What is the POINT of power level in Destiny 2

Solution 1:

Power level can be quite confusing and when broken down doesn't get much simpler but it all mostly comes down to damage dealt and damage taken but also what you have access to doing.

First, the simplest thing power level does is cuts off access to higher level activities. These could be story missions, heroic missions/strikes/adventures, nightfalls, raids, and now iron banner and trials of the nine.

Second is damage, from this video that explains it great detail, when you are the same level as an enemy you are doing what is called "base damage". 1 power level above or below the enemy won't make much difference at all but it does being to scale more and more as you get higher/lower than the enemies. At 50 power levels above the enemy you are taking 40.9% less damage, at 49 power levels below the enemy you take 150.6% more damage and dealing 43.12% less damage. And at 50 power levels below you deal nothing and are instant killed by everything.

Now there is one other scenario, the damage you deal when above the enemy power level. This is slightly different, where before your overall power level affected what happened, damage dealing when higher is only changed by the power level of the actual weapon. Basically, if you're in a 500 power level activity, and have a weapon that's 600 then it won't matter what all your other gear is as long as you are above 500. That 600 level weapon will always do the same damage when above the enemy power level. The difference comes from if you have the EXACT SAME weapon but only a lower level on it, only then will THAT weapon's damage change.

Put simply,

• Damage dealt when higher level is based on the weapon not the character
• Damage dealt when lower scales down until 50 levels below and then it's 0%
• Damage taken when higher scales until you take 40.9% less damage
• Damage taken when lower scales quickly until 50 levels below and you are instant killed

So while you could be hundreds of levels above an enemy you aren't going to be unstoppable and kill everything with a single bullet, you'll have an advantage but there's a limit. Conversely, being hundreds of levels below will get you smacked down by the first enemy that sees you, if you're even allowed to get near that activity.