The Taken King looks to be Destiny’s biggest expansion yet, with all new story lines, an increased level cap and complete reworking of the levelling system. Not only that, current legendary weapons will not be eligible for upgrade to the new standards like they were in previous expansions making them all obsolete. You may think this means there’s little to no prep work needed to be done to prepare for Taken King, and while it’s true there is less to do with no legendary items to worry about, there’s still some things that will make the transition into the new expansion smoother.

Levelling Up Your Alternate Characters

After the Taken King light levels will be more of a cosmetic stat than anything. Guardians will now level as they did from 1-20, gathering experience through kills, activities and bounties until they hit the new level cap of 40. That being said, light levels can still be useful on launch day.

As long as your guardian is at least light level 26, your guardians “official level” will start at that level when the Taken King goes live. If you’re light level 34 you will start the expansion at level 34 and so on and so forth. If you have some alt characters that you want to be at a higher level right as the expansion goes live, you can gear them up with better light gear now.

Max Out Your Exotic Weapons and Armor

Although current legendary weapons and armor won’t be joining us in the Taken King Exotics will, so if you’ve got some you rarely use now’s the time to max them out. One of the best ways to do that is through bounties. Grab your favorite bounty be it for the Crucible or Strikes/ PvE and get to work. Just make sure you have the weapon equipped when you turn in the bounty or it will not get the experience.

Max Out Your Sub Classes

Most players will have already tried out all of their sub-classes but if you’re one of the rare ones who hasn’t now is the perfect opportunity to do so. Like they are with weapons, bounties are a great source of XP for class unlocks, just be sure that you have the sub class you want to unlock activated when you turn it in.

The Taken King will add a third sub class to each guardian type. If you’ve got the previous two unlocked you can focus your time on the third when the expansion drops.

Gather Resources

While we don’t know what new resources will be added to the game when The Taken King launches there are some resources you can’t go wrong with stockpiling. Glimmer is used in almost every transaction. You’ll want to at least max out your personal amount (25k) and put any extra in your vault.

Weapon parts and armor materials for all the new armor you’ll want to upgrade. Strikes are a great source of armor and weapons you can disassemble into upgrade materials.

Strange Coins and Motes of light. Unless Xur starts accepting Amex you’ll want to have a good supply of Strange Coins on hand for the expansion. Who knows what new exotics he could be holding?

Moments of Triumph

To commemorate year 1 of Destiny, Bungie has introduced the Moments of Triumph, a multistage mission that involves some of the game’s most difficult and important content. As a reward for completing the Moments of Triumph guardians will be awarded with a legendary emblem that will never be available again after The Taken King launches on September 9^th.

To keep track of your progress, Bungie has made a special page on your Destiny profile with the complete list of objectives and how many of them you’ve currently completed.