Can I raise the power level of Gunsmith faction rewards in Destiny 2?

Question

I just got back into Destiny 2 after a long hiatus and am re-learning a lot of the game's systems, probably a lot of questions to follow! But today's question:

When I raise my reputation level with Banshee-44, is there a way to increase the power level of the rewards? Or is this just a way to basically get base-level legendary weapons to pick and choose the rolls I want to sink resources into upgrading?

For the record, some (probably related!) stats:

• I'm power level 1298
• All my Banshee-44 rewards are 1266 (so not much use to me unless I feed them)
• I'm at level 34 reputation with Banshee-44

I have plenty (I think?) of resources to level up reputation: about 2700 gunsmith materials and 300 weapon telemetry data, so I could get several levels up. But I don't really want to do that now if I'm just going to get low-level weapons. I'd rather grind up to the season level cap and then worry about sinking resources into the stuff that I want to use long term. But if there is a way to get myself some nice, immediately usable guns that I've missed, that would be great!

Answer 1

You essentially can't. The use of those rewards is for perk rolling.

Once you're above 1260 or so, the only meaningful way to obtain good gear is through Powerful or Pinnacle rewards. At 1300, your only option is Pinnacle rewards, which will take you to 1310, the current cap (as of April 2021).

This article: https://www.thegamer.com/destiny-2-how-to-reach-1310-power-level-quickly/ goes into more detail, but that's your tl;dr version.