Alt now to level 18.5...will easily have time to finish him and raid with him Sunday.
Took me right around 11 hours so far, sort of hand timed. This is not counting small breaks. But yeah I still have probably 1-2 hours to go. Well maybe less since I will be able to pick up more easy 5k bounties tmrw. I have 12k XP left to 19 (which takes 21k altogether) and I'm guessing 20 is slightly more, maybe 22k. So like 34k XP to go maybe. Should be a doddle.
Which Bungie.net claims the character is at about 7.5 hrs I think and Destiny Status has around 14 hours...so Destiny status is about as high as Bungie is low. The real number is in the middle of those two.
Status must at least count time when you are just sitting in orbit (I usually do this when I take breaks). I dont know how it deals with when your controller loses connection, whether it continues to count the time.
I suspect this is faster at least a little than past attempts. I know I think Bungie.net had me at 12 hours when my last alt hit 20, so the real time must have been 16+.
There's no super trick, I just try to think at all times what is gaining me the densest experience. For example, 2500 patrol bounties are useless, they will take at least 15-20 minutes, you can get denser XP from a mission (probably like 8k in 30 minutes from a mission, 4k XP+maybe 4k more just for killing stuff in mission). Also, definitely do the repeat bounties trick, and race through the first two levels. Never seperate out a bounty you can pick up while doing missions, even 3 or 4 missions down the road (AKA dont go do the 10 fallen majors bounty, instead just wait for them to come throughout play, even if it takes several missions, because you have to do those missions anyway unless you are nearly to 20). A lot of bounties can be picked up this way. Some of the rest aren't worth bothering with.
I've heard guys say they can level alt to 20 in 6 hours, generally speaking, I call BS. It might be possible IF you're really good at crucible and can clean up those bounties too (but I still doubt it). It's annoying how people exaggerate. You can also "cheat" if somebody higher level is willing to walk you through later missions I guess...except I'm not even sure how that would work since only the daily gives XP I guess.
So I should be 32 Tuesday. Only need to average 6 shards per raid to make it (including dismantling redundant raid gear if necessary), shouldn't be difficult.
I upgraded Patience and Time from Xur, not even sure why, I consider it to kinda suck really, I only use it on arc burn, which granted is fairly often. Ho hum. Considered upgrading Knucklehead Radar, but with only 13k glimmer left didn't. It's another "ho hum" exotic. Oh and bought the Dont Touch Me gauntlets, just based on that CE solo video lol. What the hey I had 120 coins and they're a whopping 13.