If you haven’t figured out yet, blue engrams are no longer throwaway items. Rare weapons are coming back in a big way. By now you’ve probably picked up a few rare weapons and noticed that they’re stronger than your legendary year two weapons. Same goes for armor. 

So before I explain how you get to light level 280, let me explain how engrams work in the Taken King. They decrypt depending on your current light level. The stronger you are, the stronger the items you will decrypt. So pretty much the method is as follows:

Get engrams, horde a bunch before you visit the Cryptarch. You can easily get engrams from doing the strike playlist. Do normal if you’re not at 260+, but once you hit 260, I recommend you jump to the heroic playlist.   Decrypt your rares first! Hold off on decrpyting any legendary engrams. Also make sure to do one engram at a time. Meaning: decrypt, back out, check if the weapon or item is stronger than what you have, and equip.   Rinse and Repeat.  

That’s honestly all there is to getting your light level up quick. Don’t be ashamed of having rares and equipping them over your legendaries.

I recommend holding your legendary engrams until you’re 280+. You may decrypt a legendary you like only to find a rare that is way stronger. Yes, you can always infuse the rare to the legendary but why waste time doing that on the lower levels when you can decrypt it at a higher level. 

Hopefully this tip helps and will have you facing Oryx soon enough.