Engram Light Level Drops

[Kitty Kat Snypa!]

I'm at Light Level 900. I want to continue to increase, but I understand I need to earn engrams to get new gear that's higher than my average light level. My question is I have a lot of weapons that are below 900 and if those ones are equipped it tanks my average light level. Do I need to equip those before I turn in the quests for engrams? Or is it what my average light level is when I redeem the engrams? Or does it not matter?

[Handoiron]

It's your gear level when you turn in the powerful item reward challenge quest of complete the last activity for the powerful item rewards challenge or redeem the prime engram from the cryptarch.

You can see your gear level (average of all equipped items' levels) by mousing over your power level on the character page.

It does help to make sure you have your highest level items equipped for every slot when you turn in the challenge quests or claim a prime engram. It can get a bit intense trying to use upgrade modules to bump up your normally used items over and over as you progress through light levels to 960 so it's not always the best option. Just remember to equip the rewards as you get them if you're turning in in bulk. Turn in a prime engram, put the reward on before turning in another prime engram.

[TheVoidSpirit]

Your powerful drops scale based on your highest possible gear score. So, if you have higher weapons in your vault or on another character, they still count for you. But you need to able to equip the item, which means that higher Titan armor does not increase your potential gear score for your Hunter.

[Kitty Kat Snypa!]

Thank you so much for the replies, this really helped!