For an upcoming season, you're gonna want to prep a couple of weeks before it starts. This will maximize your gains and will give you more time during the upcoming season to play the things you want, instead of constantly grinding. To get a headstart, your gonna want to do the following things. First, you're going to want to get the obvious out of the way, like: clean your vault, collect exotics, complete exotic catalyst, complete all 10 of Ada-1 Threaded Bounties and turn them in. You want to try and complete as many Quests as you can, so that you will have more room for carrying Bounties. You can only carry 63 Quests and Bounties together at any given time. The only Quests you cannot complete are Ritual Artifact Quests which may be released with each season between DLC's. Once you've gotten your Quests out of the way, you'll want to start collecting Bounties until your Quest/Bounty limit is reached, but don't turn them in just yet. You'll want to save them until next season. It is important to know that not all Bounties are the same value. Some Bounties are worth more experience than others, and you're going to want to collect the more valuable ones first. Bounty XP Values Are As Follows: Weekly and Daily Bounties can only be collected once from a vendor, so claim and complete them first, then collect repeatable Bounties. Don't bother collecting any Bounties from vendors who will be vaulted in the upcoming season. TIP: if you start prepping early enough, you can have all Weekly Bounties saved up to be turned in later. TIP: be sure to save completed Iron Banner Bounties. More on this later... You're gonna want to stock up on Ascendant Shards, Enhancement Prisms, and Enhancement Cores. You will need these for upgrading your gear rank. These can best be obtained from grinding Nightfall Strikes on Hero difficulty or higher. Another good way to get enhancement Cores is to do the Daily Bounties at the Gunsmith. Completing a Daily Bounty grants you an Enhancement Core. If you do all 4 Daily Bounties on all three characters, that's 12 Enhancement Cores a day. Also, you can trade 10 Enhancement Cores for an Enhancement Prism, and 10 Enhancement Prisms for an Ascendant Shard at the Gunsmith in the Tower. Let's not forget Upgrade Modules. You'll need those to upgrade your Gear Light Level. They can be purchased from the Gunsmith with an Enhancement Core. Random Planetary Resources and Glimmer will all be required for all trades & purchases. The best way to collect these is by going to the Tangled Shore, speak to Spider, and purchase them with Legendary Shards only. Do not purchase Enhancement Cores or Enhancement Prisms, as they are too expensive. The Planetary Resources and prices change daily. Save some Legendary Shards, which may be required for some purchases in the upcoming season. You can get Legendary Shards from dismantling any legendary gear. The fastest way to collect random legendary gear is to play Public Events and activities from the Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit playlists. Exotic Ciphers can be acquired from Xur on a weekly to week basis by completing a Quest that he gives you. You can hold only 1 Exotic Cipher at a time. Your Inventory Goal Should Be As Follows(just do the best you can): TIP: there is a trick to having extra Glimmer in reserve. Simply go to your collections, and reacquire some exotic vehicles, then store them in your vault. So, way later in the season when you need to replenish your Glimmer, but don't have the time to grind for it, just dismantle some of the exotic vehicles you stored in your vault which will give you a portion of your Glimmer back. TIP: if you find yourself short of Mod Components, just go to your Collections and reacquire some "Rare"(blue) swords, then dismantle them. You'll receive a Mod Component about every 10 dismantles. Try to fill up your first row of Inventory and first two rows of your Postmaster with Umbral Engrams before the upcoming season starts, so that you can turn them in after the upcoming season starts for a chance to collect upcoming seasonal gear right out of the gate. Don't max out your Inventory & Postmaster with Umbral Engrams though. If maxed out, it can sometimes stop you from picking story required gear as soon as the new season starts and bugs you out of being able to progress; as it has happened in the past. First thing you're gonna want to do is push for your massive XP and level gain. The optimize gains, you're going to want to do this in the following order: Please continue reading for details... If applicable, purchase the Season Pass as soon as the season starts, before you do anything else, and you can get the additional 20% experience bonus right out the gate for everything you do. This experience bonus will increase as you rank up. Here is a general guide for the XP Bonus Ranks(ranks may vary each season): Make sure you have the Mod put on your Ghost for +10% experience. This will turn your Bounties into even more experience gained for when you turn them in. It is essential that you get the Seasonal Artifact. In a regular season, this usually requires you to play the first few missions of the seasonal story. If there is a DLC drop in the season, it may require a little bit more work to get the Seasonal Artifact. In either case, return to Orbit as soon as you get the Seasonal Artifact. NOTE: if you turn in your Bounties before acquiring the Seasonal Artifact, then the Seasonal Artifact will not benefit from the massive experience gains from turning in your Bounties. If you purchased the Season Pass, then you can get a Shared Wisdom experience bonus. This involves being in a Fireteam that is in an activity or roaming a planet(tower/helm doesn't count) to get it. Shared Wisdom is stackable with every Teammate that has it. You get your first Shared Wisdom experience bonus around Rank 5. So, if everyone in your Fireteam has the Season Pass and is Rank 5, then you can get up to 12%. Here is a general guide for the Shared Wisdom XP Bonus Ranks(ranks may vary each season): Once the new season starts and you have the Season Pass, add +10% experience Mod to your Ghost, and join a Fireteam with 5 other Teammates on a planet, you then turn in all your completed Bounties that you have collected(except for Iron Banner Bounties). This will give you a massive XP boost, raising your XP level to somewhere around 10 before you even actually start playing. The reason you continue to save your Iron Banner Bounties is because you don't want to turn them in until you are at the Light Level Hard-cap. From Hard-cap to the Pinnacle-cap, only Pinnacle Gear can get you there, and the Iron Banner Bounties drop Pinnacle Gear. If you are at this Season's Pinnacle-cap, then you will automatically be at next Season's Hard-cap. TIP: when you turn in those completed Iron Banner Bounties from the previous Season, you'll get the current Season's Iron Banner Gear before an Iron Banner event even takes place. Other players will wonder how you got it so soon. Disclaimer: might not work on seasons with DLC drops. TIP: at the start of the week every Tuesday, every player gets the "Well Rested" attribute, which is a +100% experience bonus that lasts for the first 5 ranks. So, while this bonus is active, turn in your High Value Bounties first for overall better XP gains. Finally, decode your Umbral Engrams at the Prismatic Recaster to get possible new season gear right off the bat.THE PREP BEFORE THE PREP
GETTING STARTED WITH THE ACTUAL PREP
STOCK UP ON RESOURCES
COLLECT UMBRAL ENGRAMS
ONCE THE NEW SEASON STARTS
BEFORE PLAYING, PURCHASE SEASON PASS
AS SOON AS YOU ARE ABLE, APPLY AN XP MOD TO YOUR GHOST
ACQUIRE THE SEASONAL ARTIFACT
JOIN A FIRETEAM FOR SHARED WISDOM
TURN IN YOUR BOUNTIES
DECODE IN YOUR UMBRAL ENGRAMS