The House of Wolves DLC brought with it a wave of new gear, weapons and activities, but it also raised the maximum light level to 34. Unlike the Crota days, the road to lvl 34 can take many different forms, whether it is by upgrading your old gear, or playing Prison of Elders or Trails of Osiris to get the new legendaries.

The new numbers you’re aiming for is 42 light on each piece of gear that will bring you to a whopping 168 to hit the level cap. Below are the current methods of getting to light level 34 the fastest laid out in detail.

Upgrading Your LvL 32 Armor

If you want to keep your look from Crotas End and still hit the new light level cap, you can always upgrade the armor you have to the new benchmarks. To do so you’re going to have to get your hands on some hard to come by materials and some glimmer. The cost for upgrading a piece of gear is as follows:

Exotic: 1 Exotic Shard – 25 Parts/ Armor Upgrade Material (I.E. Sapphire Wire) or Weapons Parts if it’s a weapon / 1500 Glimmer

Legendary: 1 Etheric Light / 20 Random Materials (I.E. Relic Iron) / 750 Glimmer

Etheric Light is the hardest material to get on the list with its most regular spot to drop being in the Prison of Elders Chest at level 34 or above difficulty. It can also be obtained as a random reward for completing some of the games more difficult content such as the Trials of Osiris and the Weekly Nightfall Strike.

Note: The Etheric Light from the PoE can only be received as a reward one per week, per level difficulty, per character. You can run multiple characters to get more than 2 per week if you're serious about getting there fast.

Armor Cores

If you want to get your hands on some of the new legendary gear that already has the light level 42 locked and ready to go (no ascension) you’ll want to hunt down some armor cores.

Your most sure fire way to get armor cores is the Prison of Elders, which will drop a guaranteed armor core at lvl 32 and level 35 difficulties. You can only claim these rewards once per week, per level, per character. Like most items in Destiny, there is also a chance to receive an armor core via random drop in one of the games other activities such as the Nightfall strike, Trials of Osiris etc. but those drops are left completely up to chance.

When you’ve got your core you will want to head to Variks in the Reef, where you can exchange it for a piece of 42 light level armor. It looks like Variks operates on a rotating inventory so you may need to wait a week to get the piece of armor you want.

Compared to Crota, House of Wolves’ level cap is definitely more accessible for casual players. Although the fastest route to reach it right now seems to be the Prison of Elders, all end game activity gives a chance at awarding cores that can get you to the max, so if you're not in a rush play what you want!