If you wait for armor to drop you will be waiting forever. Definitely rank up in the faction whose armor has the stat boosts that compliment your play style (Intellect, Discipline, or Strength), or the perks that you want (increased reload speed with certain guns). For example, if you want the best Super and grenade cooldown times, you want to get Future War Cult Gear (they specialize in Intellect and Discipline). Once you get the gear you want and level it up (a full set of legendary vendor gear should get you to 26), and eventually purchase an exotic from Xur for your character (since exotics get the highest light levels). This will bring you to light level 27, and then you can start running the raid to try and get raid gear. My 2 cents of advice: - Buy an exotic helm. This is because the raid helm only drops on Hard mode raids, which can be pretty difficult. - If you want to level up rank in a certain faction, make sure you purchase their class item (for 2500 glimmer). This is the only way to accumulate faction rep. - Vanguard weapons are almost always the best weapons you can purchase from a vendor. - Strike Playlists are a great way to get a lot of engrams. More engrams = more chances for good gear to drop and more chances at good gear when leveling your Cryptarch rank. I'm sure there's more, but that's what comes to mind right away