Light

Question:

Why would I care about Light Level (LL)?

Answer:

Your guardian's LL (along with cryptarch rank) is part of the calculation that determines the specs of gear you decode. Generally speaking, higher LL means better gear. LL is based on your attack, defense, and level, and is used only for decode calculations.

Question:

When I decode armor and weapons, why doesn’t defense and attack increase after I equip the highest that I have?

Answer:

Decoding is inherently variable (unreliable), though the variability goes down as cryptarch rank goes up.

The armor-relevant things that affect light are the defense, def%, and atk%, in that order of importance. For weapons, the attack of your primary is the most important, but the def% and atk% of all three weapons also affect light.

So when you're decoding with an eye to raising light, you're looking for gear with perks for atk% and def%. Gear within each type is sorted first by base stat (defense for armor or attack for weapons) and then by total perks. If total perks is 150%, you might see these perks:

• +25% HP
• +25% Atk
• +25% Def
• +25% XP
• +25% G
• +25% Cr

However, you're more likely to see something like this:

• +20% HP
• +23% Atk
• +25% XP
• +30% LP
• +26% Ev
• +26% Cr

When you're trying to decode better gear (by raising light), that more realistic decode is no good. It doesn't boost defense at all, so you can ignore it (at least for now). Maybe next decode you'll see:

• +30% HP
• +23% Atk
• +20% Def
• +25% LP
• +26% Ev
• +26% Cr

This is usable, but not favorable, because while Atk and Def got perked, they got the lowest perks. Nevertheless, depending on the gear you were using before, this might still raise your light. If so, equip it and keep decoding. If not, go back to whatever you had before that gave you the highest light, and keep decoding.

Whenever you decode, there will be a max defense for your given light and cryptarch rank. You can generally tell by looking at the highest base stat and perk % on gear you are decoding. If your top perk is 30%, then you'd like to get 30% attack and 30% defense. The closer you get to your current max, the less likely you are to decode better gear without raising your light or cryptarch rank.

If you hit the ceiling, it's time to grind for SC, VM, engrams, or cores. Sparrows, cores, and gear bought from Xûr or the Quartermaster can provide a quick boost to light. Remember that you're focusing on a minority of the possible perks. It can take a dozen or more decodes to get something better. Sometimes you might lucky and see it happen on the first try.

You can experiment with different light variables using this sheet. You’ll need to make your own copy.

Question:

How can I maximize my Light Level when I decode?

Answer:

This is a little complicated, and more than a little tedious. That's just the price of maximizing your light level / gear when decoding.

• Start out by using an attack booster and a defense booster, to get a temporary increase in your light. Due to a bug in the game, you'll need to visit the change weapon page for the increase to take effect. If you use the boosters and visit your gear page, you can see your starting light. Then click the button to change weapons or armor, and then go back to your gear page, and your light will be higher than it was before.
• Collect any items waiting for you at the postmaster, so that you have all available engrams and cores.
• Use any attack or defense cores, for the permanent boost to light that those provide.
• If you do not currently have equipped the gear that provide your highest light level, equip it. (It is common for players to have multiple "sets" of gear for different goals. You may have gear optimized for Light, for XP, Glimmer, etc. You should always keep whatever piece of gear provides your highest light, even if you do not normally use it.)
  • Is Xûr selling gear that will increase your light? You may want to buy and equip it.
• Bulk decode all your engrams that are common, uncommon, and rare to increase your cryptarch rank as much as you can before you start decoding your legendary engrams. 
• Go to your gear page and bulk dismantle all common, uncommon, and rare gear. Then take a look at any legendary items that appeared as a spontaneous upgrade when you decoded your rare engrams. If any piece will give you higher light than you had before, equip it.
  • Make sure you've locked any gear that you don't want to accidentally dismantle.
• Take a look at your gear to see what your apparent max perk and max base defense should be. Find the piece of gear that is farthest below that max, and go decode a legendary engram for that piece of gear. Then see if it increases your light. If it does, equip it and re-evaluate which piece of gear is lowest below your max (your max may have changed). If it's the same piece of gear, decode another legendary engram for that piece of gear. It could take several decodes before any gear has the stats needed to improve your light. Keep cycling through this step until you've used all your legendary engrams. 

Considerations:

• Because all armor and the primary weapon increases light through the base stat (defense or attack) and through the atk% and def% perks, your special and heavy weapons have less effect on your light level. You may want to upgrade those weapons last.
• You may want to immediately dismantle gear that doesn't increase your light, or that you won't want for some other reason.
• You can reduce the tedium by using multiple windows/tabs in a web browser. Use one for the cryptarch page, and one for the gear page.
  • You can also reduce the steps by ignoring dialogues.
    • When you click the button to decode your engram, you will need to click "Yes" to decode it. Then the game will display a "Thanks" dialog telling you what was decoded. You can ignore this, and continue to decode engrams.
    • When you click the button to dismantle gear, you'll need to click "Yes", but you can ignore the dialog "Complete" that tells you how much XP and materials you gained.
    • Similarly When locking, dismantling, decoding, or using multiple items, you can click the action buttons as many times as needed, and then click Yes as many times as needed to process everything.
    • Whenever you're done, or want to clear the queued dialogs, just reload the page or close the tab.

Question:

What are my max perks?

Answer:

The max perks depends on your light level and cryptarch rank. We don't currently have a way to use the two numbers to calculate this for you (maybe the devs could help us), but the Decodes page will give you an idea of what to expect if your light is over 20k. Unfortunately, if your light is over 20k, you no longer need to decode for light.

Question:

When can I stop decoding engrams one at a time?

Answer:

when your light is over 20k, you can bulk decode all engrams. At this point, the only thing that will improve your decodes is increasing your decode rank.