Inventory

Your Inventory is where you store all of your non-weapon, non-armor items. These items range from basic currency types (Glimmer and Marks) to consumable items that you can activate for a battlefield boost and Materials necessary for upgrading your armor and weapons.

Currency

Currency is the catchall term for the different currency types that exist in Destiny. You can earn Glimmer from many places, but it caps at 25,000 total.

On the other hand, you can earn Marks only by completing specific activities, and these cap at 100 earned per real-life week.

You use Marks to purchase powerful Legendary equipment from vendors in the Tower. Because you are limited in how much you can earn every week, if you are trying to maximize your character’s arsenal as quickly as possible, you want to cap your Vanguard and Crucible Marks every week.

However, keep in mind that any item you can buy in the Tower can potentially appear out on the battlefield. Don’t feel that you have to grind out Vanguard or Crucible Marks if you prefer playing mostly PvE or PvP.

There are vendors in the Tower who accept large quantities of Materials in exchange for Marks. You can use them as an alternate method of earning Marks, which is particularly useful if you do not play PvP at all.

Motes of Light are a very special currency that can be earned only once you are Level 20. At 20, you no longer gain levels by earning experience; instead, you earn a Mote of Light each time you would have gained a level.

Glimmer

Glimmer is programmable matter valued by Guardians, and the various artisans and forgemasters of the Tower definitely value it.

To purchase goods from the vendors and to upgrade your gear, you’re going to need Glimmer—a lot of Glimmer. You can find Glimmer on the battlefield, loot it from enemies and chests, or earn it by completing bounties and events.

Glimmer is account-wide, so all of your characters have access to your Glimmer pool. This is handy if you’re starting a fresh character. Glimmer acquired from specific enemy races can be boosted for a short time by using certain consumable items.

Vanguard Marks

You are rewarded Vanguard Marks for completing tasks directly for the Guardians of the Tower. You can use these Marks at the Class and Faction vendors in the Tower.

Note that Faction vendors (including Vanguard) have reputation requirements to buy their more powerful items, so even if you have enough Marks, you cannot buy them without the required reputation level.

Just about any activity that earns you Vanguard Marks tends to earn you Vanguard reputation, as well. If you want to improve your reputation with a specific Faction other than Vanguard, find and equip a Class item of that Faction to focus your reputation gains toward that specific Faction.

Crucible Marks

You earn Crucible Marks for completing PvP activities in the Crucible. Winning matches earns you more Marks than losing, but simply competing will eventually cap you for the week.

Specific PvP Factions such as the Iron Banner have reputation requirements to purchase their equipment, much like the PvE Factions. You may be required to complete Faction-specific bounties or special activities to raise your reputation with them.

You can also earn Crucible Marks by trading in large quantities of planetary Materials to a vendor in the Tower.

Motes of Light

You begin earning Motes of Light at Level 20. Each time you would normally gain a level from experience at Level 20, you are instead granted a Mote of Light.

The Speaker in the Tower desires this special and precious type of currency, so you can trade them with him for various rewards.

Materials

Materials are all the items you can find in the game that are used for upgrading your weapons and armor.

Planetary Materials

Planetary Materials are so named because they exist on the planets in the solar system. You can find Spinmetal on Earth, Helium Filaments on the Moon, Spirit Bloom on Venus, and Relic Iron on Mars. You can also gather Planetary Materials in the wild, discover them as treasure, or earn them as a reward.

Patrol activities on each planet are ideal for exploring and gathering Materials. You can search the planet at your leisure, gathering raw Materials in the wild and looting chests to find more.

Spinmetal is usually found near old human structures, Helium Filaments near buildings on the Moon, Spirit Bloom near plants and overgrown areas, and Relic Iron near Cabal structures.

Much like treasure chests, Planetary Materials don’t always spawn every time you visit a given area on a planet. Don’t be surprised if you find a gather location on one mission and not the next.

Weapon and Armor Materials

Weapon and Armor Materials are the specific parts required by either weapons or armor to unlock upgrades.

Weapon Parts

Weapon Parts come from breaking down any weapon, and any Class can use them to upgrade a weapon.

Class Armor Parts

You acquire Class Armor Parts by breaking down each Class’s armor. They are Plasteel Plating for Titans, Sapphire Wire for Hunters, and Hadronic Essence for Warlocks.

Like Weapon Parts, breaking down any piece of Class-specific armor yields Class Armor Parts. Unlike Weapon Parts, you can use them only to upgrade armor specific to that Class.

This means that if you split your time playing a Titan and a Warlock, you can share Weapon Parts between them, but you cannot share Plasteel Plating or Hadronic Essence.

Ascendant Materials

Ascendant Materials is the catchall name for powerful Materials necessary to upgrade powerful weapons and armor. Ascendant Energy is necessary to upgrade high-level weapons, while Ascendant Shards are needed for high-level armor. Dismantling high-level equipment or completing challenging activities can earn you Ascendant Materials.

Ascendant Materials

Consumables

Consumable items provide you with an instant ammo restoration on the battlefield or a time-limited boost to XP or Glimmer gain.

Ammo restore items have a five-minute cooldown time, so choose when to use them carefully.

Once you have a decent stash of Glimmer, stock up on ammo restoration consumables, as they’re extremely important in high-difficulty PvE missions.

XP and Glimmer boosters last for 10 minutes once activated, and that is active in-mission time; they don’t count down while you are in orbit.

Consumable Items

Mission Items

Mission items is a category for specific items awarded during Story missions. You usually turn them in to a specific NPC in the Tower for a reward. See the walkthroughs for details on all the mission items you can find in the game… for now! Expect new ones in the future.

Mission items are generally a one-time reward for your first completion of a Story mission.

Bounties

Bounties are PvE and PvP tasks that award you with experience, Glimmer, and occasionally items upon completion.

A daily rotation of PvE and PvP bounties are available in the Tower from Xander 99-40.

You may also occasionally receive bounties from the Postmaster. Once in a great while, if you are extremely lucky, you may stumble across an Exotic bounty. Completing such a rare find is guaranteed to award you with an Exotic item.

You can hold up to five bounties total, and bounties that you are carrying do not expire. You can, however, discard them at any time (say, if a day or two has passed and you spot some bounties on Xander that you’d rather pursue).

It’s worthwhile to stack up a set of PvE or PvP bounties that you want to tackle with your Fireteam. If you can dovetail bounties together with daily events, you can reap a rich harvest of rewards at the end of your daily play session without much extra effort.