Destiny 2: How To Increase Your Crucible Valor And Competitive Division (2025)

Competitive and Valor ranks are a unique progression system tied to Destiny 2's Crucible mode. Based on the game type you're playing, you will accumulate points towards a ranking system that grants rewards as you reach higher subdivisions and new divisions.

Leveling your Valor rank is a great way to earn Masterwork materials, and it's required to complete certain Seasonal Challenges. Competitive Divisions show how skilled you are in Competitive Crucible and grant Powerful Gear for each subdivision and major division you reach. If you're interested in leveling quickly or enjoy Destiny 2's PvP component, you'll want to increase both of these ranks.

Updated June 30, 2024, by Charles Burgar: The Final Shape has added a new Competitive weapon and a fan-favorite Hand Cannon to the Valor playlists. We've updated this guide to include all up-to-date rewards for the Crucible, including Shaxx's reward track, Engram focusing, and Comp weapons.

Valor Ranks

Valor ranks (called "Crucible Ranks" in-game) are tied to non-competitive Crucible game types such as Quickplay, Crucible Labs, and rotating playlists. Players can only gain Valor ranks; losses do not reduce your Valor points. Valor ranks and their point progression are listed below.

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How To Earn Valor

Bounties might not grant Valor anymore, but Bungie overhauled the Win Streak system into what's called an Activity Streak. Even if you aren't very good at PvP, ranking up your Valor shouldn't be as much of a slog now.

Earn Valor Activity Streaks

Activity Streaks are when you play consecutive Valor playlist Crucible games. The game type in question can change from game to game—playing a Quickplay and rotating playlist match back-to-back will contribute to your streak, for example—but they must be consecutive. Activity Streaks will grant increased Valor until you reach five or more consecutive matches played, at which point their Valor bonus will cap out.

The following conditions will reduce your Activity Streak by one or more:

• Visit a destination.
  • Exclusions include the Tower, H.E.L.M, and returning to orbit.
• Leave a Crucible game currently in progress.
• Play any other activity.
  • This completely resets your current Activity Streak.

Exiting Destiny 2 does not remove your streak.

Play Crucible During Double Valor Weeks

Bungie will periodically grant double Valor earnings during certain weeks. Both match completions and Activity Streaks are impacted. These bonus Valor weeks aren't listed on a content calendar, so it's best to keep your eyes out for a message on the "Next Week in Destiny" post when you reach the login screen.

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Competitive Divisions Explained

The Competitive playlist and Glory Ranks have seen massive overhauls in Season of the Seraph. Glory Ranks have been replaced with Competitive Divisions, a ladder ranking system that prioritizes skill above all else. Old Glory ranks of Fabled, Mythic, and Legend have been removed, replaced with seven new divisions and three subdivisions for each. We'll cover these divisions in just a second.

Competitive Divisions are earned by playing in the Competitive Playlist. Competitive is a 3v3 playlist consisting of Countdown Rush and Survival. This playlist has SBMM (skill-based matchmaking) enabled, matchmaking you with Guardians based on skill over connection quality. Compared to the Quickplay playlist, Comp's implementation of SBMM is noticeably stronger. Connection quality might suffer if you play during off-hours in your region.

Climbing The Competitive Division Ladder

Competitive Divisions are broken up into seven divisions and three subdivisions. To receive a Competitive Division rank, you must play seven placement games in the Competitive Playlist. Placement matches will match you with a wide range of skill levels, so don't expect to win all seven matches. Your performance in these matches will dictate your initial Competitive Division.

The ladder ranks look something like this:

For most ranks, you simply need to increase your Glory Rank to reach higher division tiers. However, upon reaching max rank in the Adept division, you'll be placed into a Promotion Series. You must win two of the next three games you play to reach the next division. If you fail a Promotion Series, you'll enter a Relegation Series. You must win two of the next three matches to keep your current Competitive Division.

Fail the Relegation Series, and you'll be demoted to the next subdivision (Ascendant I ⇾ Ascendant II, for example). If you are at the breakpoint between divisions, you'll get demoted an entire division instead—if you were at Ascendant III and failed your Relegation, you'll be demoted to Adept I. You'll have to rank up again and try another Promotion Series to regain your lost points.

