Everyone should be earning Vanguard Marks and Reputation for gear to make sure they get the gear and weapons needed. Everyone seems to think on the internet that this is a loot drop style game and it really isn't.

I really dislike the pvp so for the most part, so I'm going the pve route & grinding vanguard marks and rep. Basically just doing strikes, patrols, daily heroics and so on. Rank 2 by tomorrow hopefully and rank 3 in another week or so after that. The vanguard path might be a little slower, but the vanguard selection has everything I'm interested in as far as purple gear. Also grinding it that way means I don't have to rely on RNG as much for the necessities. It helps to know the breakpoints if you use that kind of strategy. If you haven't seen any purple armor, you will level out at rank 24 with blues. If you are fortunate enough to get a piece or two of purple armor, that gets you to 25, having all four gets you to 26. Beyond that I assume its upgrading the purples and perhaps having an exotic. So knowing that at least makes for an informed decision on how to move forward. I'm not sure I would think of 26 as endgame. I'm thinking of 26 as a good level for doing level 24 strikes and level 22 weeklies. It seems that if you're "over-leveled" a bit, things are much smoother, less tedious, and more fun. Its partially the bullet-sponge nature of some of the bosses but it also seems that firepower lags defense a bit - I feel distinctly underpowered at level 24 with basic blue weapons. Being a little over will hopefully bring the arsenal into line a bit. I'm not bent on doing the raid, necessarily, at level 26. I may "over-level" a bit for the same reasons - we'll see.

I used a triple approach, I did some PvP which I enjoy even though I'm not great and I got lucky with some legendary warlock gauntlets then I've run lots of strikes and the weekly mission to get strange coins to buy an exotic from Xur later this week and finally I'm beasting my vanguard rank (I need about 300 more reputation for rank 2 now) so I can buy more legendary gear from the vanguard seller. Drops are random but fun you take on some strikes you'll have a decent set of blue quality items fairly quickly and make sure you upgrade the defence as that improves the light value too. Johncgi

The pvp is good in some ways b/c the drops are random, so even if you are not very good at it or just have a bad round you can still get something worthwhile. Also, even losses get you a few marks. I've had no luck with legendary engram drops so I'm stuck at lvl 24 right now... My plan is to keep leveling up faction, I went with FWC and I'm at rank 2 now. After work tonight I will be able to buy my first legendary gear and if I have the time to do some more pvp I can get enough marks to get my second. Not sure what level that will get me to. Hopefully 26... I'm looking to run strikes/patrol with some peeps, if anyone is interested? Gotta keep leveling up the faction! I know you get legendary packages at the postmaster from ranking the factions up so maybe can get lucky there too... I've been doing all the bounties everyday and have yet to see one of these exotic bounties pop up, but sooner or later I will get one!

PVE route, only because I'm just bad at PVP - i dont have twitchy reflexes. Now granted if i was in a good fireteam that didnt mind showing a newbie the ropes i would mind checking it out more. but yeah, missions and strikes is where i live. and patrol, i like the patrol/bounties.