1. Legendary armor is all you can really purchase at Vanguard 2. Up to you which. Doesn't matter a lot whether it's helmet, chest, ect. They all have the same level of light. Chest armor will offer the highest defense overall.
2. Get used to getting random low level blue drops. It happens on anything you do whether it's the strike playlist or weekly missions. But you should get decent stuff once in a while doing the strike playlist. It offers a good combo of gear, experience, and marks. I can't remember which exactly, but I've gotten legendary stuff doing the strikes. You should see better gear as you go higher in strike difficulty.
3. I held onto the high blues at first, then realized, for me, it was pointless. I started a second character, but quit with him at level 5. I have a couple blue weapons in there I use for crucible sometimes since the attributes and not attack level are what matter. My vault now mostly is legendary weapons that I haven't gotten around to upgrading. No armor.
4. Nothing dumb about that question. It's actually a great one. Elements don't matter a lot till you start getting into the strikes or heroic missions. Or the raid. When you see any enemy that has a glow around him when you shoot him, that's a shield. Regular weapons or weapons that aren't that element will take a lot of ammo to break that shield. Weapons that do that type of elemental damage will break the shield quickly. The color of the shield lets you know what type of element to use.
Orange, use weapons that do solar damage. the orange flame symbol. I see orange shields on wizards mostly and the high level colossus on Mars.
Purple, use void damage. The purple spiral element. Most notably used by the minotaurs/praetorians. When you do the raid on Venus, have some good leveled up special/heavy weapons that do void damage.
And blue, use arc damage. The blue ninja star thingy. I see this most notably on the high level knights.
There are other enemies that use shields but these are the ones I face the most. Having the right weapons for the right element makes clearing those enemies IMMENSELY easier. I carry a variety of weapons at all times for that reason.
5.
Destiny Public Events - Timer and Resources
This site is very helpful. It'll tell you what the event is, where to go, and what time. The public events aren't always on the minute or sometimes won't appear, but we'll use this site to figure out where to go next if we're doing events. If I'm by myself, I'd recommend killing the Devil Walker in The Divide on Earth. It's my go to spot. At roughly 15 minutes and 45 minutes after the hour every hour. You don't even need friends or help. You can finish him by yourself.
