Best Ways to Prepare for Destiny 2 Season 19 Dungeon

Destiny 2 has recently released Season of The Seraph, and with it has come a new dungeon with a new loot pool and an exotic combat bow, Hierarchy of Needs. But there’s more to enjoy in this dungeon than just loot. If you love Destiny’s story and its deep, well-written characters, as I do, you’ll also want to discover all the Devilish Recordings which provide an insight into Eramis’ past.

But delving into a dungeon with a Power Level that’s too low will make the experience not only difficult but time-consuming. Each time you die, it will take 45 seconds for you to respawn naturally. And it’s a huge drain on your team for them to have to disengage from their tasks to find your floating Ghost and revive you.

So, here’s what you need to do to prepare.

Best Ways to Prepare for Destiny 2 Season 19 Dungeon

Get Your Power Level to at Least 1570

Some people will enter the Season of The Seraph with a fully-kitted guardian who’s already at the minimum threshold for the Spire of The Watcher. But many of Destiny’s guardians come in and out of the game and never reach the max Power Level for each Season. If this is the case, you might be below the 1570 minimum threshold.

And I do say minimum. For each encounter you face, the recommended Power Level goes up by 10. So, the easiest encounter that you’ll land in will only demand 1570. But when you go and fight during the much harder second encounter, it’s recommended that your Power Level be 1580. And the final encounter will recommend that you be 1590. To complete the Spire of The Watcher on Masters, it’s recommended that you enter with a Power Level of 1610, which is higher than the Pinnacle Cap for the Season of The Seraph. Of course, it’s possible to do it at a lower Power Level (we had someone sub 1570 during our first run, and we still managed to get through), but to ensure you’re pulling your weight, 1570 is the recommended.

But don’t fear if that seems like a distant dream. Here’s how you can get there as quickly as possible.

Weekly Activities

Each week, you’ll have the opportunity to complete certain activities which will net you Powerful and Pinnacle gear. These drops are essential for pushing your character past the Soft Cap of 1530, to the Powerful Cap of 1580, and, finally, the Pinnacle Cap of 1590.

To find out which activity will drop a Powerful or Pinnacle engram, go to Destinations. You’ll see a golden circle beside various areas you can go to. These golden circles mark weekly Pinnacles that you haven’t yet obtained.

Related: How to Complete Destiny 2’s Newest Dungeon Spire of the Watcher

The Tower offers four vendors who will give you a Pinnacle for finishing eight bounties for them. You can obtain Pinnacles separately from the Crucible, Gambit, and Vanguard vendors by heading to those respective activities and completing three of them each.

Raids and most of the Dungeons will all offer one Pinnacle once a week as well, giving you an opportunity for 5 more Pinnacles. The final option to obtain a Pinnacle is through the Seasonal activity, which for the Season of The Seraph is Battleground: Heist. Head to the Helm to participate in this, and you’ll only need to open two Seraph Chests to get that Pinnacle.

Another important thing to note is that you can complete all these activities three times! You’ll need to use all three of your characters. While this isn’t useful for grinding out Power Levels for equipment, where it does benefit you is weapons. Weapons can be shared between your characters through the vault, allowing you to boost your main guardian’s power level much faster than if you were only grinding pinnacles for one character.

These weekly activities are the primary way to increase the Power Level of your guardian quickly, and they’re all reset on Tuesday at 1 PM EST. But there are other ways to supplement this grind.

Supplemental XP Options

A commonly overlooked option, especially for solo players, is joining a clan. Clans are fantastic in Destiny in that it’s another way to gain Engrams. You can also collect Clan Bounties from Suraya at the Tower and get a chance to not only obtain Legendary Engrams and additional XP.

A good second option is to grind through the Story missions on all of your characters. You’d be surprised by how quickly you can speed through these; the end rewards can be fantastic. I obtained my favorite exotic Helmet that helped boost my overall light level, as my helmet was holding me back.

Related: All Secret Chest Locations in Destiny 2’s Spire of the Watcher

But the third and most popular way to supplement your levels is through leveling up your Season Pass and the Seasonal Artifact. Your Artifact will boost your Power Level as you, and it, as you gain Season Pass levels. And the best way to quickly gain XP is through bounties. Collect as many bounties as possible from your favorite vendor in the tower, then head off to the activity or planet you want to farm. Completing bounties can either be tedious or done passively as you complete more major tasks in Destiny. But either way, they’ll greatly accelerate your leveling process.

A fourth way to supplement your leveling is to buy the premium Season Pass. The Season Pass primarily offers players cosmetics and resources, but at certain milestones, you’ll obtain ether XP boosts. Each boost increases XP gains by 2%, which stacks, making the grinding process a little easier.

Even if you claim all your Pinnacles on characters and complete each of these supplemental steps, it’s possible that your character might not make the jump from 1530 to 1570 in one day. It’s impossible to control what Pinnacle drops for which equipment slot, which means you might have one piece of armor that’s holding you back. It’s fine to wait until next week and the new reset to try again. The dungeon will be there waiting for you, so there’s no reason to rush it.

Watch and Read Guides on How to Complete the Dungeon

Once you’ve hit Power Level 1570 at the minimum, you’re almost ready to talk to Ikora, get that quest, and load into the Spire of The Watcher.

But wait, how prepared are you, really? It’s valid to want to go into the dungeon blind and experience all of its mechanics for yourself. If that’s what you want, the earlier you do it, the better. Find a fireteam and do it with a full blind team, and you’re likely to have a ton of fun.

But if you want to come into a dungeon with others who know what they’re doing, it’s a good idea to close the knowledge gap. Guide and videos are all great options to get an idea of how to approach the mechanics and accelerate how quickly you’ll acclimate to the learning curve dungeons offer.

Not only that, but you should also both read and watch multiple sources for how each encounter and section is done. It’s likely that content creators and writers primarily write from their own experiences or the experiences of those in their clans and fireteams. Where they struggled might not be where you’ll struggle, and vice versa. So, it’s possible they’ll skim over information you’ll find essential. For that reason, reading or watching multiple guides will help give you the best tools to approach each section of the Spire of The Watcher.

Related: All Devilish Recording Locations in Destiny 2’s Spire of the Watcher

On top of that, you should also ensure that you have the best equipment possible for the encounters. It’s fine not to have the meta weapons so long as you have weapons that work similarly to the meta weapon.

Clear Out Your Schedule

You know what to do, and now you’re in the thick of it. But you’re likely quickly learning a sad fact: no matter how many guides you read or videos you watch, learning the mechanics of a new raid or dungeon will usually only start to click once you’ve done the trial and error yourself. You can’t expect to land in a dungeon and perform the first time flawlessly. You’ll need to explore the levels, see the mechanics yourself, and engage with them.

Unless, of course, you have someone carrying you through, and they put you on ad duty. Which can be nice, but it’s worth learning how the dungeon works for yourself. Once you start engaging with the levels and learning how things work, you’ll quickly find that time can get away from you.

Spire of The Watcher will take more players at a good light level, with the right equipment, and who knows the dungeon’s mechanics, an hour or less. But as someone new to it, you should expect to dedicate two to three hours at least. Having to leave halfway through not only cheats you out of the experience but puts the fireteam you leave behind in a bind. It’s much harder to find someone to join your dungeon at a checkpoint than at a fresh run. So, be considerate to everyone and try to stay in the full dungeon.

If the Spire of The Watcher is your first dungeon, you’re in for a wild ride. But do all this, and you’ll be in as good of a position as possible to conquer it on your first run. Good luck, Guardian.