Destiny. If you want to know where a specific weapon drops, what its possible perk pools are, or what armor sets look like, Light.gg is the place to go.

Braytech: An incredible stat-tracking website. If you want deep analytics on your gameplay, weapon usage, and match history, Braytech presents the data pulled directly from the game's API in a clean, readable format.

Community Hubs and LFG

Destiny has no native, in-game matchmaking for high-level activities like Raids or Dungeon Master completions. You must use external tools to find groups for these activities.

Destiny 2 LFG on Discord: The official Discord server for finding fireteams. It has channels strictly divided by activity, platform, and skill level. There are specific "Sherpa" (guide) channels where experienced players volunteer to teach new players through complex raids.

The100.io: A great community site for finding like-minded players who want to group up at the same time every week. It is less of a "quick match" tool and more of a place to find a permanent clan or recurring group.

r/Destiny2 (Reddit): The largest English-speaking community hub. It is an excellent place to read patch notes, view fan art, and ask questions. The community is generally very welcoming to "X-post from r/Destiny2" beginner questions

PC Gaming