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How To Increase Your Competitive Division Points

Competitive Division points are earned by winning matches in the Competitive Playlist. You earn points for kills, assists, playing the objective, and winning matches. Unlike Valor, there doesn't seem to be an Activity Streak or Win Streak bonus here; winning multiple matches won't inherently give more points. With that said, Comp does have two unique point-generating mechanics:

• Skill Catch-Up: If your Division rank is lower than your PvP skill, you'll earn more points from wins and fewer from losses. The opposite is also true.
• Player Performance: The better you perform, the more points you'll earn. This also applies to losses, minimizing points lost if you played well.

As you can see, earning points is all about playing well and winning matches. If you're curious how this score system works, Bungie covers it in this Lightfall Crucible blog.

Your best way of earning points is to play with your team. Help your fellow Guardians win their duels, capture objectives, and revive them whenever they die (if the mode allows). Sticking with your team is the best way of improving your odds of winning. Keep your eyes on the radar, bring meta loadouts, and keep your cool. If you start getting stressed out or lose two games in a row, take a break. Frustration will lead to more mistakes and cause more losses.

Avoid Division Decay

Unlike Valor, your Competitive Division will passively decay if you stop playing the Competitive Playlist. After reaching Gold III, failing to play Comp will result in point decay. You'll want to play the Competitive Playlist to avoid this.

Each Comp match you play grants a Division Protection Point, stacking up to 12 times. When the weekly reset occurs, you will immediately lose three of these points. If you have less than three points on reset, you'll lose 250 Division Points, potentially demoting you. To avoid Division Decay, play three Comp matches before the weekly reset.

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Valor And Competitive Rewards

PvP players have a means of earning Masterwork materials just by playing their favorite playlist. Valor will be your main source of rewards like weapons and armor. Competitive has its own pool of rewards you can earn through engram focusing, and it has a small chance of dropping Artifice armor with every game completion. The higher your Glory Rank, the more likely you'll get an Artifice drop.

Valor Rewards

Increasing Valor ranks will grant an impressive number of rewards. Those that stick to the Crucible will find themselves with plenty of Masterwork materials and Exotic gear.

Increasing your Valor ranks will grant the following:

For clarity, nearly every rank-up reward is tied to increasing your division rank in Valor PvP. For example, Rank 4 is the same as Brave I, Rank 7 is Heroic I, etc. Whenever a new season begins, your rank-up rewards will be reset as if you haven't reset your Valor. You'll be able to earn another Ascendant Shard, seasonal shaders, and seasonal emblems.

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Competitive Rewards

Competitive Crucible has a small pool of weapons to chase and a unique Valor Rank boost mechanic. The current Competitive Crucible weapon is The Riposte, a Lightweight Auto Rifle that deals Void damage. Thanks to Engram Focusing, you can also earn the Rose Hand Cannon and Mercurial Overreach Sniper Rifle. You can focus a number of weapons equal to your top Division Rank of the current season, as shown below:

Belisarius-D can only be earned by completing Competitive Crucible matches, dropping one per week. This is character bound, so anyone with multiple characters can earn up to three rolls each week. You'll need to finish an introductory quest from Lord Shaxx before this weekly becomes available. Rose and Mercurial Overreach may only be acquired through Engram Focusing.

Beyond that, your Competitive Division also grants a Valor reputation bonus. This effect lasts as long as you remain in that division. The bonuses are as follows:

Anyone interested in grinding Crucible weapons should consider playing a little bit of Competitive PvP. Just reaching Gold will grant 20% more Valor reputation, stacking with double Valor weeks.

Crucible Playlist Rewards

As with all playlists in Destiny 2, you can expect to earn an exclusive armor set and various weapons while participating in the Crucible. The armor set is showcased above. All weapons you can earn from PvP (Valor and Comp playlists) can be found below. Trials of Osiris and Iron Banner weapons are excluded from this table; you can find their loot pools in their respective guides.

Competitive PvP Focusing

Crucible Focusing

Increasing your Valor will grant access to Crucible Engrams. Unlike your typical Legendary Engram, Crucible Engrams can be focused to drop specific PvP gear. Do not claim Crucible Engrams, as you can't focus any Crucible Engrams in your inventory.

You can focus these Engrams into any PvP item released in previous seasons, including armor sets from previous yearly expansions. Focusing can be done at Lord Shaxx, with each weapon costing 3-5 Crucible Engrams and 5,000 Glimmer.

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