Why Light level matters.

I've heard a lot of conjecture on what leveling past 20 actually does - some thought they change the base stats (three bars at the top - Toughness, Agility, Recovery), but instead it looks like levels just make the abilities increase in damage.

From http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Light

Light is a player attribute that boosts the player's level past 20, increasing the damage done by subclass abilities against higher-level enemies.^[1] A player's Light can be increased by equipping armor that boosts it.

[th]Level[/th][th]Required amount of Light to reach[/th]

Level 21	20 Light
Level 22	32 Light
Level 23	43 Light
Level 24	54 Light (highest reachable with only rare armor)
Level 25	65 Light
Level 26	76 Light
Level 27	87 Light
Level 28	98 Light
Level 29	109 Light
Level 30	120 Light

Their source is here:

you just found this out 

only busting your balls

They keep it all such a mystery.  Like I had a rifle with +2 agility but the agility bar in the subclass menu doesn't show a value so there's no way to tell how much difference that makes.  The level difference has been noticably different - I just couldn't tell what exactly is increasing.

Ya if it wasn't for onebaddestinyfan I mean husker I wouldn't know ditika about this game, kinda annoying that there isn't more ingame instructions/explanations about sh1t.

Also you gain +2 light when upgrading the defense on your armor.  I'm not sure if you gain that for each "defense" upgrade or every time you upgrade it as there are 5 separate upgrades for defense on alone on the legendary gloves I'm wearing now.

I'm not so sure about this wiki entry. Only increases the damage your abilities do?

I don't buy it. Unless by 'abilities' they mean 'everything that causes damage including weapons'.

I've had literally the same autorifle as someone 2 levels higher and seen the ads absolutely melt to their weapon fire while I'm blasting a vandals face for ages to kill it.

This falls in to the similar topic of what exactly are the "Level Advantages" that are disabled for crucible? I've heard everything from weapon damage and armor being normalized (makes sense), to weapon stats being balanced (so a level 6 shingen would be identical to a level 18 shingen), to things about base stats on damage/health/etc being normalized.

Sooo...

Anyone seen a video or something doing actual tests comparing 2 people of different levels shooting the same weapon PvE?


I mainly ask because if the only difference really is the ability powers - I don't see who raids would be much more difficult at a lower level. Typically if you die it's because of a Massive wave of ads, or some 1-hit-kill catches you by surprise. Sure higher base health and better armor means you can get away with slightly more ad damage or a blast hitting a little closer, but that's not the end of the world.

I have no hard evidence to back up my claim, but it clearly helps in ALL areas, not just "abilities".

Depends on what lvl's you are facing. Light levels supposedly only increase your abilities power levels but you are penalized if you are a lower level then what you are up aginst. So for example, you will do 187 crit (or whatever damage you normally do) on anything your level or lower but less on anything higher level than you. 

So if you are lvl 22 on a 24 Strike, you will do less damage then a lvl 24, even with the same weapon. But a lvl 24 would do the same damage as a lvl 26, from a weapon standpoint. 

In other words, you are penalized for lower levels but not rewarded for higher one. Only grenades, supers and melee will go up in power with levels. Or at least that is my understanding and from my experience, it seems pretty close to that.

That makes more sense then. That way you can't massacre everything too easily as a higher level. It would also explain why those 2 levels make such a huge difference

AtrumX wrote:That makes more sense then. That way you can't massacre everything too easily as a higher level. It would also explain why those 2 levels make such a huge difference

Agreed.  The difference in difficulty in just two levels is pretty staggering, which is why with the weekly this week I'm waiting until this weekend to see if I can get it going with 3 level 26's to take advantage of the extra rewards for doing so.

I think that is why it's "foolish" to attempt the Raid under leveled too.

S7 Interseptor wrote:I think that is why it's "foolish" to attempt the Raid under leveled too.

You mean why it's HARDCORE!!! First to complete the Raid with no one over level 26! lol