This guide will take you through the fastest way to level crafted guns in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, as well as how levelling these guns works in the first place for those who want a better understanding of the systems behind weapon levelling.
How to level crafted guns quickly in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
First things first, XP gain on weapons depends on the power of the enemy you’ve killed with it. As such, while killing smaller enemies will grant a 1% increase per one to two take out, you’ll want to use your crafted weapons to help kill elite enemies for that major boost to your weapon level. As such, we recommend taking your crafted weapons to group activities like Strikes, The Wellspring, and Psi Ops Battlegrounds in the H.E.L.M. While it doesn’t matter exactly what content you do, you want to make sure the weapon you intend on levelling in one you’re primarily using - as you’ll need to deal a significant amount of damage to a killed enemy for XP to be given. We took a crafted primary and special weapon to some different events to check the XP gain, making sure to use both as much as possible, and found that Psi Ops Battlegrounds was the best activity for xp gain per run (we hit 96% across both weapons, almost a full level per run).
How levelling guns works in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
With crafted weapons, you gain XP with them by defeating enemies with that particular weapon. You don’t get passive XP for simply having it equipped, you have to actually pull it out and start blasting things for progress to actually be made. The bigger the monster you kill, the more XP you gain. Smaller enemies you find all over the place will grant progress, but you’ll notice sizable jumps in XP gain when you take down the boss at the end of a Lost Sector, the major enemy in a heroic public event, or the final boss of a Wellspring run. As you level a weapon up, more options will be unlocked back at the crafting relic on Mars. Take your weapon back there and reshape it, and you’ll be able to equip new attachments, intrinsics, and traits to boost its power significantly. When the light level of a crafted gun gets a bit to low for the content you’re doing, you can dismantle a duplicate gun of a higher level to transfer over the light level at a small glimmer cost, rather than upgrade modules. So be sure to use these duplicates wisely as you level. For more Destiny 2: The Witch Queen content, you may be interested in our guide on how to gain Throne World rep quickly so that you can explore the new planet thoroughly.
