Destiny 2: The Missing Manual
An unofficial guide for Bungie's Destiny 2

What Power is (and isn't), and how to earn it in the Portal

Last updated: August 7, 2025

Every weapon and armor piece has an associated Power number with it. If you’re familiar with “item level” in MMOs and ARPGs, you might think you know what this is, but I promise, it’s much weirder than you imagine it.

Your character has a Power level that is the average Power of your currently-equipped gear. crucially, Power number does not affect difficulty scaling in 99% of content. You will not actually get “more powerful” as you level up. This is different from what you may be expecting from other games, or even past years of Destiny.

Your Power level also does not unlock any unique content in this game. All Raids, Dungeons, campaigns, Exotic missions, and more can be done at any Power level.

Instead, the main reason to increase your Power level is to unlock higher-tier gear. See the loot guide for more information on this, but a quick summary: higher-tier weapons have enhanced and selectable perks, while higher-tier armor has higher stats.

Higher-tier does not mean any unique weapons/armor that isn’t available at a lower tier - all gear is available at any tier.

Power also unlocks:

  • Higher-difficulty Portal activities, which you run to collect that higher-tier gear.
  • Special Conquest missions in the Portal. This is the closest thing to “unique content” that Power unlocks, but these are just extra-hard versions of other Portal missions.
  • Higher campaign/world difficulties for Edge of Fate. You need 150 Power to access Fabled and 200 to access Mythic.
  • Tier 4 and Tier 5 loot on Kepler, by purchasing upgrades at 350 Power and 450 Power respectively.

Raising your Power

The Power level of the gear you earn is based on your best in slot Power level - the hypothetical Power level you would have if you were to equip the highest-Power gear you have in every slot. You’ll earn drops that are around 1-3 Power above this.

The soft cap of Power is 200. Any activity’s drops will get you up to this number. Until 200, focus on just doing whatever you want; there really is no need to power level your Power level. If you happen to have the newest expansion, you should progress somewhat faster on this grind in it, but honestly, just do whatever.

Once you hit 200, any further Power is considered a “Seasonal Power Bonus.” That is: you can grind up as far as 450 (and 550 when the September 9 update hits), but this will reset at the start of the next season when the new expansion releases (December 2). This means that all of the gear you have now that has a gear score over 200 will have it reset back down to 200 when that expansion releases.

To earn gear with >200 Power, there are currently four things you can do:

  • The Portal and its various Operations (up to the current max Power)
  • Kepler activities at Fabled & Mythic (up to ?, requires Edge of Fate)
  • Desert Perpetual Raid (up to ?, requires Edge of Fate)
  • The Sieve (up to 300, requires Edge of Fate)

The Portal is, of course, intended to be the main way to increase the number, but The Sieve is pretty good for getting lots of rewards when it’s up.

Infusion: Raising your old gear’s Power level

You don’t need to leave a piece of gear behind just because it’s low Power level. You can infuse lower-level gear with another piece of gear in the same slot. Do this by inspecting your gear on the Inventory screen (right click with a mouse).

If the piece of gear you’re infusing with is the same item - like you’re infusing a Tech-Sec Vest with a Tech-Sec Vest - this only costs 1000 Glimmer. If you’re below 200 Power, infusion will cost a few Enhancement Cores, which are relatively cheap.

Above 200 Power, you start using Unstable Cores, which are a seasonal currency that’s reset at the start of the next season. The only thing these are used for is infusing your gear. Dismantling 200+ gear will grant you a number of Unstable Cores relative to the level of the gear.

Grinding in the Portal, or why you keep seeing all those memes about grinding Caldera

The Portal is a new activity launcher introduced with Edge of Fate. It centralizes a bunch of stuff into a single launcher that has configurable difficulty settings for each activity, as well as Quickplay playlists to just randomly go through activities.

Crucially, The Portal is the main way to get 200+ drops. You can totally use it while under 200, and, indeed, the game encourages you to with a kind of half-baked tutorial. I’m not going to go too far into how the Portal works mechanically here, but basically: your goal is to set the difficulty of every activity so that you can get an A rank, as those will raise your Power the most. You can also target the daily Bonus Focus activities that get additional drops.

The Portal also has its own daily/weekly quests (most of which can only be completed in Portal activities), and sometimes will have an event that offers bonus loot in the Portal.

You can run this stuff to your heart’s desire, with no lockouts. I wouldn’t. It’s fun to run a few activities a day and earn stuff on the rewards tracks - and the Weekly Rewards track is particularly useful for getting Exotic engrams and Ciphers - but don’t burn yourself out Power grinding.

There’s several “target levels” for earning higher-tier gear in the Portal:

  • 200 Power - Tier 2 gear
  • 300 Power - Tier 3 gear
  • 400 Power - Tier 4 gear
  • 500 Power - Tier 5 gear (only available after midseason update)

All Portal activities have an increased chance of granting a +1 Tier bonus on higher-difficulty content, and that increases as you get closer to the next gear level. So 450, the current cap, is still technically “tier 4,” but has a chance of getting tier 5 gear.