Destiny Rising Weapon Leveling Guide - Best Ways to Upgrade Gear

A strong weapon can carry you through both PvE and PvP, but only if you invest properly. Understanding how Destiny Rising weapon level up systems work will save you resources and make sure your favorite guns stay relevant. This guide breaks down enhancements, duplicates, exotic upgrades, and the best farming strategies so you can level up weapons fast without wasting time.

How Weapon Leveling Works

In Destiny Rising, weapons grow stronger the more you invest into them. The game uses three different systems to scale your arsenal:

• Weapon Enhancement: The backbone of the system. By using Enhancement Prisms, you permanently raise a weapon’s overall performance across all copies. This makes it the most efficient long-term investment for meta weapons you plan to use often.
• Gear Leveling: A more focused approach. Here, you consume duplicate weapons to boost the stats of a single copy. Unlike enhancement, it doesn’t carry over to future drops, which means it’s best saved for endgame gear that you know you’ll stick with.
• Exotic Upgrades: Exotics are special. Since they don’t drop multiple times, they use Ascension Cells to increase their level. These resources are rare, so choosing the right exotic to upgrade is key.

The key difference is simple:

• Enhancement = account-wide weapon upgrade (affects every copy).
• Gear Leveling = single weapon boost (affects only one gun).

This distinction matters because blowing resources on a weak weapon early can delay your progression.

Destiny Rising Weapon Enhancement

Enhancement is the most reliable way to power up weapons you’ll use across PvE and PvP. Here’s how the system works in detail:

How to Enhance

1. Open your Inventory and go to the Weapons tab.
2. Select the weapon you want to enhance.
3. Choose “Enhance” and insert the appropriate Weapon Enhancement Prism.
4. Confirm the weapon’s stats will scale up.

But:

• Prism Categories: Not all prisms are universal. Rifle Prisms only apply to rifles, Launcher Prisms to launchers, and so on.
• Permanent Progression: Once enhanced, every copy of that weapon (current or future) inherits the new stats.
• Best Use Cases: Save prisms for high-value guns, PvP snipers, raid DPS weapons, or exotics you expect to carry through endgame.

Raising Gear Level with Duplicates

Sometimes, you’ll get lucky or unlucky, and pull multiple copies of the same weapon. Instead of dismantling extras, you can merge duplicates to strengthen your favorite copy.

How it Works

• Every duplicate consumed increases the Gear Level of one weapon.
• The bonus applies only to that exact copy, if you get another drop of the same gun later, it won’t inherit the boost.
• The upgrade improves base stats like damage and handling, making your chosen weapon hit harder.

Example

Say you pull two Gwynn’s Verdict shotguns. Instead of scrapping one, you feed it into your main copy. That shotgun now has boosted stats, making it stronger than any un-upgraded drop.

Tips:

• Endgame: Don’t waste duplicates on early rares or untested weapons.
• Main Loadouts: If you already know a weapon will be your raid or PvP carry, investing duplicates is worth it.
• Resource Saver: Duplicate leveling doesn’t need prisms, so it’s a cheaper way to push a favorite weapon higher.

Exotic Weapon Upgrades (Ascension Cells)

Exotics follow their own upgrade path. Unlike regular weapons, you can’t feed duplicates into them because exotic weapons are unique drops. Instead, they rely on Ascension Cells.

• Each Ascension Cell raises the Gear Level of one exotic weapon.
• The boost is permanent and applies only to the weapon you enhance.
• Exotic upgrades scale harder than normal duplicate boosts, so even a single Cell can push damage and utility noticeably higher.

Where to Get Ascension Cells

• Raids: End-bosses have a chance to drop Cells.
• Weekly Challenges: Completing weekly milestones can award a Cell.
• High-End PvE: Special events, dungeons, and rare chests sometimes contain them.

Important: Wait until you’re sure. Early-game weapons may feel strong now, but meta shifts quickly. Hold onto your Cells until you’re confident about your exotic choice.

Best Ways to Farm Weapon XP

Leveling weapons quickly in Destiny Rising comes down to farming the right content. Each activity provides XP differently, so knowing where to spend your time saves hours of grind.

PvE Farming

• Campaign Missions: Many missions reward Enhancement Prism chests on first clear. Ideal for early weapon boosts.
• Mob-heavy Events & Dungeons: Excellent XP per hour. More mobs = more kills = faster weapon XP.
• Duplicate Routes: Target bosses with guaranteed drops of your weapon type. This not only boosts XP but also gives duplicates for Gear Leveling.

PvP Farming

• Every kill counts. While PvP is slower than PvE for raw XP, it’s still viable. Especially useful if you’re grinding a PvP-focused gun.
• Weapon-specific XP: Using rifles, snipers, or launchers in PvP rewards XP toward those categories, letting you train competitive loadouts.

Daily & Weekly Activities

• Best XP per hour: Reset missions and daily/weekly bounties offer the largest chunks of XP.
• Rotation Strategy: Use different weapons for each activity to spread XP gains across your loadout instead of over-leveling just one.

Final Thought

Every Enhancement Prism, every duplicate, every Ascension Cell you spend pushes your arsenal toward endgame readiness. And if you’d rather skip the grind, there’s always another path: Destiny Rising Boosting Services.