Experience Points increase your level, unlocks more abilities and Class Upgrades. Additionally, your uncommon or higher weapons and armor can also gain experience and unlock Weapon Upgrades and Armor Upgrades.
- When you turn in bounties or missions, be sure to equip weapons and armor that are not level to gain experience for these gear and unlock upgrades.
Player earn experience points from killing enemies, completing Story Missions, Strikes, Bounties, Public Events and Crucible matches and turning in Mission Items at The Tower.
Currently the max guardian level is 20. At level 20, players will continue to earn experience points but stop advance in levels, instead they will gain a Mote of Light for every level up.
Weapon Experience Points
Leveling Exotic Weapons
- See also: Exotic Weapons
Each Sights upgrade requires 20,000 XP to unlock.
The first Weapon Upgrade requires 10,000 XP to unlock.
The first Upgrade Damage is unlocked after unlocking all of Sights.
The 3 Optional Upgrades require 20,000 XP each to unlock.
The second Weapon Upgrade (the upgrade unique to the exotic) is unlocked after unlocking the second Optional Upgrade.
The second Upgrade Damage is unlocked after unlocking all 3 Optional Upgrades and earning 20,000 XP.
The last 3 Upgrade Damages require 20,000 XP each to unlock.
To fully unlock all the upgrades on a Exotic weapon, you will need to earn 190,000 XP on it.
Armor Experience Points
When you complete in-game activities such as bounties, all of your gear slots gain the same amount of experience points. For example, your Helmet slot armor gains 100 XP, Chest Armor gains 100 XP, Gauntlets gains 100 XP and Leg Armor gains 100 XP. The experience you gain is a flat amount across all the slots. You cannot unequip gear to target level a specific slot because the experience gained is not divided among them.