WTF am I doing wrong.

Make sure you do bounties.  And the patrol missions (without a faction class item equipped).  Once you hit a level in vanguard (and any faction) you get a care package that has a chance to have purple.items.  Same with the cryptarch. Try to max your vanguard marks every week. Also do the weekly strike for strange coins.  Those buy exotics.  Ive only had 2 purple drops outside of raids.  Most I buy or get in a care package.

And pray to the RNG goddess, because she is a fickle bitch.

Doing the queen missions was a good way to get purples as well.

Make sure you don't equip a faction bond item if you need the vanguard rep, otherwise your rep goes to the faction, not the vanguard.  Vanguard strikes/bounties/public events will up your rep pretty quick and net more marks.

Ammodawg wrote:

So I'm at lvl 24 and I can't get anything better than shit drops.  Eveything I get is blue but lower than what I already have.  I play Crucible and Strikes and get shit.  I even ran a lvl 24 strike today and got nothing but greens.  I have only ever gotten one Purple since launch. 

And for the fucking vendors I"m sitting at 41 vanguard marks but still lvl 0 vanguard.  How the fuck are people getting gear?  Did Bungie intend for you just to do the same strikes over and over?  

You don't get gear from strikes. You run strikes to earn vanguard marks which you use to buy purple gear from the vanguard vendor. Unless you went with a faction, then you can ignore strikes completely and play in the crucible to earn those marks instead.

And yes, the name of the game is strikes and/or crucible. You literally get nothing for doing the story again and you can't raid at your level (Really, I wouldn't even try til at minimum level 26 or you'll just annoy yourself.) So grab 2 pals, hop in that Tiger strike playlist and have fun. Again, unless you went with a faction. Then grab 5 pals and hop in the crucible.