It seems that the raids are designed to allow you to progress relatively easy to mid tear, but difficult to top tier. I will use an example with NORMAL RAID: Back when we were all 290-299, doing the raid would drop gear between 300-310, but most of the time it was 302-307. So a guardian could expect something like this: 0 Completed Normal Raids: 290 Light 1 Completed Normal Raid: 300 Light 2 Completed Normal Raids: 304 Light 3 Completed Normal Raids: 306 Light 4-5 Completed Normal Raids 307 Light 6-7 Completed Normal Raids 308 Light 8-10 Completed Normal Raids 309 Light As you can see, the first 2-3 raids can jump you up to 15 light, but to reach the next 5 light you need like 8-12 more raids. Most people only reached 310 because of exotic engrams/3 of coins. Otherwise, most people would be still grinding normal raid to get to 310 from 307-308. Now that the Hard raid is out I am seeing the following: 0 Completed Hard Raids: 300 Light 1 Completed Hard Raid: 306 Light 2 Completed Hard Raids: 309 Light 3 Completed Hard Raids: 311 Light 4-5 Completed Hard Raids 312 Light 6-7 Completed Hard Raids 313 Light 8-10 Completed Hard Raids 315 Light 10-12 Completed Hard Raids 316 Light As you can see, the first 2-3 raids greatly increase a characters light, but further raids see diminishing returns. The raids above represent my observations as well to that of my friends. Also, I am taking into account infusion. It would be interesting to collect data from people to see the light they are achieving after x number of raids. I am willing to bet their data looks similar. I am also willing to bet Bungie knows about this and deliberately planned it to LENGTHEN the GRIND.